In fact, private, para-military forces were off shoots of "home troops" of the many principalities that made up Germany before and during Bismark's ascendance and the Kaiser's imperial expectations. They became even more powerful post WWI and the break up of the Weimar Republic, eventually leading to the installation of Hitler at the front of a para-military force.

Those are just little facts that Buchanan gives short shrift to in trying to shape history to his ideology. But, I'm an amateur in this ring, comparatively speaking, so I'll shove you over to Gateway Pundit, who has a great round up of the reply, counter and counter-counter reply between Hanson and Buchanan. Then Allahpundit jumps in with a link to Hitchen's take down.

The point that Hanson and Hitchens each conclude is very simple: Hitler was not and never was a rational actor at the helm of the Ship of State, regardless of whether someone can point to actions of Germany that seem the acts of a rational state.

These continuing attempts to reform Hitler into a rational actor are always egregious because they must rely on omitting everything Hitler did before 1939. Like opening concentration camps, killing untermenschen and writing a crazy book called "Mein Kampf", complete with all of his plans laid out and written almost a decade before he actually took power.

One of the worst arguments I've ever seen on the subject is that Hitler really hadn't killed that many people before the war started, so the war must be to blame for Hitler ramping up his murderous activities. That's pretty much where Buchanan comes down on the subject and that also ignores the truth that Hitler was actually trying to mass murder people well before the war began. He just hadn't settled on the most efficient, quiet manner. For all Hitler's railing against the capitalist industrialists raping the Fatherland in "Mein Kampf" (yes, I did read the book), he was extremely fond of the order and efficiency of factories. He wanted to put that to work for the state; in all things.

The only difference that the war made is that he no longer had to keep it somewhat "quiet" and out of sight; particularly, in "occupied" areas. A trench in the woods and machine guns to the back of the head were quick and sufficient. That was before he realized he couldn't totally stomp out all sense of humanity in his troops. Plus the time and money for ammunition and pausing to eradicate populations went against his industrial military timelines. That's when he expanded his industrial death camp machines to other areas like Poland.

In the end, it was not the lack of desire before the war that kept people from being mass murdered on an industrialized scale, it was the lack of appropriate means. At least, the means that Hitler felt fit in with his "New Reich" where the trains always ran on time.

Frankly, I agree with others that analyzing all the political moves up until the rise of Hitler is an interesting academic exercise, but attempting, in any way, to reform Hitler and make him a rational actor at the helm of a rational state is useless, offensive and corrosive. I can see no legitimate reason to do so and it flies in the face of reality. Usually, as is the case with Buchanan, it is an attempt to alleviate any sense of our responsibility towards Israel and make the death of entire populations acceptable as part of the norms or necessities of politics and war. He would like it to be more acceptable for the United States to compromise with Iran and leave Israel to the wolves, allowing the United States to be "America First".

As you might know, I reject that completely. It is one of the reasons that I have argued here very strongly against Iran and its moves to obtain nuclear weapons. Regardless of how rational a state's actions seems to be, or how we understand political machinations, when a national leader begins to speak about wiping a nation or people off the map, repeatedly, and then sets about ramping up development of the very weapon capable of doing it, I get very itchy.

Because, I remember, too, how many people thought Hitler was surely a rational man, only doing what was best for his nation and would, surely, not do anything so horrendous as he said in his speeches or book. It was all just talk to bolster the nation and bring it back from the brink of ruin.

Wasn't it?

� Secure this line!

Excellent analysis, Kat.

I think one of GatewayPundit's commenters got it right: Buchanan is a 1930s-style isolationist with all that entails. He'd have felt right at home among Charles Coughlin's congregation.

To quote Patrick J. Buchanan from his column regarding his work; "Did Hanson even read it?"

Seems to me, that is only fair.

Perhaps, before making assumptions, and lodging criticisms, one should actually READ the material.

For your edification and education, I'll let PJB explain it himself. Assuming the link works.

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/06/pjb-the-good-war-and-the-terrible-peace/

I have to step in and play Inigo Montoya. Rational actor doesn't mean what is implied here. Rational actor comes from game theory and is defined as a person/group with a set of stated goals whose actions coincide with said goals. That. Is. It.

Hitler was extremely a rational actor. He was also exceedingly evil. The two are mutually exclusive. Being evil does not make one irrational, it just makes one someone who deserves a bullet in the brainpan.
(Just a tip, Kat, there've been times when the US has loudly told the world what we were going to do, what our plans are, and dared them to stop us. Iraq is just the latest example. Axis of Evil? Yup. That isn't irrational. It may be stupid, but it isn't irrational unless one is striving for secrecy in these things.).

Hitler, evil? Si. Irrational? Non. Stupid at times(moving the Panzers away from Hoth in the AGC for example), evil as hell, but not irrational.

I'm not a Buchanan sympathizer, he embarrasses me as a Catholic often, and haven't read any of the reviews or the book. Just speaking to the abuse of language.

LOL..Ry..not to push your buttons, but I thought I couldn't say "evil". ;)

I haven't brought it up because I don't want to spend the time reading the damn book. I have a life and six other fargin' books to read.

Can't call something evil? Never said that, and I think one should always be clear as to why and whom one calls evil.

Saying that simply because it is evil that we must go absolutely aggro on their tuckusses? That's conditional, and always is. We didn't go to war with the Nazi Reich because they were evil(hell, we partnered with the equally evil USSR against the NR), but for a host of other factors. I know the propoganda says otherwise, but it wasn't because they were evil.

Thanks for the link, Kevin; now I don't have to read the book.

Cheers

hell, we partnered with the equally evil USSR against the NR

Did Bill Buckley ever find out? That could be the reason John's not getting invites to post at The Corner...

Did Bill Buckley ever find out? That could be the reason John's not getting invites to post at The Corner...

I dunno. Did Buckley know we're at war with beets too? It could be the beets thing. Wait, we're still at war with beets, right?

Sigh. Get an Instalanche today and look what we're sinking to... beets.

But yes, we're still at war with beets.

Great post and discussion.

I'd say there's a division between the rationality of ones methods and ones goal or philosophy. Expansionist imperialism is rational. Seeking the dream of the perfect race through genocide is not.

I cringe a bit when people invoke Hitler when discussing Ahmadinejad and Iran. While they share a common bond in blatant anti-semitism the two could not be different. Hitler built and ruled an empire. Ahm blusters and snorts and generally makes a fool of himself but he doesn't rule an empire or even Iran. He's a convenient mouthpiece and political tool used by the ruling theocracy. And, I'd opine, the ruling theocracy are much more interested in continuing to be the ruling theocracy than they are in reducing themselves and their country to radioactive ash.

I'd say there's a division between the rationality of ones methods and ones goal or philosophy.
Exactly, Soob. To bust into a corny, but easily gotten available, means of doing this we can look at the Dungeons and Dragons plane of character alignments(at least the 1st ed one). Good and evil exist independent of law or chaos. Chaotics being unpredictable, waaaay zany, overly emotive, and irrational. Lawfuls being very calculating and rational. Whether one uses that prediliction toward chaos/lawfulness for good or evil is independent of being irrational or rational.

"And, I'd opine, the ruling theocracy are much more interested in continuing to be the ruling theocracy than they are in reducing themselves and their country to radioactive ash.
Exactly. Which is why actions otehr than invasion are possible, and by that I mean things other than just another round of economic sanctions.

Sigh. Get an Instalanche today and look what we're sinking to... beets.

(points toward Iraq) Blame Unka Bill! Blame! He's the one who had to be a smart aleck! Unka Bill! He's the one you want to use the Ruler Of Argghhh! on the knuckles of. (scampers for cover(3/4, +2 to AC) and concelament(1/2, 20% chance of miss even if you make your roll)).

Heh. Sends the Hand of Vecna out after Ry.

Don't make me get the Orb. Or the Eye.

PS...Thanks for fixing my spelling John. I was driving to work thinking about "uber" v. "unter" only to discover it was fixed by the time I got here.

kat - Haven't checked your e-mail yet, eh?

Blame Unka Bill! Blame! He's the one who had to be a smart aleck!

I didn't *have* to be, I *chose* to be. Just as I now choose to flay you alive and hang your hide on a bramble the next time you grab the last Belgian ale out of the fridge...

Saying that simply because it is evil that we must go absolutely aggro on their tuckusses? That's conditional, and always is. We didn't go to war with the Nazi Reich because they were evil(hell, we partnered with the equally evil USSR against the NR), but for a host of other factors. I know the propoganda says otherwise, but it wasn't because they were evil.

Pardon me, but 40 million people (direct casualties) later, maybe we should have gone aggro on them much earlier because they were evil.

...maybe we should have gone aggro on them much earlier because they were evil.

We would have gotten our butts kicked, but good.

In 1940, the Wehrmacht was the most battle-hardened modern army on the face of the planet.

Not only were *we* still training with broomsticks, the only way we could have sent troops across the Atlantic would have been via the Cunard Lines == in steerage.

Bill...I can't see hotmail from work. I'm lucky they let this site pass through the filters.

On the subject of what we could or could not do, I think it all revolves around what we were willing to recognize first and how early. Obviously, it would have meant starting to get on a ramped up war footing in '36 instead of '39 or '40 when we finally declared a national emergency and started drafting men. There is no doubt, everything would have had to come together at the right time. But, there is also no doubt, if we could start doing it in '39 we could have started in '36.

As in all things, it's what we wanted to do when, not whether we could.

'Yer using some busted interps of history, Kat. We didn't know about the Holocaust until, what, '44? That kinda defeats the idea of going in earlier because they were evil. Hell, Time had HItler as man of the year, twice! Nobody believed as we do now, with hindsight, back then.

And let us not forget that to do so FDR would've had to convince all but his closest friends to go down a path that would run up an insane level of debt, get hundreds of thousands killed or maimed, and on his say so. That's a pretty tall order, and sans Pearl impossible because he was already doing everything legally possible, including abusing neutrality in the worst way, to affect the outcome.

Even with the Holocaust I doubt you'd get the entire nation to throw down sans PH. The isolationism that was the national gestalt was utterly against it.

Just about everything was against the US getting involved directly before Pearl. If one does not accept that I posit one is not playing in reality.

I now choose to flay you alive and hang your hide on a bramble the next time you grab the last Belgian ale out of the fridge...
Yipe! (Sticks a 50 in the fridge while slinking away quietly)

Regarding evil and picking fights in which to destroy it...

While it is true that we didn't know about the Nazi holocaust until after the war in Europe was well underway...

We DID know that Stalin and his thugs in the USSR were actively implementing a multi-million person pogrom in all the Russias.

Hell, the NYT pulitzer prize winning reporter Walter Duranty knew of the State sanctioned and implemented famine in the Ukraine in the 30's that deliberately starved to death millions. But he covered it up. That is, he lied and yes, millions died.

We, or rather, our government KNEW of this holocaust, this evil. Yet did nothing but lavish praise on the Kremlin.

So, bang the war drums to invade the USSR or not? It didn't work out so well the first time, White and Green armies notwithstanding.

Hitler was indisputably evil, Stalin was even worse.

Guess which one our Prez admired and affectionately called "Uncle Joe"?

Hindsight in history is a benefit that those actually making the history seldom enjoy.

Roosevelt was a Democrat!
Roosevelt was a Democrat!
Roosevelt was a Democrat!
usw.

Cheers

For Victor Davis Hanson’s book review (read devistating rebuttal), see:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson061608.html

June 16, 2008
Reply to Patrick J. Buchanan
Pseudo-Historian, Very Real Dissimulator
by Victor Davis Hanson
PajamasMedia.com

"Kevin Frei"?

Why, ain't that cute? Somebody's attempting to be snarky...

I'll prefer PJB's take on this issue over this Hanson bloke.

I will also make the observation, that this author, so smug in his knowledge makes this glaring and factually false statement (among others) while touting his credentials.

"When I last looked the United States had not expanded its war on radical Islam by invading democratic India."

India? Hindus-R-Us? Perhaps the 'historian ' should take a lesson in basic social geography 101.

If he just made an oopsie, and meant Pakistan... well, evidence seems to show that we are 'invading' that Muslim country in our war on radical Islam. Though, I thought it was a war on terror, not a war against a religion... hmmmm.

Kevin (G) - while you have been and no doubt will be snarked in this space (that's how you know you're loved, right?) I assure you that "Kevin Frei" is not a snark.

It's Kevin Frei's *name*. Take my word for it.

"It's Kevin Frei's *name*. Take my word for it."

Hookay, I withdraw my counter-snark regarding a perceived snark.

The rest of my comments stand.

And, as we all love quotes...

"I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it". B.S.

We Have Sons in the Army

July 23, 1943

Draft Board
Potasi. mo.
I would like to report to you "Virgil Allen:, who was recently de-ferred to farm. He never would wark on the farm until a few months' be-for he was eighteen. Lots of days he daesn't get up until noon & brags about how easy it was for him to get aut of the army & does as little farming as he can get by with.

He has a pick up truck & gaes to Shirley swimming in Berriers three or four times a week. In the last two or three weeks he has made trips to Bismark & Winegarden. Now he is planning a trip to St. Louis Highlands. These ore all pleasure trips. How daes he get so much gas? We have sons in the army who work hard & never take any pleasure trips and they are proud to do it but to us here at home it seems a pity such as this should be allowed.

We hope you will consider this matter seriously and we also believe all should be treated the same as it is a few are deferred to farm but are running here & there on pleasure trips as bad as we need farm help.

We feel this is our duty to report this to you & are sure you will do what ever you think is best. you can ask any one who is lives near Allen or gaes to Berriers often & they will report the same to you.

Respect fully yours
Boasties for Uncle Sam.

And you thought that lazing around and sleeping half the day away was only a problem for the latest generation. If they had Nintendo back then, I'm sure that would have been on the list of vices this young man had. If you wonder how this guy had all the gas he could want when everyone else had to start rationing in February 1943, farms were basically exempted from the ration as "war essential". Farmers were given ration cards that would allow them to get as much as 500 gallons a month or more. These folks had a right to be upset.

What constitutes draft evasion? You were born on a farm.

PEARL HARBOR!!! Our country is at war!!! A call to arms! The half-french tiff diggers sons go with out a fuss. He has never had anything but he is glad to give all his all for the freedom he has always known. But you, son of a comfortable farmer [snip]

Your[sic] yellow - you don't want to go and your family is just as bad because they aid and abet you.

Apparently, James Cole had a nice job up in the city and gave it up to go back to the farm in order to get a deferment (according to this lady). The rest of the folks saw him driving around in his car, rarely working, driving up to St. Louis to see his girlfriend and catch a ball game. As has been the case for centuries, this mother asks, "Is this a poor man's son's war? Does the country gentleman's sons go free?"

We tiff digger mothers have hearts too-- our boys are just as precious to us -- some of our sons are reported missing -- yet, as we walk along the road (and we WALK) can eat the dust of a draft evader. [snip]http://www.thedonovan.com/mt-static/images/formatting-icons/bold.gif Bold

Written for a poor indignant mother.

What's a "tiff digger"? Glad you asked. "Tiff" is another name for Barite. According to this article , "tiff digging" is described as such:

When Alex and Mary Kulongoski bought a 160- acre farm just outside Cadet in Washington County, Missouri, where they had four sons and a daughter, tiff mining was more important than farming in the county. The farmers around them had shallow diggings on their land. Each hole had a hand-made windlass to hoist tiff, a white, chalky mineral, also called barite, and a "rattle box," made like a baby's cradle, to shake the clay off the lumps of barite. The diggers could not sell the stuff to paint and rubber manufacturers without cleaning it.

More letters...

Maybe the army can make a man of him.

This guy was legitimately trying to get a deferment and simply didn't have the records to prove what and who he was because, like many folks of the time, he traded for work and product.

Use some common sense!

He makes his brags how smart he is didnt have to go to the army

My son won't work. Please find him a job.

He's always drunk.

Apparently, Cadet, MO had a lot of lazy, drunks laying around doing nothing. Another one.

You can find more letters here. And that's just one draft board in one county. Imagine how many letters were written around the country to draft boards just like this that read: Take my husband, please!

� Secure this line!

My Dad's job during that late unpleasentness was delivering newspapers. That was considered a critical war-related job. He got extra ration points for tires and gasoline and was draft exempt.

Some people were given "deferments" whether they wanted them or not. One of my grandfathers tried to enlist three times, and was turned down all three times because of his job: a welder at the Oak Ridge weapons plant.

Every man can be a rifleman; but not every man's a welder. :)

My father was one of those "draft dodging farmers" Kat points out.

Her dissertation would lead you to believe that they were all the worthless, lazy, drunken sons of wealthy land owners, but in fact, most of them were just like my Dad, young (Dad was 30 when Japan struck) hard working men raised on the farm and getting a start on their own "sharecropping" somebody else's land while dreaming some day to own their own 80 acres.

My father never saw that dream materialize...but he did raise a family of Patriots on a sharecropper's earnings. He was man of God, whose word was his bond, and his handshake more binding than any signature on a contract.

The vast majority of those "draft dodging farmers" went on to build this country into the Agricultural Superpower that it is today.

Quite honestly, Kat, having grown up in the Indiana corn fields 'mongst WWII Vets and "draft dodging farmers", this is the first time I've ever heard the subject brought up.

My late father-in-law tried to enlist when Pearl Harbor was hit. He didn't make the cut because he only had vision in one eye.

He went to work at the American Can Company as a plater, a "war-essential" job -- six months later, he was drafted. Sometime during "Torch," his platoon leader found out *why* he fired righty but sighted with his left eye. He got shipped home on a Liberty ship carrying Afrika Korps PWs and spent the remainder of the war at Riley -- shuttling PWs back and forth from the farms.

He got birthday cards from some of of his former charges until just before he died.

Her dissertation would lead you to believe that they were all the worthless, lazy, drunken sons of wealthy land owners, but in fact, most of them were just like my Dad, young (Dad was 30 when Japan struck) hard working men raised on the farm and getting a start on their own "sharecropping" somebody else's land while dreaming some day to own their own 80 acres.

My "dissertation" was simply finding these letters and thinking they were interesting. It is clear from several of the letters if you read them that the issue wasn't whether they really could or couldn't get drafted, but people's perception of those who didn't go.

And, I thought it was interesting that there were at least several young men who had, indeed, played the system.

I don't think pointing that out reflects on anyone personally. I do think some of you have been reading our modern press for so long, you expect that any negative connotations about military issues is some how reflective of the whole. That's clearly on you since I've just spent over a week researching and putting up the story of a young man who died on Iwo Jima. The remaining story of boot camp and his fight to follow next week.

It's history, gentlemen, that's it.

Even the farm deferments were not a guarantee, particularly in rural areas where pretty much the whole population was farmers.

My dad, the baby of ten, and his immediately older brother were both drafted the months they turned 18, leaving only Grandma and Grandad to run the farm. All the other eight kids had long left home.

The county draft board had run out of town boys to draft, except their own sons, so they reached out to the farms to make quota. Some of their sons enlisted anyway, so Draft Board Dads' attempts to protect sons via not drafting didn't quite work out...

What I don't understand is whether or not a county draft board could have gone back to the government and gotten out of quotas, based upon the fact that the non-deferred draftable population had been used up. If so, then that county's draft board should have done so, rather than ignore farm exemptions.

Luckily, my dad and uncle came home just fine. My grandparents never forgave the county draft board's actions, though, and the board members were never again welcome in my grandparents' home. And that was a significant social cut, in a low population county.

It is a fascinating history, Kat. Thanks for sharing.

'playing the system" to avoid Military Conscription is probably as old as time itself....

In fact, it actually developed into something akin to an 'art form"

Many of the letters were unsigned, making them in my opinion no more credible than annonomous blog comments that you find today.

Paul probably went to a local recruiting station and signed up after he turned seventeen in 1943 and then received a letter like this one ordering him to report to Wichita for induction. The train ticket would be waiting for him, but not much else. Paul was probably excited and apprehensive to be leaving Kansas City, probably for the first time.

Paul would have gotten a ride to the Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri and caught a train for Wichita. Either the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe or Missouri Pacific. On the train, he would meet many young men like him on the way to induction or points southeast or west for training. Others would be returning from furlough or heading to their new station on the West Coast.

The military did not offer any food vouchers or provide food on these train rides unless they were doing a mass movement of troops in preparation for training or operations. So, Paul, if he was lucky, would have brought along his own food, like a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and some fruit, or saved a little money from his job. Fortunately for soldiers, all along the train route, big and small towns alike donated money to and manned "canteens" to provide everything from food, drink cigarettes, post cards, paper, pencils, stamps, mending, and even some pretty girls to talk to.

Like this canteen in the little town of Neodesha, Kansas, on the way to Wichita.

The Mo-Pac trains came in only at noon and in the evening 3 or 4 times a week and Mrs. S. E. Simpson was the lady in charge of meeting each one at noon. Glenn Utt furnished a large roll top desk at the Frisco station in which the ladies kept supplies. One woman stayed in the morning and another in the afternoon in case a troop train came in before other workers could get there. This was a necessity because the troop movements were secret and railroad officials could not let the canteen know when a train would arrive. Sometimes for days at a time there would be no trains; then there might be several in one day.

How were they able to meet the trains at all? Through the services of two of the most important peo­ple to the canteen - Mrs. Benefield who lived in the last house on south 4th Street and Mrs. Joe McAninch, west of town. When a train passed one of these homes, the lady living there would immediately call Mrs. Johnson, and later Mrs. Starrett, who activated the workers.

Ladies in the community got together, wrote letters, put out fruit jars and asked people they knew to donate to the canteen. Money, playing cards, magazines, books and many more items would be kept in bulk at the station to hand out. The depot and the railroad provided room for storage and serving. Besides providing food and a little entertainment, the ladies (for they were mostly ladies) were also someone the soldiers could talk to and the soldiers were very appreciative. They would often write back post cards thanking the ladies for their kindness:

"I thank you! My Platoon thanks you! The Marine Corp thanks you! And thanks to Jimmy Cagney — Yankee Doodle Dandy. P. S. Tell the girls to write". And this Irishman must have kissed the blarney stone: "Sully" Sulli­van addressed his card to "Some Blue Eyed Golden Blond, c/o City Canteen", and invited "There is my address on the front, Honey, how about dropping a line to me. We stopped at your town the other night, a very nice town. I'd like to visit it sometime". I wonder who I that memorable blue-eyed blonde was.

Another wrote, "I come from York City where they offer you most everything, but I must say your offer made us a happy, comfortable bunch." And another wrote Mrs. Starrett, "Your wonderful smile helped a lot to put the boys at ease".

When Paul go to Wichita, he would have had to pass a physical, had his eyes checked and his teeth examined. He would have been in line with 25 to 50 other young men. He might have had his photo taken with others to commemorate the event. Paul would have carried his medical file from section to section. As he passed each section, they would have stamped his papers "passed".

Later, he would have stood again, waiting in rows with the other men. In some cases, the men would be selected for a branch of the service simply by where they stood in line: Army, Navy, Army Air Corp, Marines. Army, Navy, Army Air Corp, Marines. Paul may have specifically enlisted in the marines.

After his branch of service was assigned, Paul was sworn in as a United States Marine.

After his induction, he would have caught a troop train out of Wichita to Los Angeles and then another to San Diego and Camp Pendleton for Marine boot camp. It might have taken between 5 and 7 days for Paul to get to San Diego. When he arrived, he would have taken a small gauge rail to Pendleton and one of the many smaller "camps" within its confines.

For Paul, the real adventure was about to begin.

� Secure this line!

Kansas City was bustling with war activities. Military and other defense personnel were everywhere. The Federal Building in downtown Kansas City, Missouri provided weather training for women in the Weather Bureau and Midland Radio School provided training under contract for military radio operators. Many of them stayed at the Hotel Commonwealth at 12th and Broadway in Kansas City, Missouri near the north end where the current Bartle Hall Covention Center now stands. Many young soldiers who stayed there sent post cards to their loved ones. Like this one from Cpl Pressley, US Army, 1943 letting his family know that he was "still here".

In 1942, Kansas City turned off the water to all of it's fountains to help the war effort by saving electricity. While at the same time, the Kansas City chapter of the American War Mothers, founded in 1917, raised money to have a fountain dedicated to all those who served in WWI[pic].

Kansas City at large had the second largest Civil Defense Corps in the United States in 1943. Paul, being a patriotic young man, may have very lwell became a member of the local defense corps as a messenger or assisting the the air warden with insuring blackout rules were followed. He definitely would have taken part in the in the nine state wide test blackout on December 4, 1942. Factories around town sounded their whistles and horns to signify "1 minute warning" to blackout.

Several major war time industries were located in and around Kansas City including the Darby Steel company in the West Bottoms, Kansas City, Kansas, not far from where Paul Benson lived. The Darby Steel Company made LCTs or Landing Craft Tanks. The factory turned out one a day and floated them 1,000 miles down the Kansas River to the Missouri and the Mississippi to reach New Orleans, prompting them to be nicknamed "Prairie Ships".

Paul could have biked down 22nd St to Park Dr and down to Kansas Highway 32, just two miles away, that runs along the Kansas River to watch the LCTs being floated. One day, in the future, Paul would go shore on Iwo Jima on an LCT made in his home city. That was in the future. In 1942, he would have also seen many trains carrying tanks, artillery, ammunition, supplies and many men on their way to the war.

The Kansas Ordnance Plant near Parsons, Kansas employed over 6,700 people and focused on building artillery shells and other explosives. Remington built a plant in Independence, MO that manufactured 200 million rounds of ammunition and the Sunflower Ordnance Plant, just south of Kansas City, KS manufactured smokeless powder and propellant.

The Kansas City area grew considerably in population as defense workers travailed by train to join the efforts here. Paul's mom or step-father might have even worked in one of the many factories. Many women in Kansas City did their part in the war effort like this young lady who worked building B-25s.

B-25 Bombers were being built by the Kansas City Aviation Co not far from where Paul lived in the Fairfax industrial area. The Fairfax factory turned out 6,608 B-25s during the course of the war. Paul would have seen B-25s take off from Fairfax Airport for their first test flight. Paul would have certainly heard about Doolittle's Raid on Tokyo in 1942 and may have felt some pride in his city for helping to build the machine responsible for the first strike against the Japanese homeland and avenging the attack on Pearl Harbor. It may have prompted Paul to play "bomber pilot" with his friends.

In early 1942, newspapers began to report that all Japanese are being moved to internment camps. There were few who knew that Germans, too, were being rounded up and sent to internment camps.

Paul would have seen a lot of men and women in uniform. Troop trains passed through Kansas City, Kansas on their way to Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri or leaving Union Station and heading to points west and south, taking newly inducted troops to their training stations. At its peak in 1945, the Union Station saw over 678,000 travelers, most of them military personnel on their way home from the war. Troops traveled from training in Texas, through Kansas City and on their way to New York where many troops embarked for Europe and North Africa. Others caught the train out to Ft Leavenworth or on to Junction City, KS to Ft Riley or south to Wichita and on to Camp Pendleton in San Diego or San Francisco. Just like they did in WWI the local Red Cross, the USO and local volunteers operated a canteen that took care of the soldiers going to and coming from war. This postcard from Pvt Thomas Melvin, thanked Mrs. Marie Rowland for her hospitality:

Nov. 15, 1943. Esteemed Mrs. Rowland: No I can't keep it to myself -- I've got to tell you what I know. You are doing a swell job! And be sure, we boys appreciate your sincere efforts.

My trip, hitch-hiking back to camp, was pretty tedious...but I did get here! Thank you ever so much for making my pass spent in K.C. a time long to be remembered! Cheerio! Yours, Thomas.

There were also many troops stationed in and around Kansas City. He would have seen uniforms of all the services. The United States Naval Reserves and other Navy operations took place right here. South of Kansas City, the US Naval Air Station Olathe, Kansas, that opened in 1942, housed the Naval Air Primary Training Center. Future astronaut John Glenn graduated from the first training class. Prior to the opening of that base, the NAPTC was conducted at the Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, Kansas. Paul would have seen flights of the bi-planes training cadets to be fighter pilots and bombers.

Ft Leavenworth trained over 19,000 officers that went on to lead 23 infantry, airborne and cavalry divisions in World War II.

Paul, like many young boys his age, was probably interested in baseball, the national past time. He might have attended local ball games hosted by the Works Progress Administration between the Naval Air Station and the Army. He may have went down to the Grenada, if he had enough money, and watched a movie with his friends like Billy the Kid Rides again. The program would have started with a cartoon like Bugs and Daffy and then catching the most recent newsreel before the main feature.

Local radio carried war time programming. WHB hired Elinor Fox before the war began. When new regulations from the federal government regulated what could be played, Elinor Fox updated her "Women in the News" program to include women working in the many war time industries.

In 1942, Elinor Fox’s “Women in the News” began at 8:30 a.m.,19 still sponsored by the AG Grocer. “I’d interrupt my superb prose with three cans of green beans,” she smiled. On March 24, the theme was “‘V’ For Victory.” She opened:

Again good morning everyone. The women of America are working in a victory campaign to gather ten million books for Uncle Sam’s armed forces—will you lend a hand, too?

Her woman in the news that day was Miss Dorothea Hyle, Director of Publicity for the Kansas City Public Libraries.

Radio made it difficult to avoid the effects of the war during 1943 and 1944. WHB devoted an 18‐hour day on April 12, 1943, just ten days before Paul was inducted into the Marines, to sell War Bonds. For the Third War Loan drive, WHB paraded through downtown on a “Bond Wagon” with orchestras and smiling members of the WAVES and WACS. WHB, like other stations, continually urged conservation of electricity, gasoline, food and any material used in the war industry, such as tin cans, rubber goods and old rags. Recruiting for the Coast Guard and Merchant Marines was included with Selective Service information. WHB urged support of the USO. And, following the wartime code, discouraged the spread of rumors.

Paul would have heard other war time broadcasting like the "War Bond Show" or "Staff Frolic" straight from the Kansas City Canteen for the USO. There were also weekly broadcasts called "Your Navy Speaks" along with many more efforts to support the war, recruit men and women for military and civil defense and many more.

Paul might have been a Boy Scout or maybe just took part in the war efforts by helping to collect scrap iron or other much needed resources. He might have helped sell war bonds or collect books for the bookmobile to lend out to service men and women in the area.

Other young men in the neighborhood, just a few years older than Paul, would have hurried down to the local recruiters to enlist or received their draft notices to appear at a local board for physicals and assignment to the Army (including Army Air Corp) or Navy (including the Marines). Within the first 24 hours after Pearl Harbor, 150 men had enlisted at the Navy recruiting station.

He would have also seen young women in their WAC, WASP or WAVES uniforms as they went to their local administrative jobs with the military or defense. Forty young women were assigned to the Olathe Naval Air Station.

He might have also heard that there were Prisoners of War housed just north of Kansas City in Liberty. These POWs were sometimes brought down to the local stock yards to work or used as labor for local farmers.

Like this young woman of the same age, he would have experienced rationing.

We got some sort of coupon to use when purchasing new shoes. Shoe rationing was started February 9, 1943, according to an article in the Independence Examiner. Each person could buy three pair of leather shoes a year. There were other shoes available that were of imitation leather and they were ugly and you didn’t have to have a coupon to buy them.

Each person in our family was issued a food ration book and the head of the house (my Father) got a gasoline ration book. The Government issued the ration books. Meat, sugar and butter were rationed. Each stamp would allow you so much meat, so many pounds of sugar, etc. or so many gallons of gasoline. These stamps were of different colors.

If you had a friend or relative living on a farm, you may have been able to get extra gasoline from them, as they could get an unlimited amount as they were responsible for feeding the nation.

When we wanted to visit my brother that was in the Air Force at a camp close by, neighbors that didn’t have an automobile gave my Father some of their gasoline ration stamps so we could make the trip.

Everywhere that Paul looked, he would have seen posters urging rationing, more production and joining one of the services like the United States Marines. Even the trains got in on urging people to buy war bonds.

There were parades like this Armistice Day Parade featuring troops and even local community parades[(c) 1942] that always featured a patriotic theme.

He would have heard or read about Wake Island, Guam and Guadalcanal. The Marines would have been some of the toughest and best in his book. He might have even dreamed of wearing the blue uniform or fighting the "Japs" in the jungles. The Battle of Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway and many others.

All around, as he went about his days going to school, helping his mom, playing with friends or helping with the war effort, everything would have been about the war.

He might have even dreamed of one day putting on the uniform of his country and going to war. In his dreams, war was romantic. If he thought of it as dirty, he thought of it like the dirt the actors wore in the movies. It would always wash off at the end of the day. Bombs were far away and thirst would always be quenched. With all the war production going on in Kansas City, bombers, shells and ammunition were always plentiful. There were so many military men passing through, there were always enough troops for the battle. It was always the enemy who died or the other unlucky guy. If one of the good guys "bought it", there was little blood and pain was fleeting in the face of glory.

If he thought of his mother's feelings on the subject, he probably thought of her as weeping picturesquely into a kerchief, accepting a medal or certificate for his actions, proudly and stoically speaking of his bravery and service. Just like those other mothers on the newsreels. He never pictured her alone, behind closed doors, weeping uncontrollably over a yellow telegram from the War Department with the words, "Mrs. Florence Placke, We regret to inform you..."

For Paul, war was something to look forward to and he was determined to do his part.

[Part III - Paul Benson Goes to War]

� Secure this line!

tell me more...

Well done, Kat.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 18, 1945, before a joint session of Congress

� Secure this line!

Evening Lecture at West Point (U.S. Military Academy - New York) As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, U.S. Military Academy, New York, Monday, April 21, 2008

Thank you. Thank you, General Hagenbeck.
First things first. Congratulations on beating Navy in lacrosse. (Cheers, applause.) Army football will be at Texas A&M in College Station on September 27th. (Cheers.) When the two teams last played in San Antonio two years ago, y'all took 10 years off my life, years I can't afford. I expect it'll be another great game, and I think I'll stay away in a safe place, like Baghdad. (Laughter.)

And in normal speech, I'd thank y'all for coming, but I know full well that this evening is not exactly optional – (Laughter) – and my apologies. (Laughter.) So I'll be content with thanking you for staying awake, or at least trying to, given the schedule that y'all have here.

Of course, falling asleep in a lecture or a class is one thing. Falling asleep in a small meeting with the president of the United States is quite another. But it happens. (Laughter, applause.) I was in one Cabinet meeting with President Reagan where the president and six members of the Cabinet all fell asleep. (Laughter.)

But former President Bush created an honor to award the American official who most ostentatiously fell asleep in a meeting with the president of the United States. This was not frivolous. The president evaluated candidates on three criteria – (laughter) – first, duration – (laughter) – how long did they sleep? Second, the depth of the sleep; snoring always got you extra points. (Laughter.) And third, the quality of recovery – (laughter) – did one just quietly open one's eyes and return to the meeting, or did you just jolt awake – (laughter) – and maybe spill something hot in the process? Well, the award was named for Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft who was the first President Bush's national security adviser. He was, as you might suspect, the first awardee, and, I might add, won many oak leaf clusters. (Laughter.)

I actually regret a lot that I will not be here for the commencement of the class of 2008 because of an overseas commitment, but I am honored and grateful to have the opportunity to speak with you this evening. And in fact, I think this is better than commencement, because at commencement the firsties – by then near second lieutenants – would be only thinking about how fast they could get off post. In this way, I get to speak to all of you at least once for about 35 minutes or so – just for those of you who are checking your watches – and while I am secretary of Defense, and I have every confidence you can make it, just keep nudging the person next to you.

This evening's talk is the culmination of a day spent on the road. And I've already made a bunch of headlines at the Air University at Maxwell, criticizing the Air Force. So, now it's the Army's turn. But it is always a welcome duty to be away from Washington, D.C. The faculty should have issued a warning by now that most of you, if you stay in the Army long enough and do everything you're supposed to in your career and are successful, you will one day be punished with a job in the Pentagon.

Some of you may have already heard the jokes and stories from your instructors about the sheer size of the building and the bureaucracy.

The late newsman David Brinkley told a story about a woman who told a Pentagon guard she was in labor and needed help in getting to a hospital. And the guard said, "Madame, you shouldn't have come here in that condition." And she said, "When I came here, I wasn't." (Laughter.)

Even the great General Eisenhower was flummoxed by the experience of making his way around the Pentagon. Soon after returning to Washington, he made the mistake of trying to return to his office all by himself. He later wrote, quote, "So hands in pockets and trying to look as if I were out for a carefree stroll around the building, I walked…and walked and walked, encountering neither landmarks nor people who looked familiar. One had to give the building his grudging admiration. It apparently had been designed to confuse any enemy who might infiltrate it." (Laughter.)

No doubt many of you have studied Eisenhower in your time here. Last year I read Partners in Command, a book by Mark Perry. It is an account of the unique relationship between Eisenhower and General George Marshall, and how they played a significant role in the American victory in World War II and laid the foundations for future success in the earliest years of the Cold War. Eisenhower and Marshall are, of course, icons, legends etched in granite. Their portraits hang in my office.

But one of the things I found compelling in Partners in Command is how they were both influenced by another senior Army officer who is not nearly as well-known and in fact, as a reader of history, I had never heard of.

His name is Fox Conner, a tutor and mentor to both Eisenhower and Marshall. Conner and Marshall first became friends when they served together on the staff of General "Black Jack" Pershing during World War I. And in the 1920s, Eisenhower served as staff assistant under Brigadier General Conner in the Panama Canal Zone.

From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leadership and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:

· Never fight unless you have to;
· Never fight alone;
· And never fight for long.
All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and strategically sound. We've heard variants of them in the decades since, perhaps most recently in the Powell doctrine.

But of course, all things are not equal, particularly when you think about the range and complexity of the threats facing America today, from the wars we are in to the conflicts we are most likely to fight. So tonight I'd like to discuss with you how you should think about applying Fox Conner's three axioms to the security challenges of the 21st century, the challenges where you will be on the front lines.

“Never go to war unless you have to.”
That one should only go to war as a last resort has long been a principle of civilized people. We know its horrors and costs. War is, by its nature, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Winston Churchill wrote in January 1942: "Let us learn our lessons. Never, never believe that any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter… Once the signal is given, the statesman is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."

In a dictatorship, the government can force the population to fall in behind the war effort, at least for a time. The nature of democracy, however, limits a country's ability to wage war – and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed with perhaps the exception of World War II, every conflict in America's history has been divisive and controversial here at home. Contrary to what General Patton said in his pep talks, most real Americans do NOT like to fight.

Consider the conflicts today. Afghanistan is widely viewed as a war of necessity – striking back at the staging ground of the perpetrators of the September 11th attack. The Iraq campaign, while justified in my view, is seen differently by many people. Two weeks ago I testified, in front of the Congress on the Iraq War. I observed that we were attacked, at home in 2001, from Afghanistan. And we are at war in Afghanistan today, in no small measure, because we mistakenly turned out backs on Afghanistan after the Soviet troops left in the late 1980s.

We made a strategic mistake in the endgame of that war. If we get the endgame wrong in Iraq, I told the Congress, the consequences will be far worse.

Truth to tell, it's a hard sell to say we must sustain the fight in Iraq right now and continue to absorb the high financial and human cost of the struggle, in order to avoid an even uglier fight or even greater danger to our country in the future. But we have Afghanistan to remind us that these are not just hypothetical risks.

Conner's axiom – never fight unless you have to – looms over policy discussions today over rogue nations like Iran that support terrorism; that is a destabilizing force throughout the Middle East and Southwest Asia and, in my judgment, is hellbent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need. And in fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels. But the military option must be kept on the table, given the destabilizing policies of the regime and the risks inherent in a future Iranian nuclear threat – either directly or through nuclear proliferation.

And then there's the threat posed by violent jihadist networks. The doctrine of preemption has been criticized in many quarters, but it is an answer to legitimate questions. With the possibility of proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical materials, and the willingness of terrorists to use them without warning, can we wait to respond until after a catastrophic attack is either imminent or has already occurred? Given the importance of public opinion and public support, how does one justify military action to prevent something that might happen tomorrow or several years down the road? While "never fight unless you have to" does not preclude preemption, after our experience with flawed information regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, how high must the threshold of confidence in our intelligence have to be to justify at home and abroad a preemptive or preventive war?

Conner's second axiom was "Never fight alone."
He recognized from the onset that the way World War I ended – and particularly the terms of the Versailles Treaty – made another major conflict with Germany almost inevitable. Victory would require a strong partnership of the Anglo-American democracies, and the most successful Army officers would have to adapt to working with allies and partners. Eisenhower and Marshall executed this concept brilliantly in World War II, despite the fact that, as one historian wrote about Allied generals, Eisenhower had to deal with, "as fractious and dysfunctional a group of egomaniacs as any war had ever seen."

Nonetheless, as Perry writes, “Eisenhower was a commander who believed that building and maintaining an international coalition of democracies was not a political nicety…but a matter of national survival.” And he brought this concept to the founding of NATO.

But what do you do when, as is the case today with NATO in Afghanistan, some of your allies don't want to fight; or they impose caveats on where, when and how their forces may be used; or their defense budgets are too small as a share of national wealth to provide a substantial contribution? Not counting the United States, NATO has more than two million men and women under arms, and yet we struggle to sustain a deployment of less than 30,000 non-U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and we are forced to scrounge, hat in hand, for a handful of helicopters.

In August 1998, after the terrorist bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, I wrote an op-ed in the The New York Times about terrorism and national priorities, and I noted that taking a more aggressive approach to terrorism would, in virtually all cases, require America “to act violently and alone.” And even after September 11th and a string of attacks in Europe and elsewhere, the publics of many of our democratic allies view the terror threat in a fundamentally different way than we do – and this continues to be a real obstacle with respect to Afghanistan and other issues.

But as Churchill said, the only thing worse than having allies is not having them at all. They provide balance, credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of much of the world. And in the case of Afghanistan, one should never discount the power of the world's wealthiest and most powerful democracies coming together – as they did in Bucharest three weeks ago – to reaffirm publicly their commitment to this mission. Nor, above all, should we forget the superb performance in combat and the sacrifices of allies like the British, Canadians, the Australians, the Danes, the Dutch and others. And I would note with sympathy that last Friday, the same day that the general took command of the Dutch forces, his son, a lieutenant, age 23, was killed in Afghanistan.

Just about every threat to our security in the years ahead will require working with or through other nations. Success in the war on terror will depend less on the fighting we do ourselves and more on how well we support our allies and partners in the modern Muslim world -- moderate Muslim world and elsewhere. In fact, from the standpoint of America's national security, the most important assignment in your military career may not necessarily be commanding U.S. soldiers, but advising or mentoring the troops of other nations as they battle the forces of terror and instability within their own borders.

Finally, Fox Connor said, "Never fight for long."
According to Perry, General Connor believed that “American lives were precious, and no democracy, no matter how pressed, could afford to try the patience of its people.” Early on, Connor instilled the idea in both Eisenhower and Marshall, on finding the enemy, fighting the enemy, and defeating the enemy all within a short period of time.

In World War II, the American people had already begun to lose patience by the fall of 1944, when the lightning dash across the plains of France following D-Day gave way to a soggy, bloody stalemate along Germany's western border. And that was only two-and-a-half years after Pearl Harbor.

Eisenhower no doubt had this in mind when he became president during the third year of the Korean war. He believed that the United States – and the American people – could not tolerate being bogged down in a bloody, interminable stalemate in Northeast Asia while the Soviets menaced elsewhere, especially in Europe. Eisenhower was even willing to threaten the nuclear option to bring that conflict to a close.

It has now been six-and-a-half years since the attacks on September 11th, and we just marked the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. For America, this has been the second-longest war since the Revolution, and the first since then to be fought throughout with an all-volunteer force. In Iraq and Afghanistan, initial, quick military success have led to protracted stability and reconstruction campaigns against a brutal and adaptive insurgency and terrorists. This has tested the mettle of our military and the patience of our people in a way we haven't seen in a generation.

At the turn of the 21st century, the U.S. armed forces were still organized, trained and equipped to fight large-scale conventional wars, not the long, messy, unconventional operations that proliferated following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same traditional orientation was true of our procurement procedures, military health care, and more. The current campaign has gone on longer and has been more difficult than anyone expected or prepared for at the start, and so we've had to scramble to position ourselves for success over the long haul, which I believe we're doing.

A drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq is inevitable over time – the debate you hear in Washington is largely about pacing. But the kind of enemy we face today – violent jihadist networks – will not allow us to remain at peace. What has been called the “Long War” is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies. To paraphrase the Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, we may not be interested in the long war, but the long war is interested in us.

How America's military and civilian leadership grapples with these transcendent issues and dilemmas will determine how, where and when you may be sent into the battle in the years ahead.

In discussing Fox Conner's three axioms, I've raised questions and provided few, if any, answers, and that's the point. It is important that you think about all this, not just at the Academy but throughout your military careers, and come to your own conclusions.

But in order to succeed in the asymmetric battlefields of the 21st century – the dominant combat environment in the decades to come, in my view – our Army will require leaders of uncommon agility, resourcefulness and imagination; leaders willing and able to think and act creatively and decisively in a different kind of world, in a different kind of conflict than we have prepared for for the last six decades.

One thing will remain the same. We will still need men and women in uniform to call things as they see them and tell their subordinates and their superiors alike what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

Here too Marshall in particular is a worthy role model. In late 1917, during World War I, U.S. military staff in France was conducting a combat exercise for the American Expeditionary Force. General Pershing was in a foul mood. He dismissed critiques from one subordinate after another and stalked off. But then-Captain Marshall took the arm of the four-star general, turned him around and told him how the problems they were having resulted not from receiving a necessary manual from the American headquarters – Pershing’s headquarters. And the commanders said, “Well, you know, we have our problems.” And Marshall replied, “Yes, I know you do, General…but ours are immediate and everyday and have to be solved before night.”

After the meeting, Marshall was approached by other officers offering condolences for the fact he was sure to be fired and sent off to the front line. Instead Marshall became a valued adviser to Pershing, and Pershing a valued mentor to Marshall.

Twenty years later, then-General Marshall was sitting in the White House with President Roosevelt and his top advisers and Cabinet secretaries. War in Europe was looming but still a distant possibility for an isolated America. In that meeting, Roosevelt proposed that the U.S. Army – which at that time was ranked in size somewhere between that of Switzerland and Portugal – should be the lowest priority for funding and industry. FDR's advisers all nodded. Building an army could wait.

And FDR, looking for the military's imprimatur to his decision, said, “Don't you think so, George?” And Marshall, who hated being called by his first name, said, “I'm sorry, Mr. President, I don't agree with that at all.” The room went silent. The Treasury secretary told Marshall afterwards, “Well, it's been nice knowing you.” And it was not too much later that Marshall was named Army chief of staff.

There are other, more recent examples of senior officers speaking frankly to their civilian senior officers. Just before the ground war started against Iraq, in February 1991, General Colin Powell, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, met with the president, first President Bush. I was there in the Oval Office. Colin looked the president in the eye and said words to this effect: “We are about to go to war. We may suffer thousands of casualties. If we do, are you prepared to drive on to victory? Will you stay the course?” Colin wanted the President to face reality. The President gave the right answer.

I should note at this point that in my 16 months as secretary of Defense, I have changed several important decisions because of general officers disagreeing with me and persuading me of a better course of action. For example, at one point I had decided to shake up a particular command by appointing a commander from a different service than had ever held the post. A senior service chief persuaded me to change my mind.

On trips to the front, I've also made it a priority to meet and hear from small groups of soldiers ranging from junior enlisted to field-grade officers, and their input has been invaluable and shaped my thinking and decisions as well. All in senior positions would be well-advised to listen to enlisted soldiers, NCOs, and company and field-grade officers. They are the ones on the front line, and they know the real story.

More broadly, if as an officer – listen to me very carefully – if as an officer you don't tell blunt truths or create an environment where candor is encouraged, then you've done yourself and the institution a disservice. This admonition goes back beyond the roots of our own republic. Sir Francis Bacon was a 17th century jurist and philosopher as well as a confidante of the senior minister of England's King James. He gave this advice to a protégé looking to follow in his steps at court: “Remember well the great trust you have undertaken; you are as a continual sentinel, always to stand upon your watch to give [the king] true intelligence. If you flatter him, you betray him.” Remember that. If you flatter him, you betray him.

In Marshall's case, he was able to forge a bond of trust with Roosevelt not only because his civilian boss could count on his candor, because once a decision was made, FDR could also count on Marshall to do his utmost to carry out a policy – even if he disagreed with it – and make it work. This is important because the two men clashed time and again in the years that followed, ranging from yet more matters of war production to whether the allies should defer an invasion on the mainland of Europe.

Consider the situation in mid-1940. The Germans had just overrun France and the battle of Britain was about to begin. FDR believed that rushing arms and equipment to Britain, including half of America's bomber production, should be the top priority in order to save our ally. Marshall believed that rearming America should come first. Roosevelt overruled Marshall and others, and came down on what most historians believe is the correct decision – to do what was necessary to keep England alive.

The significant thing is what did not happen next. There was a powerful domestic constituency for Marshall's position among a whole host of newspapers and congressmen and lobbies, and yet Marshall did not exploit and use them. There were no overtures to friendly congressional committee chairmen, no leaks to sympathetic reporters, no ghostwritten editorials in newspapers, no coalition-building with advocacy groups. Marshall and his colleagues made the policy work and kept England alive.

In the ensuing decades, a large permanent military establishment emerged as a result of the Cold War – an establishment that forged deep ties to the Congress and to industry. And over the years, senior officers have from time to time been tempted to use these ties to do end runs around the civilian leadership, particularly during disputes over purchase of large major weapons systems. This temptation should and must be resisted.

Marshall has been recognized as a textbook model for the way military officers should handle disagreements with superiors and in particular with the civilians vested with control of the armed forces under our Constitution. So your duties as an officer are:

· To provide blunt and candid advice always;
· To keep disagreements private;
· And to implement faithfully decisions that go against you.
As with Fox Conner's lessons of war, these principles are a solid starting point for dealing with issues of candor, dissent and duty. But like Conner's axioms, applying these principles to the situations military leaders face today and in the future is a good deal more complicated.

World War II was America's last straightforward conventional conflict that ended in the unconditional surrender of the other side. The military campaigns since – from Korea to Vietnam, Somalia and Iraq today – have been frustrating, controversial efforts for the American public and for the American armed forces. Each conflict has prompted debates over whether senior military officers were being too deferential or not deferential enough to civilians, and whether civilians, in turn, were too receptive or not receptive enough to military advice.

In the absence of clear lines, of advance or retreat on the battlefield, each conflict has prompted our nation's senior civilian and military leadership to seek the support of an increasingly skeptical American public, using a variety of criteria and metrics – from enemy body counts to voter turnout and more. Then as now, the American people relied especially on the candor and the credibility of military officers, in order to judge how well a campaign is going and whether the effort should continue.

Candor and credibility remain indispensable, because we will see yet more irregular and difficult conflicts, of varying types, in the years ahead; conflicts where the traditional duties of an officer are accompanied by real dilemmas – dilemmas posed by a non-linear environment made up of civilian detainees, contractors, embedded media and an adversary that does not wear uniforms or obey the laws of war; an adversary that could be your enemy on one day or, as we've seen in Iraq's Anbar province, your partner the next.

Many of you have gone over some of these scenarios, in ethics classes, or heard the accounts from returning veterans; a situation where, for example, a beloved platoon sergeant is killed by a sniper shot believed fired from a house by the side of a road. When the soldiers arrive, the sniper's gone. But the old lady, who lives in the house, is still there. The battalion and brigade commanders pass down orders to demolish the house – to teach the enemy's sympathizers a lesson and take away a possible sniper position. The platoon leader conducts an investigation and concludes this course of action is counterproductive. So the lieutenant makes the call not to destroy the house. And his CO stands by him. This is a true story from Iraq – a campaign that has been dubbed the “Captain's War” because, as in any counterinsurgency, so much of the decisive edge is provided by the initiative and the judgment of junior officers.

When you are commissioned, it will all too quickly be your judgment and your leadership that your soldiers will rely upon. As you prepare for this awesome responsibility, learn all the lessons you can learn here, from heroes with real-world experience and wisdom in and out of the classrooms – people like Master Sergeant Reginald Butler, NCO Tac Company D-3.

And speaking of lessons learned, I should note that during my time as secretary, I have been impressed by the way the Army's professional journals allow some of our brightest and most innovative officers to critique – sometimes bluntly – the way the service does business; to include judgments about senior leadership, both military and civilian. I believe this is a sign of institutional vitality and health and strength. I encourage you to take on the mantle of fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent when the situation calls for it. And agree with the articles or not, senior officers should embrace such dissent as healthy dialogue and protect and advance those considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle.

I wrote my first and far from last critique of CIA in a professional journal in 1970, four years into my career. Without the support of several senior agency officers, my career would have quickly been over.

Here at West Point, as at every university and company in America, there's a focus on teamwork, consensus-building and collaboration. Yet make no mistake, the time will come when you must stand alone in making a difficult, unpopular decision, or when you must challenge the opinion of superiors or tell them that you can't get the job done with the time and the resources available – a difficult charge in an organization built on a “can-do” ethos; or a time when you will know that what superiors are telling the press or the Congress or the American people is inaccurate. There will be moments when your entire career is at risk. What will you do? What will you do?

These are difficult questions that you should be thinking about, both here at West Point and over the course of your career. There are no easy answers.

But if you follow the dictates of your conscience and the courage of your convictions while being respectfully candid with your superiors while encouraging candor in others, you will be in good stead for the challenges you will face as officers and leaders in the years ahead.

Defend your integrity as you would your life. If you do this, I am confident when you face these tough dilemmas, you will, in fact, know the right thing to do.

I'll close with a few words to all of you but especially to the class of 2008. Soon you will take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. I have taken that oath seven times in the last 42 years, the first when I enlisted in 1966 and the last when I became secretary of Defense. I want to encourage you always to remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution: the Congress and the press. Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people.

The Congress is a co-equal branch of government that under the Constitution raises armies and provides for navies. While you read about the intense debate over Iraq, you need to know that members of both parties now serving in Congress have long been strong supporters of the Department of Defense and of our men and women in uniform. As officers, you will have a responsibility to communicate to those below you that the American military must be nonpolitical and recognize the obligation we owe the Congress to be honest and true in our reporting to them, especially when it involves admitting mistakes or problems.

The same is true with the press, in my view, an important guarantor of our freedom. When the press identifies a problem in the military, our response should be to find out if the allegations are true – and if so, say so and then act to remedy the problem, as at Walter Reed; if untrue, then be able to document that fact. The press is not the enemy, and to treat it as such is self-defeating.

As the Founding Fathers wisely understood, the Congress and a free press, as with a nonpolitical military, assure a free country – a point underscored by a French observer writing about George Washington in 1782. He wrote, “This is the seventh year he has commanded the army and that he has obeyed the Congress. More need not be said.”

Finally, we hear a good deal about men and women who volunteered for military service in the wake of the September 11th attacks. For you Firsties, your admissions applications for the academy would have come due early in 2004. By that point, it had become clear that Iraq as well as Afghanistan would be long, grinding and complex campaigns. Your decision to come here and the decision of all the Academy classes that have followed was made with the knowledge of almost certain deployment to distant and dangerous battlefields, with the likelihood of more tours to follow. Each of you – with your talents, your intelligence, your record of accomplishments – could have chosen something easier or safer and of course better-paid. But you took on the mantle of duty, honor and country, passed down the Long Gray Line of men and women who have walked these halls and strode these grounds before you, and for that you have the profound gratitude and eternal admiration of the American people.

It is undoubtedly politically incorrect for me to say, but I feel personally responsible for each and every one of you, as if you were my own sons and daughters. And so my only prayer is that you serve with honor and return home safely. And I personally thank you for your service from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you. (Applause.)

� Secure this line!

I have an early OER in my file that reflects the price you can pay for standing your ground on an issue of integrity.

BT, DT. My rebuttal was, according to the reviewing officer (an O-6), precise, concise, objective and irrefutable (ten pages of supporting documentation, including three LOCs from the CG on the *very* matter in question). The OER also *remained* in my 201 file, and is probably still there, accumulating a nice patina of mildew...

As far as McGovern and his comments go, he's still the same addlepated invertebrate he was forty years ago...

Much of the press in America aids, abets and enables the enemy's Morale Operations against the domestic target audience. The cognitive dissonance caused by having no capability or intention of supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against domestic enemies deludes some Regulars into denying the existence of such.

Irregulars are under no obligation to wear those blinders.

The law affects those Regulars, too. Something I'll maunder on about tomorrow.

The Law affects all upon whom the Law Makers and Law Enforcers and Lawyers and Judges select for the honor of being made an example of pour encourager les autres and all who are deterred by such examples.

Some would-be persuaders-changers-influencers are only subject to the same Laws as the general population and are further beyond the reach of retribution than others.

I haven't forgotten John - still thinking :p

There are villains that this documentary wanted to ‘get’. They just happened to be VP Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld instead of President Bush and the entire Administration. Quite honestly, this worked more like a hit piece on them than an indictment of President Bush. At their feet was laid almost all the blame for the run up to war, including claims of fudging the intelligence and ‘Curveball’, and the mishandling of the post takedown of Saddam. Rumsfeld, most heavily Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Yoo take the heat for Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and things over which there is debate over like ‘is it torture’ and should Taliban or other insurgents be considered POWs. These are the villains. Cheney is Darth Sidious/Emporer Palpatine, and Rumsfeld is his acolyte, sort of, Darth Vader who has things so drastically wrong at every turn.

I was actually quite surprised at the treatment of just about everyone else in the current Administration. President Bush is not a villain or a war criminal in this. A weak man maybe, someone mislead by those closest to him, and dominated by Cheney but not a villain. Dr. Rice gets a mixed treatment. She’s given a ‘weak nancy-girl’ treatment in the first installment but given kudos for pushing the Administration toward the ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ strategy and for taking on Rumsfeld after being made SecState. She’s given a lot of kudos for that. SecState Powell is treated like a sage who should have been listened to, but wasn’t. Surprisingly the flaws in everyone but Cheney and Rumsfeld are not taken as a pathway to denounce them as war criminals. They are portrayed as flawed, tragic, or unready for prime time individuals, but not evil. People caught up in events beyond their control or erroneous lines of thought, but not evil.

There is an assumptions underlying how this documentary’s first night unfolds that I don’t and never will agree with. One of the most prominent being the proposition that the War on Terror is solely about al Quaeda. Rumsfeld and Cheney, our villains, push for a broader conflict in the ME, or seek to satisfy some bizarre jones to attack Iraq, but the CIA wants to keep it only about bin Laden and aQ. I’ve always rejected this. Why? For the best formal reasoning read Dr. Tom Barnett’s books and blog. In a nutshell: because turning this into retributive raids or manhunts doesn’t end the threat. We did Libya, and still got attacked. Did Sudan, the infamous cruise missile diplomacy. Still got attacked. We tried the first WTC attackers in civilian court, and attacks still continued. Whack-a-mole and targeted manhunts all thru the 70’s to the late 90’s and it only gets worse. No, the solution to the problem of Islamicist ideology driven terrorism has to be larger and more complicated than simply hunting for OBL and taking down the Taliban because if that’s all it was we’d never have had a bin Laden because we did that in the 80-90’s (Libya et al.) to seemingly no effect. So, right there, I find a major flaw in this documentary. They’re pushing people who looked to the problem of int’l terrorism as a bigger problem than just bin Laden and labeling them traitors or people with, possibly evil, ulterior motives for the broader view. Since that’s a very critical assumption, underlying much of the first night’s case, it is a crippling disagreement.

The second night is by far the weakest in my opinion. It showed a real lack of knowledge by the documentarians of what Rumsfeld was trying to do. They really try to play it as strategy summed up in nine words: “Do it small. Get out fast. Screw the aftermath.” Rather simplistic, and also tosses aside what they laid out as the plan going in for the aftermath, yes, they admit that there was a post Saddam plan drawn up before the invasion, the first night (Achmed Chalabi). Something they spent a good twenty or thirty minutes on the previous night. That constitutes a continuity problem in my eyes. Honestly, Barnett does it best. Rumsfeld was right, and wrong. He had it 100% right on how small we could go to take down Iraq but was 100% wrong on the post conflict reconstruction being able to be done by the same sized force. The documentarians take the tack that Rumsfeld’s a grandstanding idiot, mostly.

The second night follows a chronology that could have been taken straight from the New York Times staff writers. It does present the first Battle of Fallujah in terms I’d not considered in the past, and bases their claims on interviews of ‘insiders’ (but not faceless, nameless ‘highly placed officials’). But, even here, it doesn’t look like they’re willing to go much outside their preset script. They deserve credit for trying a multidiscipline treatment of event, but they still take a preset position and are unwilling to deviate from it (the insurgency became indomitable after that because there were too few troops in Iraq, and it’s Rumsfeld’s fault).

By far I found the weakest bit of this whole thing was the panel of people they interviewed. It seemed stacked to me. Much of the commentary was done by some of the harshest critics. Where were the critics but not opponent type people? Did Barnett get called but turn them down? I’m not saying that they should’ve put Jonah Goldberg on there, but couldn’t someone like Max Boot or Mark Steyn---people who present cases for other rationales for doing Iraq---have been put on there? Now that would have put the real question to the people: is it or isn’t it part of a larger campaign, is the WOT only a big name for what amounts to ‘Get bin Laden!’? Some of the people they got were excellent choices. Andrew Krepinevich being one example, COLs Hammes and McMaster being others of the dozen or so out of the 50 or so people who offer commentary that are experts instead of journalists who really lend something substantive to the doc. Unfortunately the experts don’t get as much time as the journo’s and book writers do. I’d much rather have listened to dueling accounts of what happened and why between Col HR McMaster and Col Hammes or Gen Keating than listen to Ricks deride the strategy of the Gen casey tenure as ‘war tourism’.

One of the best, if painful, elements to this was the documentation of Rumsfeld’s role in ‘energetic interrogation’ implementation. They did this one well, if somewhat melodramatic. They laid they case, they showed the documents, they didn’t trot out someone un-named source. This was straight up reporting.

Worth watching. Gollum can’t give a number of ‘yes my preciousssssessss’ or anything like that on this. It is too complex for that kind of treatment. I’d watch it again. I want to watch it again. But that doesn’t mean I liked it or agreed with much of it. I know, it’s PBS, but it is worth the time.
--ry

� Secure this line!

I think Stephen Den Beste's summary of why we went to war in Iraq is one of the best I've seen so far:

http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml

I also watched the Frontline piece and it is worth the time. In the theory that you have to pan a lot of dirt to find a nugget this piece should be one of a number of sources. But yes, it was more like a docudrama then a true documentory.

why did we go to war in Iraq? Because I said so.

Ryan, The bottom-line is this, I agree with "Kat-Missouri". It really comes down to this- Because, Grumpy said so." But it is equally true, NONE of us have the facts! Everything has been intentionally blurred. Therefore, we have a whole series of different docudramas, this would include the whole military-veteran blog world, including this one. I am not saying you are liars or are trying to deceive anybody. You are dealing with perceptions. Even the people who are there only see a microcosm of the whole real picture. Many could accurately say this whole blog world is nothing more than a glorified op-ed piece. In the final view, these men will answer to the old "Hag" herself, her name is History. There will be a day when all of this will hang out in the open for all to see, totally and factually, with no spin.

You think there's no spin in History?

For a fascinating read on the subject, I would highly encourage everyone to read Yossef Bodansky's The Secret History of the Iraq War.

I found it to be a thorough study on the rat's nest that was/is Iraq.

Historians tell only the unvarnished, verifiable, uninfluenced truth, Trias!

Don't undermine my confidence!

No. this war will be spun so badly in history, no one will know what's real or not, not even if they put it "all out there". Our grandchildren will look back and think we were crazy, uber-hubris near nazis that over responded to the death of a tiny number of our citizens by giving our oil hungry and imperial government the go ahead to trample on some poor nation that we had alternately wanted to blow to pieces and annex to our country for over a decade for its oil wealth under the guise of getting the people who attacked us on 9/11.

Which will also have deep caveats about the probability that 9/11 was a conspiracy by the government in order to start the war in the first place.

I want to write McMillan and demand that, under the Iraq war, when they are explaining why we went to war, they should put my picture and the words "I said so." Someone should take the responsibility and stop dumping it all on the administration like some horrifically bloody scape goat.

Helllloooo???? I hope they write in those books how the Iraq war started out with 70% support. Of course, if they do, they will write that American citizens believed Saddam ordered 9/11.

History was already written in the newspapers. You just have to marvel at the bizarre parallel universe we live in. I can't decided which of us actually went down the rabbit hole.

Saddam will be a martyr to imperial dreams.

As we start going down the path of history, "She" will reveal all of the truth. Kat, you are right, people will try to spin it. The old saying many years ago was, "When politicians die, they don't bury them, they just screw them into the ground." The question becomes, "Is it a right handed thread or a left handed thread?" But as we grow older, we see things differently. There was another old saying, "He who does not learn from history is condemned to repeat it, repeat it and repeat it over again until you learn." D.O.D. made a policy change to disregard history, military and other types. In truth, this is like disregarding the 800 pound gorilla in the room. This is the most arrogant moronic move a human can make.

Somebody said "History is written by the winners" I guess nobody cares what the loosers think. At least there will be more sources for historians when this chapter is written and not just the front page of the NYT. Well...if they can make sure the Sandy Bergers of the world ain't stuffing history down the front of their pants.

I try to read different accounts so I can determine what was to have supposed to maybe happen. My father made me read British accounts of the Revolution when I was young just to make that point. Lordy but we were not nice people.

And..to get this off my chest...if it was just for oil...Canada and Mexico are next door and Chavez sits just around the corner. With what we have in country; we use very little from the middle east.

Don't go starting anything while I'm fishing in the Bahamas. I need to get back here. I promised my grand children to be out for trout season.

My father made me read British accounts of the Revolution when I was young just to make that point. Lordy but we were not nice people.

Nope, we sure weren't. For the most part, we refused to stand and fight unless we had an advantage in position or numbers and we had our sharpshooters target the officers *on purpose*, which was the height of Bad Sportsmanship in EuroWarfare back in the day.

We're *good* at guerrilla and counter-guerrilla warfare, whenever our doctrine doesn't get in the way...

BTW, my branch of the family had combatants on both sides during that scrap, so we usually refer to it as "Our First Civil War"...

In September 1947, the British Government approached Vickers-Armstrongs to explore the idea of converting surplus US-built M4 Sherman tanks into industrial tractors capable of the work needed for peanut plan. They were to initially convert 500 the first year, rising to 1,000 the year after.

The task involved complete dismantling of a Sherman Mark III tank and the inspection, cleaning, and overhaul of the track assembly and differential units.

The suspension unit in the Shervick removed one of the three original twin bogies of the Sherman and welded grousers (extensions to the track to increase width, decreasing ground pressure) to each track. A completely new frame was manufactured comprising floor and top flanged side plates with box-section cross-members on the front and center of the body. The centre box girder was extended on each side of the tractor and ended in two, heavy, square flanges to which the main attachment for a tree-dozer and stump-puller was welded.

The power plant was a General Motors, two-stroke, six-cylinder diesel (one of the types fitted to the Sherman tank, a variety that mostly went to the Russians). A new transfer drive unit was fitted to the engine flywheel housing and this had the double function of providing primary gear reduction between the engine and gearbox of 2 to 1, and also a power take-off to drive a winch and other auxiliary equipment.

In the event, the Shervicks were not able to take on the brush alone, having to work in three-vehicle teams, with two Shervicks towing a chain between them, to rip out the brush and trees, and a third to attack the really stubborn ones.

For more details of this Brit colonial venture - check out The Tanganyikan Groundnuts Scheme.

It just struck me as... interesting.

So, did anyone read this far?

� Secure this line!

Yes, I made it all the way to the end.

I figured it was one of those tanks-to-plowshares deals, although the only picture I'd seen previously was of a WW1 tank so converted (IIRC).

Cheers!

Heh. Been up for almost 12 hours, and one person read all the way to end (and is willing to admit it).

Heh. (scribbles note to self)

Yup, read to the end. My only question is: Do you have one being restored in the castle motor pool?

Yes read it to the end, but didn't see it till the late afternoon due to work commitments.

The next question was how succesful was the project? Was Vickers able to convert the tanks and did they work as advertised? If so, then it would be one of the few central planning projects that worked (even if it was thought up by a Western Government). If the project didn't work for what ever reason then its another reminder why central planning just doesn't seem to work to well.

Yepp, I read it all too.
There were a number of simple conversions performed in Australia to create heavy duty bulldozers for scrub clearing. I think a large number were Churchills, and I used to pass an abandoned one regularly when I was younger. I guess the price of scrap steel these days has done for them!
While looking for a picture of the Churchill, I came across what seems to be a very interesting website dealing with WWII - here
The most interesting idea for post-war recovery in the agriculture sector was thought up by the US. To help the Greeks restart their farms after the war killed most of the horses and donkeys that were used for plowing etc., they supplied them with mules. These were huge compared to the donkeys previously used, and they were self-limiting. They couldn't be bred from, and by the time they died, the Greek economy was probably ready for (hopefully US) tractors.

Dennis, sadly no. The only one I've seen still in existence is a wreck in the Netherlands.

Might be some in Africa... but I wouldn't bet on it.

Andrew - while you read it to the end - you didn't' click the link to the groundnut project. Your predjudice regarding central planning is still intact.

Geoff - I keep investing in the lottery - if that ever works for me, I'm going to graft myself to Jacques Littlefield and get his leavings...

Yep, read all the way. Photo set off my curiosity but, have no armor background.

Also read it the first time I had Internet today.

And, if you're interested in the Civil War, particularly the photographic and painting art that came out of it, this movie has a lot to say for it. Not because it shows the actual paintings, but the director managed to translate some great allegorical, iconic images into actual film scenes. Like the image of the 54th Massachusetts dressed in their spiffy new blue uniforms, brass shining, white gloves gleaming, marching off to war. Paintings and prints of such images can be found in many Civil War art collections and on historical posters, newspapers and pamphlets from the abolitionist movements including such great supporters like the Loyal Publishing Society. These were used to recruit black men into the newly created "colored" troops in the Union Army.

Four other images in the film that were straight off of iconic paintings, prints and monuments about the 54th and other black regiments were: Morgan Freeman standing on the parapets of Battery Wagoner, waving the flag; Col. Shaw (Matthew Broderick) being shot, surrounded by his black troops; towards the end, post Shaw's death, Carey Ewes character, surrounded by black troops in "action" positions, rifles with bayonets "at the charge", flags flying behind their heads (right before they are blown away by rebel cannon movie image); and, finally, the final image of Shaw's body being thrown in the trench with his black troops, a black soldier thrown on top of him, their positions as if sleeping at peace - brothers in blood.

Those are great images, but, as I noted, allegories. There were no polaroid or hand held video cameras. As many know, eyewitness accounts during battle are sometimes unreliable and often varied. Newspaper accounts were useful, but sometimes sensationalized. Thus, artists would use these allegories to represent the battles. Creating, in the end, some of the mythology of American history.

"Glory" was not a documentary. The movie, using iconic, allegoric images, was an allegory in and of itself, attempting to represent the advent of black troops into Union forces, their motivations, their tribulations, their bravery and, in the end, the contribution of black Americans to our nation, our freedom. If you can appreciate those facts, the movie is some great entertainment set in an historical period that might actually make people interested in that time and the people.

An interesting conversation with my brother who is not a history buff. The film leaves off with images of Shaw and his black troops being thrown into a ditch by the still remaining rebel troops. My brother asked me what happened to the other "white troops" that the general had promised would come behind the 54th.

The movie left out some considerable pieces of the battle in order to focus solely on the courage of the 54th in leading the assault on Wagoner. One of the things that it left out was that the 54th was not alone in assaulting the fort. Neither did it explain that one of the important factors was the waxing and waning of the tide across the only spit of sand that led to the fort. The fort itself was surrounded by water and marsh lands (swamp) on three sides continuously and on four sides when the tide was in. That's why it was called "Morris Island". After the battle had raged on for some hours, the tide began to come in and cut off those troops from safe and quick retreat. While the water was not so deep it couldn't be forded, it caused slow going through wet, sucking sand.

Six thousand Union soldiers were used to assault the fort along with the 54th, over two days of bombardment and assault. Of the six thousand, 1515 casualties were taken. Over two hundred from the 54th alone that accounted for half of their forces, including Col. Shaw. Sgt Willaim Carney was awarded a belated Medal of Honor in 1890 for his bravery during the assault. Carney carried the flag up the parapets and urged the 54th on into the fort. He was wounded three times, but refused to drop the flag or allow it to be captured by enemy forces. He was finally able to withdraw, bringing the flag with him.

What you could take from the movie was the reality that the fortifications and bunkers at Wagner were so well designed that nearly 12 hours of bombardment had done little to attrit forces, destroy weapons or significantly damage the fort's walls (a good representation in the movies of the less than glorious survival in such a fort can be seen in "Cold Mountain" with Jude Law and Nicole Kidman). The frontal assault of any fort in the age of gun powder is suicidal and a serious waste of forces unless, as on D-Day, the objective is so important, the casualty rate becomes acceptable. The taking of Charleston was important, but not necessarily the need to take Wagner. It was one of several strategic blunders that General Gilmore undertook during the Civil War (see Oulestee, Fl).

Eventually, Gilmore decided to circumvent Wagner and Morris Island. The fort turned out only to be important to protecting the harbor and city from invasion or bombardment from the sea, not necessarily protecting it from assault from land. While Gilmore had to explain the loss of forces at Wagner in reports, he was never punished or relieved from duty. With the kinds of losses each side was taking at many battles, Gilmore's losses were a drop in the bucket.

My brother also asked, based on the movie's representation, if the white troops had left the black troops to die due to some form of racism that allowed Gilmore to sacrifice them readily to save white troops. As noted, the movie does not portray any white troops with the 54th other than some NCOs and officers. I went over the truth of the battle again and noted that there may have been a concern about racism in the assault, but it was more likely that Shaw wanted to combat the over all general racism within the Union Army and the "soft bigotry" of the North by undertaking to lead a suicidal mission. Whether it was Shaw's plan to show the over all equality of the black troops to the white troops or simply to show that his troops were equal can only be inferred by his letters. Whether he had a grand strategy or not, the death of so many of his black troops along with their bravery in continuing to assault the fort under horrible conditions did, in fact, move the Union Army to accept more black recruits and units. It also led to some mitigation of the anger among northern citizens that so many whites were dying for the freedom of inferior black men. Here, the black man was fighting for himself.

However, it took many more wars for military strategist to realize that trench warfare and frontal assaults on fortifications was no longer effective. German's opened the Battle of France by circumventing the Maginot Line. Equally, the acceptance of black troops as effective fighting forces by the general military and public took even longer before institutionalized segregation was finally ended.

I still love the movie, "Glory". It had some great historical perspective, fantastic imagery and told artfully the condition of the black freeman who fought in the union army. But, it is a movie and it is important to remember that when watching any movie and attempting to divine history from art.

� Secure this line!

Don't give up on movies with "Chocolate" in their name. I too am a huge John Wayne fan, but there is one "Chocolate" movie that I am sure will meet your standards. Especially the part about being a period piece and having a simple message

"Like Water For Chocolate"

The Eighth Air Force was constituted on January 28, 1942, just 53 days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The plan was to build up forces to attack the German interior. Under the command of Major General Carl A. Spaatz, Major General Ira C. Eaker, and Lieutenant General Jimmy Doolittle, the hero of the 1942 B-25 air raid on Tokyo. It included such notables as then Lt. Col. Curtis LeMay. Even Clark Gable flew five combat missions with a B-17 bomber group and went on to make many training films and short films about the fearless men in the Mighty Eighth.

The Eighth recorded a number of "firsts". On July 4, 1942, six American crews joined six RAF crews on the first American mission to bomb Germany. Of the six crews, two were lost, foretelling the cost the Eighth would pay to smash the German military industry. On August 17, 1942, at 1500 hours, the first B-17 Flying Fortresses took off on their first strike against Germany.

One year later, August 17, 1943, in Operation Argument, later known as "Big Week", was launched to destroy the Luftwaffe and any supporting industries. Lt Col Curtis LeMay led the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission with 147 bombers. The first deep penetration attack against German industry without a fighter escort (P 47s did not have the range to fly the entire mission). While many targets were destroyed, the mission lost 60 bombers. Deep attacks were postponed for five months until escort coverage was established.

The Eighth was the first to fly day time bombing raids into Germany. They also flew cover over over Normandy on D-Day, supported the Air Borne invasion of the Netherlands and directly attacked German troops in the Battle of the Bulge. According to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum history page:

The Mighty Eighth compiled an impressive record in the war. This achievement, however, carried a high price. The 8th AF suffered half of the U.S Army Air Forces’ casualties in World War II (47,000-plus casualties with more than 26,000 deaths). The Eighth’s personnel also earned 17 Medals of Honor, 220 Distinguished Service Crosses, 850 Silver Stars, 7,000 Purple Hearts 46,000 Air Medals. Many more uncounted awards were presented to the 8 AF veterans after the war. There were 261 fighter aces and 305 gunner aces in the Eighth in World War II, and 31 fighter aces had more than 15 or more aircraft kills.

Somewhere in these numbers was Mr. Robert Angus Barry.

A number of Eighth Air Force units, flying B-17s, received the President's Distinguished Unit Citation including:

351st Bomber Group: A total of 311 missions were credited. Out of 279 B-17 Flying Fortresses, 124 were lost in combat.

The 351st received a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for exceptional performance on October 9, 1943 when an aircraft factory in Anklam, Germany was accurately bombed despite extremely heavy flak and intense resistance from Luftwaffe fighters. The group received another DUC for participating in the successful attack of January 11, 1944 on aircraft factories in Oschersleben and Konigslutter in central Germany.

The 381st bombardment group The Group received a Distinguished Unit Citation for performance on 8 October 1943 when shipyards at Bremen were bombed accurately in spite of persistent enemy fighter attacks and heavy flak, and received a second DUC for similar action on 11 January 1944 during a mission against aircraft factories in central Germany.

The 306th bombardment groupWithout fighter escort and in the face of powerful opposition, the group completed an assault against aircraft factories in central Germany on 11 January 1944, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for the mission. Participated in the Big Week intensive campaign against the German aircraft industry, 20-25 February 1944. The group earned another DUC for effectively bombing an aircraft assembly plant at Bernberg, Germany on 22 February, even though escort fighters had abandoned the mission because of weather.

And the 91st Bomber Group Its first mission to a target in Germany occurred January 27, and it earned the first of two Distinguished Unit Citations on March 4 when it continued an attack against the marshalling yards at Hamm, Germany, after all the other groups had turned back because of poor weather conditions. On April 17 the group led the Eighth Air Force on its first mission against the German aircraft industry, attacking Bremen. German fighter reaction was intense and sustained, and the Eighth lost twice as many bombers as on any previous mission. The 91st had six B-17s shot down, all from the 401st Bomb Squadron.

Approximately 5,200 crewmen flew combat missions for the 91st from 1942 to 1945. 19% were killed or missing (887 KIA and 123 MIA) and 18% (959) became prisoners of war. 33 others were killed in flying accidents. [snip]

The fatalities in the 91st Bomb Group, equivalent to an infantry regiment in numbers of combat personnel, exceeded the killed-in-action of more than half (47) of the Army's ground force divisions, and equalled or exceeded the rate of killed-in-action in the infantry regiments of 35 others. Only seven divisions (all infantry) had killed-in-action rates higher than the 91st BG

Included in this famed group was the Memphis Belle, the first B-17 and crew to complete 25 missions and live to tell about it. Images of the 91st bomber group missions and crews at Sam Halpert's Page.

We didn't know Robert Angus Barry, but we know the stories of men like him. Mr. Barry came home, raised a passel of kids, bought a business and spent 67 years with his wife Dora. I bet, if he'd been asked, those were his greatest accomplishments.

God's Speed, Mr. Barry and Thank You!

� Secure this line!

The USAAF doctrine back then required cast-iron balls.

You had to settle down on a straight and level course, to allow the bombsight to achieve a solution. The Germans knew this, and set up flak batteries with pre-computed solutions for that.

I do believe that official United States Army Air Forces doctrine, for bomber pilots and bombardiers, concerning anti-aircraft artillery, was, "Ignore it."

And they did, and stayed on the bomb run, straight and level, more often than not.

P.s. Many, many times more often than not.

P.p.s This is one of the many reasons I think that Hal Clement was really super-double-extra kewl&manly; I mean, he was the arguably best SF writer who ever lived, and a brave bomber pilot, too!

If you're ever down Savannah way, stop by and visit the museum of the Mighty Eighth.

They were men.

Its sounds like Robert Angus Barry and the 8th Air Force did grievous damage to the enemy which shortened the War.

I aways learn some thing at this fine site. Here are some interesting facts I learned about the 8th Air Force:

At its peak, the 8th AF could dispatch more than 2,000 four-engine bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission. For these reasons, the 8th AF became known as the "Mighty Eighth".

See: mighty eighth

The Americans flew heavily escorted missions against airframe manufacturing and assembly plants and other targets in numerous German cities including; Leipzig, Brunswick, Gotha, Regensburg, Schweinfurt, Augsburg, Stuttgart and Steyr. In six days, the Eight Air Force bombers based in England flew more than 3,000 sorties and the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy more than 500. Together they dropped roughly 10,000 tons of bombs.

During Big Week the Eighth Air Force lost 97 B-17s, 40 B-24's, and another 20 scrapped due to damage. The Fifteenth Air Force lost 90 aircraft and American fighter losses stood at 28. Although these numbers are high in absolute terms, the numbers of bombers involved in the missions was much higher than previously, and the losses represented a much smaller percentage of the attacking force. The earlier Schweinfurt missions cost the force just under 30% of their aircraft, for the Big Week it was under 7%...

Big Week bolstered the confidence of U.S. strategic bombing crews…By the end of April, the Luftwaffe was a broken force. With the Luftwaffe a spent force, the hundreds of fighters available to the Allies were now turned loose on German supply lines, railroads, trucks, and practically any other target.

See: Big Week

The 306th Bombardment Group was activated on March 1, 1942… Took part in the first penetration into Germany by heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force on 27 January 1943 by attacking U-boat yards at Wilhelmshaven. Sgt Maynard H. Smith received the Medal of Honor for his actions on 1 May 1943. When the aircraft on which he was a gunner was hit by the enemy and set on fire, the sergeant threw explosive ammunition overboard, manned a gun until the German fighters were driven off, administered first aid to the wounded tail gunner, and extinguished the fire. Without fighter escort and in the face of powerful opposition, the group completed an assault against aircraft factories in central Germany on 11 January 1944, earning a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for the mission.

See: Flying Training Group

The 351st arrived at Polebrook on April 15, 1943 and departed June 10, 1945. It flew 9,075 sorties, dropped 20,778 tons of bombs, fired 2,776,028 rounds of ammunition, and destroyed 303 enemy aircraft. A total of 311 missions were credited. Out of 279 B-17 Flying Fortresses, 124 were lost in combat.

See 351st Bomb Group

The name Curtis LeMay stands out when talking about the Eighth Air Force. In fact, LeMay stands out as one man who did very grievous damage to the enemy in both Germany and Japan.

Although his tactics were dangerous they produced results.

He bombed German industrial cities, bombed Japanese cities, mined Japanese harbors, was involved in the Berlin Air lift and was a sword in the side of the Soviet Union as commander of the Strategic Air Command.

The bombing of Japan stands out.

[b-29s]

Curtis LeMay had been sent to the Marianas to get results… Then came the radical decision by LeMay. The planes would go in at 10,000 ft. He ordered the removal of bomb bay fuel tanks claiming by not going to altitude they would not need the gas. All .50 cal. Guns would be removed, and all ammo. With no guns the gunners did not need to go. They would approach at night, low, not in formation but singly, each plane now carrying twice the previous bomb load…

How many Americans would be killed in an invasion of Japan? It was to be a huge gamble… On March 9, 334 B-29s took off from Guam, arriving in Japan under good weather conditions. The planes were stacked up from 4,900 ft. to 9,200 ft. They dropped one 500 pound cluster of fire bombs every 50 feet. The target area was 3 by 5 miles, containing a large industrial complex, however each square mile held over 100,000 civilians. The bombs fell, and within thirty minutes the resulting fires were out of control, driven by 40 mph winds. Tokyo, hit by strings of incendiaries, became a holocaust. Water boiled in the canals after the temperature reached over 1800 degrees F. For three hour the B-29s kept coming…In only five raids the B-29s wiped out 32 square miles in four major cities. The population of Tokyo dropped to half as panic stricken civilians fled. Washington was finally satisfied that fire bombing was the answer to crushing the Japanese, and sent LeMay a list of 33 additional Industrial targets…

See: The Firebombing

I don’t know if we will ever see another Robert Barry or another Curtis LeMay.

A true American hero who did his job. Lived his life Quietly and died the same way. Truly the Greatest generation. rest in peace American hero. Bless his family and friends

Just a note on the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission. That 60 aircraft lost was 600 men. On. One. Mission.
God bless them. And everyone else that geared up and went on every mission that came down after that one.

Bless you, Mr. Barry; you are truly one of the Brave!

Yeah, Pogue, kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it.

Two of my Profs in College flew in Bomber Command.

Cheers

In 1863, the Civil War was at a bloody stand still. Neither the South nor the North seemed to make enough progress to create the conditions for victory. There seemed to be little possibility for one decisive battle to end the war though each army had made several attempts to destroy the other. News from the front was scarce. Letters from friends and family were passed around or read out loud at gatherings. Reports in established newspapers touted a never ending list of casualties, destruction and pending defeat of the Union cause. Good news was far and few between.

In congress, many proclaimed the war could not be won. They advocated ceasing military action and making a political agreement with the Confederate States. The first rush had turned into depression in the North as the realization set in that this was not going to be a short war.

Enter Francis Lieber and the Loyal Publications Society. Francis Lieber is best known as the father of modern day laws of warfare. At the request of the Union government, he wrote an extensive essay regarding the practices of war, the treatment of prisoners, civilians and property. This eventually became known as the "Lieber Code" and was disseminated as General Order #100 to the Union Army.

This code of conduct was adopted by militaries around the world as well as the International Red Cross, andthe Hague Conventions. The Hague Conventions led to the adoption of the Laws of Warfare. Lieber's Code also influenced the Geneva Conventions.

At the height of the Civil War, Lieber was keeping a correspondence with Gen. Halleck. Among their correspondence, Lieber often complained of the lack of good news and reports of decisive actions coming from the front. The Lincoln administration had not developed any official information programs or put forth much effort beyond Lincoln's occasional speeches and letters to various editors or public officers that were then published for general edification.

At the same time, the South had put together a tremendous propaganda effort including writing, publishing and distributing books supporting their views on economics, politics, the constitution and slavery. These were widely distributed in the North and South. Regular editorials and prepared reports were sent to numerous papers across the country. Prepared materials were provided to politicians, organizations and individuals including foreign papers where they hoped to gain support for their cause. The Confederates had their own state run propaganda paper called The Index.

The Confederacy also sent numerous envoys to foreign nations presenting their cause as a case for liberty, rights and economy, astutely avoiding any mention of slavery that had already been outlawed by many nations. Lincoln barely put together an assembly of four "diplomats" of varying degrees of capability that attempted to combat the propaganda, dissuade support or interference by those nations and maintain existing treaties on such national interests as trade and sovereignty of the United States.

The blockading of the South not only effected Southern trade and economy, but also that of many European nations. As the Confederate book on "King Cotton" noted, over 5 million people in England relied on cotton from the South. For economic purposes alone the Confederates believed that England should support their efforts to remain economically and politically viable, even with the use of slave labor.

Lincoln could not totally ignore the impact of the blockade on other nations, but he also needed to insure that the United States remained whole, without interference and that, once the war was over, the United States could continue good relations with these nations. A war might be won, but survival of the nation would depend on continuing trade and developing economics to recover from the devastation of war.

The Lincoln Administration's lack of a coordinated information program left a huge hole in the Union's psyche that was quickly being filled up with ever depressing news and Confederate propaganda. This left the task of spurring and maintaining support for the Union and the war to largely private citizen organizations that created patriotic citizen groups in cities across states such as the Union League.

The Union League of Philadelphia was established in 1862 to organize and recruit Union supporters on behalf of the war effort and President Lincoln's policies. Other Union Leagues quickly sprang up across the north following the same practices. These organizations would present speakers to other groups and events, organize patriotic events, print literature supporting the Union and raise money to supply the troops and care for the wounded.

In New York, Francis Lieber, along with other well known Unionists and Abolitionists, formed the Loyal Publication Society. In the beginning, the society simply scanned existing newspapers and broadsheets for "good news" to be collated into one pamphlet and distributed among the troops and citizens. The organization would quickly contact the papers for the type setting before it was broken up and print it on their own paper.

Soon they expanded to printing original essays and speeches on broad subjects ranging from slavery, black men in the army, the Union cause, rebutting Confederate propaganda or political speeches as well as rebutting reports from various newspapers including the Chicago Times and the New York Tribune. The tracts would also reprint soldiers' letters and essays as "Voices from the Army".

One such publication rebutted the ever present dirge that it was only the poor who were fighting and dying for nothing more than the capitalist rich men in the north. The practice of accepting payment in lieu of drafting, wealthy and middle class men paying other men to take a draftees position along with anti-draft and nativist proclamations of discrimination had led to riots in New York and other cities.

In addressing these organizations and the cries of discrimination, the publication printed an essay describing the calls as such:

They have labored to spread the idea that every man who came to the United States and became a citizen, acquired ipso facto a right to lifelong ease, comfort and prosperity and that any action on the part of the Government, in defense of honor and existence, which curtailed the smallest of a working man's comfort, was a fraud and an imposition.

They rejected those claims and instead called all men to "take up" their "duty", insisting that there was no promise of leisure and only the ability to pursue their dreams.

"We guarantee him freedom of mind and body, and promise him wealth and honor in proportion to his merits. But, we warn him, when he comes here, it is not to roam over rich pastures and chew the cud, a fat ox among fat oxen. He comes to be a freeman in a free community, jealous of its honor, of its integrity and of its glory, prepared to make whatever sacrifices, down to the last drop of blood, to preserve every one of them without stain or blemish.

Democrats who had whole heartedly crossed the line to support the Union and made no claims of defeat were attacked verbally and in print by other party members. In rebuttal, a piece of an address given by the Union Democracy War Party of Indiana was reprinted under "Country, Not Party":

Reproachful names have no terrors while the broad banner of our republic, the emblem of civil liberty, is over us, and we hold up its standard. We stand by our government, seeking no favors from it and pledging no support for individuals in it and we will uphold it a the chosen type of our country and freedom during this attempt to destroy it. Our duty is to "our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country". If that country falls, we ask no shield from its fate.

In another tract, they printed rebuttals to articles in foreign papers as well as re-printing foreign articles that supported the Union. In this tract, was a short essay called "The Limits of Patriotic Criticism" on the difference between loyal criticism of the government and declamations of enemies within.

The criticism of one who is friendly to the Government, and who is anxious that it shall succeed and be preserved, and who points out its errors that they may be corrected, is wholly different from the denunciation which seeks to bring the Government into contempt and render it odious to the people, thereby withdrawing from it its life, when struggling in battle with a powerful enemy.

Many of these self organized citizens groups, publications and their topics would sound very familiar to milbloggers today. The tools of the free press and the names of the organizations may have changed, but the sentiments have remained the same: to support the country in a time of war, rebutting claims by opponents, refuting false claims of intended casualties or recruiting practices, addressing issues with the government and war strategy with "patriotic criticism". Even including discussions about religion in public life and the government.

The article, "Outside", Oct 1863, discusses a movement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to have an amendment added to the Constitution acknowledging the United States as a Christian nation. The Loyal Publication Society replied:

We find the above in many of our exchanges, and the movement is regarded as one very worthy and proper. We would suggest that the best way for us, as a nation, to recognize and acknowledge God and his Sovereignty, would be in conforming our national action and character to those eternal principles of Justice, Freedom and Humanity. Until we do this, any outward and formal acknowledgment would be a pretense, and would not "clearly show that we are a Christian people."

Some people considered Francis Lieber to be a "fanatic" for his unwavering support of the Union and President Lincoln, even in the face of acts that continue to be challenged as unconstitutional. He wrote an essay that appeared in a Loyal Publications Society pamphlet on Presidential Powers During War Time that was rebutted by an opposition group that had formed to protest Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus and various acts of arrest and court martial by military authorities.

The Loyal Publication Society continued throughout the war and sometime after. Several Union League organizations existed for several decades after the war, promoting civic duty and becoming active in politics. The Philadelphia Union League is one of the few that still exist today.

In times of war, it has not been unusual for citizens to band together, either through established government organizations or through volunteer citizen groups, in order to sustain morale among themselves, promote patriotism among other citizens and provide assistance to the soldiers. It has been true since time immemorial. It's been true in this country during every war. What seems to change is not the need or the desire, but simply the means by which communication and organization are reached.

The internet has allowed ad hoc groups and individual citizens to organize across thousands of miles, sharing ideas within light seconds and self publishing to hundreds and thousands of readers at such a reduced cost as to make citizen publishing what the founders of this nation could only dream about.

While many milbloggers and their supporters did not necessarily start out as "war-bloggers", the need to support fellow soldiers, family, friends and like minded citizens became an imperative. What started out as individuals seeking their own voices became a real effort to support the troops, support the war effort and support the country. Milbloggers stand on the shoulders of such men as Francis Lieber and the Loyal Publication Society who showed the power of citizen volunteers in information warfare and maintaining national morale in a long war.

Other documents of the Loyal Publication Society:

New York Times Ad for Purchase of Publication Pamphlets, 1864
New England Loyal Publication Society Broadsides, scanned images
McClellen or Lincoln? An appeal to German Americans to support Lincoln's re-election.
Loyal Publication Society, #28: Death of Slavery
Biography of Francis Lieber

� Secure this line!

A case could be made that the huge hole in the Union's psyche was caused less by the failure of Lincoln's strategic communications campaign and more by the realization that violently coercing previously sovereign States to remain in a Union that no longer enjoyed the consent of the governed pretty much upset the whole apple cart.

I wondered who was going to be first with that slant... my money was on Jim C.

you know, every time someone brings up that whole "states' rights" thing, they always fail to mention the word "slavery".

Next time some state wants to challenge a power of the federal government, you might want to make sure you have the right cause.

The actual ability of states to challenge the power of the Federal government was decided by force of arms. The vanquished still debate the righteousness of their conquerors. Now it no longer matters how right the state might be in any disagreement with the Federal Power.

Did any Abolitionist strategic communicators explain why they didn't just buy slaves and free them up north?

Interesting point, there, #4, given that the government had forbidden the importation of new slaves at that point. Good premise for an alternative history piece.

Since I've not mentioned it of late, and we have new eyes visiting the Castle this week - I believe the correct side won the Civil War. But, that like all wars, for good purposes or ill, it took on a life of it's own, independent of the original cause, and there were a lot of unintended consequences, some good, many bad.

I also note, that absent the issue of slavery, the Federal government's stated policy on issues like this in the modern era would seem to indicate that the Federal government could not resort to arms to hold on to separatist areas.

Especially if there were to be an ethnic slant to things.

Something to keep in mind, when pondering the Aztlan and La Raza movements, and the predilection for the elites in society to currently promote ethnic balkanizing over cultural assimilation.

Which doesn't mean you have to become white, christian, and, oh, protestant - simply that you become *American* donating the good about where you came from to the general welfare, and leaving behind that bad - especially the bad that created the conditions that you strove to escape.

I would note that also applies to Northeasterners and Californians who come to heartland to escape the over-priced, over-regulated, and over-crowded Blue paradises to come wreck our property values by overpaying for land and housing... (though not so much of late, eh?) and then promptly agitating our legislators to introduce all those policies (the concept of which you find comforting, the reality of which you are fleeing) that created the conditions you fled here from...

Come here, be a Kansan, don't make this place into San Francisco... because if SF is so great... why'd ya leave?

And I say that as a guy who likes San Francisco as a concept, and a place to visit... but you (literally) couldn't pay me to live there.

Well, you must have been confused on two subjects:

1) the Abolitionists in Congress had proposed a bill to give reparations for the "cost" of each slave freed, but that was blocked, both by the slavers and by those who were too frugal with government money in the face of a long, deadly and expensive war.

2) Don't you think its a little egregious to talk about having to "buy" slaves to set them free? We are talking about human beings here, not a horse or some inanimate piece of property. Not to mention, that would never have ended the institution of slavery, but simply supported it my another means while the slave holders found another way to expand or maintain that horrid device.

3) I'm always interested in those who lament the "use of arms" to settle states rights as if something else was going to happen after the rebels opened fire on Ft. Sumter. Not to mention that whole 10 years or so before that when the various citizen factions raided each other and killed each other. War was already here. The issue was already being contested by arms.

Like I said, though, you can't divorce the issue from slavery.

But, interesting, Cannoneer, I thought maybe you would find the history of a "citizens" organization combining to fight off enemy propaganda. I never thought we'd end up talking about states' rights and slavery over that subject.

*whew* I thought Kat was going to get into a "Bleeding Kansas" mode there for a moment...

Some people were valuable property in 1860, kat. Some people still are. That's egregrious.

Judging people of 1860 by the standards of 2008 makes it difficult to attribute their unwillingness to surrender their property and impoverish themselves for the cause of freedom to anything other than selfishness, wickedness, or whatever meaness one wishes to accuse them of. They're dead, and whoever dares defend them is politically incorrect and vulnerable to charges of racism.

So, the essence of Lincoln's strategic communications campaign is that slavery was so egregregious as to justify everything he did to end it, and anybody who thinks otherwise is bad, and people with unwelcome questions should just shut up.

kat, you ass u med that I considered the Confederacy the enemy.

that was "enemy" in general, not regards to the confederacy. as in a people struggling in war and organizing to win it. just a thought and a lesson.

What you assume is that there is some other argument that was being made and you made it.

Let me quote some of Lincoln's debates with Douglas:

There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally you will screw yourself up to the belief that if the people of the slave States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You would be in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right place, and you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system in Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the system of gradual emancipation which you pretend you would be glad to see succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a hard fight they were beaten, and when the news came over here you threw up your hats and hurraed for Democracy.

Sorry, but evil is evil and people on one side had every intent to end it and people on the other side had every intent on keeping it. But, again, people want to pretend that there was something more noble in defending states rights than the question of slavery. Pardon if I disagree.

continuing from Lincoln:

It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right and wrong-throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.

That would be the seventh debate.

In 1845, Robert Matson brought five of his slaves, Jane Bryant and her four children, into Illinois--a free state--to plant and harvest crops. In 1847, he planned to take these slaves back to Kentucky, a slave state. The slaves, believing they were free because they were in a free state, sought refuge with Hiram Rutherford and Gideon Ashmore. But in Matson v. Bryant et al., they were declared runaways and carted off to the local jail, eventually to be sold to the highest bidder.

Ashmore sued to free Bryant and her children. Matson hired Lincoln, who argued in court that slave owners could use their slaves for labor in Illinois as long as the slaves were in transit.

American political history since the founding has been divided into two great camps – the Hamiltonians (beginning with Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and on to Lincoln) who favor a highly centralized state; and the Jeffersonians (beginning with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, John Randolph, and Andrew Jackson) who espouse a limited, decentralized, constitutional government constrained by state sovereignty. One camp sought to have a Republic that respects and protects individual liberty and property; the other, to establish an Empire where the ends justify the means and the individual is subservient to the state. The American Civil War was a pivotal event for these opposing views of government. Abraham Lincoln prevailed and set the stage for the United States to become an American Empire. We, in 2002, are living with the results – -- Donald W. Miller, Jr.

I do not believe either of us is going to end up agreeing with the other on this, kat. There are 144-year old ruins along the path of Sherman's Bummers that speak to me as eloquently as Bleeding Kansas speaks to you.

Hmm...am I supposed to suddenly believe that Lincoln's ruminations on slavery and its evils is now moot because he argued in reference to an existing law in the constitution that allowed the man to go back to Kentucky with this odious "property" while not institutionalize slavery as a permanent part of Illinois?

If anything, it proves that he had no original intent to use the government to force the issue and it was all an excuse by the rebels to secede, take power and spread their terrible economic practice of using slave labor.

Evil is as evil does. Couch it as "states' rights" all you want. Still evil.

Folks, having had to live in Southern FL for about half of my life, and had my ears reamed by the corkscrews of the Michigan accents and my sensibilities offended by the arrogant attitudes of the Northeastern funny people,
I damn' betcha that all four of my great-grandfathers joined up to fight against the USA not for any love of slavery, nor from political theories, but as an opportunity to Kill Yankees!

My Dad's, the smarmy Methodist side, may have tried to believe some moral justification for it, but I betcha my Mom's side, the one with all the Marines, did it for the lulz! (at least, at first)

P.s. This is why the presence of Irishmen in the world tends to make wars bloodier: Any real Irishman will at least entertain the idea of a fight being lulzy, so most significant fights for a long time have had significant Irish participation on both sides, e.g., the American War Between The States.

Now, as a _Scots_-Irish person, I think thats just crazy. Refrain from violence alla time, until it just drives you nuts, and it's hot lithium deuteride, baby!

My mom was not born yet. There was a seventeen year difference in their age. Uncle Donald said that the day had started like any other day. He, his mother and father got up, got dressed and went to church. They had no idea what had happened. At church, he said it seemed normal. No one spoke or acted as if they knew about the attacks. Most probably didn't.

They drove home and, as they always did, his dad read the Sunday paper while his mom fixed lunch. Every meal was served in the dining room. His mom had three sets of china. The special china she received as a wedding gift that was used for special occasions. The second best china for Sunday dinner and the every day dishes for the family. As always, his mom put out the "second best" china and placed the food on the table before calling them to wash up and come to the table. Lunch was baked ham, carrots and mashed potatoes. His mom had gotten up early to put it in the oven and make fresh bread rolls.

After the food was served, his father led them in a little prayer. His mom got up and went to the side table to turn on the radio for some music while they ate. Instead of music, a reporter was giving the news. The reporter said something terrible had happened and they were waiting for further reports. His mother turned the station, continuing to look for music. Instead, all she found was the news.

Just as she was about to turn off the radio, a reporter repeated the news: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Terrible devastation. Number of casualties unknown. Estimated in the thousands.

Uncle Donald said that no one spoke. After listening to the radio for a few minutes, his father left the table and went to the garage. His mom told him to finish eating and started clearing the table. She turned off the radio.

An hour or so later, my grandfather returned from the garage and hung the American flag they usually put up for Independence Day from the front porch. No one spoke about the news. Uncle Donald said that it seemed like the entire street was abandoned.

Ohio Gov. Bricker and family listen to the news of the war in Europe, 1941

That night, as Uncle Donald laid in bed, he heard his parents in the front room. They were listening to the radio. The music was interspersed with patriotic songs and news reports. His parents spoke quietly. He could only make out a few of the words. One of those words was "war".

While this story is not as exciting as the stories from survivors of the attack, it is part of the story of the "Day that will live in infamy." It's an American story that probably happened all over the country. This is how the people heard that America was attacked. This is how they knew we were at war.

� Secure this line!

[If the comment that used to reside in the section had been in the H&I, I'd have left it up, because it was mostly self-parody. But this isn't that kind of post, so I elided the off-topic drivel. -the Armorer]

Heh. Gotta love comment editing functions around here. Tools belong in the shed, not in the comments section of a fantastic milblog.

Kat, this is a great story. These events, whether the individuals who remember them participated in them directly or not, shaped how that generation lived the rest of their lives. It's important to remember their experiences as well, because it's not just the Pearl Harbour veterans who won the war, it was the rest of their countrymen who learned of the event this way, and then braced themselves and advanced to 1945.

Heh. Armorer, I kind of thought that it was a bit "off" with all the "happy" part. Hoped it wasn't just me. LOL

Damien. It is very true. My uncle was a boy scout. the end part of this story is that he went on to collect scrap iron, old pots and pans, tires, nylons etc from the neighborhood folks and also sold war bonds. he received a certificate in January 1945 for selling the most war bonds in his region.

It went on to inspire him to join the army in 1948, even though the war was technically "over". he was part of the army of occupation in Germany for a little over two years before serving in Korea. My Uncle spoke German.

the back part of this story: his father was a German immigrant who spoke with a heavy german accent his entire life. They lived in a "German" community where more than half the people still spoke German.

Even in the lead up to the war, my Uncle said my Grandfather was determined that they were "Americans". Of course, his immediate family had been killed or "disappeared" by a paramilitary group in Bavaria shortly after he left in 1921. So, it is no wonder he wanted to disown his heritage.

I may have mentioned it here before, but my grandfather was an "illegal" alien. He stowed away on a boat with one of his cousins to get here. Of course, he later became a naturalized citizen. but it is interesting juxtaposition to modern day thoughts on "aliens".

It's exactly these kinds of everyday, normal American lives' stories that make history so vibrant.

Although my grandparents, mom and dad told me, I haven't asked any of my remaining aunts and uncles what they were doing when they got the news of Pearl Harbor. I know they'll be able to tell me in exquisite detail.

Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for sharing this Kat. I've never asked my Dad his thoughts on that day, which is funny when you think how intently we've discussed the military and history and WWII as a subject. We've never discussed it in a personal way. It never occurred to me because he was just seven years old. I'll have to find out how he felt that day.

It is the difference in time zones that allowed the 'happy morning at church'.

8am in Hawaii is 2pm in New York, 11am in California.

So, it was after lunch that most of America learned of the attack.

They were in California.

My father was in Brazil at the time. My mother passed away and while I heard of her time after the war, when they were stationed in Germany, I never asked her where she was or what she was doing when Pearl Harbor was attacked. I regret that now...thank you for telling your uncle's story.

*Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures.

� Secure this line!

...an Army observer reports the correction, not the error.

Unlike some reps of the MSM, which don't report either one...