For Fathers Day

Once, when I was small, my father taught me something useless. I had seen the old photographs and held the medals in my hand. Purple Heart and Bronze Star. I had been clamoring for stories of what he did in that war. What kind of guns did he shoot? Did he get to use his bayonet? How many Japs did he kill?

But he taught me something useless instead. He taught me how to figure out the firing order for an 18 cylinder aircraft engine. I had a pretty dim understanding of what cylinders did in an engine (I was only seven years old, after all), but I listened and I learned. Somehow I forgot about the war while we talked.

Sometimes he would tell me about his buddies from boot camp – the slim, smiling young men in the old photographs. I especially loved the story of the brawl they started one night in a bar, and how he escaped the Shore Patrol by slipping out through a bathroom window. And his friend who took him for a ride in a Corsair, a single seat fighter. They took out the radio gear to make room for my dad behind the pilot’s seat. The Corsair went into a dive so steep and fast that my father blacked out for a few seconds.

As I grew older my dad did share some of his darker memories with me. It was very different from what I had read in books and seen in movies. I began to catch a glimpse of the pride and terror of combat Marines, how they clung to each other as brothers, facing unimaginable horrors in a violent and pitiless crucible.

He described the queer, queasy feeling he got in the pit of his stomach, diving “ass over teakettle” into war as a tailgunner in a Dauntless Divebomber. And the queer, queasy feeling he got piloting a slow, ungainly Catalina PBY flying boat in a combat zone full of Japanese fighters. And the tight, heavy feeling in his stomach when he returned from a foot patrol near Yontan airfield on Okinawa, with only one other man of the ten who had left with him, and that man wounded and soon to die. He was seventeen when he enlisted. By the time he was nineteen he was a sergeant of Marines, and marked for life.

He was never strident. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t preach. He spoke of awful things in a flat voice and I knew the terrible price that had been paid by men like him in that struggle.

Many stories are told of the bond between father and son. Dramatic stories of courage, sacrifice, and impossible odds overcome by the power of a father’s love. But I think that bond shows its power most often in quiet, mundane ways. Like this:

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That’s the firing order of a World War II vintage 18 cylinder aircraft engine - a bit of useless lore carried for decades as a token of love by the son, a symbol of that enduring bond, and a talisman for me to cling to and celebrate a life that ended years ago.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I remember.

(First posted June 19, 2005)

Hell Freezes Over: MSNBC Dumps on Obi-One's Speech

Queef Obamaman and Chrissy "Tingles" Matthews crap all over Obama's prime time address, even comparing him unfavorably to Jimmy Carter. Watch the astounding video here.

Excerpts:

Olbermann: "Nothing specific at all was said."

Matthews: "No direction."

Howard Fineman: "He wasn't specific enough."

Olbermann: "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

Unfriggingbelievable.

Americans Fed Up With Biased Press

A new Rasmussen survey finds a solid majority of voters are sick and tired of agenda journalism:

Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who are Very Angry.

And most of them believe that Big Media actively sought to get Obama elected:

But voters have consistently said in surveys that they believe the national media has a liberal bias and that most reporters try to help the candidates they want to win. Just before Election Day 2008, 51% said most reporters were trying to help Barack Obama win the presidency. Just seven percent (7%) thought they were trying to help John McCain, while 31% viewed their coverage as unbiased.

A large plurality believes that the mainstream media are carrying water for the Obama adminstration:

Now 48% of voters think most reporters when they write or talk about President Obama are trying to help the president pass his agenda. Only 18% think most reporters are trying to block the president from passing his agenda. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say they are simply interested in reporting the news in an unbiased manner.

Congressman Assaults Student on Street - Updated

Talk about thug politics.

Update: David Weigel, representing the assweasel view at the Washington Post describes Etheridge's actions thus (emphasis added):

The second camera rolled as Etheridge, irritated, held the wrist of the first cameraman, then pulled the student to his side and grabbed him in a hug.

A hug? Yeah, that's the ticket. I remember pissing off the old man and getting a hug like that...just before the belt came off.

6 June, 1944 D-Day

The largest invasion in human history still came down to small groups of men - ultimately to the individuals - making heroic choices that collectively marked a turning point in history. The liberation of France and western Europe exacted a monstrous toll of blood.

The American media of the day could have made the argument that the huge invasion, with its massive casualty list, was a concession to Stalin, who was demanding another front to relieve pressure on the Red Army, advancing on Germany from the east.

Many of the French had collaborated with their Nazi conquerors, even to the point of participating in a puppet government, Vichy France. French had even fought alongside the Nazis in North Africa, scuttling their Mediterranean fleet rather than letting it fall into Allied hands. What point in liberating such a people?

After all, the British wanted to simply continue the Italian campaign and come in through Hitler's back door, seeing the Normandy invasion as perhaps unnecessary.

But the investigative reports and editorials went unwritten and the war was won.