A Powerful Quote

"Anyone can carry his burden, however hard until nightfall; anyone can do his work however hard for one day." Robert Louis Stevenson. (a quote POW James Kasler held dear during 6 years of torture in Hanoi)

Air War – Vietnam by Frank Harvey

I’ve finished reading my 103rd book of the year: 'Air War – Vietnam' by Frank Harvey, a 1967 expose advertised as the story of “What our Airmen are really doing in Vietnam!” and “The headline making eyewitness story of America’s devastating new brand of warfare!”.  

Harvey spent several weeks embedded with Navy and Air Force pilots in 1966, and what emerged is a frank portrait of the air war at the time.  It is frank, in that it discusses the good and the bad, but it is by no means prescient; while more a dove than a hawk, Harvey is a bit awed by the blunt power of our weaponry and overestimates our success. Not the greatest stylist in the world, Harvey still composed an entertaining account that is filled with details of everyday life that would now otherwise be lost to time. 

Grade: B

The Tragedy at Sandy Hook

For a nation at peace – or at least, at peace on its own soil – the elementary school shooting in Newton,

Connecticut is truly a tragedy beyond our comprehension. 26 victims are dead, twenty of them childrenv of only six and seven years of age.

Tragedy? It’s a nightmare.

Here’s another bit of trivia I noticed as I sat down to write this: there’s been so many of these mass murders that we now unconsciously rank them in order of their misery. How many dead? How many wounded? Were they all adults? Was the shooting at a workplace, or at a place of worship?? Was the shooter unknown to them, or someone they feared?

These mass shootings aren’t an epidemic; they’re a damn competition to see who can ratchet up the most attention from the grave.

I don’t know what motivated the killer. I’ve heard plenty of rumors, but I’m old enough to remember the half-truths that emerged post-Columbine, misconceptions that still skew our attempts to understand the horror. Just a few days ago the media publicly labeled the wrong man the Connecticut shooter, so you’ll have to forgive me if I doubt what they scrounge up now. Whatever the eventual consensus is on his motivation, I call foul.

I was bullied, and I know what it feels like to be an outsider, but I can guarantee you the thought of picking up a gun and killing children never occurred to me, or to the millions who share a similar lief story. I do not believe that video games, TV, or bedwetting inspired his actions. Gun ownership isn’t to blame (though let’s get real: no one could walk into that school with a baseball bat or a knife and kill twenty-six people). Maybe his Mom was great, maybe she was awful; either way, plenty of people deal with the repercussions and live a normal life. If he was truly mentally ill, then yes, he needed help, but blaming his illness would be to wrongfully smear the millions of American with mental illness who aren’t murderers.

Go back for a moment to what I said about this being a competition and look at all the attention paid to these shootings. The victims are the focus at first, but soon enough we hyper-focus t the killer and reduce the victims to historical footnotes. In time what remains? I can’t tell you the name of a single Columbine victim, but I can rattle off the duo of ‘Klebold and Harris’ without pause; show me a picture of a victim of the Colorado theater shooting and I’ll draw a blank, but I can ID the killer from any photo lineup. We do the same with everyone with blood on their hands – in time, they become the focus ofour memories and achieve a dubious, sick immortality.

I don’t blame the media. When dozens of people are murdered it is news, and must be reported. I blame you and me, the people who three weeks after the tragedy eagerly scoop up a magazine about it, or years after the fact plop down hard cash for a true-crime book with a lurid title. If it was up to me,the killers would never get their name in print. “We” don’t need to learn from them to prevent future deaths; that’s a job for psychiatrists and law enforcement, and they are welcome to immerse themselves in their biographies if it will do any good.

Take away that promise of fame, that proof that their otherwise worthless life was worth remembering,and I think some – not all, but some – of these future tragedies will be avoided.

Say What?

Whoa! 3x Olympic runner and 7x national champion Suzy Favor Hamilton, a Madison resident, has admitted leading a double life recently as a prostitute. "[I was]drawn to escorting in large part because it provided many coping mechanisms for me when I was going through a very challenging time with my marriage and my life." Uh, ooookay.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Book #102 of 2012: I have finished reading Night by Elie Wiesel, his account of his time as a teenager in a Nazi death camp.  It is terse, shocking, and rumbles along towards a horrible fate at breakneck speed. The pages that involve his relationship with his father were filled with agony, still felt keenly after many decades.  I began to tear up reading it, and was so moved at his loss that I put down the book and texted “I love you Dad” to my own Father (this, in the middle of the night).  A masterwork. Grade: A+

Infantry in Vietnam: Small Unit Actions in the Early Days , 1965-66 edited by LTC Albert N Garland, USA (Ret)

Book #101 of 2012:  I’ve completed reading Infantry in Vietnam: Small Unit Actions in the Early Days , 1965-66 edited by LTC Albert N Garland, USA (Ret), with a foreword by William Westmoreland. It’s an excellent collection of contemporary accounts of platoon and company sized actions during the early years of the war, complete with wonderfully specific details that are largely lost to time. (50 years on, the emphasis is rightly on the broader handling of the war, not, for instance, the subtle agricultural clues that give away the presence of VC in an area).  

As I read the book I picked up on the fact that action after action, the US was learning. They were adapting tactics, technology, and thinking to the odd new war they had inherited, and it’s a fascinating transition to experience - second-hand.  I’m glad I wasn't there to iron out the kinks myself.

One troubling thing I read was a passage on pg. 110. “ . . . Brigadier General Ellis W. Williamson . . . emphasized whenever he could the deliberate and effective use of firepower.  . . [he] advanced the concept of using this firepower in any and all situations where its use might precluded the unnecessary exposure of personnel to hostile fire. He continually urged his subordinate commanders to use firepower first, and to use as much as necessary in lieu of or to precede the actual advance of the troops.”  [emphasis mine]

Jump ahead twenty years to a documentary about the Gulf War, in which Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf referenced his time during the Invasion of Grenada. He mentioned, with disdain, that infantry movement stalled at the slightest hint of enemy contact, with troops calling in air strikes or artillery to eliminate a single sniper. The aggressive, offensive nature of infantry had been curtailed by this holdover mindset from Vietnam, and he made immediate efforts to change that culture. 

During the rest of the book you see evidence of that defensive idea influencing action on the ground. Oh, there was plenty of fighting, and no one, least of all me, is equating that doctrine with cowardice, but from a distance it’s hard not to scream “What are you doing? You are giving the VC the initiative.” Unit action reports end with American units surrounding VC only to sit and wait for air support or daylight, allowing their escape, and one chapter revolves around a unit that expended  an ungodly amount of air, naval and artillery support, all for a single Viet Cong, without ever once attempting to initiate contact themselves. 

This book was the last of three I bought in an Ebay lot earlier this year, and I’m happy to say that was $1.99 well spent. I hope there are other titles in the series detailing the later years of the war. Grade: A+

The School Christmas Concert

Today is the annual Christmas concert, and while Lisa is at the show even as I type, I attended the afternoon rehearsal. Being me, I texted my review of the show as it went on!

1:39 PM: YaYa doing well

1:43 PM 3rd grade doing dance #, no vocals  [not one of our classes]

1:49 PM 4th grade (LuLu's) kinda blah so far

1:51 PM 4th grade 2nd song muuuch better. . . Lu doesn't enjoy the stage like the rest of our kids I think ;)

Lisa's response:  She waaaants to, her fear gets in the way of her being a star - but she wants to shine!

Me:  Ok - MOM! LOL 

1:58 PM Smiley singing proud

2:00 Singing at full joyous volume :)

2:07 PM Ginger on stage. Whatta smile!

2:10 PM - Oops! Ginger one beat ahead on her hand motions!

02:11 PM - [the school's traditional, infamous] Russian Dance!!

2:22 PM  YaYa up on stage again

Anyhow, I know the pictures don't sync with the text, but I'm pretty darn exhausted. It was a pleasure to watch and later I posted this on Facebook:

I spent the afternoon at the rehearsal for tonight's school Christmas concert. Yes, these buggers annoy me often, but when I catch myself grinning ear to ear at one of these things, or getting a big hug from all of 'em afterwards, I know the truth: if nothing else, I was born to be a Daddy.

Merry Christmas from the kids of Team Slap!

Nightmare Alley

A great movie (his best?) by my favorite actor, Tyrone Power. 

Robert Bork

RIP Judge Robert Bork, woulda/coulda/shoulda been Supreme Court Justice

The American Experience: My Lai

This morning I watched "The American Experience: My Lai", with some trepidation. I was expecting to be hit over the head for an hour with more opinion than content . Instead, the documentary let the facts of March 16, 1968 speak for themselves; it was a wise move, as it was more than enough to cement the fact that the murder of 500+ women and children was an inexcusable war crime. 

Of note were the interviews with the men of Charlie company, and the myriad personalities that are on display even 40 years removed from My Lai: the meek follower, the strident soldier, the guy that just wanted to go home, the creepy rationalist. This should be required viewing. Grade: A+ (and as always, a tip of the hat to Hugh Thompson for his actions that day)