National Day of Thanksgiving... And Ten Years of Marriage

I suppose it is quite fitting that the occasion of my tenth wedding anniversary would coincide with Thanksgiving Day.  As I realized that just a week ago, I ruminated on how significant and appropriate it was on so many levels.  Also, not by coincidence, I am taking a course on Civil War history.  So as I contemplated the history of the Civil War and the history of the National Day of Thanksgiving, I found the parallels between my marriage and this day’s history to be striking and apropos.

Thanksgiving as a national observance started in 1863 when President Lincoln issued a declaration ordering the last Thursday in November to be a National Day of Thanksgiving.  1863 had seen significant Union war progress and was viewed as a strategic turning point for the Federal effort in the traumatizing American Civil War.  After the disasters of two routing defeats at Manassas Junction, a humiliating retreat from the Virginia Peninsula, and further leadership failures at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the Federal cause in the early Spring of 1863 seemed doomed.  But the dramatic turns of events of July 1863 in the decisive victory at Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg gave hope to the Union cause.  Within this historic backdrop, Lincoln issued his declaration, giving thanks to God for His love and mercies bestowed upon the nation.

Similarly, in my life, I have had countless failures in my marriage.  At so many times in the past ten years, nothing but God’s kind providence and gracious love to me has kept my marriage together.  In the past three years, He has seen fit to demonstrate that my wife’s and my bonds of commitment to each other are unbreakable… bendable, and subject to remaining sin, but unbreakable.  In this context, I view our past ten years from the perspective of November 1863, and indeed give thanks for God’s mercy upon us.

Of course, the year 1864 offers other parallels in my metaphor.  1864 has been remembered as the year that saw Lincoln’s reelection, essentially sealing the fate of the Confederacy from a standpoint of political willpower.  It saw the triumph of Sherman in Atlanta.  But 1864 was also the year in which the Union suffered their most casualties due to the dogged, stubborn, persistent attacks by Grant’s Army in the eastern theater of action.  It saw the confused, fiery, terrifying combat in the Wilderness.  It saw the whole-sale slaughter of Spotsylvania Courthouse.  It saw the Fredericksburg-like disaster at Cold Harbor.  It saw the depressing trench-warfare siege of Petersburg.  Yet, despite these trials, Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by these Union soldiers on the last day of November 1864.  The civilians of the North, grateful for the tremendous cost and sacrifice poured out by their boys in blue, generously provided the entrenched units at Petersburg with a trueThanksgiving feast… incidentally exposing many to northeast staples like roast turkey and cranberries for the first time.  Thanksgiving was given to God for His aid and succor throughout that difficult year.

As I celebrate my ten years of marriage on this first Day of National Thanksgiving that coincides with said wedding anniversary, I consider the metaphor of the future years of 1864 in my wife’s and my life together.  We will doubtless encounter our own Wilderness… beset by enemies and terrors unseen.  We will certainly feel lost and hopeless in the tangle of those thickets and may entertain tempting thoughts that God has abandoned us.  We will doubtless encounter terror and fear, facing difficult, heavy entrenchments at our own “Bloody Angles”, having to dutifully fulfill Biblical orders to take the position despite how much it costs us.  We will doubtless face complete defeats when we, in our own arrogance and self-confidence, charge towards objectives without the assistance of God and be severely defeated in our own Cold Harbors.  We will most assuredly encounter objectives too difficult to take on our own and be forced to besiege our own Petersburgs, dependent upon the assistance of Almighty God for victory… which may not come for months or years.  And lastly, we will doubtless encounter the grace and mercies of the benevolence of our brothers and sisters in Christ who will provide the mentorship, counsel, and provisions that will strengthen our marriage and our resolve to see the struggle to our own Appomattox.

My Schatz (German for “treasure”), I love you more than ever before in these previous ten years.  Most of them have been difficult, and most secular counselors would have counted us as loss on more than one occasion.  Yet your love and commitment to me has only gown and strengthened our love.  Your ability to forgive has been a mirror of God’s unconditional love in forgiving me.  I find strength to face my own besetting sins in that I know I don’t have to do anything to earn your love… but I do it because I love you.  Love is an action… and not an emotion.  I pray for you and our children daily and I thank God every day… not just today… for His giving you to me, and me to you.

Not Un-Common Courage from Two Marines Who Paid the Ultimate Price

Saw this in an email forward and had to share.  (Hat-tip to the great mil-blog Blackfive where I found it linked).

If you have five minutes to spare, read it.  It’s very moving.  What made such an impact upon me is not simply the bravery of these two men, but how utterly common it is across the broad spectrum of our fighting men and women.  This utter, borderline mindless devotion to training is testimony to the professionalism of our Armed Forces, the value of their training, and the nature of those it attracts to the service.  I find it not so much unusual.  Most combat veterans would have done the same thing.  This is not to take away from their sacrifice… it does not need me to speak for it… but it shows how our Soldiers and Marines act when faced with these circumstances.

“On Nov 13, 2010 Lt General John Kelly, USMC, gave a speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, MO. This was only 4 days after his son, Lt Robert Kelly, USMC was killed by an IED while on his 3rd Combat tour. During his speech, General Kelly spoke about the dedication and valor of the young men and women who step forward each and every day to protect us. During the speech, he never mentioned the loss of his own son. He closed the speech with the moving account of the last 6 seconds in the lives of 2 young Marines who died with rifles blazing to protect their brother Marines.  If you've been reading Blackfive long enough, you know exactly who we're talking about:”

"I will leave you with a story about the kind of people they are about the quality of the steel in their backs, about the kind of dedication they bring to our country while they serve in uniform and forever after as veterans.

Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour. Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like:

"Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, Al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way-perhaps 60-70 yards in length-and sped its way through the serpentine f concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event-just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured.some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life." "What he didn't know until then," he said, "and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal." Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did." "No sane man."

"They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: ".let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." The two Marines had about five seconds left to live.

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were-some running right past the Marines.

They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons firing non-stop.the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the SOB who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers-American and Iraqi-bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe, because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber. The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.

Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty, into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight-for you.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow to man while he lived on this earth-freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious-our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines-to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away. It has been my distinct honor to have been with you here today. Rest assured our America, this experiment in democracy started over two centuries ago, will forever remain the "land of the free and home of the brave" so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down, and kill, those who would do us harm.

God Bless America, and..

SEMPER FIDELIS!"

"Why I Quit" - Air Force Officer Makes His Final Remarks Upon Retirement

An Air Force officer with 22 years on active duty recently retired and just gave his reasons for it in an editorial to a Montana newspaper.  Here are some excerpts:

“You’ve elected officials who, for partisan points, spoke openly that the “…war is lost.” I happened to be in a dining facility in Baghdad that day, filled with the (mostly) young faces of (mostly) Army men and women. CNN was on the TVs, and things got very quiet when this elected official continued on, railing that the mission that some of these very people were here to do, had “…failed.” Yet, they would be donning their body armor, strapping on med kits and weapons, mounting HMMVs or MRAPs and heading outside the wire, ensuring that the newborn democracy in Iraq, purchased with so many lives, would be safe another night. The newly re-invigorated insurgents would be waiting, teeth bared back in a hateful smile, gripping the IED detonator, the RPG launcher, or the AK-47s to ply their trade with new energy, because the Senate Majority Leader had said they were winning.”

He goes on:

“You elect officials who openly embrace illegal activity; but they don’t have to live with the consequences. Other Americans pay the price. You support “sanctuary cities” and open defiance of federal law, including supporting administrations who sue our sister states as they desperately try to control a crime epidemic by supporting federal law. You support an administration that leads a party that gives a standing ovation to the leader of a country that exploits our kindness and actively encourages law-breaking in our country while insulting our fellow citizens who dare to try to enforce the law.”

More:

"Your party insists that to provide a photo ID — proving you are who you say you are — is not only too much of a burden to ask a voter to bear, but it’s racist as well. This not only terribly insulting to all races, but when the burden of proof to rent the DVD “Second Hand Lions” (amazing movie!) is higher than that required to vote for someone who has control of nuclear weapons or deploying men and women into harm’s way, there is something wrong."

Read the whole thing.  It’s worth it.  Thanks for your service Maj Banzet.  You’ve earned your retirement pay.  I can’t wait until I can do the same thing and not risk punishment.  Hat-tip to Warner Todd Huston at RightWingNews.com for the link.

Tomorrow - Be the Miracle

Almost thirty-one years ago, a group of amateur college hockey players out-played, out-skated, out-hustled, and out-hearted a group of professional, full-time hockey superstars, whose record at the time was 27-1-1 and had outscored their opponents 175-44.  I am referring of course to the Miracle on Ice, the 1980 Winter Olympic Games, Ice Hockey event.  This victory did not come from waking up one morning, going to the rink, lacing up their skates, and taking the ice.  If you’ve ever watched the movie Miracle, you know what kind of work those kids put into it.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow an event will take place under similar circumstances.  A small number of American patriots who have been disgruntled with the current state of the Union have decided to run for office.  They have been propelled by true grassroots disgust at the disgrace that this administration and these past two congresses have been.  They are rank amateurs.  They are combat veterans, they are doctors, they are small-business owners, they are grandmothers, they are divorcees, they have had problems with the IRS, they are you, they are me.  They take on the professional American political class.

Tomorrow.

Like the hockey team, our elitist media has written us off as incompetent, irrelevant, racist, religious radicals, and the like.  The very political party that best reflect our views has even actively operated against these candidates.  And, like that winter of 1980, we, the Americans propelling this movement have put in long, hard hours of training.  We have gone to town-hall meetings, we have written letters to our congress-critters and newspapers, we have gone door to door, we have called our friends and families, we have gotten on our knees and prayed for God’s blessings and intervention, we have toiled.  And we have been mocked.

Tomorrow.

Today, like in 1980, the wizards of smart claim folks like Christine O’Donnel, Meg Whitman, Sharon Angle, Carly Fiorina, Linda McMahon, John Raese, Sean Bielat, Chip Cravaack, Alan West, Charlie Djou, Joe DioGuardi, and Carl Palantino cannot win.  But they can.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we take the ice.  Not just our candidates, we do.  This election is not about Sean Bielat vs. Barney Frank.  It’s about Barney Frank vs. the 4^th District of Massachusetts.  It’s not about Christine O’Donnel vs. Chris Coons.  It’s about Chris Coons vs. the State of Delaware.  We and our candidates cannot win if we do not play.  We have to be mentally focused and prepared.  We have to visualize our attack.  We have to follow-through on our checks.  We have to communicate with our wings.  We have to hustle on the back-check.  We have to fight for every loose puck in the corners.

Tomorrow.

The Real Herb Brooks

Tomorrow, get out the vote.  Call your friends and your neighbors.  Be on the alert for vote fraud.  Do not be discouraged or trust the media in any way.  And, most importantly… VOTE.  Be the Miracle this 2nd of November.

"Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight. One game. If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can! Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em. This is your time. Now go out there and take it."

-Herb Brooks, Miracle

Images and Emotions in Normandy (Part 1 of 2)

I have always been a devourer of World War II history.  I still remember the eerie feeling I had as I drove in a taxi over the Rhine into Mainz back when I was a PFC, the very first night I arrived in Germany in 2001.  To think of the thousands of kids just like me who died 56 years before trying to do what I had just accomplished at the cost of 30 Marks was humbling.  Of course, to this history buff, majoring in the European Theater of Operations with a concentration in the Western Front 1944-1945, the beaches of Normandy, France was my Mecca and I was to perform my hajj while assigned to Germany.  Then, came September 11.  My ambitions to tread the same sand as those brave boys did on June 6, 1944 were suddenly, and violently thrown aside by my own generation’s call to battle.

wind-swept flag before dawn; Easy Green Sector - Omaha Beach; Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, France

This past month … nine years, several assignments, a tour in Iraq, a wife, and two kids later … I found myself stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, wondering what to do with three days use-or-lose leave.  My wife suggested I take the opportunity to finally perform my pilgrimage.  I picked up my Audi A6 (a sweet gratis upgrade from Enterprise) and took off down the A8 on a beautiful Thursday, September 16^th toward Karlsruhe.  As I meandered throughout the hills of Eastern France, I was assaulted by history.  I passed by signs identifying the Maginot Line, and shook my head in sad reflection on Patton’s folly at Metz.  As I drove on, I thought of how the average American views the average Frenchman.  Silly jokes about cowardice come quickly to mind.  But then I crossed the Meuse next to the city of Verdun.  The spookiness of that place cannot be underestimated.  It gave me a different understanding of the quick French capitulation in 1940.  I think the loss of an entire generation of French boys (around 4.3% of the total population was killed in the Great War) made the politicians somewhat reticent to throw the next generation once again into the breach.  Finally, eight hours after my journey’s start, I pulled into my hotel in Caen, a busy town at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, and gateway to the history of 1940s Normandy.

dog green; Dog Green Sector - Omaha Beach; Vierville-sur-Mer, France

As I was due back home by Saturday night, I could only afford one full day of battlefield tourist in le Département du Calvados.  Thus I had to prioritize my time.  I arrived on a cold and windy, dark and deserted Omaha Beach at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer 45 minutes before sunrise on September 17, 2010; 66 years and 103 days since that Day of Days.  I spent several minutes setting up dramatic night-sky photos of the monument, memorial, and the flags representative of the nations involved in French liberation.  As the sun began to creep up to the horizon, that pre-dawn light eerily illuminated the bluffs to the West.  I sauntered across the cold, hard-pack sand, avoiding the numerous areas of sea water cut off from the rest of the ocean, caused by the types of sandbars that must have made life very difficult for those coxswains on the LCVPs.  I walked west from Dog Red Sector, across Dog White, and finally to Dog Green at the town of Vierville-sur-Mer.  Anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan knows more or less what happened at Dog Green Sector.  It was here that A Company, 116^th Infantry Regiment, 29^th Infantry Division from V Corps came ashore.  Their mission was to take Dog One exit, the road in the draw through the bluffs connecting Vierville to the Normandy inland.  Their company landed unsupported as their armor support largely foundered in the Channel, and their left flanking units were dropped hundreds of yards east of where they were supposed to be.  A/116^th alone suffered 120 casualties on Dog Green.  As I stood there, even at near high-tide, the thought of trying to scramble up to the shingle, soaking wet, overloaded, sea-sick, and under constant, accurate MG-42 machine gun and 88mm artillery fire made my stomach ill.

low tide; Dog Green Sector - Omaha Beach; Vierville-sur-Mer, France

It’s a testament to the bravery and leadership skills of those men, who managed to save a plan that was falling apart, improvise, adapt to conditions, and find alternate routes to their objectives.  As the day wore on, openings were made in lighter defended areas straight up the bluffs and by day’s end, the towns at the base of the beach exits lay in US hands.