Wow. I've effected change. With just two polite but pointed comments I've caused someone to shut off comments on her weblog.

It began when Jack Army pointed out a clueless and somewhat vitriolic weblog post and wrote of how erroneous the writer's assumptions are. I think that in her mind facts are of little use in her campaign of hatred against the administration, but more on that later.

The original post was written by this airhead. Essentially, she attacks the "No Child Left Behind" act by claiming that military recruiters prey on the stupid and disadvantaged. She responded to Jack Army's reply by stating that providing the names and phone numbers of students (by school district officials) to recruiters is "reprehensible". I posted a comment asking her what was "reprehensible" about offering students, particularly the disadvantaged ones, a choice that could amount to a career or at least a leg up in life.

If you look at the list of posts in her weblog you'll be struck by a common theme in the titles (besides the astrology nonsense): Her hatred of the president and his administration. I responded to a post in which she states to the effect that Vice President Cheney will be meeting with a Saudi official and concludes it as follows:

There is a lunar full moon eclipse in Scorpio right now...wonder when we will learn the details of the corupt secret deals made in this covert meeting? We may well know by May 24.

Oh, and it's "corrupt".

My response was that given that her website is called "Healing Universe" and she seems consumed with hatred, maybe she needs to look to her own soul first.

Neither of my comments were profane or mean in spirit. Mean to her, maybe, as I suggest that she has her own issues to deal with (oh, and I did suggest that if a recruiter calls she should simply say "No, thank you" and get on with her holier-than-thou life...), but neither post should make someone run and hide unless they fear themselves intellectually incapable of intelligent discourse.

The response was dramatic. She left Jack Army's comment in place, perhaps smugly feeling that she'd put him in his place (not likely, read Jack's comment and her reply and you can see that intellectual advantage is his). She deleted both of my comments and then disabled comments from all except "team members".

Now Bill Clinton, who I am certain is one of her heroes, called the type of things she posts "The politics of personal destruction". I guess it only counts when it comes from the right.

I also guess she fears debate. Too bad. It would be fascinating to discuss back and forth with her and maybe gain some insights into her twisted and hateful mind. Most likely, she's just not intellectually equipped for discussion and debate. She allegedly possesses college degrees, but matriculating at Hogwarts' US campus is dubious credentials at best.

So, with two pointed replies--one pointed out errors in her logic and the other holding up a mirror to her--I've caused the turtle to withdraw into her shell. Never meant to do it, but I find it amusing nonetheless. Another moron responds to questioning by withdrawing into her shell and maintaining her own holier-than-thou bull by ignoring differing opinion.

A very busy day and tonight there will be two eight-year old girls dashing and giggling about the house.

So, a quick post with a look at some disturbing imagery. Given the name of the product, I wonder what the tiger is preparing to do with that thumb...



Schovit

Jack Army weighs in with some of his Ft. Devens memories.

As Jack Army mentions, the ranges at Devens were pretty much for the taking. Devens was mostly a training post for intel students. As I recall, the only permanent party units were us (10th Group), the 39th Engineers, a transportation battalion (about which more, perhaps, in a later post) and the garrison troops--the clerks and MPs who kept the post running. We could actually jump in our POVs (privately owned vehicles--in other words, your car) on weekends with our own firearms, sign in at the range control shack and go to a range to shoot. Bring your own targets, of course.

I know the lake that Jack Army speaks of. In fact, while I was at Devens two children ventured onto the lake in the winter and fell through the ice. You can guess the outcome. I think everyone on post was affected. Wish I could remember the name of the lake. In better times we had a big barbecue there and some guys from the post skydiving club jumped into the lake.

Speaking of lakes, there was apparently a lake in nearby Shirley that was used for water jumps. I think it may have been called Lake Shirley. Anyway, never got to jump there. And I do love water jumps. All the thrills of parachuting without that pesky Delta V at the end.

10th Group may well be the only unit in the Army that goes cross country skiing for winter PT. We'd run for a while as winter set in, then go to the skis. At that time we had skis made by a company called Raemer. They were touring skis, which is a hybrid cross country/downhill design. Lock the heel down for downhill, unlock it for XC. If you fell, rather than the binding releasing your boot, the binding would part ways with the ski. It wasn't a good system and a lot of guys wrecked their knees on them. I have the name of the boots we used on the tip of my tongue, but can't quite come up with it. They were heavy leather boots that would freeze in minutes unless you invited them into your sleeping bag with you, and everyone wants to spend the night with a giant soggy leather boot in their fart sack, right? I still have touring skis and use them, but they're Elan skis with Marker bindings.

We had PT uniforms when the rest of the Army was still doing PT in fatigue pants and T-shirts. Lime green sweats for winter and lime green nylon shorts with 10th Group T-shirt for summer. I've only recently heard the expression "going commando" as code for going sans underwear. Well, it's well founded as many of us commandos did, indeed, venture forth sans underwear. It only takes a few minutes of humping a 110 lb. rucksack in 90 degree weather before underwear begins threatening to saw your genitals off. But the flip side apparently manifested itself as winter set in. I never knew of this first hand, but allegedy some guys got frostbite on the end of their manhood as they ran "commando" in the nylon shorts.

I'd have to go back there and look around to get my bearings, but we didn't ski the golf course for winter PT. 2nd Battalion always skiied there. We headed into a wooded area, and I remember that we once came across a set of ski tracks that ended at a tree. It was classic. I suspect someone did it as a setup, but they did a good job of it.

Wachusetts Mountain was an ok ski place, as Jack Army mentions. We didn't have passes there, but often went there as it was close. I also remember testing a new radio ala the tv commercial "can you hear me now?" and ending up on top of Wachusetts Mountain mostly because we wanted to drive to the top of the mountain and see the view.

New England has some interesting laws re. production of electricity. It is literally a cottage industry there. If you produce any amount of electricity via a windmill, waterwheel, whatever-the power company is obliged to purchase if from you. There were some windmills on top of Wachusetts Mountain whch served to produce some amount of electricity, but they also julienned a lot of birds. I guess nothing is without tradeoffs...

Ft. Devens also served as a POW camp during WWII. The old cantonment area was still there when I was at Devens. Again, I'd have to reorient myself, but I can tell those who might know that it was the red buildings where one goes for the DA photo. Of course, some number of POWs died while confined there, so there are POWs interred in the small post cemetary (which was right at the end of our battalion street). A delegation of German soldiers used to hold an annual ceremany there. Presumably they still do so.

No Thanks...




Cola

What encouragement. I made Lisa smile. Sounds like a little thing, but I like that. I'll try and keep posting now and I'll endeavor to be as interesting and smile-inducing as I can be. No matter how much it hurts...

Picked up some blog hints from Mudville Gazette and put them in place. I learned a bit about tracking visitors and the first thing I see is that someone from Baltimore County Schools looked at this blog. Assuming that reading this didn't put you off of reading blogs for the remainder of your life, greetings from the next county (the very red one) to your west.

And Lilly reports that she bungie jumped, but wouldn't consider jumping with a parachute (or, apparently, doing another bungie jump). Funny, I don't mind parachutes so much, but have never seriously considered bungie jumping. Considering that she was able to bungie jump even once, I suspect Lilly has a bigger pair than I do...

And now I'm off to do a bit more reminiscing about Ft. Devens. And trust me, the Wagon Wheel will figure prominantly...

Ft. Devens Memories--Part I

I’ve had Ft. Devens on my mind lately. Jack Army and SFAlphageek are two bloggers who, like me, are Army Special Forces. While they are still serving, I’m a civilian, having grown long in the tooth and short on functional body parts. But the bond is a powerful one. As it turns out, all three of us have spent time at Ft. Devens.

With that on my mind I was talking with a woman while chaperoning a class trip and she mentioned that her husband had been activated. That led to conversation and damned if they hadn’t been stationed at Ft. Devens as well. He’s an engineer officer and was a company commander in the 39th Engineer Battalion, which occupied the barracks next to ours.

Ft. Devens (now Devens Business Park) was a good place to be stationed. As Army posts go it was on the small side, which I prefer. It was close to Boston as well as the best skiing in the east. On the down side Natick Labs was just down the road and 10th Group got to serve as testers for some pretty bad ideas.

Devens is bisected by Rt. 2. The area south of Rt. 2, which was called South Post, was a training area with ranges, maneuver areas, Turner Drop Zone and mosquitoes that could exsanguinate a hippopotamus. There are a number ponds there that offer decent fishing.

As you enter the main post north of Rt. 2 you pass a golf course with a pond. Legend has it that the pond was the best fishing spot on post. The story was that guys would catch fish on south post, then take their catch with them for supper. As they entered main post they’d have second thoughts about a fish dinner and how thrilled the wife was going to be and they’d toss their catch into the golf course pond.

Just inside the south gate were a number of bushes arranged to spell “Fort Devens”. Another legend has it that late one night someone dug them up and replanted them to spell “F**k Devens”. Given the proximity to the gate house I have my doubts, but one never knows.

One story I do know happened involved a jumpmaster class and a road. I think it was Searstown Pike. As an aircraft approaches the drop zone for a parachute jump the jumpmaster issues a aeries of commands. The penultimate command is “Stand in the door”. As it turns out the road runs perpendicular to the approach to the drop zone (Turner DZ is so small that aircraft can only approach from one direction) right at the spot where the command “Stand in the door” should be issued. So one night a jumpmaster class went out and painted the command on the road. A jumpmaster cue card, so to speak.

Speaking of Searstown, there is a mall by that name some ways west of Devens, in a town called Leominster. As an aircraft approaches a drop zone the jumpmaster clings to the door sills in the aircraft and leans out to do a visual check for other aircraft, etc. Once, while a student jumpmaster was performing his check he lost his grip and fell out of the aircraft, descending into the parking lot at Searstown Mall.

While we’re on jump stories... As I mentioned, Turner DZ is small. When the jumpmaster says “Go”, you need to get out of the aircraft. One day there was enough wind that we actually flew over the trees rather than the DZ, the idea being that the wind would push us onto the DZ. I was second in line, behind a qualified jumpmaster who should have known better. The jumpmaster yelled “Go” and the guy in front of me, seeing nothing below but trees hesitated. “What?” “GO!” “Now?” “YES NOW. GO!!!!” The entire stick overshot the drop zone and ended up in the trees in an M203 impact area. I got lucky and dumped air over a clearing. I hit hard, but the ground was soft. While I laid there I watched a team leader hit a tree and come down just like one of those wooden toys in which a figure bounces down from peg to peg. He later took his shirt off and it looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to him.

I never had any real adventures on Turner DZ, I always succeeded in getting hurt while deployed somewhere rather than making it easy by getting hurt close to home. I do recall one jump where a newly minted jumpmaster repeatedly begged us not to throw the staticline at him as we exited the aircraft. I was so preoccupied with taking it easy on the guy that I very carefully handed the staticline to him then turned and literally fell out the door. Got a twist or six in the risers on that jump...

Update: Stumbled across another 10th Group type here.

Saturday turned out to be quite the day. Baseball took a hit with the poor weather, but I had enough umpires to go around and didn’t have to sweat the games that were played.

Then, the wife actually let me send money and I got a very nice new grill. Got it put together just in time for a torrential downpour and although I don’t mind the rain that much I figured no point in starting the new era with soggy food, not to mention the logistics of lighting a fire in a biblical downpour. It’s ok, it just heightens the anticipation.

Then I go online to find I’m linked not only by Jack Army, but now also by SFAlphageek. Both blogs are extremely well written and interesting--and of course I expect nothing less from guys with the brains and the mettle to qualify as some of the world’s finest soldiers.

This blog also scored a record number of hits today, probably thanks to Jack Army and SFAlphageek.

And now I’m pointedly reminded that I promised a posting on Ft. Devens. SFAlphageek reinforced that, so I’ll get to work on that now.

I wonder about a lot of things, like whether witches use spell checkers. Whether it’s constitutionally responsible to yell “Movie” in a crowded firehouse. And why generals eat in a private mess and privates eat in a general mess.

But it gets better. Went to the grocery store and there was a display of cantaloupes right at the front door. It was obvious from a distance that they were green. Real green. Almost neon. There was a woman looking at them and musing about how to tell if they’re ripe. So I told her in the first place they were green under the netting, a bad thing. Secondly you could see where the stems had been ripped off of the melons--a ripe fruit breaks off cleanly. Lastly, cantaloupes don’t ripen like bananas when they’ve been removed from the vine. Where they are is where they will stay. Oh, and the smell test doesn’t work. They’re cantaloupes, so they smell like cantaloupes whether they’re rip or not. Given all of that, she announced she’d take one and try it. Makes me wonder.

Oh, and those containers that keep hot things hot and cold things cold...How do they know which one to do?

There is evil about even worse than the left in the US. I mean, let's face it--Oliver Willis would never risk exposing his chubby visage to the rigors of actual armed combat, even if it meant just gunning down dazed, injured survivors of helicopter crashes.

That's exactly what happened in Iraq. The Islamist insurgency, so revered by people like Willis and the Orcs of Democratic Underground, shot down a civilian helicopter. A helicopter full of people who are trying to help rebuild the country. Now, I understand their ire. I mean, who are we to introduce western values like not beating the hell out of your wife when it pleases you to do so and actually accepting the idea that women may perhaps possess intellects? Scandalous.

Well, they managed to shoot down a helicopter and there is no excuse whatsoever for what followed. There was no excuse for shooting at the helicopter in the first place, but the aftermath is sickening. An Islamist piece of dung is videotaping the wreckage and burned bodies when his fellow pieces of dung discover a survivor. View it here, if you have the stomach for it.

If you can't watch it, I'll synopsize it for you: Helicopter is already downed. Triumphant Islamist dirtbags are viewing crash site as videographer catches images of charred corpses. The tape then abruptly cuts to dirtbags crashing through tall grass where they discover a dazed survivor of the crash. Someone imperiously orders him to "Stand up" several times in English. He's obviously hurt (his forehead is bloody) and dazed. He asks for someone to take his hand and help him stand up. He also says something (arm?) is broken. There's no sympathy and although it's hard to tell from the clip I get the feeling he was essentially grabbed and stood up. More barked commands and he staggers forward only to be gunned down in an exuberant hail of bullets. They enjoyed doing what they did.

And he was apparently Belgian--there simply to help rebuild the country and not even a member of a "belligerent" nation.

And here in the US the reaction by a fortunately tiny percentage of the population sometimes goes like this. Not need to reply, we all know that she's clinically defined as mentally ill.

Another example of the incredible hate from the left, and how it's impacting decent people.

I'm not the most internet savvy person in the world. I have a Blogger profile but can't figure out how to link to it from this page. Email me at jims@fm.paratrooper.net if you have issues with my way of thinking. Better yet, email me if you agree with everything I've ever said...

Society in general is really heading downhill. I'm no prude. Not by a long shot. After ten years as a paratrooper I can literally conjugate the verb "f**k", and just like some character from a book I can swear fluently in several languages, including English (obviously), German, Russian, Spanish and some French. Spanish is a fairly easy language to swear in--all you have to do is relate anything to the Holy Family and it becomes an expletive. "Milk of The Mother"(leche de la madre), properly enunciated, can serve.

Just stop by the house some time when I'm changing brake pads on the big truck, holding a 20 lb. brake caliper one-handed while I try and find some way to wedge myself to give my other hand an angle to put a vise on the caliper and drive the piston back in so that I can fit new pads on the caliper. Things can get really interesting at that point.

But--and this is a big one--I don't talk like that in front of the kids, at the mall, at the ballfield, at the grocery store or even to my wife (usually). And when I slip up in front of the wife I hear about it big time.

I try to avoid talking dirty while posting to this blog (I've probably typed in a few nasty words, but I do try and avoid it), primarily because as much as I enjoy letting it rip I think it's classless to legitimize that sort of thing in print. A second, selfish reason is that I don't want anyone blocked by nanny software if they stumble onto this blog during a break at their workplace.

And something I would just never even consider doing is wearing an article of clothing or displaying a bumper sticker that contains four-letter words. Some years ago VW ran a series of advertisements depicting VWs being driven in a spirited fashion while a voiceover said "Fahrvergnuegen". It means "driving enjoyment". The ads spawned several bumper stickers which included "Farfrompukin" (a good place to be) and "F*kkingroovin". Maybe I'm just old, but I can't imagine adorning my vehicle with either of those. It's just classless.

So having established that society in general has sunk beneath my old fashioned standards (ladies, would you really strike up a conversation with some guy wearing a T-shirt with the word f**k on the front?), the left, which of late frequently confuses absolute hatred with valid disagreement, has sunk to depths I never even imagined.

As I've stated before, the vitriol of the left almost leaves one gasping for breath. The right didn't much care for Bill Clinton, but the left hates Bush with an unmatched passion.

But just when I thought they'd gone as low as they could possibly go, it gets worse. Powerline brings attention to some really interesting sites here. Just a warning, don't open those URLs at work. It's that bad.

So I only have one question. Excepting the utterly clueless Oliver Willis and the Orcs at Democratic Underground (because there is nobody on this planet who can predict how low they might possibly sink), how much lower can this go? Honest debate ended years ago and now it's just name calling from the left. It's going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths, boys and girls. You might want to rethink this whole thing.

In the recent discussion of military history books MAJ John Plaster came up. I recommend his books to one and all.

MAJ Plaster was assigned to perhaps the most (in)famous of all special operations groups, SOG Vietnam.

SOG originally stood for "Special Operations Group". Someone in the conventional Army chain of command figured that the name gave too much away in terms of mission. The chain of command agreed and in typical Army fashion decided that retaining the same acronym but renaming the unit "Studies and Observation Group" would fool the enemy. I'll refrain from comment.

SOG consisted of special ops types from both the Army and Navy, but it was Army Special Forces that made up the vast majority of SOG and who rightly retain the legacy.

The mission was daunting, to say the least. A SOG team consisted of three US personnel and varying numbers of indigenous personnel. I think most teams numbered less than ten total. They were inserted by various means (usually helicopter, but sometimes by parachute--once or twice by HALO) into areas waaaay into enemy territory. Once inserted, the game began. I remember an instructor at SF School relating to us that they would sometimes literally pile on top of each other in a thicket, thereby putting eight or ten guys into a space that one would assume could hold one person.

These guys were surrounded by nothing but Indian Country on all sides. Often they liaised with an officer flying above in a light plane (literally a Cessna), often they were utterly alone.

I like to think that given the opportunity I would have volunteered for the assignment, but once on the ground I know I'd be struck by how utterly alone we were.

Some teams were engaged immediately upon insertion and several teams simply vanished. Sometimes missions devolved into little more than a a SOG team running like hell--sometimes for several days--while being pursued by a vastly numerically superior enemy. It's a matter of record that SOG determined that there was a mole in the South Vietnamese command and although SOG reported this to US command in Vietnam nothing was done lest the South Vietnamese command lose face. A lot of good men died so as not to embarrass the South Vietnamese government.

Given all of the above, the SOG mission was incredibly successful. SOG teams brought back a huge amount of invaluable intelligence, they killed thousands of enemy troops and kept enemy units in numbers far disproportionate to their own engaged in searching for them rather than engaging conventional US forces.

I was lucky (although I didn't think so at the time) to go through the Special Forces Qualification Course at a time when there were still a few SOG types around. They're all retired now.

The former SOG guys were merciless. They were the most demanding, the harshest critics, the least likely to excuse a mistake. That came from their experience. A minor mistake by the least member of a team meant the death of all. I looked up to those guys like they were some sort of demigods, and continue to do so.

I have my heroes.

I don't mean this to become the baseball blog. There are a whole lot of other people out there who know more about baseball than I, but it's what's looming large in my life right now, so it's what I write about.

Besides--it's a good game. I'm still trying to write a convincing piece portraying baseball as an allegory for life...

Anyway, tonight was interesting. We play baseball/softball at five different venues, boasting a total of 11 different fields. Since my son plays junior league, I generally only spend my time at the one park where junior league games are played. I spend a lot of time on the phone, liaising with umpires and managers, but I'm there to watch my son's games. Tonight I went to the venue where the minor leagues play to watch my son call his first game as an umpire (and to slap the snot out of any managers/parents who made asses of themselves, but I didn't tell him that...I was just there to watch him).

An issue arose out of the parking situation. The fields are on top of a hill and the parking lot is at the bottom of the hill. Every year dozens of parents ignore the annual speech about parking only in the parking lot and drive cross-country to the top of the hill. It's a combination of laziness and arrogance, I think. Beyond the fact that they've been told not to do that, the bigger issues are that they park in a tree sanctuary and we have been told if it continues we'll lose access to those fields. Of course the lazy, arrogant, overweight parents don't give a damn...

I counted 20 vehicles on the hiltop.

So I went to the two active fields and told the four managers that they needed to tell their parents to move their vehicles. All four claimed they had already polled their parents and none of them were parked on the hill. Yeah, right. Not the managers--the parents lie like hell.

While I'm doing this, a parent comes up to me and asks "What is 'he' doing here?". Damnded if I know. It turns out 'he' is the guy who got tossed from the game on Saturday. So far we haven't been able to figure out who 'he' is. The manager on his son's team pled ignorance until tonight, when he got put in a corner and couldn't plead ignorance any more. It's already been decreed that whoever 'he' is, he can't attend another game until he appears before a board (that's a county rec league rule) and pleads his case. So I grabbed the manager and took him with me to inform this guy that he cannot attend another game until the requirements have been met.

Don't ever move back home. I've lived in a lot of places. New Hampshire was my favorite. Liked Bavaria a lot, but it wasn't home--good old USA. But someone once said "You can't go home again". Good advice.

Turns out the guy I threw off the field is married to the sister of the girl I took to my high school junior prom 28 years ago. A stunning redhead beauty, she's still very attractive despite having put on a few middle-age pounds.

And her husband doesn't deserve her.........Anyway...

A nice hit until the 2nd baseman reached down inside himself and managed to add another four inches to his vertical leap...

The batter, of course, is Snake Eater junior.

Red Sox

I can't help but revel in this: One of my umpires tossed a parent Saturday.

Not a good thing, I know. It should never come to this. It's utterly ridiculous that it had to happen, but maybe this early in the season it will send a message.

We don't have the issues that a lot of youth baseball leagues have. In our entire history, police have been summoned to a game exactly once. I'm not at all proud of that--it was once too many, but keeping things in perspective, it could be worse. Even the police-involved incident included no violence, just a parent who was ordered to leave and refused to do so.

It happened in a Minor League game. Minor League is the youngest level at which umpires call games. The plays aren't clean. The managers tend to be young and callow as do the parents. They're the worst possible games to call. The kids--hell they're there to play ball. But the parents are all keyed up watching their pride and joy playing his first "real" baseball game (and more than one father is pushing junior onto the field so he can relive his lackluster youth vicariously). And the managers, having grown with their sons through T-ball and Instructional League are now out to defend their manhood by putting a winning team on the field. Takes an adult to really f**k up a children's game...

Oh, and not to mention the fathers that basically force their kid to play so that they can "make a man out of him".

Anyway, I don't have a lot of details yet but apparently the umpire, a very smart 14-year old, warned the parent five times then told him to either hit the road or he would stop the game until a commissioner arrived with the official order to depart the field. I'm told that at this point the other parents stepped in and told him to hit the bricks. I'm glad that the other parents recognized that there was a problem.

I've made up my mind to be very proactive re. young umpires this year. By necessity they get assigned to call Minor League games as they need to be somewhat older and more experienced than the kids they're umpiring, but in a way it's like feeding them to lions. The youngest leagues have the worst parents and managers. The winnowing process is brutal. I have a whole lot of truly earnest kids who want to call games. By season's end I'll have half that number at best.

Brings to mind a couple of years ago when an incredibly abusive parent (more on her someday, perhaps) was carrying on about a judgement call and I finally turned to her and said "And I suppose that your son has never struck out". First time I've EVER seen her at a loss for something to say, and I've known her for 30 years.

Another Lesson in Human Nature this weekend.

I exhausted my list of umpires. Matt was going to do one game, but couldn't do any more and Jamie had no interest in doing games this year. I had two games left open.

I called the league commissioner for the first game and told him the only option I had left was to call it myself. I've done all positions at softball, but I've only called baseball from bases. Told the commissioner I'd call it from the plate but the very first thing I was going to do was inform the managers that I would brook no s**t whatsoever from them re. my calls. He happened to be at a game sitting near Matt. Within ten seconds he informed me that Matt offered to take the plate.

One game down, one to go. I had a base umpire for the second game. He's qualified to call behind the plate but can't squat down due to recent knee surgery. I called him and asked if he'd be willing to work the game from behind the mound, calling balls and strikes from there. He didn't like the idea (most guys will do that, but some aren't comfortable). So I told him the same thing I told the other guy. He works with Jamie and damned if he didn't have Jamie agree to call the game within seconds.

I guess the moral here is if you tell people you'll do it, but they may not like how you're going to do it, they can suddenly make things happen.

Busted....

As you can see here, my grill has a smoker box on the side. I use it, but not often.


Last night I was burning supper and my daughter decided to play at grilling next to me, using the smoker box as her grill. She opened the lid, looked in and promptly announced that I needed to stop using "her" grill as a repository for my beer bottle caps. Oops...

By the way, my venerable 12-year old grill is slated to be replaced this very next weekend with a new, more robust grill (note to odd lean to the right--the welds on the legs have been a bust since Day One). We're still going to be burning wood, though. No girly gas grills allowed here...

The charming and very baseball savvy Lilly asked a question the other day--what are some favorite WWII books and why?

Thought I'd devote a post or several to this rather than just reply in the comments as it could get rather lengthy.

Here are a few off the top of my head. If anyone has some other favorites, post 'em.

A note on the list that follows: Apparently I'm big on autobiographical accounts. It's important to know the big picture, but nothing grips you like the stories of the people on the ground.

"Black Thursday", by Martin Caiden. The story of the bombing raid on the Schweinfurt ball bearing factory. It's meticulously researched with a lot of human details. And it reveals the frustrations of war--despite heavy losses and a prediction that destroying the ball bearing plant would have a severe impact on the German war machine, it had almost no impact.
http://www.antiqbook.com/boox/top/300153.shtml

"Give Us This Day", by Sidney Stewart. We've all heard about the Bataan Death March, but this book, written by a survivor, provides the gripping, wrenching details of surviving it day by day.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393319210/102-4735353-5180935?v=glance

"The Road Past Mandalay", by John Masters. Autobiographical account of a British Ghurka officer. The author became a very well known novelist so you can imagine the quality of the writing. As I recall the story starts prior to the outbreak of the war, giving the reader a glimpse into British Colonial life. Very humerous at times.
http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/MP-23929/The-Road-Past-Mandalay.htm

I once had a book I think was called "While Eagles Screamed", but that wasn't the original title and I can't find any references under the title I know. It was another autobiography writtenby a guy who served in the 101st. He jumped into Normandy and wrote of watching aircraft drop troopers too low and hearing them hit and sounding like pumpkins thudding to earth.

"If You Survive", by Charles Wilson. A company commander assigned to the front lines at Normandy, he fought the rest of the war. The title comes from his first conversation with his commanding officer who prefaced a response to a question Wilson posed with the phrase "If you survive..."
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?show=Mass%20Market:Sale:0804100039:6.15

"Company Commander", by Charles B. MacDonald. Another compelling autobiography by by an officer who fought across Europe.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1580800386/102-4735353-5180935?v=glance

Once read a book called "Samauri", written by a former Japanese fighter pilot. Don't recall his name and plugging "Samauri" into a search engine is going to lead to about 50 million hits.

Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery (1901-1977) deserves special mention. He commanded the USS Guadalcanal (a 'jeep' carrier), and achieved immortality by effecting the only capture at sea of a German U-Boat. It now resides at the University of Chicago, where he matriculated at some point, though he's a Naval Academy graduate. He also wrote a number of utterly hysterical books--some autobiographical and some pure fancy and populated by characters such as Chief Bosun's Mate Fatso and Curly the jet pilot. He also wrote about the capture of U-505 and an analysis of the USS Pueblo incident. His books are hard to find, but worth the effort.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1557508062/102-4735353-5180935?v=glance
http://www.fransorb.com/cve60.htm

Ok. These are a few that popped into my mind. As I recall others, I'll post them here.

Another good evening of baseball. Not only are the kids playing well, but the manager actually rotates the kids equitably, in stark contrast to last year's manager who played his son and the two coaches sons every inning of every game.

But more than that, I've had the oddest thing on my mind this evening--ghosts.

There's a Victorian-style house down the road and as we passed it The Bear asked me if it was haunted. I assured her that it wasn't and that in fact there is no such thing as ghosts.

But maybe there is. There are places where the history is almost palpable. It can almost envelop like a cloak.

When I got married I was stationed in Massachusetts and my wife worked for the Dept. of Defense far to the south . My unit had a forward battalion in Germany and amazingly she could be assigned to a field station very close to the forward battalion. We both put in for transfers and managed to get the assignments. After nine months of marriage we were finally able to live together.

My duty station had been an officers' academy for the notorious SS during WWII. Later in the war it also served as a rehabilitation center for German soldiers who had lost limbs. To make things more interesting, it was listed as a sub-camp of Auschwitz and maintained a contingent of 40 concentration camp prisoners. The fate of the prisoners remains a mystery, but during construction of a new road bypassing the nearby town 40 sets of remains were unearthed.

Now that's a place where the ghosts walk.

The kaserne was shaped like the outline of a square, with a quadrangle in the middle. A basement corridor followed the square shape. At intervals the corridor doglegged off center, the ceiling became very low and the corridor became narrow. These were obviously bomb shelters--it doglegged off center so a blast couldn't shoot down the corridor. It became slightly claustrophobic in these areas, but I always had to linger. Because it was most of all in those places that I could feel the ghosts of the past. Men running into the bombproof and waiting it out while Allied aircraft flew overhead. I could smell the sweat and the cigarette smoke and see them leaning against the wall, waiting.

We did have a ghost story on post regarding the tormented spirit of a Nazi political officer who murdered his family and committed suicide rather than surrender to US troops, but I never gave that one much thought. It was the history of the place, enveloping me like a dense fog, that I felt the most.

My wife's station had once been a Luftwaffe air base. Aircraft providing support for the invasion of Czechoslovakia flew from the base at the beginning of the war and it later served as a training base. After the war the US used it as a housing area for the thousands of displaced people in post-war Germany.

Not so dramatic as the SS Kaserne, but steeped in history nonetheless. The gymnasium was a converted aircraft hangar and the control tower still stood. Standing beneath the control tower I could see ME-110s and Bf-109s rolling down the strip, off to join the blitzkrieg attack on Czechoslovakia. I could see the officers and men in the control tower, watching the aircraft and speaking calmly but urgently into radios.

I once managed to make my way up into the top of the control tower, only to discover that apparently the teenagers on post had known how to get up there for some time and had engaged in a variety of activities, leaving plenty of evidence. Disappointing, but it didn't dampen the historic aura I felt there.

Have a good weekend coming up. One that some would consider to be a dichotomy.

First, it's pretty much spring here and things are starting to bloom. I noticed that the wild dogwoods were in full bloom the other day and mused that my favorite, the eastern redbud, can't be far behind. Sure enough, next thing I saw was a redbud all but ready to burst into bloom.

Dogwoods and redbuds are among the few blessings of this region. Dogwoods burst into a frenzy of white and sometimes greenish-white blooms and very shortly after the redbuds burst into their glory. Redbuds resemble nothing so much as a tree festooned with reddish-pinkish lights. The two trees bloom at nearly the same time, leading to hillsides covered with the juxtaposition of red and white blossoms. It's a sight that I've come to love.

This weekend we head out with the Boy Scouts for a destination that lies west of here and into what passes for mountains. If we're lucky, the dogwood/redbud display will just be beginning there. Last year, in addition to the spring display, I watched a golden eagle hunt along a mountain ridge. I never got bored.

As far as the dichotomy, we're taking the scouts up there to teach rifle and shotgun shooting. Doesn't bother me a bit, but I'm sure someone would see it differently. It's pretty benign stuff--teach them the proper discipline to handle a potentially deadly weapon, teach them to hit where they aim...

Much as I have issues with some of the kids in the troop, I'd rather work with them and teach them the awesome power of a firearm and the awesome responsibility that one assumes when one takes charge of a firearm than face someone whose only training consists of "Carrying makes you one bad dude".

Mechanical weapons aren't the issue. Human weapons are.