Ok, so it looks like North Korea, in the person of Li’l Pudgy Kim has upped their game in the routine and semi-annual national unity game of chicken. (The Norks do this every six months, usually when they want to squeeze some concessions out of the outside world. It’s like an overgrown toddler throwing an… More »
Oddly enough – guns were not a terribly real presence in the household – or even the neighborhood where I grew up. Dad, and our near friends and neighbors didn’t hunt, and as near as I can recall, none of them were obsessed collectors. I never even saw a firearm, in use on on display… More »
Another one of those interesting weeks, where I have been so busy and the headlines so full of various incidents which I might comment upon … that I am actually so spoiled for choice that I can’t make up my mind on which to deal with first. Like – Jodie Foster coming out as gay.… More »
It looks really weird to me, this last Veteran’s Day weekend … not even a week after the election results came in. A couple of days after General Petreus put in his resignation as head of the CIA – conveniently for the American news cycle – on a Friday before a three-day weekend. So, kind… More »
I wouldn’t have remembered that this week marks another WWII battle anniversary – that of El Alamein which ran for nearly two weeks in October and November 1942 – but for seeing a story or two in the Daily Mail about it. (A reflection upon the death spiral of the mainstream news is that I… More »
I own to being vaguely disappointed with our man Mittens’ performance in last night’s debate, as I had cherished fond hopes that Mitt Romney would mop the floor with the Obamster, and then clean up those little spills and smudges remaining with the hapless moderator, but then I am a writer and frustrated dramatist. I… More »
It appears that a great number of veterans and relatives of veterans are increasingly incensed at the news that the late Senator Murtha may have a new Navy ship named for him. The late senator was famed for nearly being nailed in the Abscam scandal, lo these many decades ago, for sucking down absolutely mind-boggling… More »
My daughter and I are watching and very much enjoying the period splendors of Downton Abbey, showing on the local PBS channel here over the last couple of weeks – just as much as my parents and I enjoyed Upstairs, Downstairs – the original version, yea these decades ago. Of course, the thrust of this… More »
I did a tour in Korea in 1993-94, which hardly makes me an expert on the place, seeing that I have that in common with a fair number of Army and Air Force personnel over the past half-century plus. Reading about the expected fallout from the change of régime-boss north of the DMZ I think… More »
This year, my mother has decided to break the family custom for Christmas and send an actual, delivered by UPS present, in a large carton which arrived on the doorstep Friday morning. We don’t know quite why she decided to do this, since the usual present for the last decade or two has been a… More »
(A repost from the archives, for today) It is a sad distinction, to be the first in three generations to visit France while on active duty in the service of your country, and to be the first to actually live to tell the tale of it. For many Europeans, and subjects of the British Empire—… More »
Or so is one trenchant comment on this discussion thread, with regard to Obama’s more-than-embarrassing confusion while visiting the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, between a living recipient of the Medal of Honor and one who was awarded it posthumously . . . You know that the MOH is not handed out like tricker-treat… More »
“You’ll simply have to read his books, if you want to understand about Greece,” my next-door neighbor told me, very shortly after my then-three year old daughter and I settled into Kyrie Panayotis’ first floor flat (which is Brit-speak for second-floor apartment) at the corner of Knossou and Delphon streets in the Athens suburb of… More »
Mullen Says Pay, Benefit Cuts ‘On the Table’ Yeah, because there’s nowhere else where the military can save money. If I were more cynical, I would say it’s someone’s “sneaky” idea to kill the volunteer service and go back to the draft. If I were more cynical.
Most people accept as conventional wisdom about the Texas frontier, that Anglo settlers were always the consummate horsemen, cowboys and cavalrymen that they were at the height of the cattle boom years. But that was not so: there was a learning curve involved. The wealthier Texas settlers who came from the Southern states of course… More »
Found, through Bookworm Room – The Westboro “Baptist Church” Freaks (note the viciously skeptical quote marks) had made plans to turn out for this. The citizens of SSgt. Jones’ home town took action that ensured they did not. What a wonderful place to be from. Even if it is one of those no-count (insert satirical… More »
Just so we get this perfectly clear, the active, serving military will go on earning their pay over the period of the shut down of the federal government . . . they just won’t be getting any actual paychecks, or automatic deposit of it into their bank accounts. In a time where there are kinetic… More »
I was stationed for four years at Misawa AB, in the very north of Japan, from early 1977 until the very end of 1980. It’s a very rural part of Japan, relatively speaking; very cold in the winter. Misawa was a pretty smallish city, as Japan goes, about seven or eight miles from the coast;… More »
Moot point to me, actually – I retired from the Air Force in 1997, after DADT had been in place for about five years. The other female military NCOs and I actually rather welcomed it at the time as a solid compromise and a step up from the previous policy of discharging gay servicemen and… More »
In the early 1990s, I did a tour in Korea; a year at Yongsan Garrison, working at HQ-AFKN, barely a stone’s throw from where my father had spent a couple of weeks at Camp Coiner in 1953. Camp Coiner was where new troops were processed for assignments in-country, and it was still a self-contained miniature… More »
So, as expected General McChrystal resigned last week; a terribly drastic way to get an instant face to face attitude adjustment session with the boss, I must say. I skimmed the original Rolling Stone story, and I have to also observe that I am still mystified as to how and why a freelance reporter with… More »
You know, this morning when I read about the Gaza-Blockade-Runners’ shoot-out – I kept thinking that this may be Israel’s “Let it all be done” moment … and thinking of the moment in the 1998 movie “Elizabeth” when Elizabeth I said exactly that. It’s at about 8:00 in the clip… Was this Israel’s -nothing to… More »
With all the other things going on: President Obama’s running away from Washington to Chicago; This administration making post-Hurricane Katrina look successful; The Obama Presidency throwing former President Clinton under the bus in the Sestak sleaze-fest. You may have missed this bit of news yesterday. I received this from the HQ NORAD/NORTHCOM GROUP on Facebook… More »
So, three weeks later, and I am finally getting around to writing up the last of the Milblog Conference; real life intervened, had to go back to work a great number of hours for a regular client, and find a permanent home for the poopies, and do some work for the Tiny Publishing Bidness .… More »
I was momentarily distracted last week by a comment thread at The Belmont Club, when one of the participants made mention of historian Jacques Barzun, who is something like 102 this year. The commenter noted that Mr. Barzun not only remembers Paris during World War I, when the German Army came perilously close to bombarding… More »
Yes, it was a week ago last weekend, but I have several jobs, four books to market, two more to write . . . oh, and a tax bill to pay. So, forgive me for dishing out the good bloggy ice cream in small dishes, ‘kay? One of the unexpected highlights of the conference was… More »
There were four panel discussions during Saturday, the one full day of the 5th Annual Milblogger’s Conference – some with panelists present front and center, and a few with either taped, or teleconferenced interviews. All of the panelists and the moderator, Greta Parry (who originated a blog called Kiss my Gumbo) touched upon the use… More »