Old Virginia Weeps: Denuding Monument Avenue One Statue at a Time

 

Last week Governor Ralph Northam announced his plan to remove the iconic statue of Robert E. Lee from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. This step will be the beginning of an ambitious leftist Taliban undertaking that calls for the removal of four other statues of Confederate heroes, including that of Jefferson Davis. The now endangered statues have long been beloved tourist attractions that have given Richmond its cultural and historic profile.

The fashionable Virginia Pilot produced a giddily joyous editorial hailing the wrecking exercise as long overdue: “The move would be an extraordinary victory for civil rights activists, whose calls for the removal of that monument and others in this former capital of the Confederacy have been resisted for years.” Supposedly Northam’s decision was driven by the killing of George Floyd and the riots occasioned by that act:

We now understand “that some serious healing has to take place.” Supposedly tearing down historic statues will “heal” something, but I’ve no idea what that is.  The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus issued a statement on June 4 that “these structures and monumental symbols have been extremely offensive to Black America and others.” In the next sentence the statues are described as “so hurtful.”

Will the destruction of “these structures and monumental symbols” do anything to improve the life of a single black person? For example, how will it bring down the rate of violent crime among the black underclass in our inner cities?

More @ Intellectual Takeout

DNC Being Supported Through International Money Laundering Via BlackLivesMatter.Com

 

Once again, the criminal actions in this country continue without any justice being brought.  Now, why is that?  It now looks like BlackLivesMatter.com is nothing more than an international money laundering outlet for the Democrat National Committee.  In a recent report, donations, including international funding to BlackLivesMatter.com eventually end up in the hands of the DNC.

According to its own About section of the website, BlackLivesMatter.com states:

More @ DC Dirty Laundry

Battle Rattle

Via 4Branch

 SFC Jerry "Mad Dog" Shriver

Back in the day, we called things by different names . . . Military Operations in Built Up Area = MOBUA, then that became MOUrban Terrain MOUT,  then that became CQB, all well 'n good.  Mostly we talked about FIT . . . Fightin' in Town.  Our perspective was combat in Germany in particular.  Civilized places with lots of infrastructure, etc.  No mud 'n wattle huts, no brush Jacal, certainly no triple cover jungle.

If one anticipates action in a densely populated area, one has to account for different conditions.  For example, Ivan trained to use the sewers as his protected avenue of attack.  Who'da thunk it???  As we were playing the host, we had to make life difficult for subterranean travelers. So we planned various nasty surprises for the visiting team.  Mines, bombs, gas, obstructions, live wires, nasty notes, the lot.

Germans, being German, built their buildings and houses with defensible construction at ground level, and below.  Cellars and Basements were connected, one could gad about amongst the old bicycles and divans with relative ease, while poor old Ivan belly crawls to get close enough to become annoying.  Bridges were built to be blown up; subways to be sealed; storm, sanitary and utility tunnels were designed for defense.

Buildings with party walls i.e. Town houses etc, were to be 'mouseholed' to enable foot traffick unexposed.  In short, every building was a 'strong point', Every village a 'defended locality'.  Many had a foyer designed to deflect blast, flame, grape shot, etc.  Later construction (Post WWII) was as fire resistant as could be. 

Lovely place for a war, eh?

Unfortunately nowhere in USA are such amenities available.  So the ambitious Irregular must look elsewhere for his entre' into tactics for CQB.

Our friends the Russkies had some terrible experiences in Hungary, Chetnya and Georgia.  They limited their operations in Afghanistan to the boondocks. One thing they learned was that their tanks could not elevate their main gun to shoot snipers off rooftops.  They had to use Mortars,
and that entailed some serious revisions to their doctrines.  The Sov's didn't employ Attack helicopters as we do, then.  They're more flexible now.

You may be assured that the Mean Green Machine noted these problems, as well as a half hundred more.  Whether we remember any of it is open to debate.  Point to consider, the oppos Ivan faced engaged only to 'fix' him in place.  Their real target was his supply lines.  Troops damn near starved, froze and some wounded died because of supply shortages imposed by the Rebels.  Logistical  Air drops in cities are a nightmare and a boon to the Rebels.  Helo holes in Built up areas are magnets for PRG's and SAM warriors.  The will to fight erodes when you haven't eaten much this week, have no meds, drinking puddle water, ammo is short, and you can't even poop without some bastard splattering your brain case.

Dear Father,

Via Tom

Dear Father,

Growing up without you was difficult. I prayed every night hoping that you would somehow be miraculously released from the North Vietnamese’s government’s re-education camp and join us in America. Over time, I learned that you had the chance to leave Saigon in the final days of the South Vietnamese government but chose to stay to help organize the remnants of the remaining South Vietnamese Airborne battalions to defend the city. Although you did secure safe transit out of the country for mom, my brother, and me, how did you expect us to survive? Mom was a house wife and had never been in the workforce while my brother and I had just turned four and five, respectively.

We only spoke Vietnamese. As a child growing up in a single parent home and the resultant financial struggles, I didn’t understand why a husband and father would choose this path and that thought made me both sad and a little angry.As I grew older and learned more about concepts such as duty, honor, and integrity, I understood more and came to accept that you had no choice on that fateful day you put your wife and two young sons on that airplane to flee a country that would soon no longer exist. 

I became very ashamed about my earlier feelings as a child because I came to appreciate that you had to stay and fulfill your oath to lead your men and to defend a government you swore to serve.Were the sequence of events that led me to meet a soon-to-be close family friend, USAF Colonel Masuoka, who became my USAF Academy Liason Officer and who ultimately helped me get an appointment at the USAF Academy the result of my childhood prayers? I am not sure but when Colonel Masuoka, with the direct help of the former President of the US, George Bush, called to let me know that you would be coming to Colorado Springs to physically attend my graduation and help me pin on my 2nd Lieutenant’s officer bars, I couldn’t believe it. 

How fitting that you were there at my graduation because my Academy’s class of 1991’s motto that is inscribed on our class ring reads “Duty First, Integrity Always”.Saying and understanding these words are easy. Living by these words day in and day out is more difficult, especially when confronted with decisions like on that day in April 1975 on an airplane tarmac with your wife and two young sons looking to you for assurances and hope. How internally torn that must have made you feel!

I am so proud to be your son, Dad, and can only hope that I can live a life true to principles that you have lived by and pass down your legacy of duty, honor, and integrity to your grandsons. Your legacy in the South Vietnamese community is strong and secure. They call you, “Anh Hung Mu Do” or Hero with a Red Beret. How amazing a tribute and I cannot think of anything more appropriate to describe a man who has lived a truly heroic life.

The Left’s War on Police Is a War on Black People

This system is put in place by design, to keep people down, to keep them from becoming a complacent member of the middle class. And if you care enough to take a good look around, to study past and present history, it is a system put in place by Democrats to keep the people who live in these predominantly black neighborhoods poor, angry, desperate, and huddled.

The same corrupt wheel goes ’round and ’round…

The left despise the middle class, the bourgeois… We’re too satisfied and complacent to vote for their radical and controlling ideas that history continues to prove a failure. And so… Nothing destroys a population’s ability to climb out of poverty and into the middle class more than burned-out neighborhoods, vacant storefronts, streets filled with violent criminals, and eunuchs for police.

More @ Breitbart

It Is Time To Face The Facts. We Cannot Be United.

 

One of the first articles I wrote for The Daily Wire was a typically optimistic and cheerful piece titled “The United States Of America No Longer Exists.” It was not met with a warm reception by many readers, who understandably found it to be a tad bleak. Three years later, it brings me no pleasure to say, “I told you so.”

My basic thesis in that piece was that our country, though existing still as a legal and geographic entity, cannot be meaningfully described as “united.” We have nothing but the law and the land holding us together anymore. That is not enough to make a nation or a people. There needs to be something else. Some uniting principle. Some defining commonality that binds us. If we are going to be united, we must be united around something or by something.

More @ Daily Wire