A comment on An Especially Sad Memorial Day

Re-post from 2011

A comment on An Especially Sad Memorial Day

Today I remember :

Best friend:

SFC Mitchell A. Lane – United States Army (1987-2003)

Special Operations Engineer, sniper, & SF Combat Diver with ODA-365, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group

Died 29 August 2003 at Deh Chopan, Zabul Province, Afghanistan

Buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 60, Site 7889

At the very end of his second tour in Afghanistan he died during a night time combat assault while fast roping into a known enemy cave complex.

He was an outstanding soldier who had completed numerous courses including the Basic Combat Engineer's Course, Basic Airborne Course, Special Forces Qualification Course (18C), Special Forces Combat Diver Course, French De-Mining Course, Water Infiltration Course (WIC), Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course (SFAUC), & Special Forces Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC). He was slated to attend the Special Forces Warrant Officer Candidate Course when he returned to the states. He left behind a wife and two daughters.

(P.S. I have been told that he is forever memorialized in the Special Forces Museum at Ft. Bragg for some type of a quick fuse that he developed on the battlefield in Afghanistan and that there is a display with a mannequin of him wearing his uniform there that looks just like him. If you ever get over to Fayetteville I would love a picture of the display.) I shall. It's been a few years since we've been there.

(Please obscure the faces of the other operators as they are still serving over there and I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize them. Redleg)

Eight years later, just amazing. BT

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Great uncle:

PFC. Harold Werner – United States Army National Guard (1942-1944)

Infantryman with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division

Killed in action 11 June 1944 at hill 233 in the vicinity of Capalbio, Italy

Buried at Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, Plot B, Row 7, Grave 33

He landed on Red Beach at 0345 hours 9 September 1943 (Operation Avalanche). He fought up the Italian peninsula and was involved in actions at innumerable unnamed hills, the push up through the Liri Valley at Mount Maggiore, Mount Lungo, Mount Sammucro, Mount Difensa, San Pietro, & Cassino. He was involved in the breakout from the Anzio beachhead where his regiment found and exploited a gap in the German lines which ended months of stalemate and finally led to the advance on and capture of Rome. During the pursuit of German forces from Rome, on 11 June 1944 Company M (heavy weapons company) and Headquarters Company were counterattacked by a large German force. Their position was overrun with 33 missing or killed. I have been unable to determine total casualties from this engagement. After some of the fiercest combat and amid the most grueling conditions encountered in the European theater of operations, my young uncle met his end alone leaving no one to carry on his name. His division was pulled out of the lines and eventually out of Italy 2 weeks later

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Great uncle on the right.

1LT Lowell C. Lutton – United States Army Air Force (1941-1943)

P-38 Lightning Pilot with the 431st Fighter Squadron, 475th Fighter Group

Missing in Action 2 November 1943 returning from mission against Rabaul, New Britain

Memorialized at Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, Tablets of the Missing

After transfer from the 49th Fighter Group's 8th Fighter Squadron He started flying long range combat missions starting in July of 1943 and his previous experience served him well, he claimed three Japanese aircraft in three days during mid-August. On the 16th he fought Nakajima Ki-43 Oscars over Marilinan, New Guinea, and shot down one of 12 claimed in the squadron's first combat. Two days later the 431st reported another dozen victories, and he bagged a pair of Oscars near Wewak. Beginning in October, the Fifth Air Force launched a series of strikes against the Japanese naval air complex at Rabaul, New Britain. The 431st was engaged near the target on 23 October, and he claimed a Mitsubishi A6M Zeke. Back again on 2 November, he was seen to shoot down another Zeke but failed to return to base. It was assumed that he ran out of fuel and crashed. He married shortly before heading overseas and never had any children.

An especially sad Memorial Day

Redleg said...

...... that was a good piece Brock. Having grown up among a long line of military men with over 15 years of service myself it definitely appears today that we are a dying breed, an anachronism in our own time. It appears that there is no longer any place for those of us who still hold on to ideals hammered into us during our years of service…ideals such as loyalty, duty, respect, selfless-service, honor, integrity, personal courage or the 5 Cs of an NCO (courage, candor, competence, commitment, and character).
Inversely, it appears that those of us who still cling to those military ideals are reviled and told that such antiquated concepts no longer apply, pertain or even matter. The only thing that seems to matter these days is how many lies can I tell and how many people can I step on to achieve my goals and to attain everything that I am entitled to.

I weep for the country that my children and grandchildren have inherited from me. I have brought them up to believe as I do. Have I done them a disservice in instilling such ideals and morality in them when our world has grown so obviously corrupt and contemptible?

Gone but NEVER forgotten!

Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

Via Carl

Re-post

In 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge in Baltimore, ruled that President Abraham Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus (Lincoln disregarded the ruling).

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Frederick S. Calhoun, the Chief Historian for the United States Marshal’s Service, at the Department of Justice, recently wrote a 200 year history of Federal Marshals, entitled, The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989 (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. 1989). This historical study gives a detailed account of an arrest warrant, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, in the early days of his administration. The warrant was to arrest the Chief Justice of the United States, Roger B. Taney, following his opinion in the case of Ex parte Merryman (May, 1861). The account is found in the chapter entitled, "Arrest of Traitors and Suspension of Habeas Corpus." It was taken from the private papers of the Federal Marshall, Ward Hill Laman, at the Huntington Library in Pasadena:

Taney’s opinion seriously embarrassed Lincoln and his advisers. Southern sympathizers and Northern opponents of the war praised Taney as a partisan of civil liberties standing alone against military tyranny. Taney’s opinion exacerbated the delicate situation in Maryland, a border state yet undecided in its commitment to the Union. According to Marshal Lamon, "After due consideration the administration determined upon the arrest of the Chief Justice." Lincoln issued a presidential arrest warrant for Taney, but then arose the question of service. "Who should make the arrest and should Taney be imprisoned?"

It was finally determined to place the order of arrest in the hands of the United States Marshal for the District of Columbia. Laman then recalls that "Lincoln gave the warrant to him, instructing Lamon to "use his own discretion about making the arrest unless he should receive further orders."

The account of the warrant to arrest the Chief Justice cannot be found in any of the innumerable Lincoln biographies or accounts of the early days of the Civil War. Since it only recently surfaced, Lincoln historians and biographers have never mentioned the story, probably because it has been outside the main stream of historical information, and hence has not been known. Once it surfaced, Lincoln apologists and Civil War gatekeepers, have been quick to attack the account as a fabrication, because Lincoln would never have done such a thing; and, it would have set off "a political firestorm," so they say; and hence, it is just too preposterous to be true.

It does seem too preposterous to be true, probably because of all the grave errors and wrongs allegedly committed by Lincoln’s administration, this would rank at the top of the list. It would have destroyed the separation of powers; destroyed the place of the Supreme Court in the Constitutional scheme of government. It would have made the executive power supreme, over all others, and put the President, the military, and the executive branch of government, in total control of American society. The Constitution would have been at an end.

But as outrageous as this may appear, during those chaotic first months of the Civil War, it would not have been so unthinkable to arrest and silence Taney. The military arrested people in all walks of life. Charles W. Smith, a biographer of Taney (1973), gives this account of the scope of the arrests of civilians:

More @ LRC

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2009

Global Guerrillas On Spin Economics

"Since the Constitution doesn’t forbid the states to secede, the North found it necessary to violate the Constitution in order to suppress Southern independence. Lincoln was forced to usurp legislative powers by raising troops and money and by suspending the writ of habeas corpus; when Chief Justice RogerTaney ruled such acts unconstitutional, Lincoln wrote an order forTaney’s arrest!

He never followed through on that, but he did illegally arrest 31 antiwar members of the Maryland legislature and install a puppet government. He went on to crush freedom of speech and press throughout the North. Such was Lincoln’s idea of 'preserving the Constitution' and 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.'"
-- Joseph Sobran

Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Into the Sea

Via Western Rifle Shooters Association

“The most pitiable sight I ever beheld.”

The Eighth Toast: To The Confederate Dead Of The University
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North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial

www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial Commission"
Johnston’s Troops at Chapel Hill – 1865

“My very young eyes saw [General] Joseph E. Johnston’s army pass through the old college town of Chapel Hill; Sherman was hanging on its rear. As I stood by the side of the road with my mother, my hand in hers, I was too young to see what my eyes saw, “the most pitiable sight I ever beheld,” she always said. I did not know what it all meant, but I probably wondered why there were so many horses in one place and why so many of them were limping. The end of the war was near, Lee had surrendered, and Johnston’s surrender was only a matter of days. Ragged uniforms and barefooted men told the story. The limping horses belonged to General Joe Wheeler’s cavalry.

After my father was captured and taken to prison on Lake Erie, my mother and I went to live with Uncle John and Aunt Nancy, an elderly couple without children, on the Fred Hargrave plantation, situated a mile from Chapel Hill in a crotch made by the roads from Durham and from Raleigh as they approached the village.

The Hargrave Negroes still lived in their cabins and still put in crops of corn and cotton as they had always done. Lincoln’s Proclamation had freed them many months before, but they did not know what to do with their freedom; they did not know where to go or how to get there; so they stood in their tracks, waiting for the future to turn its page.

One warm day [little Betsy Toler] sat under a tree fanning herself…[and] a Negro boy came running in from the field, scarcely touching the furrows as he came. When he got in the yard, he spluttered, “Yankees! The Yankees are coming!” Betsy, out of the corner of her eye catching sight of a blue column, rushed to the house…landed in her feather bed, rolling it over as a covering, and disappeared from sight.

A group of troopers – commonly called Sherman’s bummers – straggled away from the column, rode into our yard, and began rummaging through the house without ceremony. As they went up the stairs, their swords rattled against the steps – clank, clank, clank.

The first room they entered was Betsy’s. They jerked off the feather bed; there she lay fully swathed: “Come here boys; here’s the dying Confederacy.” With a loud laugh they stalked into the next room. They snatched me up asleep in a crib and ran their hands under the little mattress; they were too late as Uncle John had already done the collecting and had buried the silver out in the orchard, covering the spot over carefully with leaves.

After the crops had been laid by on the Hargrave plantation, we moved back to Chapel Hill and went to live in the house on Rosemary Street where I was born. [Here] my father had kissed [my mother] for the first time; here they were married, and here I first opened my eyes; it was in this house he said a lingering goodbye when he put on his uniform; now we awaited his return from a Northern prison.” Read more at: http://www.ncwbts150.com/Test5.php

(Son of Carolina, Augustus White Long, Duke University Press, 1939, pp. 4-11)

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The girls of St. Mary's met them as they passed and gave what they could. Every generation of my family has been represented there and my mother was almost kicked out because she walked across the street in front of the campus with a male cousin, but unescorted!:) I have letters from my grandfather who had to pull all sorts of strings to keep her in.

It is time for the first step to restore the Constitution

NC Renegade
VERBATIM POST

The 92 Syrians killed by the Assad regime will become the rallying point for Western intervention in yet another war or kinetic action. The truth is that there never was a UN ceasefire. Like Iran, Syria talks and the West appeases. This is not a call for war; although war will be the convenient excuse to misdirect our attention from an EU (and then US) economic collapse. The truth is that Syria knows that whatever they do, Putin will back them up militarily. The same reasoning applies to Iran. If Putin is the key to the Middle East, why is Obama not concentrating on the root cause? Or is he waiting to be reelected in order to have more flexibility?

We have to consider the possibilities that:

1. The president of the United States has no interest in the Middle East other than to establish a Muslim caliphate.

2. The president has every reason to appease Putin as a fellow Communist as he was taught by his childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.

3. The president has placed Islam over Israel.

4. The president has made the United States a “paper tiger” in the world’s eye.

5. Congress, the Supreme Court and the US military are not going to save our nation.

Item number five needs to be further explained. As the UN, the US Congress has been rendered impotent by individual greed, partisan politics and the administration. Obama’s plan to bypass Congress and the Constitution went unchallenged by both Congress and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is more concerned with prestige than power. Proof? Eric Holder’s mismanagement of the Department of Justice. We now live in a country “without rule of law” (WROL). Any country which does not (or will not) enforce its laws is only a precursor to tyranny or revolution. Our military generals and admirals have sworn allegiance to the commander-in-chief. However, the more important points are the politics, power and money that these military leaders are enjoying or constrained by. What does a retired military leader do? They start (or work for) a military subcontractor where their monetary spoils are used to purchase Plan B estates outside of the United States. This Ayn Rand scenario as outlined in Atlas Shrugged is also the same strategy as the “leaders” in Washington. If Plan A works, they will enjoy even more power under a dictatorship. If Plan A fails and the people restore Liberty and the Constitution, Plan B is also a great life. What did you think a $5 trillion deficit last year was buying besides votes?

So where does that leave the People? If the Constitution is not being obeyed by our government, it is up to the former soldiers who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution to take action. Your oath and sacred honor dictate it. Your country is calling for you to save it. It is time for the first step to restore the Constitution. Or do we want our children to be shown in movies like below?

David DeGerolamo

The South rises again at the Cannes Film Festival

Via Southern Nationalist Network

Director Jeff Nichols couldn't help but to notice a big trend at this year's Cannes Film Festival – the Southern United States is extremely well-represented in the South of France.

There are six American films in competition and many of these films take place in the South – including his film Mud, a tear-jerking drama set around the Mississippi River.

There's also Lee Daniels' The Paperboy which takes places in 1970s small-town Florida and its steamy gator-infested swamps. John Hillcoat's Lawless is a Prohibition-era drama that takes place in bootlegging Franklin County, Virginia.

Beyond the main competition, the film Beasts of the Southern Wild is earning raves with its depiction of a fictional area on the very southern edge of Louisiana called "The Bathtub."

"It's cool," says Nichols. "Southerners are good story tellers. It's a very specific culture and voice."

Nichols, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, stood on stage with the co-stars in his film -- including Reese Witherspoon (raised in Tennessee) and Matthew McConaughey (the Texas-born actor stars in both Mud and Paperboy).

Nichols set his film on one of the most celebrated bodies of water in the world, the Mississippi River, and happily admits to borrowing from one of the great authors who depicted it – Mark Twain

"If you're going to steal stuff from someone, it might as well be someone really intelligent," said Nichols. "I stole things from Mark Twain."

But part of Nichols' film – and personal fears – is that this Southern world he depicts is disappearing.

"I felt it was important to capture something that might be dying," he said, choking up. "That's sad."

More @ USA Today

Brett Kimberlin Gets His Wikipedia Entry Removed

Via Legal Insurrection

[UPDATE: I have heard once again from the Wikipedia editor who removed Brett Kimberlin's Wikipedia entry. He refuses to tell me who claimed Kimberlin had been the victim of a harassment campaign. He evidently has no regrets about his decision even though Kimberlin has now been exposed as making repeated bogus claims of harassment.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia is moving to restore an entry after an absence of several months, and currently links Kimberlin to an entry on the Speedway Bombings. Over 700 versions of the article await review.]

I have described Brett Kimberlin’s campaign of harassment against his critics as “brass-knuckles reputation management.” The idea is to intimidate and harass anyone daring to bring up Kimberlin’s extensive criminal history. There are other examples I’m aware of that can’t be fully told for various reasons, although I hope the victims choose to tell them.

But one of the most concerning aspects of this reputation maintenance campaign is the way history is rewritten. And one example of that is the way that Kimberlin’s Wikipedia entry was whisked away from view on September 14, 2011.

Let’s look at the reason the editor gave for the deletion:

Oh, really? There was a harassment campaign against Brett Kimberlin, was there?

And here I thought it was the other way around. Here I thought he was the guy harassing others. Silly me!

More @ Patterico's Pontifications

Arlington National Cemetery—A Memorial Day Tribute

Via Carl

Canada Free Press
VERBATIM POST

An Obedience To Duty As They Understood It; These Men Suffered All; Sacrificed All and Died

Monday, May 28, 2012, 11 a.m. in honor of Memorial Day.

Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for those who fought for the Confederacy and Union during the War Between the States. It is also the burial place for men and women who fought our nation’s wars since the War Between the States.

Did you know that some 245,000 Servicemen and Women, including their families, are buried at Arlington?

The world famous Arlington National Cemetery in located in the shadow of the Custis-Lee Mansion (Arlington House) that was home to General Robert E. Lee and family until 1861 at the beginning of the War Between the States. This cemetery is on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and Washington, D.C. is across the river.

In 1864, Union soldiers were first buried here and by the end of the war the number rose to 16,000.

The Union burial site at Arlington National Cemetery is located at (section 13). Those buried at Arlington include: President John F. Kennedy, General Jonathan M. Wainwright, Actor-War Hero Audie Murphy and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

About the turn of the century 1900 the USA also honored the men who fought for the Confederacy. The burial site for Dixie’s soldiers is located at (section 16).

A beautiful Confederate monument at Arlington cemetery towers 32.5 feet and has an inscription that reads, “An Obedience To Duty As They Understood It; These Men Suffered All; Sacrificed All and Died!”

Some people claim the Confederate monument at Arlington may have been the first to honor Black Confederates. Carved on this monument is the depiction of a Black Confederate who is marching with the white soldiers.

In 1898, President William McKinley, a former Union soldier, spoke in Atlanta, Georgia and said, “In the spirit of Fraternity it was time for the North to share in the care of the graves of former Confederate soldiers.”

In consequence to his speech, by act of the United States Congress, a portion of Arlington National Cemetery was set aside for the burial of Confederate soldiers. At this time 267 Confederate remains from and near Washington, D.C. were removed and re-interred at this new site at Arlington.

In 1906, The United Daughters of the Confederacy asked for permission from William Howard Taft to erect a Confederate monument. Taft was at the time serving as the United States Secretary of War and was in charge of National Cemeteries.

With permission the Arlington Confederate Memorial Association was formed and the ladies of the UDC were given authority to oversee work on the monument.

An agreement and contract was made with Sir Moses J. Ezekiel who was a Jewish Confederate Veteran by the record of his service at the Battle of New Market while he was a cadet at Virginia Military Institute. Work started at his workshop in Italy in 1910, and upon his death in 1917, the Great Sculptor, was brought back home and buried near the base of the Arlington Confederate Monument.

The year was 1914, and the Arlington monument was unveiled to a crowd of thousands that included former Union and Confederate soldiers.

This memorial event was presided over by President Woodrow Wilson and the people applauded the stirring speeches given by: General Bennett H. Young—-Commander In Chief of the United Confederate Veterans, General Washington Gardner—-Commander In Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, Colonel Robert E. Lee—-grandson of General Robert E. Lee and Mrs. Daisy McLaurin Stevens President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The Arlington Confederate Monument unveiling was concluded by a 21 gun salute and the monument was officially given to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the UDC gave it back to the United States War Department for keeping and was accepted by President Woodrow Wilson who said:

“I am not so happy as PROUD to participate in this capacity on such an occasion—-proud that I represent such a people.”

Since President Wilson wreaths have been sent to both sections of Arlington.

Let us never forget!

Calvin E. Johnson Jr. A native of Georgia, Calvin Johnson, Chairman of the National and Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Confederate History Month Committee—-Scv.org lives near the historic town of Kennesaw and he’s a member of the Chattahoochee Guards Camp, Sons of Confederate Veterans. He is the author of the book “When America Stood for God, Family and Country.” Calvin can be reached at: cjohnson1861@bellsouth.net

NC master flatpicker Doc Watson listed as critical

Master flatpicker Doc Watson was in critical condition Thursday at a North Carolina hospital after falling at his home in Deep Gap earlier this week.

Watson's daughter, Nancy, said in a telephone interview that Watson fell Monday at his home. She said he didn't break any bones but that he was "real sick." A spokeswoman at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem said Arthel Watson - Arthel is Doc Watson's legal first name - was in critical condition Thursday.

The 89-year-old blind musician has won several Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award. He's also received the National Medal of the Arts.

He's known as a master of the flatpicking style of guitar playing and also for starting Merlefest, an annual gathering of musicians in North Wilkesboro named after his son, a musician who died in a tractor accident in 1985.

Doc Watson's wife of more than 60 years, RosaLee, has been in a nursing home since last year, Nancy Watson said. The two married when she was 15 and he was 23.

"She saw what little good there was in me and there was little," Doc said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2000. "I'm awful glad she cared about me, and I'm awful glad she married me."

More @ Fort Mills Times

Muslim PFC convicted of plotting a terrorist attack against a restaurant near Fort Hood

Via Gates of Vienna

Abdo appeared in court for his trial with a surgical mask covering his nose and mouth, and U.S. Marshals who escorted him in wore goggles.

Abdo had said that he injected himself with the HIV virus in order to "continue the jihad" and at one point he had bitten his lip and attempted to spit blood on jail guards. Officials said there is no evidence that Abdo is HIV positive.

During one court hearing, Abdo yelled "Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009!" as he was being led out of court, a reference to the 2009 shooting spree.

More @ Reuters