Some wise words from old Country music singer Bobby Bare:The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand he looked like a drunk old fool
That's advice for me and you, JarHeadDad. And maybe one or two others around here, although I suspect most of you are smarter than me. :)
And I knew if I hit him right why I could knock him off of that stool
But everybody they said watch out hey that's the Tiger Man McCool
He's had the whole lotta fights and he's always come out winner
-- yeah he's a winner --
But I had myself about five too many and I walked up tall and proud
I faced his back and I faced the fact that he had never stooped or bowed
I said Tiger Man you're a pussycat and a hush fell on the crowd
I said let's you and me go outside and see who's the winner
Well he gripped the bar with one big hairy hand then he braced against the wall
He slowly looked up from his beer my God that man was tall
He said boy I see you're a scrapper so just before you fall
I'm gonna tell you just a little bout what it means to be a winner
He said now you see these bright white smilin' teeth you know they ain't my own
Mine rolled away like Chicklets down the street in San Antone
But I left that person cursin' nursin' seven broken bones
And he only broke ah three of mine that makes me the winner
He said now behind this grin I got a steel pin that holds my jaw in place
A trophy of my most successful motorcycle race
And each morning when I wake and touch this scar across my face
It reminds me of all I got by bein' a winner
Now this broken back was the dyin' act of a handsome Harry Clay
That sticky Cincinnati night I stole his wife away
But that woman she gets uglier and she gets meaner every day
But I got her boy that's what makes me a winner
He said you gotta speak loud when you challenge me son cause it's hard for me to hear
With this twisted neck and these migraine pains and this big ole cauliflower ear
And if it wadn't for this glass eye of mine why I'd shed a happy tear
To think of all that you gonna get by bein' a winner
I got arthritic elbows boy I got dislocated knees
From pickin' fights with thunderstorms and chargin' into trees
And my nose been broke so often I might lose if I sneeze
And son you say you still wanna be a winner
Now you remind me a lotta my younger days with your knuckles a clenchin' white
But boy I'm gonna sit right here and sip this beer all night
And if there's somethin' that you gotta gain to prove by winnin' some silly fight
Well okay I quit I lose you're the winner
So I stumbled from that barroom not so tall and not so proud
And behind me I still hear the hoots of laughter of the crowd
But my eyes still see and my nose still works and my teeth're still in my mouth
And you know I guess that makes me the winner
The Winner
ANZAC Scot
A hero and a Scot. Hat tip to bthun, who was kind enough to send the article.
Riding Instructor
Since Eric liked the dancing horse so much, I thought you folks might like to see the coolest horse in the world. There's a reason the spotlight stays on the horse when the guy walks away.
ISF training
Has the military changed priority away from training the ISF, as reported? No, says Bill Roggio. The military hasn't changed its priorities.
The decrease in the training of the Iraqi Security Forces Youssef is detecting is the first effect of delaying the FY07 supplemental budget. The money to train the Iraqi units has dried up.The military's leadership has mentioned this fact to Congress four times now, according to Bill's report -- a highly unusual move, given that the military rarely involves itself in matters that are in dispute between the legislative and executive branches.
The military's priorities are what they were. What are the politicians' priorities?
Baby Shower
Many of you will have heard the story of Marine Corporal DJ Emery.
Perhaps, to me, the most encouraging thing this week, and keep in mind that DJ probably doesn't know how bad his situation is (I doubt that he knows his legs have been amputated)...DJ was able to write one sentence...to tell his wife that he loved her. Through the drugs, the pain, the horror of what he's been through, deep inside, in his core...Semper Fidelis.Another thing he may not know is that he is now a father. Carlee Emery was born earlier this week. Joy cometh in the morning, Cassandra said.
All this you probably know. What you may not know is that there's a baby shower. FbL has the details, and suggestions should you wish to participate.
The Marines have stood by their injured comerade and his family in the best traditions of the service. If you'd like to be part of that, here's the link again.
Frustrated Young Men
Today, National Review linked to this article by Ed Hussain, a British Muslim ex-Islamist and his experiences in Saudi Arabia. What struck me about it was his account of frustration, especially sexual frustration, in the Kingdom (it matched the view I read in Carmen bin Ladin's Inside the Kingdom, which gives a complementary view of great frustration among the young women). (One of the frustrations of reading about dictatorships with no free press, and so no reliable statistics, is in wondering how typical all the anecdotes are - am I getting a picture of a country or of one or two social circles?)
My mind turned somewhat to war, and the role frustration plays in inspiring young men to it. One of the classics I love to return to is Harry Holbert Turney-High's Primitive War, a very wide-ranging survey by a very interesting character (an anthropologist - his fieldwork was among American Indians, including the Flathead - who was also one of our last horse cavalry officers). In his chapter on "Socio-Psychological Motives" for war, he devotes five pages to the role of war in frustration and tension - in particular, grief, frustration, being jilted or cuckolded, were good recruiters for the Plains Indian no-retreat societies (among the Crow, there was no "society," but a frustrated young man might simply "vow his body to the enemy" and do his darnedest to get killed in a heroic way in the next fight). Interestingly (and with a forthright judgmentalism you don't find much these days) he billed the Plains tribes as poor Soldiers and likely to flee from anything except certain victory or certain death, but gave credit to these no-retreat warriors for being otherwise. I'd have to spend time with the primary sources to tell you whether there's much record of how often social and sexual frustration led young men into these groups (some would stake their clothes to the ground to make sure they couldn't leave) - but it was certainly a part. We know how Shaka Zulu used the same force. This also fits with what I remember of late childhood and early adulthood -- fantasies of being killed, preferably after performing some dreadfully violent exploit (in a good cause, of course), were quite an effective release for the endless frustrations that can come with that time, or so I found them.
I can't demonstrate that this frustration is connected with any particular events in recent history (I haven't even read McDermott's Perfect Soldiers and don't know the life histories of the 9/11 hijackers, or what role personal frustrations played in their decisions to sign up for what they did. Maybe someone who does know will have something to say in comments). It's still awful to contemplate.
General Pace: You are being too diplomatic in this case.
“(We) don’t know how they got here. (We) don’t know if the Iranian government knows they are here. We just know that weapons made in Iran are here.”
After watching the video Grim pointed out here, I think I know how the weapons got there.
Its kind of annoying, watching dissembling like this.
Don't you think the Soviets were saying something similar when the stinger missles started showing up in Afghanistan in the 1980's?
My Hero - Again!
Greetings from me, Grim's wife. My nickname is Hyn, and you are all most welcome to refer to me so. I have not posted here before, and I shall not often do so, but please allow me a moment of your time to tell you of a small but momentous event in our house today.
I am an equine artist by profession. I have been working all week very late hours to finish up a major piece in time to ship it out today for a show this next weekend. So I have been pretty tired and worried about making the deadline. As a reward for my efforts, Grim (who is a very good cook) decided to make me fresh maple whole wheat bread, baked from scratch. The scent of this wonderful, huge loaf of fresh bread filled our log cabin with lusious aroma! Once cooled, I went into the great room, and to the kitchen attached within it, to finally help myself to this delightful treat while it was still warm enough to melt butter. That's when I heard a scrabbly, tapping noise combined with a thrum - above my head!
We like to leave our front and back doors open if the weather is especially nice. Unfortunately, we don't yet have screened doors to keep out the bugs. Now and then these really large, fat, long hornet looking things, about 2 inches long or more (!!!) fly in and get trapped up at the large bay windows high up above the main room and kitchen. These hum about and tap the glass incessantly until they either find the doors leading back out, or they die. Sometimes sparrows fly in and we have to shoo them out, and other times these cute little reddish wrens hop in and inspect the windowsills for spiders and flies and eat them, then fly out without the least bit of alarm when you walk up. Wrens are very smart about enclosed spaces, so they never get trapped in our cabin. Today, it was none of those more usual things.
Above my head was a most forlorn hummingbird, snared in a thick cobweb on the window sill. All I could see was it's wee little tail! I ran back out of the room and called for Grim - "There's a humming bird trapped in the house! Please help me get it out!" So he came to help and I dashed off to my art studio to try and find something to help me think of how to do it. When I came back a moment later, Grim was standing on top of the refrigerator and BLASTING the poor little hummingbird with a Super Soaker water cannon!!! To put it mildly, I freaked!
I got Grim to stop soaking the poor little, very, very paniced hummingbird. I asked him if he was out of his mind and he said that he wanted to wet it down enough so that it couldn't fly and would come down. (!!!) I tried to calm myself enough to think and explain why I thought that was a bad idea, hummingbirds being so sensitive and easy to panic to death! They have a very high metabolism and can burn themselves up past recovery. Not to mention that a soaking wet hummingbird can still fly just fine so I didn't think it would work. [As I attempted to point out at the time, what I was really trying to do was disturb it so it would abandon its fatal perch and try to find a different route. Not that it worked, although I remain convinced that if I'd just kept blasting it... -Grim]
I asked him to let it rest and leave it alone for a moment while we think of alternative methods. Something like a butterfly net taped to a long pole!
So I ran to find one of our young son's bug nets but found it to be awfully small. Then I remembered that when I was a reptile specialist we caught snakes and lizards that got loose and put them into pillowcases. I went and got a wire hanger from the closet and quickly stitched a pillowcase to the loop, then taped it to the longest pole we could find about the house - a heavy walking stick. If Grim stood on top of a chair, that was placed on top of the refrigerator, he could almost reach the ceiling - it's a very high peaked ceiling. The hummingbird was attracted to the light of the bay window so thankfully it was staying right over the refrigerator and very reluctant to venture away from that position. Grim tried to get the pillowcase over the wee tiny bird but it got pinned and shrieked the most unnerving screams pitifully! I yelled, "Don't smoosh it!" and Grim let it go. He tried again but the little bird kept in a panic.
The hummingbird would land, briefly exhausted, to cling on the side of the big beam that runs the length of the ceiling. Finally it landed against the pillowcase and prefered that easier perch to hang onto. Grim quickly lowered the make-shift catcher down to me and I flipped the hanging pillowcase over the frightened bird, then took the pole from Grim. I dashed out the back door and opened up the pillowcase then... poof! The hummingbird flitted off with a piping. Thankfully it wasn't so distressed that it didn't reccognize an escape when it saw one.
I was too concerned about getting the frightened bird loose that I forgot to even look at it. Alas, I don't know if it was a male or female, but we have many ruby throated hummers, and also black chinned hummingbirds here. They are difficult for me to tell apart anyway. I love to sit or lay down in my garden and read, or watch the hummingbirds. They feed at my flowers and the necter feeder, litterally inches from my face and oblivious to me if I don't move. So I was extremely happy and relieved when Grim, my Hero again today, recued that poor little bird!
To top things off, tonight we heard a noise outside. I opened the door and heard the quite unmistakable sound of a horse kicking or pawing metal, such as a water trough. It was very loud and coming from our neighbor's place across the street. Grim outfitted himself with a flashlight and a rope and went over to investigate. [This is the filly I call "Sneak," because she's always slipping up behind you on the hill to run down behind you and try to spook your horse. Turns out her real name is "Dixie." -Grim]
Luckily, nothing was wrong. The owners had just returned from a trail ride and the impatient filly was objecting to not having been unloaded yet. If she had been down and trapped, I have no doubt that Grim would have done his best to free her as well! That's the kind of day we have around here and I just wanted to share.
Thank you for saving my hummingbird, Grim. And the bread's good too! :}
~Hyn
No? Neither have I. But I have now, as I came across this video here today.
I think the horse is having a grand time.
COIN Gravity
Because of some large images, and the size of the post, I put up my COIN post at BlackFive. We can discuss it here as well, if you wish.
Bullfighting
We talked recently about some animal fighting sports, from the perspective of what their reduction in popularity might mean (an overall decline in human cruelty, or just the power of the current American culture to exert itself worldwide?). One of the ones you hear about most often in examples is bullfighting, which Americans often find mystifying. How could anyone want to watch the ritual torture of a bull?
My wife showed me this video this morning, which is enlightening on the point. It begins slowly, but the reason suddenly becomes obvious when first you see the bull, and realize that it means to kill the man and his mount.
The reason is cultural: specifically, it is the culture that arose from Medieval Spanish fighting traditions. It descends from the knighthood and other fighting men who arose in a world of violence and tamed it by force of arms. The bull is symbolic of the chaos and fury that the world often brings against us; and the men tame it, and feast on it, through the risk of their lives and the excellence of their skill.
That, and one thing more: the friendship of their horses. Watch the Lusitano steeds in that video, and you will appreciate the glory of Portugal's lost knighthood. Skill, prowess, fearlessness, and a willingness to engage the dangers of the world, all are on display in man and horse alike.
That is why bullfighting is popular in Spain and Portugal, and elsewhere. It is because, in spite of its cruelties, it hold up something fine that cannot be seen by any other light. The cultures that stage bullfights are celebrating their ancestry and the glory of their people. Seeing this, it is hard to say anything but: And well they ought.
St. George's Day
In keeping with the custom of the Hall, a few words of honor are in order about St. George, whom legends tell of as a dragon-slayer.
St. George is remembered as patron saint of both England and of the noble Order of the Garter. He is also remembered as patron of many other localities and professions.
Guns in Pakistan
You should really watch this video, of what is described as "the largest illegal arms market in the world." It's in the area under the control of the Afreedis in Pakistan -- I say "in Pakistan," although government control over the area is notional at best. I don't find the video alarming, as others seem to; I think you should watch it because it's a picture of the tribal society in the part of Pakistan that is sheltering the Taliban.
A friend of mine has spent a lot of time in Pakistan, and he told me years ago about this town. (I spoke to him again last week, and by coincidence this place came up in an unrelated conversation -- he thinks this is where Bin Laden probably is, given the power and strength of the Afreedis to protect him.) My friend was, as the filmaker is, totally impressed that these tribal villagers turn out military-grade firearms with nothing more than hand tools.
Well, it is impressive, as a show of skill. But it hasn't been that long ago that all firearms were made with hand tools -- and the technology really hasn't changed very much in many years. Any firearms made of metal and wood can be made by hand perfectly well.
It doesn't matter if you can make firearms out of scrap metal and wood; so can we, if we want to (and better ones, through the miracle of computer aided design). That's nothing to be alarmed about.
What is important, though, is to understand how to engage people like this. They're basically decent: "Lots of sons and lots of guns" is a fine motto for a man's life. The tribal clashes and gangs are a problem for them: visiting this town requires taking some armed friends along for mutual protection. Yet it hasn't been that long ago that much of Europe was the same way; the introduction to Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" reminds us of that.
In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fir on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.Allowing for dramatic license, that picture is not wholly inaccurate.
All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.
The town shows the third-world combination of technology and poverty. Live animals roam the streets, destined to be dinner. Sanitation is not extant. But there are sparkly stickers to decorate vehicles, shiny toys, and the latest weapons they know how to manufacture with the most primitive tools. They are not haters of the world of the West, then: what they can get of it, they proudly display everywhere they can.
There is ignorance: a people who has learned to make these guns has not learned to understand them. They must know how the firearms operate since they know how to build them, but they seem not to have given any thought to the ramifications of that knowledge. The photo team finds bullets on the ground where they are walking, shattered from having been shot in the air and then falling to earth. The "place for shooting" is right over a busy street, firing without any thought for a backstop or other basic safety mechanism.
It should not be necessary to fight most of these people, even though they give shelter (for now) to people who have declared themselves our enemies. It should be possible to befriend them.
They are decent, and they want technology and its pleasures and comforts. They lack understanding we can bring them, which could improve their lives. We can see in the pictures that they also lack much of modern sanitation and health, which we can also provide.
What we need is a tribal-style client relationship with some of these tribes. We have plenty with which to purchase it; there is a great deal that we have to offer. They are plainly not religious zealots who hate all technology, however they may have been portrayed by those who haven't been out to see for themselves.
This is a place where our enemies have made a home for themselves, because it is disconnected from us and our laws and treaties. That need not be the case forever. Some of these enemies, sheltering there, have seduced their young men into the idea of fighting us as a path to glory. Most of them, though, remain there, making guns because guns are what they know how to make, and because there is a demand.
"How can you beat these people?" asks the narrarator. I have a different question: Why should you wish to?
We'll talk more about disaggregation in coming days; those promised COIN posts. This is a good place to start thinking about it, though. These seem like good folk; I like sons and guns myself. How to draw them away from those who are the enemies of the West, and create the client relationship that will let them receive America as an ally and friend?
Obit Warning
It's been about a year ago that I wrote a post called "Cowboy Obituaries." It celebrated the lives of two gentlemen who had died that week: the last founder of the Cowboy Artists of America, who had died in his saddle at 74, and Stuart Mazanec, who had done the same at seventeen.
I've written a lot at this point, about a lot of different topics. Once in a while, when you do that, you get email from people who are interested in what you write. Sometimes, it's someone important, whom you are always surprised to find interested in your own poor thoughts and words.
Tonight, I received an email from Stuart's mother.
We had a short conversation recently about the importance of kindness and civility. Let me add this to the weight of what we have already said. No one more important has ever written me. I never thought to write to tell her that I had said something about her son; I wouldn't have thought of intruding on her grief. I only wanted to celebrate a life well lived, though it ended at a tragic age.
I am glad that my words were a comfort to her, on the difficult first anniversary without her son. This is what I want say to you tonight, as a warning. These things you say here may have effects you don't anticipate or even imagine. Do right with your words, as you would with your actions. You may be surprised, as sometimes I have been, by the good that kind words can do.
DK on Malpractice
Joe pointed out in the comments to a post below this review by David Killcullen of a piece by Edward Luttwak. It is a good read.
I will have some more posts on COIN in the near future.
AL Wargame
Armed Liberal of Winds of Change submitted the following guest post to Grim's Hall.
Grim posts two scenarios:
1) I'm sitting in class, armed, and I hear shots and screams from the
corridor outside.
2) I'm sitting in class and a shooter walks in the door and starts
firing.
On scenario 2) I'd create a 2a) and 2b); In 2a), I'm armed with a
firearm, in 2b) I'm not.
Background: I'm a trained tactical shooter, and have participated in
shooting sports for twenty-some years. I've been trained at Gunsite
(multiple times), Thunder Ranch (multiple times), Insights (once) and had random classes from and competed with many of the loveable and wacky folks in the tactical shooting world. I'd estimate my proficiency as high-average for a law-enforcement officer (on good days, I can shoot with the SWAT guys).
I've actually run some of these scenarios in training, including force-on force, as well as in competitions, so I'm kind of cheating here.
So let me talk about 2b) first, which is the one that has the most connection to reality.
If I'm in a room and someone starts shooting, my response will depend on two things - where am I relative to the door and to the shooter, and whether I took my hero pills that day.
First, I'm going to do something - I've been in enough situations to know that I'll react. The base reaction ought to be to get out of the door, leaving the shooter in the room. I have an ambush position on him when he comes out, and since I always have a pocketknife or even a rollerball pen, at that range (ambushing him as he walks out a door), it's going to be advantage me.
If I can't do that - if I'm too far from the door, or he's between me and the door, I'm going to start throwing things. My laptop is perfect, books, pens, my cell phone, anything I can chuck at him while running toward him and yelling to encourage others to do the same thing. Part of what I want to do is change the group dynamics, and tip the 'flight, freeze, or fight' into 'fight'. Plus it takes time for him to break his pattern of action, and if I can get to him while he's busy aiming and shooting at someone else, the odds are he won't have time to refocus on me.
I want to close with him because if I can get within three or four feet of him, he'll have a hard time shooting me (again, I'm cheating - enough martial arts experience to know that I can knock most people down and have a pretty good shot at disarming them) plus if I can get him off his feet, I'm hoping others will come help sit on him.
Most people who get shot once by handguns don't die - unless the shooter has the luxury of enough time to deliver a coup de grace to the head. That's a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
So we move to 2a), where he walks in but I'm armed. I draw my Glock 27, get out of the chair and kneel (if I'm shooting upward I worry less about hitting the people in back of him) and shoot him in the head. I've done pretty consistently this off a buzzer in about 2.5 - 3 seconds, so figure it's take me another three or five seconds to realize what's going on and react. So eight seconds after he walks in the door, he's dead. Assume I miss the first shot, and the second is .8 seconds behind it. Nine seconds for two shots. That's the best plausible case - probably a factor of two or more better than reality would be (ducking to get an angle for a shot, etc.). But note that he took ninety seconds or more in each classroom, so that's a relatively short time for him to be active.
How do I know I could do this? Let me take a moment and talk about fighting like you train.
The closest I ever came to being shot involved an unfortunate incident in which I arrived to my office at 3am in response to an alarm company call, walked into the courtyard, and saw two shadowy figures, one with a gun, on my office stairs. I was too far into the courtyard to retreat, so I drew my gun and yelled "Freeze! Police!" (I was, of course calling for the police, not representing myself as a police officer) and the figure with the gun turned toward me. I started the 'shoot' cycle, and as I focused on his chest, stil remember seeing the glint of a badge and releasing the trigger. We had a brief John Woo moment, and I did what I'd trained to do a million times. I holstered my gun, slowly raised my hands and said "I'm a good guy."
You'll note the colossally stupid thing I did - I reholstered my gun while looking down the barrel of the officer's gun. I did that because that's what I'd always done in class and in training when we did 'blue-on-blue' exercises. I was completely frightened - I recall being sure I was going to get shot and thinking "They aren't even going to get in trouble for this..." but still followed the pattern I'd built to the letter.
It (obviously) ended well, and I felt better when they explained that they'd been on foot which explained why I didn't see a patrol car when I drove up (I'd looked for either a police car or an obvious perp car, and would have driven away and called the police in either case).
So I'm pretty confident that I'm going to do whatever it is that I'm trained to do when the lights go up. And that anyone else would be likely to do so as well.
In Scenario 1, the first response is to close the door and move to a position where I can cover the door opening and shoot him as he walks in. I'll take a position along the wall to the side of the door that opens (the doorknob side) and get everyone to move into the far corner on the same side of the door as me. We're pretty solidly defensible at that point.
In another sidenote, while at Thunder Ranch we did an exercise in which five of us 'hunted' five others (no guns) within one of the training structures. It was pretty chilling to note that those who stayed in place and ambushed won 5:1 over those who moved and searched. So solo building clearing isn't high on my list of things to do in reality, unless there's a compelling reason. Staying put and setting ambushes is much more effective if what you want to do is kill the bad guy and survive yourself.
But - for the right reasons, like if my kid was in my house - I'd probably be willing to overlook those odds and gamble in part on the fact that I'm more motivated and better trained than whoever I'm hunting.
The interesting question - and one I genuinely couldn't answer - is whether I'd be willing to walk out of the room and go hunt the shooter. That's one of those random synapse click things, I imagine. So I can't really say whether I think I'd risk it all to be a hero. I might. I tend to wade into things before I think about them much. And then I might not, remembering the lesson I learned at Thunder Ranch.
I'd certainly defend myself and those immediately around me (can't defend me without defending them). I might go after him and try and defend more people - but I really can't say for certain. I wish I could. But I also know for certain that I'd be doing everything in my power not to be a victim.
The Funeral of a Hero
I know little about Jewish funeral traditions and rites, so I'm not certain precisely what the right thing to say is. Let me just say, then, that Liviu Librescu was a fine man, and one America did right to welcome. He repaid that welcome with service, laying down his life to save our young men and women. Let us repay his service with honor and friendship, and remember.
Last Call Wargame
If anyone wishes to add or extend comments on anything relating to the wargame exercise, I will be closing the thing at the end of today and writing up the findings.
Special Forces blogger Francis Marion posted his thoughts here, if you haven't seen them.
Lighter Wargaming
This video highlights one of the dangers of dynamic entry by State Police. Er, to the police.
H/t: The Castle.
Reid's Declaration of Defeat
By now, everyone knows that Harry Reid declared today that the Iraq war "is lost." The Surge, he says, is not working, as evidenced by the massive car bombings of this week.
Tigerhawk asks what possible purpose is served by such a statement. I will answer that Reid probably believes it to be true, and that speaking the truth is a good in and of itself. It happens that he is wrong, but I don't doubt that he believes he is doing something good.
The Surge is actually not yet in place -- only sixty percent of its forces are deployed -- and generals have warned that car bombings will be the last thing they can address, due to the location of car bomb factories in the suburbs outside Baghdad. The battle for these Baghdad belts is the last part of the Surge plan.
It is fair, then, to say that Harry Reid is premature in declaring the Surge a failure based on this evidence. (To say nothing of the war as a whole -- particularly in Anbar province, there has been marked progress in bringing once-hostile tribes alongside of Coalition forces.) It is also clear that the US military has made every effort to ensure that Congress understands this plan, and would have reached out to Reid's office had he contacted them to ask for comment before declaring their efforts a failure.
Why Reid has not understood the plan is not clear. Almost any speculation on the question leads you to say something ungenerous about the Senate Majority Leader, so let's not engage in speculation. It's not my point here to bait other Americans into a fight, but rather to sort out what the correct view of the situation is.
Still, it is fair to say that -- by citing the evidence he chose at this point in the plan's execution -- he has demonstrated that he doesn't understand what the military is trying to accomplish.
I hope someone will gently point that out to him, in terms he can take to heart. It ought to be alarming to him. Hopefully, he will have the grace to apologize for this comment, and work more closely with the military in understanding the American mission in Iraq.
Another thing that ought to be alarming is realizing that he has not only failed to understand what our military is attempting, he has also not paused to wonder what the enemy hopes to accomplish.
Some might claim the March 24 attacks were timed so the news would coincide with that of the House vote on the Iraq Withdrawal Bill. Some might notice that this week's attacks coincide with the return of congress from Spring Break, with the Iraq Bill once again foremost on the agenda.The attacks are clearly timed to affect the US political landscape. The US military has made clear that car bombs will continue to be a factor until the Baghdad belts can be addressed, which will only be the case later during the Surge.
A clear-eyed political view would recognize those facts, and comment accordingly. One should consider the messages the enemy is trying to make you believe -- and also the messages you may be sending back.
UPDATE: By the way, does anyone know what argument Reid was trying to forward here?
I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically.Those remarks followed the "war is lost" bit, and confuse the message terribly. Is Reid attempting to suggest that the war can be won "diplomatically, politically and economically" without a military/security component? If he is, he ought to make clear why he believes that is the case.
If he is merely arguing that those elements will be the decisive ones in bringing about a stable Iraq, he is in simple agreement with the various generals running the war. Given that he is arguing for troop withdrawals against the Surge, however, he appears not to be making that argument.
Would Reid please be clear exactly what he is trying to say? Is the war lost, or can it still be won? Are the troops counterproductive? If the war can be won, but only if we first withdraw our troops, what exactly is his diplomatic/political/economic plan for establishing security in the face of terrorists without Coalition security forces?
If he has such an argument to make, it would be well to make it now, so that we can consider it before Congress votes on funding the troops or not. I'd like to hear his thoughts laid out plainly and clearly.
Wargaming VA Tech II
Thanks to everyone for the many thoughtful contributions to the wargaming exercise, begun below. I'd like to summarize the first set of 'lessons learned.' This is only a summary of the broad areas of agreement: there is a tremendous amount of expertise available in the comments to the post below.
Scenario I has prompted two basic theoretical responses, one defensive and one offensive. The defensive response seems rather more popular: that, at minimum, an armed student with proper training and a defensive firearm could secure his own classroom, deny it to an aggressor, and (if an evacuation route were available, as they were at VA Tech) cover the escape of the unarmed. If that can be achieved, the armed citizen is then able to either leave as well, or engage in further operations at the risk of only his own life. He has to make a personal decision as to his capacity here -- for example, our former MP at Ft. Bragg, who notes that he is no longer sufficiently mobile to pursue less static operations, versus our Air Marshal, who is entirely (and doubtless justifiably) confident of his capability.
If there were one such armed civilian in any given classroom, it should be possible in most cases to deny the shooter victims beyond the first place he hits. If there is only one here and there, it would still sharply reduce the number of potential victims, and increase the danger to would-be assassins.
The offensive response notes that, the sooner the assassin is taken out, the fewer people will die. This mode suggests seeking out and destroying the assassin at once. This position is controversial among respondents:
a) Some note the lack of intelligence on the precise nature of the threat, which might not be a school shooter. It could be a legitimate police operation, or it could be a terrorist act.
b) Others mentioned the high level of risk to the armed citizen. 'Clearing a building is a team sport,' notes TheNewGuy, quite rightly. However, one also recognizes that personal survival may not be the point. Referencing Professor Liviu Librescu, we note that defending the weak is sometimes a matter for which we might properly undertake even great personal risk, or the certainty of personal destruction.
Nevertheless, a review of the severity and nature of the dangers ought to be sobering. Anyone undertaking this sort of measure would be wise to adopt 1charlie2's suggestion to inform the police of distinguishing features; the suggestion to expect police communications to be garbled, and thus to be prepared to surrender quickly should they overtake your position. Indeed, in any scenario 1 response, communicating your existence and intentions to the police is a priority, as is making sure they are aware of the situation in case you fail.
The general consensus is that this is a high risk strategy, with a relatively low survival probability. Some of the best trained and most experienced of respondents, however, suggest that it is the right course.
c) For those who feel competent to engage the enemy, there are two strongly supported pieces of advice. The first is from Air Marshal SamTheFAM:
Ten to one odds that guy was target fixated. Hell even after shooting tens of thousands of rounds in training I still chant "Scan and breath" to myself all the while shooting...scan and breath, scan and breath. Because the majority of folks forget to do both. He could have been taken out from behind by a few well placed center mass shots.The second is the advice to track on gunfire, and lay a counterambush on likely points of transit. Whenever possible, leave a covered line of retreat open for yourself.
d) Some respondents point to the danger of shooting other armed students, attempting the same sort of actions. This is a good point: friendly fire is a real danger in these cases.
Scenario II has produced a fairly unified structure. We all seem to agree that the basic structure is as suggested: evade, control, retaliate, or as many of you put it, move, draw, fire. First do what you can to gain a second or two out of the direct line of fire; then, get control of your weapon; then, direct fire to center mass.
Two sideline discussions have arisen.
The first is among those respondants who know they will never be carrying arms. What should you do?
My advice is twofold. Those of you who think you might be constitutionally capable of learning to bear arms, lawfully and with personal discipline, ought to do exactly that. We need more of your kind contributing to the defense of the common peace and lawful order.
There remain those of you who are not confident of being able to do such things. There is nothing wrong with this. You should take the lead of those who are, and follow their directions in getting to the best exit available. Withdraw from the scene as you are able, and stay gone. Contact the police. Not everyone is a fighter.
The second offshoot wondered if the scenarios were valid. If we came to the point that people were reliably carrying arms on campus, at least two respondents asked, why wouldn't wannabe assassins change their tactics and go somewhere else?
There are two basic responses to that.
1) This is not a bug, it's a feature. The point is to harden the campus so as to make it a less attractive target. If that adjusts the behavior of bad actors so that they stop shooting up schools, good.
2) However, to have that effect, we have to get to the point that this is a reliable danger they have to consider. In order to get there, we need to establish an understanding of how to respond to events of this type, and get people to the point that they are carrying.
We've talked about the importance of training in being ready to respond to violence. If you are going to do a citizen's duty to uphold the common peace and lawful order, you must prepare for that duty.
Sovay suggests a wargaming exercise, which strikes me as a good idea. She asks this of the readership:
If you were at Virginia Tech that day and had a gun a) Please tell me what you would have done. b) Tell me how certain you are that you would have done it. The more detail you can give, such as location and situation of those around you, the better.Tactics depend heavily on the actual situation and surroundings. The main shootings seem to have happened at Norris Hall, which you can see here. I gather this is the building to which the main exits were chained. It is two stories, and we know that the second story classrooms could be exited by the windows.
There is a map of the surrounding campus here. Police call boxes are not marked, but presumably -- if VTech is like any other campus I've been on -- there are some.
These photos are from inside Norris Hall. Internal walls appear to be solid cinderblock, easily capable of serving as hard cover against 9mm or .22 rounds. Presumably that would be the same for the classrooms. I can't think why they would have a different basic internal structure from the rest of the building, but if anyone knows better, shout out.
Let's consider two basic scenarios:
1) You are in class in Norris Hall, with a (lawfully carried, we'll presume for the purpose of this example -- let us say the law changes as a result of this episode) defensive handgun of your choice. You hear gunfire in the building. You may be either on the first or second floor, near or far from the stairwells, as you prefer.
2) You are in classs in Norris Hall, on the first floor near the main entrance. A student you know only barely walks into the room and opens fire.
Obviously the tactical situation in #2 is much worse, but consider it all the same.
I would say in scenario 1, the best option is to adopt a position that will allow you to use the cinderblock walls as cover, while controlling the entrance to the classroom. Once this is done, you can determine if any other fellow students are likewise lawfully armed, and what degree of training they may have had. If there is backup within the classroom, you have increased options; but if not, the best thing to do is to determine the best route of escape (probably through the windows) and see that noncombatants are evacuated safely, with instructions to contact the police at once.
At that point, depending on the sound of gunfire, you can either advance to set a counterambush on a likely point for the enemy to cross; or attempt to reconnoiter the enemy position in order to provide intelligence to the police. If it appeared to be a solitary killer, and you were able to approach his position without being spotted, you could kill him. If it appeared to be something more than that, you would be better informed to advise responding policemen.
An alternative prospect arises if you know that most students are in a given section of the building, which can be isolated. You might well set up a defensive posture there, to cover their escape.
Scenario 2 is rather more dangerous. In that case, the thing to do is to follow the advice taught me by Ken Caton: "Evade, control, retaliate." The first thing to do is to take any decent cover that presents itself. Then, prepare your weapon. Then, attempt to respond, either by killing the enemy, or by pinning him down so that he could not harm others before police arrived.
Sovay asks how certain I would be that I would do this, rather than panic or something else. Having been in life-threatening circumstances just occasionally, and having dealt with violent criminals twice, I feel almost certain that I would respond in this fashion. My reaction to serious danger has usually been what Doc Russia describes as "the Machine" -- the shutoff of emotional content, and a very cold and ruthless rationality. It doesn't always save the day, but it does allow for a direct response to danger.
I'll post a link to this at BlackFive and MilBlogs, to invite a further response. Anyone with military, police or other relevant experience is invited to respond. The idea is to build a notion of what the basic elements are in a successful response to an attack of this sort, so that we may be better prepared.
UPDATE: At the point of 38 responses here and 35 at BlackFive, I composed a summary post on the broad areas of agreement emerging. Scroll up past this post to read it.
"Never Again"
One professor, a Holocaust survivor blocked the door opening in front of the shooter with his body while his students had the chance to escape out the window.H/t: Cassandra.Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter, who had attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said the son, Joe.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv.
Retrospective
A news item from Virginia's legislature, dated 31 January 2006.
A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.And therefore there was no one to stop him.
House Bill 1572 didn't get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.
H/t: VCDL.
TR & Sq. Dealing
Before his cousin came up with the New Deal, Teddy offered the square deal.
Lincoln Steffens, a reform-minded journalist who had met Roosevelt long before his presidency, inadvertently gave the agenda its name. Steffens interviewed TR often and knew that he fancied himself a reformer too. Peeved by the caution of TR’s first year in office, Steffens tried to embarrass him into action. “You don’t stand for anything fundamental,” Steffens told him one day at the White House. “All you represent is the square deal.”It's an interesting article from The Wilson Quarterly.
Roosevelt, plainly overjoyed, leapt out of his chair, pounded his desk, and bellowed, “That’s it. That’s my slogan: the square deal.”
...
TR tried to assure the bullies that the Square Deal was not socialism. He did not plan to confiscate the aces and give them to the poor, he said; he meant only to prevent crookedness in the dealing. He had no objection to men of great wealth, only to the “malefactors of great wealth,” as he would call them. He didn’t name names, but the press was soon slapping the label on J. Pierpont Morgan and every other tycoon who ran into trouble with the trust buster. TR also declared that he would not tolerate demagogues who incited the have-nots to violence against the haves. From his presidency through his run for a third term in 1912, he would denounce class envy in one breath and in the next opine that “of all the forms of tyranny the least attractive and most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth.”
On the subject of tyrants, though, I must say that I prefer Edward Abbey's argument: "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." It was that sort of tyranny that drove the American revolution: not torture and secret courts, but the stamp act.
Heroes II
Karrde, in an interesting post below, wonders about whether a hero is properly boastful or not. The confusion he expresses arises, I think, from the fact that the West contains two separate traditions on the subject -- the old Indo-European heroic tradition, and the Christian heroic tradition that has largely supplanted it.
Heroic boasting was a social institution that was used by Indo-European cultures to do more than advertise their past deeds. It was also a form of accruing additional glory: both for the poetic excellence of your description, and by allowing you to essentially make wagers with the future about what you would be able to do. But you must remember that many of the ones we have today are not recordings of actual boasts, but poetic interpretations of what the boasts of the greatest heroes of yore must have sounded like. (For a version of what the boasts of regular, living heroes sounded like, see the Saga of the Jomsvikings.)
The greatest version of the heroic boast for a living man was to inspire others to extoll his virtues instead of doing it himself. This was normally done through the heroic virtue of liberality. By giving great feasts and fine gifts, you would inspire others to speak very highly of you. Professional poets would sing your praises, and they were free to do so in terms that were even more boastful than you could use yourself.
The Beowulf poem stands at the end of a very long series of revisions, now lost to us (as Tolkien pointed out in "The Monsters and the Critics"). Swimming in chainmail (which really can be done, as the folks at Regia Anglorum have shown) while fighting off sea monsters, etc., this isn't the sort of boast the old warrior on whom Beowulf is based would have made. They are the sort of poetics that would have arisen about him among the professional skalds who benefitted at his court, and their children and grandchildren, who sang of him to entertain later kings with tales of their heroic progeny.
These stories -- some version of heroic stories are what Kim du Toit is wanting when he says that "we need heroes" -- serve a number of useful functions. They showcase what a hero looks like, and how one acts. They make people think of themselves as more than just individuals, but as part of a great people with a proud history that they should uphold. They reinforce common values, and inspire better behavior. They help to socialize the young, and they also serve to remind the old about what was great and good about their own lives.
The silent hero is a Christian form, and one that developed slowly. Christianity has a lot to say against boasting and pride, and after the West became formally Christian, the Church began a centuries-long task of trying to restrain the pride that was expressed by the aristocracies of all the European cultures.
In the early Anglo-Saxon church, we have the famous cleric Alcuin protesting, "What has Ingeld to do with Christ?" That lament arose in response to the fact that heroic poetry was being read among monks instead of the Bible or the writings of saints. Those monks often came from the same aristocratic classes that furnished the great kings and warriors, and they enjoyed the same poetry. Indeed, we have the Beowulf because the monks preserved it.
By the time of Sir Thomas Malory, however, the concept of pride as sinful had at least taken hold among the fighting class. Le Morte D'Arthur still has prideful, boastful warriors, but it also has the quest for the Grail with its repentence and silence; it has the conclusion wherein Lancelot abandons worldly pride for the life of a monk. There is a deep conflict between the heroic virtues, and the Christian ones.
In the Anglosphere, the increasing importance of the Protestant movement, I'd say, was the driving force in moving the balance point in that conflict. Boasting was something a good Catholic could still do, as long as he boasted of the right things and repented for other things. (As Chesterton wrote, "Any one might say, 'Neither swagger nor grovel'; and it would have been a limit. But to say, 'Here you can swagger and there you can grovel' -- that was an emancipation.") The good Protestant, especially a good Calvinist, should not swagger at all.
America especially has its cultural roots in Protestantism, and so we have a deeply embedded notion that it is wrong to boast. We like the hero (whether a soldier or a rider of bulls) who does great things, and then says it was nothing -- or simply says nothing at all. That is what we have long preferred.
There are strong advantages to this type, but also disadvantages. One of them is that you don't get the same degree of social benefit you got from the old heroic poems. Those came from having common heroes, whose stories were told and retold to all of us. A hero who refuses to be celebrated may be admirable for having the virtue of humility in spite of having done great deeds; but he also denies his culture the chance to use him as a rallying figure, to socialize the young and to help adults rededicate their lives to the better things.
In the last few decades, there has been a rise of another sort of claimant to heroism: I mean the swaggering criminal type. We've always had gangster movies, but even as late as the Godfather pictures, it was understood that the criminals were the bad guys.
That hasn't been the case lately: from "Smokey and the Bandit" to gangster rap, we've seen a resurgence of the boastful-heroic mode. It is a mode that is fundamentally better able to socialize the young than the humble mode of Protestantism. That is a problem, and it's another part of the problem Kim was discussing.
The old mode was sustainable as long as it didn't have to compete with an active heroic tradition in the counterculture. Children (especially boys) need bold, shining heroes to emulate, and if they can't get them elsewhere, they'll emulate the pimp.
There are two kinds of heroes we have to offer, and we need them both. The first are historic American heroes, so that we can celebrate our (cultural, rather than literal) ancestors in the way that Ingeld's descendants did. I think Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge did the groundwork here: their Hero Tales from American History serves as a great source for stories to celebrate.
We also need living, modern heroes. We are fortunate enough to have some. The DOD has begun a series called Heroes in the War on Terror.
The last thing we need are poets and movie makers to turn their craft to celebrating these heroes, historic and living. That, so far, is the one place where we fall short.
Anyone want to fund a movie company? I'll bet there would be a market for these films, if only someone made them.
Nonviolence
We had a discussion recently that touched on the philosophy of nonviolence. Tigerhawk wonders further, noting that 25-30% of the Democratic House has aligned on a bill forcing the creation of a new Cabinet-level position.
Fuzzybear Lioness talks about the jolt of working with the wounded, and fearing she is not worthy of the sacrifice they have made for her.
And for us.
Backroad Pics
InstaPundit today links to a nice back road Tennessee picture. We can do good pictures from backcountry Georgia. They're not art shots, but you might like them.
If you ever wondered what it was like to sit on top of one of the Wild Bunch, here's a shot taken from atop Delaney. You can click on the picture for a bigger version. The tiny legs at the top of the photo are the puppy hiding by a chair and mounting block.
Speaking of the puppy, here's another shot of her.
Here's Blue Streke, who left this morning for his new home.
Not all the beasties are huge. Cinnamon the pony isn't exactly friendly (to anyone, although I have bad luck with creatures named "Cinnamon"), but he does have the virtue of being small.
And here's a good shot of the road, with Sherlock in the foreground.
It's not black and white, and the hills of Georgia are "small sky" rather than "big sky" country, but it's still a pretty place to be.
Heroes
The subject of heroes has come up at two blogs I visit regularly. Some of the questions raised are provocative: Why are certain kinds of men revered as heroes? What is the difference between the scholarly historian's list of heroes and the ordinary man's list of heroes? How does the creation of a list of heroes reflect the values of the culture?
In the comments thread at Kim duToit's place, several examples of heroes are mentioned. While many are 'big names', several are nobodies. These small-name heroes somehow seem more impressive in that they have tried to stay out of the limelight of public attention.
This raises a question about the definition of a hero--the Platonic ideal of a hero, as it were.
The great heroic legends are full of heroes who are eager to tell of their greatness to all who will listen. (Neither Achilles nor Beowulf are shy about mentioning their past deeds.) However, the boasts are not their sole claim to fame--the heroes rise to the challenge at hand, the challenge that is the center of the story.
These men are not viewed as heroes because of their boasts, but because of their deeds. Their boasts are not out of place.
In the modern world, this seems less common. One recurring image of a modern hero (especially those mentioned in this comments thread) is of a man who has done heroic deeds, and would rather not share that history with anyone else. His family and friends know, but few others have that knowledge.
Which image is a truer representation of the hero? Or do both represent the bearing of a man of heroic stature in different cultural situations?
After some deliberation on the subject matter, I am leaning towards the idea that the heroic ideal is silent about whether the hero spends his time advertising his stature. That is, the heroic ideal is centered on the actions of the hero, rather than his attitude towards telling his own heroic tale.
However, I am also deeply aware that traditional measures of heroic stature have lost most of their cultural currency in the West. We have men and women who proclaim themselves as heroes because they are in a default attitude of rebellion against the excesses of past generations. We have publicists and media personalities declaring celebrity for a variety of reasons; rarely are those reasons connected to heroic deeds. Anyone who wins the celebrity lottery has lost almost all privacy for the purposes of feeding a novelty-driven media culture.
This makes me very happy to be able to learn about heroic stories from locations like the weblogs I linked--or locations like the Someone You Should Know series at BlackFive. I can learn their stories without them being subjected to the attention of the mass media.
When discussing why a man might not want to become the center of a media circus, I pause to wonder if the existence of this corrosive media environment is a sign of sickness in the culture. If so, how deep does the sickness run? How could such a sickness be healed?
Arts & Letters Daily answers a question that has bothered me for decades: where did we ever get the idea that the suit was the right way for a gentleman to dress? A good one feels like you're wearing pajamas in public, compared to the rugged clothing suited for work or adventure: denim, wool, leather. The necktie is preposterous, and the only actually useful piece of the suit -- the hat -- has since been discarded by fashion. You don't see "the great men" of any other civilization dressed up like this.
It turns out there is a good reason for the development, one that arises naturally from the roots of the gentleman:
Suits are, in fact, unnatural. The peoples of antiquity, the early Middle Ages, and traditional Asia, Africa, and the pre-Columbian Americas dressed beautifully with a minimum of cutting and sewing. Togas, kimonos, pre-Columbian mantles, dashikis — however luxurious or elegant — were not constructed as second skins.It goes on from there, through revolutions French and Industrial, but that is the root of the thing.
The present male uniform began to emerge in the 14th century as an unintended consequence of military innovation. The body-fitting plate armor that we now admire in museums was replacing mail of the earlier Middle Ages. New craftsmen, the linen armorers, emerged to construct padding to cushion warriors' new exoskeletons, cutting and stitching pieces of cloth to fit the body. Those artisans, Anne Hollander declares in Sex and Suits (Knopf, 1994), "can really count as the first tailors of Europe."
German Medals
I had not been aware that 15 April was the official day for members of the Jewish faith to remember the Holocaust. I was very pleased, however, to read this account of a small measure of justice being done by the German government.
Although the army he fought in was an enemy of ours at the time, it's good to see justice done for a man who once fought for hearth and home.
H/t: InstaPundit.
Eject!
He's written another long essay, and as always, it merits your attention. This essay is on reason, and conspiracy:
My father was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in 2002. I will never forget that day. It changed my life, and was the event that started me writing here at Eject! Eject! Eject!Whittle mentions Popular Mechanics' tireless attempts to trod down this mire. I'd like to mention Sovay's site on the subject, which has been devoted to disproving 9/11 conspiracy theories since not very long after 9/11.
The man who coordinated that service was on a hill about a half-mile from that side of the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th, 2001. He told me that they had been informed that something was going on in New York that morning. Then he heard something that he said he thought was a missile attack – a roar so loud and so far beyond a normal jet sound that he looked up at that exact moment expecting to die.
What he saw emerge from the trees overhead, perhaps a hundred feet above him, was American Airlines Flight 77 as it went by in a silver blur, engines screaming in a power dive as it hit the near side of the Pentagon. He told me – to my face – that body parts had rained down all over that sacred field. Just like red hail on a summer day. Those body parts are buried in a special place at the base of that hill.
Now. If Rosie O’Donnell and the rest of that Lunatic Brigade is right and I am wrong, then that man – that insignificant Army chaplain and his Honor Guard of forty men – are all liars. He is lying to me for Halliburton and Big Oil. That Chaplain—and all of those decent, patriotic young men in the Honor Guard, and all the commuters on the roads who saw an American Airlines jet instead of a missile – ALL of those people are liars and accessories to murder. And all of the firefighters who went into buildings rigged to explode were pre-recruited suicide martyrs dying for George W. Bush’s plans for world conquest.
This is something that concerns us all. It is important to get it right. Kudos to those who have, as Whittle says, shed the light of reason on these matters.
Feminist Reviews
...as Germaine Greer certainly is. That beauty is that you can write a review that says, 'This book is so bad a woman must have written it.'
The review is a masterpiece of the art of criticism, brutal and insightful at once. My thanks to the ever-valuable Arts & Letters Daily for the link.
Links
BlackFive has a story about two good young men living the fantasy of every Marine. Ooh-rah, Lance Corporals.
Karrde, who really should be posting this stuff here as well, put up his thoughts on the subject of a man's word of honor. It was occasioned by Kim du Toit's draft chapter of his book.
There's little doubt that keeping your word is the main, most important test of a man. There's a very great deal that can be forgiven or ignored, as long as you do what you say you will do, and keep your oaths.
I see that long-time reader and commenter Noel is now blogging at Cold Fury. I would have thought I'd have put CF on the blogroll a long time ago, but apparently it escaped my attention. I'll do it now, though, for certain. Noel's stuff is either very good or very, very bad, depending on how many puns he tries to work into his arguments.
Either way, it's always worth reading.
No Riding
Today my saddle busted a fender; and one of our electrical fences suffered a rather astonishing failure occasioned by two young horses barreling through it at high speed. So, lots of work, but no time for me to ride.
Plus there was one additional distraction from regular business:
The puppy picture is by way of apology to the ladies who complained about the last entry about the horses. There are good things about the horse farm, too.
There are fewer horses to ride just now anyway. In addition to Blue Streke, we've got another one of the Wild Bunch sold if he vets out. His name is Sherlock. I'm going to miss having him around -- he's the best tempered of the bunch.
Sherlock's always friendly, and according to his trainer has taken quickly to his lessons. He's been trained as a dressage horse, and I know nothing about dressage, so I have spent little time with him. Still, when I have worked with him, I've always liked him.
So, you see, it's not always terror and fury out of these beasts. Most of the time, it's pleasant and relaxing in spite of the hard work.
Forgiveness
I had a post at BlackFive responding to a lady blogger from the sinister side of the blogosphere. She had given us a backhanded compliment:
Do you think Jihad Watch and LaShawn Barber’s Corner and BLACKFIVE and Mudville Gazette and Wizbang got to be in the top 25 at TTLB only (or even mostly) because of their writing or their core fan base? Not at all! They zoomed to the top because bloggers like Michelle Malkin, Powerline, and Hugh Hewitt talked them up, linked to them, befriended them. It does not make me happy to know that people whose worldview is so narrow, intolerant, exclusive, and hateful are so much better at supporting their ideological soulmates than we on the left, whose values run to diversity, inclusiveness, a place at the table for everyone, human needs before defense contractors’ wish lists.Yeah, the lady has a good backhand. Let me tell you about intolerance and hate.
About a week ago, I had one of the Wild Bunch throw me hard. (We're about to sell one of them, by the name of Blue Streke. He's an outstanding blue roan, with spirit. The guy came out to ride him on Saturday, and the horse bucked him right up into the air. Took two people on the reins to get the horse straightened out. The guy said, "If my vet says he's healthy, I'll take him." That's a horseman.)
This horse who threw me, I've ridden before. He is the one who threw me earlier last month, and put me briefly in the hospital. But he'd been scared by a truck that day, and on the day in question, he seemed to be calm. I'd ridden him since the incident without a problem, and he seemed happy. He came willingly to me when I showed him the rope, and he let me saddle him without any complaint.
In other words, he lied to me.
No sooner did I get on this horse than all fourteen hundred pounds of him started to run and buck. I pulled his head around and stopped him, with an effort. My partner for the ride was ready to go, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this horse, so I said I was going to swap out to another for the ride.
The instant he felt me take my feet out the stirrups, he threw back on with all he had. The young lady (same one from the missing-mare episode) said it was like watching a rodeo: he bucked and reared and fought as hard as a 1,400 pound horse can go. I had him in a headlock for a second, but he reared so hard I had to lean far forward to stay balanced. He got his head free, and then while I was forward he dropped and bucked and I went flying.
I landed right on my skull, with an impact that should have broken my neck. The only reason it didn't is all those years of jujitsu training and teaching: I fell exactly the right way, against instinct but with muscle memory. Because I had pressed my chin to my chest, instead of my neck breaking the impact was distributed through the muscles of my back and chest. My back still hurts every time I do anything.
The horse went running, and my brave but young companion foolishly went after him. It took me a couple of seconds to get to my feet (my Stetson had a big dent right in the back-of-the-skull section) and by the time I caught up to her, she was doing something I wouldn't advise any of you to do. My horse had run into the barn, and she had dismounted and followed him. She still had her horse by the reins in one hand (Doc, for those of you who remember the post about him) and the Wild Buncher by her other hand. He was still rearing and snorting and yelling when I got there.
This all means that she was in a narrow place, with an angry horse on one side of her and a horse that was increasingly frightened on the other, and she was holding both of them. Brave, brave girl. But it was not a good place for her to be.
I came in and took control of the horse that just threw me. In order to do that, I had to get his reins -- and in order to get the girl to safety, I needed to do it in a way that wouldn't further spook him, and therefore her horse also. I could see the fear mixed with the anger in the beast's eye when I grabbed his reins. There was only one thing to do.
I pushed all the anger out of my heart, let it go, and looked him in the eye. "I am not angry at you," I said in level tones. "Come on. Calm down."
A horse can tell if it's true. They know if you're mad. If I wanted him to be calm, he had to know I had forgiven him. All this was less than a minute after he lied to me, sucker-punched me, and almost killed me because of it.
Everything worked out. I convinced the young lady to take her horse out of the barn and go on her way without me. I got the horse to his stall, and took his tack off, so that I could go and hurt in peace. My back still hurts, but it will be all right in time. When the girl got back, I took Doc for a short ride -- because you don't want to get thrown and walk away without riding if you can help it. You need to get back on a horse.
This story is about forgiveness. If you're going to ride horses, you have to be able to clear your mind of hate and intolerance in an instant. It has to be truly empty of those things when you grab the reins or the halter of a frightened beast.
Now, there is (I admit) a certain part of me that thinks this particular horse would make an excellent rug. But it's not the part of my soul that entertains hate; it's the part that entertains humor.
I've said from time to time that I'm not aware of hating anyone, and I honestly believe that is true. There are people I like and people I don't; there are people I'm proud to know and people I think ought to be ashamed of themselves. I don't think, though, that I hate anyone.
The lady has a Shel Silverstein quote on her homepage: "If you are a dreamer, come in." My mother used to read that poem to me. If she thinks I hate her kind, she's wrong: in that she reminds me of my mother, I'm predisposed to love rather than to hate her.
What she may not understand about me and my kind could be explained this way: Shel Silverstein also wrote "A Boy Named Sue."
America, like the poet, has room for both of us. If there's room for the part that is 'a magic-bean buyer,' and there's room for the part that came "up with a knife and cut off a piece of my ear."
Now, how's that for tolerance? For ladies and horses, I have more than you might imagine.
Tartan day 2007
Absinthe & Cookies once again hosts the "Gathering of the Blogs." Today is Tartan Day, a day established to celebrate Scottish heritage.
Given the readership's interests, I thought we'd talk about the Battle of King's Mountain. One of the turning points of the Revolutionary War, this battle was fought largely by Scots and Scots-Irish who had taken up residence in the backcountry. Its importance is reflected in the prominence of the mountain fighter in the crest of the Scottish American Military Society. Because they crossed over the Appalachians to resist the British, the Patriot's backcountry fighters were called "Overmountain Men."
Thomas Jefferson said at the time that it was a major turning point in the war; that sentiment was confirmed by Theodore Roosevelt in his history The Winning of the West, with the benefit of more than a century's perspective. He pointed out the importance of the mountain fighter in subsequent American history:
The warlike borderers who thronged across the Alleghanies, the restless and reckless hunters, the hard, dogged, frontier farmers, by dint of grim tenacity overcame and displaced Indians, French, and Spaniards alike, exactly as, fourteen hundred years before, Saxon and Angle had overcome and displaced the Cymric and Gaelic Celts. They were led by no one commander; they acted under orders from neither king nor congress; they were not carrying out the plans of any far-sighted leader. In obedience to the instincts working half blindly within their breasts, spurred ever onwards by the fierce desires of their eager hearts, they made in the wilderness homes for their children, and by so doing wrought out the destinies of a continental nation. They warred and settled from the high hill-valleys of the French Broad and the Upper Cumberland to the half-tropical basin of the Rio Grande, and to where the Golden Gate lets through the long-heaving waters of the Pacific. The story of how this was done forms a compact and continuous whole. The fathers followed Boon or fought at King's Mountain; the sons marched south with Jackson to overcome the Creeks and beat back the British; the grandsons died at the Alamo or charged to victory at San Jacinto.(King's Mountain is associated with the excellence of the now-famous Ferguson Rifle, because that rifle was designed by the British commander, Patrick Ferguson, although it is not clear that any of his rifles were deployed there. Louis L'amour wrote a novel around the idea that he had two of them, and gave one away: The Ferguson Rifle. Fans who want to read one of his works set in an early period of the American frontier will enjoy it.)
Ferguson sent a challenge to the backcountry to lay down their arms, or he would bring them fire and sword. Instead, they decided to bring the fight to him. The battle was decisive in preventing the British from cutting off the American South from the Continental Congress. We might have had two Canadas, in other words: a few remaining British colonies in the north, and a few in the South. That makes for an interesting mental adventure -- perhaps someone should write a book about it.
If you wish to read still more, Wikipedia's page is here.
Eric Blair -- who is either a supervillain or a camel-like space alien, but who has apparently excellent taste in beach drinks and Chinese pottery -- reminds us of the outstanding civilization available in Mexico in 1650.
By happy coincidence, here is a review of a book on the glories of that civilization at its merry core: England. I assume they're downplaying the good parts a bit. Like the beer: to judge from literature of the period, the beer must have made it worthwhile.
Go Scouts
It's hard to imagine any case in which I'd side against the Boy Scouts of America, who must be the finest youth program extant. When they're allied with the DOD, however, they're assured of my support. The loser, in this case, was the ACLU.
H/t: The Castle.
PQ
Any readers in NYC who might enjoy a Broadway show are invited to let me know if this is any good. I can't see how a production about Queen Elizabeth I and the Irish rebel pirate named Grace O'Malley could be all that bad.
It appears to be a "Riverdance"-type show, so you'd have to like Irish music and dancing. Otherwise, for a play, it seems interesting.
GWOT Heroes
The DOD is doing something very sharp: giving us heroes. That is, it's taking the time to introduce us to them:
Army Staff Sgt. Jeremy Wilzcek, Spc. Jose Alvarez, Spc. Gregory Pushkin, and Sgt. Michael RowThere are many more.
Part of the Soldier’s Creed is never to leave behind a fallen comrade. On the night of March 13, 2006, then-Sgt. Wilzcek, Sgt. Row, then-Pfc. Alvarez, then-Pfc. Pushkin, and the rest of their squad risked life and limb to live up to that promise.
Row, the point man, was leading the soldiers through dark, narrow alleys in the city of Ramadi as the squad headed back to base. Suddenly two men darted into a nearby house – and at that hour, Row saw that as a clear sign of imminent danger. He stopped the team, but within seconds the street exploded with an onslaught of machine-gun and small-arms fire, RPG explosions, and hand grenades. The squad dropped to the ground and directed fire at the enemy’s position.
Alvarez moved to a covered position to reload his weapon, and he noticed one of his comrades had been hit and was lying in the middle of the firefight. Without hesitation, Alvarez rushed into the kill zone to check the soldier’s vital signs – but it was too late. He covered the soldier’s body with his own and continued firing on the enemy. When he ran out of ammunition, Alvarez stood up and started dragging the soldier out of the line of fire. Row, who was pinned down nearby, provided cover fire as Alvarez struggled to move the body. When Wilzcek and Pushkin saw Alvarez’s difficulties, they ran into the open to help. But as the three moved back toward cover, two RPGs exploded 10 meters away, knocking them down and sending a volley of shrapnel into Alvarez’s right knee. The men stood up and continued dragging their comrade to the safety of a nearby courtyard.
After establishing a safe area for the injured, Pushkin and Wilzcek ran back and forth several times from the courtyard into the line of fire to rescue trapped soldiers. Meanwhile, the RPG explosions had also injured Row’s elbow with shrapnel. Even so, he continued firing on the enemy position to help the others reach safety. Once everyone was clear, Row, who was alone in the middle of the street, called for help. As Row remembered later, “I was trapped in the street, and [Pushkin and Wilzcek] pulled me out of there.”
The squad was now in the courtyard and medical assistance was being administered – but their work was not done: enemy fire continued to light up the area. When the squad started planning the next phase, Alvarez refused to be moved with the other injured soldiers, staying to help in the fight.
The insurgents, seeing the evacuation in progress, focused their fire on the rescuers. Wilzcek, already on the roof, began firing back. After clearing the rooms below, Pushkin and his team hurried up to the roof to help Wilzcek. Row grabbed a Bunker Defeat Munition – a shoulder-launched explosive for use against fortified positions – but his injured elbow prevented him from using it. He ran up to the roof, handed the weapon to Pushkin, and helped guide Pushkin toward the targets. With Row and Wilzcek providing cover fire, Pushkin took aim and fired – destroying the enemy’s position and killing a number of insurgents. With that, the squad was able to leave the area safely.
On Feb. 15, 2007, Wilzcek, Alvarez, and Pushkin were awarded the Silver Star for their bravery and actions; Row was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor.
Bye, FL
Florida commits suicide, or at least you'd think so, by inviting almost all felons to vote in her elections. That strikes me as monumentally stupid, but:
Florida is one of three states — the others are Kentucky and Virginia — that still deprive felons of civil rights for life. Most other states automatically restore felons' rights when they complete their sentences, probation or parole.Who knew? So maybe it's not such a big deal... although it still seems like a dumb thought to me.
A TX Spring
Miss Ladybug sends a post on Texas Bluebonnets, the colorful flowers that mark the arrival of spring. She includes photos from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center.
Surge Signs
I don't do day to day news roundups, for the obvious reason that there are a lot of places that have the money and manpower to do it better. Still, I'd like to look at some evidence on a particular question of great moment to all Americans: is the Surge, still incomplete, working?
Our SECDEF says "So far, so good," noting both successes and danger signs.
Illegal militia in Baghdad have stood down, though activity continues in some parts of Iraq. Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr remains in Iran, and there are “some signs that his prolonged absence is leading to some fractures in (his militia’s) organization,” Gates said.Omar Fadhil reports heavy armor in Baghdad, and mujahedeen messages that promise a great deal more than they deliver. He says friends of his in some parts of the city worry the American surge losing momentum, but that hasn't been his observation.
Gates also discussed the military’s need for funding to finance the war effort. He said he is concerned about delays in enacting an emergency supplemental bill. Each house of Congress has passed a version of the bill, and both versions contain a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. President Bush has vowed to veto any bill containing the withdrawal language.
Gates said each of the armed services will be affected by a delay, with the Army being the worst off. The service may be forced to suspend training for deploying forces, repairing equipment and putting in place a civilian hiring freeze. The secretary said a threatened complete cut-off of war “would be dramatic.”
Rear Admiral Fox says:
There are “some preliminary good signs” that security measures are taking hold in Baghdad, Fox said, as U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to make their presence felt as they operate from 31 joint security stations established across the city.That's not surprising in itself -- car bombings, sniper attacks and IEDs are the three forms of combat that the enemy can execute with minimal danger of a successful Coalition reaction. In other words, it's a sign of Surge progress if those types of attacks rise accompanied by a fall in kidnappings and direct terrorism. It means the enemy is being forced to adopt safer tactics in order to survive.
“Our troops now are living and operating in the districts of Baghdad,” Fox said.
However, it is too early to say if the reduction in violence is permanent, Fox said, noting there have been an increase in the numbers of car-bombings and other spectacular attacks in Baghdad.
General Petraeus is shopping again.
ABC News reports the Surge is having "a large and positive effect."
Early signs are positive, then. If we can maintain the pressure, it should work. There are dangers, but the serious ones seem chiefly to arise from internal US politics. Military leaders don't seem to be especially worried about what the insurgents will do, because it is already known what they will do, and the military has developed a great deal of expertise over the last several years in countering it.
Our military leadership is worried about the split between the Congress and the President, and what that is going to mean. They aren't worried about defeat, in other words -- they're worried about being undercut at home.
We should all be pressuring our public servants to ensure that does not happen.