The Twilight that Lasted all Night

My red and white 15 day second class BritRail Pass was one of the best friends I had.  It takes the hassle out of travel.  Unlike the U.S. with its Amtrak, the British are serious about train travel.  They actually have crews working the tracks all the time.  In America you seldom see anything of the sort except for an occasional inspection vehicle or stacked ties.  In Britain it was the only way to go, although next time, if there is one, I’ll go first class.

I decided to go on to Inverness, capital of the Scottish highlands because I not only had plenty of time left on my rail pass, but I wanted to explore a more tranquil and picturesque side of the U.K.  Traveling north from Edinburgh the scenery changes dramatically.  Vegetation is prevalent to begin with, but soon gives way to desolate moors, lichen covered rocks over which ice water flows, and deep locks past the Grampian Mountains.  I understood why Scots are characterized as penny pinchers; there’s nothing up there.  I wonder if Scotland ever had any trees.  In the valleys there are broad expanses of marsh in which ducks and other wild birds seek sustenance on the reeds and other grasses.  It was very pleasant to observe these enclaves.  Campers crowd the streams near the greenery below the higher elevations.  What houses there are, made of rock - unlike the brick houses found in the south of England.  Halfway from Perth to Inverness on June 1, I spotted snow on the mountains and a few small locks.

The capital of the Highlands, Inverness, seemed to be the most amiable small town I visited with a population, I was told, of three to four thousand in 1972.  I found it remarkably easy to find the youth hostel on Old Edinburgh Road which was situated south of the railroad station where I booked two nights for one pound and set out exploring.  I crossed the suspension bridge over the River Ness and watched sea gulls play on the icy waters that seem to surround Inverness. There’s not much there except perhaps the Lock Ness Monster that escaped me.  I’m from Missouri.  Show me.  The whiskey distillery was interesting.  I could not help noticing again that the British have a strange habit of leaving their babies in their carriages outside the stores when they shop.  At a Wimpey Bar I met an older Scot who invited me to spend a few days with him and his wife at his farm 30 miles out into the moors.  I politely declined of course.  Visions of the Hounds of the Baskervilles probably had something to do with it other than my natural aversion to final resting places.

Later on in the afternoon at the youth hostel I completed my task of sweeping the floors.  When free, I enjoyed visiting with the other tourists who could be from any place in the world, but congeniality does have a price – sleep.  There are always a couple of drunks like the guy from Colorado and the Hollander who want to talk all night.  Nevertheless, my attention was captured by a small contingent of bagpipers on the other side of the river who began to play a slow mournful march. Somehow I managed to fall asleep in the twilight that lasted all night.

When United Beat the Champs

The time comes to every young man when he’s played his last game. The passing of years clouds the mind as to the exact moment or circumstances when it happens, but sometimes you can recall that moment with amazing clarity.  Youth doesn’t always have to be but a fleeting memory or a collection of boring events.  My time also came.

United was my motley crew of misfits.  We were not the big boys or even AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), but a corporate sponsored sports team made up of ordinary working class guys who loved basketball.  Many of them were black and from the blade-runner environs of Kansas City’s east side. United was a long shot consisting of several rejects who dared to try to join Building Service, the unbeaten all-black basketball champs.  Perhaps it wasn’t a matter of race when I tried to join them because many blacks in the same department were also turned away.

There were several teams because the corporation was one of Kansas City’s largest – enough to warrant an organized status and a schedule of eight games per season.  United, however, was infested with those who did not want to win or even practice including its leader.  After losing the first four games and tired of losing, I complained to its Hispanic captain and in a curt moment he countered, “If you think you can do better, it’s yours!”  That’s when things began to change.  The Hispanics quit and the Hippies quit.  That left me as captain and a couple of blacks who were serious about taking on the arrogant never-beaten champions.  As word got out, several players whom Building Service had rejected joined United including Smitty, a particularly unusual character.  With his ten inch Fro, Smitty was seven feet tall, but there was another characteristic about him that struck fear into his opponents besides his brutal rebounding and scoring talents.  Smitty was crazy.  When those eyes started popping out and the wild screaming and cussing issued forth, you knew something wasn’t right.

St. James Community Center at 40th and Troost had seen better days.  Like so much of Kansas City’s East Side, it was terribly dilapidated.  On the Saturday of game day, snow had collected on the north sidelines of the basketball court inside the building.  The new United had posted three straight victories going into the final game of the season with the Building Service team relaxed and confident.

United had a balanced offense and ferocious defense with Smitty leading the way, but things were about to get violent. When I stuffed a Building Service player going for an easy layup, it actually slammed him prone to the floor.  He quickly righted himself and yelled, “I’m going to knock you out!” That wasn’t all.  Smitty fought to the wire against Building Service with fists and elbows swinging until a fortuitous intervention occurred.  Jack, the corporate sports director, blew his whistle to call an immediate time-out to warn us that if a fight broke out, there would not only be an end to the game, but the whole basketball program as well.  The timely break only wetted our collective determination and we would not be denied.  The new United, with its only white member, defeated the champs and ended the second half of the season unbeaten.

United was my swan song.  Smitty disappeared into time until a few years before my retirement when I told this story to someone at work who well acquainted with those of our age group in the hood.  He was incredulous about the game until I mentioned Smitty’s full name.  “I know someone with that name.” he said skeptically.  “I’ll just ask him.”  It turns out that Smitty was alive and well after 35 years.  After hearing my name, Smitty told the guy at work, “I remember that dude.” and verified my story. Some swan songs involve some unusual swans.

The Dominant Activity of the Worst Elements

These are the halcyon days of our worst elements.  Almost every day television greets Americans with new moral outrages as they arrive home from the daily grind.  With the spurt of the pen - and no vote of the people - new directives in the form of executive orders change the lives of Americans already battered by decades of social and cultural warfare.  The bad news is that the best elements are losing and more so every day on nearly all institutional fronts. 

Consider the operational theology of the left.  Was not abortion an assault on the very young and defenseless? The clarity and simplicity of the issue does not escape Christians.  The Left embraced assisted suicide because, as militant atheists, they could also play God with the old and infirm.  What exposes the socialists of the Left for what they are is always logical outcome of their strange beliefs. Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn chronicled “the unusual nature of these people.”

The recent institutional attacks on the military has hastened its decline and collapse.  When homosexuals were allowed to serve openly, a new sanction on deviant behavior made obsolete the time honored Christian values of those who defend the state.  Very recently the outgoing Secretary of Defense formalized the inclusion of women in combat, again by the spurt of the pen.  It means double standards that will not only affect readiness, but morale.  Biblical values of the common soldier are cast aside.  Isn’t protecting women against having to serve in combat a moral value?  Feminists who are prone to argue their case for economic opportunity are blissfully unaware that their position has an instructive parallel with events that ended the Weimar Republic.  Why not lift the ban on the political activities of soldiers?  Why not conduct a national plebiscite on such a critical issue?

The institutional attack on marriage has been relentless. The national news abounds with homosexual marriage victories and post game celebrations in several states.  Again, Christianity is attacked at the core by a militant political agenda originating from those contemptuous of the sanctity of marriage.  No opposition is heard.  Why is that?  Where is the outrage and where are the churches, especially fundamentalist Christian?  The answer lies with Pavlov’s Dream Machine.

Gun control is a perennial assault, not to stop violence, but to neutralize dominant males who control the state.  It’s an anthropomorphic instinct of the worst elements against the best elements who instinctively protect their families against domestic or government threats.  We know the legacy of a disarmed population: arrests, exterminations, the Cheka, the Lubyanka, NKVD, and a system of repression surpassing that of Nazi Germany.   While the Left is savoring its moment in the sun, let them also realize pulling the male lion’s tail proved to be a deadly sport when the hyena discovered the hard way that sex wasn‘t the lion’s only specialty.

Pot heads are ecstatic over their recent legal victories that allow the usage of marijuana at will.  Anything to eviscerate and destroy the individual and thus, the state, seems to be allowed.  Our future can be clearly seen today in Denmark and the Netherlands.  The end game is clear for those who look for it and do not sleep.  Narcotic use was rampant in Weimar Germany before Hitler rose to power.  Mao put an end to the opium dens in China.

Collapse is inevitable when there is no opposition or when that opposition offers greater peril.  People hopelessly turn to Republicans as their moral saviors.  What they get in return is endless war and economic malfeasance and collapse that guarantee the cyclical return and dominance of the worst elements.  When both parties engage in an irreversible race to the bottom, one can only assume the collapse of America, like the Weimar Republic, is drawing near. 

When Man Becomes God

Excerpt from Journal of the Silent Majority

The major obstacle to violent revolution is Christianity.  One way atheists could universally counter it was by the direct assault of trying to replace it, especially in Russia, where the relatively more moderate German experience of Romanticism softened the impact of Socialism.  The attempt by the journalists and heretics is nothing new.  In that era the incarnation was called Deo-Humanism.  “This was the religion founded by Alexander Kapitonovich Malikov, one of those involved in the repression which followed Karakozov’s attempt on the life of the Tsar.  He had been banished to his native Orel, and there he had founded his ‘deo-humanism’ based on the need of each man to seek God within himself.”(notation)  In other words, man is the measure of all things and he would not have to justify his most violent actions.  “But the outlines of this religion of equality had hardly yet been sketched in.  It had not become the centre of their thoughts, as it had for the followers of ‘deo-humanism’, and it was still more a cloak for their political ideas.”(notation) Today it’s just called atheism.  “It was essential to destroy faith in a heavenly world, and create it in the people.”(notation)

A direct attack on Christianity proved effective, but it often wasn’t the best option.  During my decades of research into the origins of revolutionary 1960s, I was often struck by the occasional reference to its destructive participants as being profoundly religious.  This is not new.  Franco Venturi in his groundbreaking book on revolution often cites the phenomenon: moral code, moral roots, moral atmosphere, moral ideal, religious community, religious attitude, religious impulse, religious feeling, religious socialists, religious socialism, religious element, religious spirit, religious enthusiasm, religious roots, religious ambience, religious passion, spiritual impulse, spiritual process, spiritual flowering, ad infinitum. 

These phrases resemble the shimmering gyrations and neon displays of the cuddle fish that uses deception to do its dirty work.  In effect, by calling evil good one could neutralize the adverse effects of Christianity on revolutionary excesses.  Another example, “So powerful was this ethical spirit among the Chaikovskists that it was sometimes expressed in religious terms – a religion which gave a more or less simple symbolical form to their aspirations to purity and total sacrifice.”(notation) Michael Bakunin, Europe’s leading anarchist, boldly declared that destruction is creation.  Also constant among the proponents of chaos is the old convenient saw that Christ was the first revolutionary.

Edinburgh and the Guy with the Black Eye

A cold rain began to beat against the train's cab window as I headed north to Edinburgh.  I was really tired of the United Kingdom’s perpetual rain and cold. Upon entering the city beside the dominating Castle Hill the sun finally broke through.  I was immediately impressed by how nature softens the impact of the city.  In its center there is a park of immense proportions upon which golfers of all ages play.  On the other hand, I was not impressed by the diesel smoke, dirty statues and buildings.

The first priority of any backpacker is to find a place to stay so he or she has a base for exploring.  It was easy because the Edinburgh YMCA was close at 14 South St. and Andrew St.  As I walked out of the train station past the Sir Walter Scott memorial, a shot rang out from cannon on Castle Hill, apparently to mark the time.  On the way to the YMCA I ran into some Hare Krishnas popular at the time.  They were jumping around, chanting, dancing, and beating on their tambourines like a bunch of wild men.  Nevertheless, the YMCA had food and hot water.  It’s the little things in life that mean the most.  It was also safer than the youth hostels in London.  Maybe it’s because the Scots are different.  Of all my travels in Europe, they were the kindest.  I never saw drugs in Scotland.

When I toured Edinburgh’s shops I was impressed at the quality of Scottish goods especially their wool blankets.  What they lack in resources, they make up for in quality.  I then joined the tourists and went up to Castle Hill and saw the Royal Scottish Museum, the Museum of Childhood, the dog cemetery of mascots, and Queen Mary’s bedroom. Do not jump out of that window!  At the Church of Scotland there were motions upon motions, hot air, and the stamping of feet.  It reminded me of the U.S. Congress.

With the touristy stuff out of the way, I called it a day and went back to the YMCA where I met a 19 year old tough who told me things at his home were bad - enough for him to run away.  For some reason he brandished a large knife which a surprising number of backpackers carry and invited me to go pub crawling with him.  I’m glad I was brave enough to decline because he came back later in the afternoon bloodied and black eyed.  He said he had fallen down a hill.  Apparently his trouble was not limited to his immediate family.  Common sense and instincts are a backpacker’s best friends.

Sex in the Work Place

John Kennedy and Bill Clinton weren’t the only ones.  Hanky-panky happens wherever two or three are gathered together.  I worked at a place where the sex drive must have come from the water.  It seemed like everybody was on the make.  The department director carried on an open affair with a subordinate manager of another department.  He had it all: kids, beautiful wife, and a well-paying job.  We couldn’t believe he’d risk it all.  In the same department Mr. A used to leer through the copy room venetian blinds at Ms. B in her low cut dresses.  Another manager of the director, Mr. C, hired Mr. D in order to seduce him, but D didn’t like C because C was old and fat.  It was like a baseball game; you needed a program just to keep up if that was your thing.

You’d think risky behavior would make people more discrete, but more often it doesn’t.  I worked at another place where its homosexuals were more than proud of their new found status.  One annual assignment of mine was to inventory expensive ergonomic chairs; so I got around a lot.  I knew many people by the appearance of their work stations.  In the case of the homosexual caseworkers, their desks were strewn with pictures of their cute little dogs or cats, the latest Act Up newspaper clippings, and photos of their lovers resplendent in their whips, chains, and studded black leather vests. They want the world to know.  Whatever happened to boy meets girl?

I also worked at a larger corporation where the personnel director had two of the most beautiful secretaries a man could imagine: a stunning blond who usually wore a micro skirt or hot pants (on the job) and a brunette famous among the common workers for her cleavage.  I was surprised to learn the real action came not in his office, but in the board room after hours by those whose station in life was less elevated.  In another department it was common for supervisors to seduce their female subordinates in exchange for easier assignments or overtime never rendered.  Of course, if it was a case of sexual domination and exploitation, the situation became sexual harassment.  I sympathize with Feminists and others on their stand against sexual harassment.  As an employee both in the civilian world and in the military, I’ve gone through many training sessions only to find out that in 99% of the cases, it’s the boss who should have been in the class - up front.

So who hasn’t sent flowers to the girl down the hall?  I’ve seen good marriages come of it.  The old timers did it by playing by the rules and being discrete.  Sex in the work place then was not always a case of outrageous, immoral, illegal, or marriage-ending behavior.  Nor was it a case of going on a swinging safari at the employer’s expense.  Maybe sexual misbehavior didn’t spring from the water after all.  Perhaps it was just a personal choice made easier by an America captivated by the moral license of the Left.

Detained on the Suspicion of Armed Criminal Action

Saturdays were my days.  You wouldn’t see me at the stock car races or a Royals baseball game. My typical routine began by sleeping late.  Weekdays, I usually got up at 5:30 A.M. and that went on for too many years.  My first stop, if I did not want to embark on my annual trip to the mall, would be to McDonald's.  It was a favorite from childhood because of their excellent fries and clean rest rooms.  I would cap the day off with research at the library.  Yes, I’m different.

It was about ten years ago when I pulled my blue-with-white-stripe 1992 Ford XLT into McDonald’s parking lot.  If you recall, it’s the truck that had an awful susceptibility to rust around the wheel wells.  (You’d think the rust proofing in the buyer’s package would have prevented it.)  No sooner had I stopped and walked three feet than a policeman appeared in front of me asking for I.D.: “Papers please.”  As soon as I handed him my Driver’s license and proof of insurance, another cop appeared behind and to my left and then another behind and on the right.  These guys were really good.  He ran a trace of me on his Motorola radio to who knows where: INTERPOL or perhaps Homeland Security? 

My old rusted Ford matched the description of a truck used by an armed robber who’d either knocked off one of the local businesses or threatened someone in a domestic dispute.  I never found out exactly.  Things like that happen all the time in a city.  If I’d been the bad guy I wouldn’t have stood a chance because they had me surrounded.  Everybody in McDonald’s was glued to the windows, but I didn’t know it.

With a disappointed look in his face it became apparent that I was not the perpetrator.  He thanked me for my time and told the others, “He's OK.”  Before the policeman left, I told him he could search my truck.  Perhaps the discovery of my suspicious ice scraper, Mini Mag Lite, and whisk broom would come close to justifiable cause.  He didn’t appreciate my sarcasm.

When I opened the door to McDonald’s there was wild clapping and the youthful day manager greeted me at the counter with: “That was awesome dude!”  In a few seconds I regained enough composure to remember my original mission – to procure my favorite Saturday Quarter Pounder Meal - no cheese.  No sooner had I ordered when he said, “On the house!”

That particular Saturday was a memorable one.  The police eventually caught their man and I got a free meal - and a super-sized one at that.

Morningtown Ride

Judith Durham is just one among many singers and groups whom I’ve rediscovered though YouTube.  There’s almost a perfect confluence of voice and melody in the Seeker’s Morningtown Ride.  I didn’t even realize The Seekers were Australian; I guess you couldn’t call them part of the “British Invasion.”  Petula Clark and her song Kiss Me Goodbye could melt the most solid heart.  Dusty Springfield was famous for her unusual distinctive voice, dark eye mascara, carefully coiffured hair, and her long empire dresses that were characteristic of the 1960s (Losing You video).  Women were more feminine.  Girls actually wore dresses in those days, not the Mao trousers of today.

I’m discovering all kinds of overlooked or forgotten singers and performers: Kathy Young, A Thousand Stars; Bo Diddley and Duchess; The Gazzarri Dancers; The Ray Conniff Singers, Somewhere My Love; The Eternals, Rock and Roll Cha Cha Cha and Babalu’s Wedding Day; Dion and the Belmonts; The Crests, The Angels Listened In; Bert Kaempfert, Swinging Safari and That Happy Feeling.  If there was a live audience, it would be packed with gum chewing, screaming, spontaneous, but real teenagers.  Hollywood can’t duplicate them. 

I don’t recall seeing any of the groups in performance when I was young.  In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing Hollywood a Go Go or Shindig.  Most kids didn’t have their own television sets in those days.  We saw plenty of The Lawrence Welk Show though.  (My favorite song was Calcutta.)  Except for American Bandstand, Rock and Roll was not a visual thing for millions of Baby Boomers because we had home work during prime time and on Sundays we went to church.  Basketball practice after school ate up much of my time.  The only thing most of us had was our radios and if we were really lucky, a Hi Fi.

WHB radio in Kansas City had its Top 40 list you could pick up at the local record shop, book store, or Katz Drug Store in Westport.  WDAF played songs more subdued like You Are My Special Angel or When I Fall in Love.  The Four Lads and the Lettermen were constants with the station.  WHB and WDAF were radio stations that led us away from Country to Rock and Roll.

If post-WWII America produced social upheaval, it also led to a cultural renaissance in the arts. YouTube has become a valuable Internet phenomenon that has allowed millions of Americans to rediscover a lost American now submerged in the awful, grunts, chirps, shrieks, and spasms of the worst elements.  The presence in YouTube of simple, melodic, sentimental, and harmonious songs and their creators remind us of the enduring cultural legacy of the best elements.

Entering the English Midlands

As I escaped London and headed north in the rain to Norwich near the North Sea, I could not help noticing England’s lack of trees and forests.  It was May, 1972.  Everything was green; the fields were freshly harrowed awaiting better weather under a bleak sky.  Ravens, rabbits, and pheasants abounded in the marginal land along the fences and railroad tracks and, in the distance, I saw my first nuclear cooling towers silhouetted gray on the horizon.  The terrain became increasingly low and turned to occasional marsh as the train neared Norwich.

To get to the main part of town below a Norman castle, one has to pass over a canal harboring small craft of all descriptions including, oddly enough, a small gun boat.  I stopped in a café for tea and listened to Cracklin' Rosie by Neil Diamond and walked down to the main part of town.  I could not help being impressed at the miniature front yards and gardens that are common here and throughout most of Britain.  Everything is meticulously cared for and not an inch is wasted.  I came upon a church that I will never forget; it was more memorable to me than Notre Dame du Paris, Amiens, or Cologne Cathedral.  It was a one-story miniature rock cathedral with buttresses and stained glass windows set in a park-like scene of grass and trees which blossomed soft purple over the gravestones of its faithful.  It was a monument to peaceful enduring beauty and tranquility. 

Traveling northwest from Norwich was pleasant until I stumbled on the Lincoln Rock Festival, the biggest in Britain.  The train terminal was packed with hippies of all descriptions.  Many carried bottles, backpacks, and other assorted baggage or none at all.  They had money!  Joe Cocker, the Andrews Sisters, and the Beach Boys sang on the rain soaked and wind swept slopes of a meadow.  I actually got a room at the youth hostel, probably because I was a foreigner.  Many of the thousands of Hippies slept on gravestones in the cemetery.  At 7:00 P.M. May 28th the radio announced that the Duke of Windsor had died.

I got out of Lincoln as fast as I could because of the Norwich crowd and headed for Newcastle upon the Tyne.  I traveled past scattered coal bins and across the largest trestle bridge I had ever seen.  Since it was a holiday, I ended up staying in the Mariners Hotel of the British Sailors' Society.  The desk clerk turned me away at first, but he changed his mind, perhaps because darkness was approaching.  Who hasn’t been in that predicament?  He was very kind and I was fortunate because there wasn’t any other place to stay and even if I had the address of one, I probably could not have found it; the English have a bad habit of locating street signs on buildings, not on corner poles. It’s ironic that I would go on to spend 21 years in the U.S. Navy.

Operation Madame President 2016

Foreigners don’t know how the American political system works.  Most Americans don’t know how the system works and those who come close by revealing unpleasant truths about the presidential election process are often called kooks or conspiracy theorists. Many truths lie in the checkered history of election rigging, American style.  Motives and capabilities of the players are the keys to unlocking the political world of 2016.

One unpleasant truth about our presidential election process is that the Media tabulates the vote.  It had to do something with a power shift after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 when News Election Service was created. Many years later, the long Reagan era compelled the Left to shake up the old election process by cultivating a candidate that could neutralize conservative votes.When Ross Perot started winning, things got out of hand and the flame created by the Media was quickly extinguished.  The threat of Ross Perot and the Reform Party exposed the need to create, formalize, and perfect an alternation of power protocol between Republicans and Democrats.  Election 2000 provided a crisis by which a mechanism could be found to perfect and formalize the mischief. The solution was “touch screen,” a modifiable electronic impulse that replaced paper ballots.

The inner sanctums of the Media’s skunk works had finally produced a deterrent to the Right.  With the appropriation of the vote count, a rig was possible in two forms: a “hard rig” by which the actual numbers are adjusted and a “soft rig” that manipulates the circumstances of the election process (polls), in short, stacking the deck.  However, the newly established capabilities produced the dilemma of whether or not to use the options.  One could always just let the election “ride” in order to preserve the illusion of a lawful election process and not offend Republicans.  In other words, don’t overplay your hand.

I suggest that a woman is likely to be elected President in 2016 by a soft rig of the nomination process that not only guarantees Hillary Clinton the Democrat nomination, but also one that introduces a female dark horse Republican who will come out of the male pack to win their nomination.  Either way, the Left wins another battle in its utopian quest to reshape America.

So who will be the first woman President of the United States? It’s not likely to be Hillary Clinton; that would violate the Alternation of Power Protocols.  She won’t be black because we’ve already had a black President.  A Margaret Thatcher type would suggest a viable and attractive candidate most acceptable to Republicans.  Even if it is a woman of a lesser standing, she can still win the nomination after the polls are adjusted in the manner I believe they were with the current President.  Feminists will be placated just because a female broke through the glass ceiling.  I suggest that plans are in the making for more updated television shows that condition us to accept the inevitability of a female President.They might even be tailor made for a particular individual – perhaps Hispanic, but it really won’t matter because the result will still be Madame President.

The Smoke Screen of Gun Control

When the smoke has cleared and the Media has justified its relevance to the Left, it will be business as usual.  The gun control issue will recede.  Extensive coverage will once more be given to every nut that perpetrates a crime - the more gory, the more the whole circus of profitability becomes: newspapers, TV shows, guest appearances, cable documentaries, and commentaries. Criminals and violence are the mother’s milk of prime time TV.  The Media needs to change the formula.

Remember how the Media conditioned us to enter the Vietnam War because it was the patriotic thing to do to stop the spread of Communism?  And Baby Boomers remember the turning point, not after Tet in 1968, but in 1966 when the Media turned against the war with Pacem in Terris and the Guns and Butter Speech. The Left, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., was outraged when Lyndon Johnson declared that America had enough money to fight the War on Poverty and simultaneously wage the war in Vietnam.

Pavlov’s dream machine, television, began removing guns and violence from the air ways.  World War II TV shows that depicted combat could no longer be seen.  In came a plethora of anti-military shows, each one designed to attack a specific service: M.A.S.H and F Troop, the army; I dream of Genie, the Air Force; McHale’s Navy; and Gomer Pyle USMC.  After being raised up on Frank Capra’s Victory at Sea documentaries, I remember how insulting it was to watch servicemen mocked at every turn by these new television shows.  Even Westerns were eliminated during that revolutionary time. The speed and methodical comprehensiveness of the Media’s agenda was amazing.

The Media’s power lies in conditioning and de-conditioning.  Ironically, after U.S. foreign policy was tweaked, the Media turned to the adulation of terrorists like the SDS, Weathermen, and Yippies. Praising the violence of the Black Panthers and the mob became a cottage industry.  Headlines were awash with the trials and tribulations of poor blacks destined by circumstance to live in poverty created by a white oppressive state: Eldridge Cleaver and his Soul on Ice; Malcolm X; Huey Newton; H. Rap Brown; Angela Davis; and Stokely Carmichael. As generations passed, the history books were cleansed. Journal of the Silent Majority is not so forgiving.  The Media loves its criminals and violence.

The Media doesn’t believe Americans need guns to defend us; our government would never use deadly force against fundamentalist Christians, federalize the National Guard to use against us, mobilize Federal Marshals, or institute official policies like Extraordinary Rendition (kidnapping) or torture.  Because they live in an insulated make-believe world, the literati think we should too.  However, they are pragmatists. They know when it comes to controlling guns in America that the cat is already out of the bag.  Every nook, cranny, and cemetery has an undetected steel guest. If the Media was serious about a deterrent to future tragedies, the business of criminals and violence would not be so attractive or lucrative.  All they have to do is look in the mirror.

The SDS and the Yippies

Excerpts from Journal of the Silent Majority:

“The anarchists of the student movement were the Yippies led by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.  The Youth International Party was the anarchist spin-off of the SDS and to the left of the Weathermen and  was created in 1967 by Hoffman, Rubin, Ed Sanders, and Paul Krassne. The Yippies came into the national spotlight when they decided to go across interstate lines to incite riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention by throwing rocks, eggs, and balloons filled with urine and paint to disrupt the convention. Events started with the dynamiting of a police memorial and the promise to kill policemen and tear Chicago apart using bricks, clubs, chains, and re-bar “to bring the war (Vietnam) home.”  Poisoning the Chicago water supply was just a side threat.

What revolutionary period would be without its most famous trial?  The Russian university students had their Trial of the 50 and the more famous Trial of the 193.  One hundred years later we had our own anarchist version of the same thing, the Chicago 8 Trial.  Defendants were Abbie Hoffman, Rennie Davis, old Left David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Lee Weiner, and Jerry Rubin. Defending them was William Kunstler.  They were charged with conspiring to incite rioting during the “Days of Rage.”

In the demonstrations and trial that followed in 1969, the Chicago 8 Trial became a media event and circus for the Left.  The trial’s proceedings were treated lightly by the Media and most of us knew that they would get off because that was the norm.  Not one served a day in jail.  In reading transcripts and listening to the trial’s recordings it actually was a lighthearted event. Allen Ginsberg would try to explain what his role was when he was “ooommming” to the crowds before the riots began.  The prosecution was puzzled by what a Be-in meant so the defendants would have to explain it to the ignorant prosecutor.  Point 15 of the Yippie demands concerned the right and duty of everyone to have non-stop sex.   It was revealed to the world that when the defendants were previously at the Pentagon, they made a deal with the authorities to levitate the building ten feet instead of 300 feet.  It was all a big joke and a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, it was a mask that hid the violence the Yippies planned.”

The Coming Out of Petty Officer Smith

For discretion’s sake I’ll call him Petty Officer Smith.  He was a bit quirky at times and an affable fellow, but not one of infinite jests.  He was somehow more interesting than the rest because his temperament made his presence in the Sea Bees even more improbable. I suspected it was just another case of expediency when the Navy fast-tracks someone to fill a billet.  PO3 Smith was more civilian than anything else and was more interested in showing me his Walk Man than discussing the fineries of deflection and elevation of the 60mm mortar that we were assigned to.

NMCB 0215 was in its military training phase that alternates with its construction phase because that’s what Sea Bees do – build and fight.  Our particular section was assigned to mortar training at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina under a 10-year an active duty Marine named Sgt. Johnson.  His job was to teach us the basics of using the weapon in the defense.  After a couple of days of torrential rain our section graduated from the compressed air simulators to sighting in a target at night with fluorescent stakes that made our dirt and pine positions look like a science fiction movie set. 

For crew served weapons to be effective a cohesive team has to pull together, especially in the rotation of duties that it takes to master the weapon.  As we moved to the range and into the pits to begin firing, there was little thought of PO3 Smith.  I had more interest in the mechanics of the job and doing what we were taught.  Sgt. Johnson had us set our mortar range at one donut, a puffy high explosive band around the shell to give it an extra boost.  It was really cool to see the rounds going up into the clouds and impacting targets 19 seconds later.  When a shell exits the tube, it sometimes leaves a perfect smoke ring. 

After I fired of a couple of rounds, it was Petty Officer Smith’s turn. When I handed him his shell, he pulled the pin . . . and stood there!  He knew the drill, but he suddenly took it upon himself to announce to the world his undying devotion to love, peace, harmony, and understanding.  Because of that he couldn’t drop the round down the tube.  “I am a Conscientious Objector!”  To paraphrase Bogart: “Of all the joints in the world, this person had to sashay into mine.”  Eventually, after shouting at him in livid and colorful terms, I finally got him to fire it off without killing someone.  

I think the Master of Arms came and took Petty Officer Smith away.  That was that, except it really wasn’t.  Our blasts had broken one of the two expandable legs of the mortar tripod.  Next, we had a hang fire and, just like in the movies, Sgt. Johnson cradled the tube in his arms, walked about 50 yards out, and slid the shell out into his cupped hands.  I really hate crew served weapons.

WWII Clues that Drive Me Crazy

It’s not genealogy when a Baby Boomer tries to retrace the footsteps of his father in World War II.  For the most part we knew who our fathers were, but their stories too often remain a mystery because they were reluctant to inform us or we were too immature or ignorant to inquire.  Time ran out and all that is left are a few clues and snippets usually in the form of photos, vague stories, old uniforms, knickknacks, and if you’re lucky, maybe an Enlisted Record and Report of Separation, WD AGO Form 53-55.  America used to be full of WWII stuff.  Grandpa’s attic was strewn with webbing, uniforms, and coins taken from distant lands.  Army-Navy surplus stores were popular destinations for millions of boys brought up on stories of Sergeant Rock and Easy Company that took out German tanks with fixed bayonets.

I confess to being one of those individuals who are bored by Scrabble, Checkers, and even Wheel of Fortune.  Cross Word Puzzles are the worst, but mysteries of an historical nature are my cup of tea especially when they are personal.  That’s why I’ve collected so much material like books, papers, maps, and photographs.  Over many years I have made interesting strides in fitting the pieces of the puzzle together after trying to master the bigger picture of the theatre of operations, in other words, my Dad’s particular location in North Africa and Italy – areas and events left in the backwater of history by the Normandy invasion.

Dad was transferred from the 1st Quartermaster Company of the 1st Infantry Division because of the creation of the Transportation Corps.  They needed men who trained with the new GMC trucks that replaced horses and formed the backbone of modern convoys. It was all part of a larger reorganization called Services of Supply that also included Engineers, Chemical Warfare, Ordnance, Medical, Quartermaster, the Signal Corps, and Air Force Supplies.  SOS operated in the North African Theater of Operations NATOUSA based in Oran, Algeria.  Subordinate to it was the Mediterranean Base Section (MBS) which was phased out by the Peninsular Base Section (PBS) in Italy.

Combat units were only a small percentage of the men that participated in WWII.  The majority got lost in the shuffle because their duties were not glamorous.  It’s hard for researchers to trace their movements to, for instance, Sicily in July, 1943 with the 7th Army or 2nd Corps.  The point is that you go with the evidence in hand like discharge papers.  If you’re lucky, you’ll have a photo that made it past the censor with partially distinguishable bumper markings – a valuable clue I discovered much later.  One such picture shows one of Dad’s convoy trucks with a black driver and guard in Oran.  (He became a platoon staff sergeant in charge of 16 trucks.)  The markings tell in order, left-to-right, unit organization down to the individual truck.  What drives me crazy is that the parent unit marking is obscured.  Is it MBS or PBS?  Is 2SU the 2nd Service Unit of the headquarters of the Transportation Section based in Oran?  Is it something else?  This tiny lead is the most important clue I have that could explain his lost two years in Africa before he was reassigned to guard SS POWs at Leghorn in May, 1945.  My best weapons are patience and the Internet.  I’m not about to go to the National Archives without having my act together.

Adrift on Panther Bay

Mother Nature had ways of slowing people down in those days that included low water bridges that dotted the Ozarks.  One spring we tried to drive across Moody Creek after a rain when the water was unusually high.  A farmer had to come with a team of horses to pull us out after our car stalled in the middle of the low water bridge.  Now, there aren’t many low water bridges left because the counties and MODOT built bridges over the offending spots.  Can anyone remember the last time he saw an “Impassable during high water” sign?  Oddly enough, Moody Creek kept the same crossing intact only with a lot more signs.  Ferries over larger bodies of water went the way of the horse and buggy.

Mom was going down to Mountain Home, Arkansas to visit her relatives.  Crossing Lake Norfork shouldn’t have been a problem except for the time it takes to load the ferry for its short trip to the other side.  I was about five years old.  Even in 1954 you still could see some of the last vestiges of pioneer culture in the Ozarks like a molasses mill, Springfield wagons, and the major ferry crossing at Panther Bay Landing on Lake Norfork.

As we pulled away from the dock, the engine on the tug lashed to the ferry sputtered to a halt, leaving us adrift with wall-to-wall trucks, cars, and passengers.  Who knew if the ferry would cap size or run aground spilling its cargo into the water?  The ferryman rushed to tell passengers to stay in their cars and to radio for help that soon arrived in the form of boats pulling alongside.  Our floundering in Panther Bay may not have been much of a threat to the adults, but to us, as children with our livid imaginations, it was scary.  It ranked up there with having an encounter with goblins, ghosts, and even Raw Head and Bloody Bones.  We never learned what happened, but I’m sure the stranded ferry received major attention in the local newspapers.

You won’t see that side of the Ozarks today.  Mother Nature was replaced by massive cement and steel bridges that span the lakes and speed traffic to the lucrative tourist areas like Bull Shoals, Table Rock, and Branson.  Now, when I think about what happened, it is not so much that we were cast adrift, but the fact that I can remember being on an honest-to-goodness Ozark ferry.