King Tiger

In 1999 I had the pleasure of traveling to Ft. Knox, Kentucky to visit the Patton Museum there.  I say “there” because its German armor has apparently now moved to Ft. Benning, Georgia.  I’ve always been interested in WWII because my father participated in it in North Arica and Italy.  Perhaps there are millions of Baby Boomers who share the same interest because the old veterans are not gone yet and their memories live on in their children.  Those of us with military backgrounds enjoy seeing the old tanks and vehicles of that era.

Speaking of tanks; the King Tiger 332 towers over the rest.  Because I’m not good with a flash camera, the picture is a little dark, but still not bad.  I measured the tread with my elbow.  It’s exactly the width from my elbow to the tip of my longest finger or one cubit for you who are Biblical scholars.  It had a crew of five, but somewhere along the way they’ve taken the dummies out of the turret.  There’s a video on You Tube of the 332 showing the turret empty.  Why the tanks were sent to Ft. Benning is a puzzle to me.

 

A German Mark III Sturmgeschutz or 75mm self- propelled gun was there with an interesting story behind it.  It was dug out of a bog outside Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1994 after it had mired itself there in 1944 and was abandoned.  It’s like “Ice Man” from National Geographic: old, very well preserved, and even its ammunition was still there.  I was surprised at the barrel because you could wiggle it and I did.  You’d think it would have been as rigid as the framework it sits in.  A German 88mm anti-tank gun was not far from the Sturmgeschutz.  The gun was so effective that the Germans mounted it on its Tiger tanks.

 

 I also saw General Patton’s Sleeping Van.  It is a 1942 GMC 6x6 with gravity fed water tanks over the wash basin and a very comfortable bed.  Officers got all the perks, especially at that level.  Despite all Patton’s mastery of the battlefield, he was still superstitious like Napoleon.  Also displayed were the contents of his pockets at the time of the car crash that killed him after the war.  I noticed a “Smiling Buddha” with its little pot belly, but perhaps it was just a good luck charm that a lot of people carried at the time.  His luck expired that day.

 

 

 

 

Oslo, the Quiet City

I remember how clean the Oslo train station was with flowers lining the outside walls.  On a long walk I saw the famous Monolith which is shown in nearly all art history books.  Contrary to rumor, it was not where George W. Bush got the idea for stacking nude insurgent prisoners.  After all, these nudes are on a much higher column.  Supposing it was; it could not have been in worse taste like The Scream by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch.  I honestly don’t see how the cultural elites get away with it.  They must have deep pockets; who else would buy the stuff?  Look at the latest tribute to the rifle’s head shot: Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud that went for an all-time record of $142,000,000.  Everyone at Christie’s New York can take the rest of the year off, but that’s another story.

On Karl Johansgt (street) I saw many of Olso’s old businesses: Adelsten, Brodrene Johnsten, Kaffistova, Pelo, Andvora, and The Scotsman, an upscale restaurant, that’s still there.  I enjoy the new technology of Google Street Level that allows me to look where I’ve been and see the new changes.  Of course, in 1977 the girls were wearing clogs and bell bottoms.  Now they don’t look as stylish and even if they did, where would they go?  At the time I didn’t see much nightlife in Oslo and I suppose it’s the same now.  Perhaps I’m wrong because so many years have passed.  What I saw then were only some small kiosks.  Even Liverpool at night came alive with neon signs advertising a robust night life.

 

About dark, I went back to the hotel for the only tub bath I had in all my backpacking days.  I always mention these little things because travel isn’t always what you see on TV.  You arrive.  Nobody knows you and you don’t know where to go.  Sometimes the tourist offices aren’t even near the train station – an irony I discovered more than once.  Several times I could have ended up sleeping in the local cemetery with shady characters from many parts of the world. 

The Norwegians were into smorgasbords like American are into buffets.  This was different than hoping for a McDonald’s or scavenging through my backpack for left overs and I made the opportunity count just as I do now in retirement.  Oslo is at the base of huge mountain ranges and who’d guess where I’d find my next meal going up into the snowcapped waste lands above the tree line and they are formidable.

JFK: The 100th Anniversary 2063

So "Voyager" has passed out of the Solar System and out of our collective minds except for those contemporaries like me.  The 50^th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination produced two weeks of television coverage that tapered off in the week before November 22^nd.  America will now get back to her addiction to game shows, gory crime scene investigations, the latest sex scandal, sports, and assorted TV mush.   The assassination coverage was but a brief interlude the networks couldn’t ignore; there are too many contemporaries left.  I thought it would be instructive to summarize what we saw in November, 2013.

50 Years of Questions: The Kennedy Assassination (FOX). No interviews with LBJ or Jackie Kennedy. Zapruder film shown in broken sequence.  Mark Lane’s position was covered.  Suggested there was a front shooter stationed on the west roof of the School Book Depository. 

The Kennedy Assassination: Who Killed Kennedy (FOX).  FOX repeatedly says Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy.  The Media sentenced someone who hadn’t been tried.

The Lost JFK Tapes: The Assassination.  (National Geographic Channel) Abraham Zapruder was shown being interviewed, but predictably, there was no showing of the film’s head shot.  Another film (Muchmore?), taken from the south side of the street, showed his Kennedy’s head move back and to his left.  It surprised me that they would show one without the other.  The Media continued to say Oswald killed JFK.

JFK: The Smoking Gun. Its contention is that the Secret Service accidentally shot Kennedy from behind with an AR-15 with no witnesses.  The Zapruder film was shown three times with the ridiculous interpretation that if the head is hit from behind, it snaps back. Autopsy was re-enacted.

JFK: The Final Hours (National Geographic Channel). Portrayed JFK as “just a dad” unabashedly overlooking any political motive in the killing and who cares what Jackie was wearing?

The Kennedy Assassination: Conspiracy or Murder? Refreshing contrarian view of Mark Lane in his book, Rush to Judgment.  Oswald was not involved.  Dr. Cyril Wecht covered a prime motive for the assassination by the CIA, the plan of the Kennedy Administration to break the CIA into a thousand pieces.

Bill O’reilly’s Killing Kennedy (National Geographic Channel). Made for television drama.  Unworthy of the gravity of the real events.  Forgone conclusions and two hours of manufactured tedium on Oswald’s domestic problems.

Capturing Oswald and The Kennedy Detail (Military Channel).  I think I fell asleep.

JFK: A President Betrayed. Today’s college students are interviewed for JFK’s impact on them.  What does that have to do with solving America’s most infamous crime?

JFK: Inside the Evidence (REELZ Channel). Although 22 people smelled the gunpowder on the grassy knoll, it could have been just a car backfire.

Oliver Stone’s JFK. The best of the Media’s coverage.  I’m surprised it was shown.

JFK: American Experience (PBS). The Cuban angle covered.

The Kennedy Half Century (PBS). Documentary of the impact and influence of JFK’s life, administration, and death

Cold Case JFK. NOVA on PBS television.  Lazers and gizmos in a scientific attempt to refute front shooter.  Pristine bullet was legitimate.  Grassy knoll shot impossible because their definition of the grassy knoll was only the pergola area.  No mention of the 3X3 storm drain sniper’s nest at the fence’s union with the overpass. Head snap backward meant JFK was hit behind, defying physics.

JFK: For the Record (REELZ Channel). Recitation of obvious facts, politically correct positions, and benign questions by Judge John R. Tunheim of the Assassination Records Review Board: old records should have been released years ago; CIA was very co-operative; Secret Service had a bad day; Zaprudeder film was a big problem; the autopsy could have been more thorough; the bullet that hit JFK from another direction is an interesting question; the smell of gunpowder is an interesting question; and it’s good to hear the theories of other people, but he says the public will never know.

I suspect by the time future generations read this in 2063 the real story of the Kennedy assassination will have been known for decades because all its participants – the conspirators – are dead.  Besides, the transition from a representative government, apparent to us now in 2013, will have been completed decades ago.  At the time, the disinformation about the assassination was overwhelming and carried out for over a half century. 

I have no doubt the U.S. ruling class will have shown itself to be no better than that of ancient Rome muddling along with obsolete forms of government devoid of any connection with real people.  From our old perspective in 2013, the 50^th anniversary of the assassination, it’s hard to imagine they could carry on the charade so long.  Despite all the strutting and fretting of what our detractors used to call “conspiracy theorists”, what could we do?  We had no power.  If I might be so bold as to say for them: “All we wanted was the truth and for those who killed the President to be brought to justice.”

Website/Blog Surpass 10,000 Views

Patience had its reward and about three years ago I started my Journal of the Silent Majority website on GoDaddy.  When I attempted it for the first time the process was too complicated for me, but I was fortunate to have help from an individual smarter than me and that’s what it took.  Someone new to writing books and publishing has to have some help once in a while, but it’s not like the all-encompassing assistance the professionals back east get.  When they write a book, it literally takes a village.  When little people like me write a book without that assistance, it’s monumental.  There will be mistakes, but hopefully they will be minimal.  Since there is no influence of the corporate or institutional variety, my book remains an authentic blood and guts memoir and history of the U.S. since WWII.

Over three years ago I took the advice I’d seen in several books on self-publishing to create my website for pre-publication publicity.  It was like following the wisdom of the old saying: “From an acorn grows the big oak.”  On November 16, 2012 I followed up on Blogger.com to create my blog which has more than 3,000 views and keeps me writing and telling the stories I love to tell.  Sadly, I’ve seen local writers neglect the practice and wither on the vine.  My thanks to Blogger.com for letting me live out my natural inclinations especially on bleak winter days like the past four where the Arctic ice and snow has made everyone in the Ozarks and along the Missouri and Arkansas line hunker down.

 

It’s especially gratifying to go to the sites’ dashboards and retrieve the audience statistics.  Of course, most of my viewers are from the U.S.  In second place come the Germans and the Russians are third.  I hope I do not disappoint them because this American knows a lot about their history and much of it is covered in JSM.  How their histories tie in with ours is crucially important because (Shall I say it again?) history does not occur in a vacuum.  In a time when the big boys in New York won’t even look at a little guy, those statistics which reflect growing interest are like a breath of fresh air to me.

 

For those who have been patient with me I have good news.  The publication time for Journal of the Silent Majority will be 2014.  The galleys came out very well.  For a first time author, I was surprised.  Valley Star Publishing was born and I’ve received my ISBNs.  There is proper funding.  I’ve closely studied several self-publishers and I do not intend to make their mistakes.  Because of that, I’ve developed a strategic plan; one that is more innovative.  There’s a wonderful technological revolution that makes it possible.

The Trip to Oslo

Leaving the flatlands of Denmark and southern Sweden behind is a gentle and uneventful experience and you don’t notice much until you near Oslo.  I had developed a habit of taking pictures of the train stations like Kornsjo to record where I was and, besides, they are perfect places for photo opportunities of the locals.  By this time in September, it was apparent that the second haying season was ending in the lowlands.  I assume sheep and cattle were still up on the mountain slopes; I do not remember seeing either except for one small herd.  After mowing, the farmers probably brought them down to the stubble and winter forage areas.

 

I saw my first characteristic round Norwegian hills about this time and I didn’t notice the sea because the train ran inland until it approached the Olsofjorden at Moss.  Prior to that as I neared Fredrikstad, there appeared forests of pine trees and small ships docked in the oddest locations receiving their loads of cut wood.  Sawmills leave their sawdust stacked in huge piles near the docks.  The Beatle's song, Norwegian Wood was very fitting.  At first I thought the ships I saw ran on the rivers until I looked closely at my pictures many years later, but the sea on the horizon was a dead giveaway.  Heavy industry also pops up along these inlets just like in the Alps with the help of hydroelectric power. 

 

Ferries make their runs from Britain and elsewhere gliding into Oslo harbor past public housing that reminds me of the rectangular chips on a computer’s Mother Board.  I suppose it’s the same way elsewhere in Scandinavia until you near the older parts of towns that have traditional architecture.  That’s the new price of socialism, but in fairness, their public housing is far superior to ours – clean and well maintained.  At the conclusion of my Scandinavia adventures, I’ll show some of the most beautiful houses I saw and they aren’t remotely like the straight line cubist wonders that have sprung on the outskirts of most Scandinavian cities.