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.

 

Why People Hate History

In a nutshell, it’s because history nothing to do with them, at least, in the way it’s currently written.  If you believe history should only be scientific and legal, then I believe it’s a waste of time to read current history and that’s what millions of American students believe.  It’s really a boycott or non-compliance or even a passive resistance to required education courses.  What keeps the terrible history teachers on the job is a puzzle.  Perhaps it’s convention and tradition locked in tandem in the closed society of academia.  Money from unsuspecting parents just keeps pouring in.  It’s no wonder they feel cornered; “That’s just the way it is.”  The kids feel the same way, but history as a required subject is a losing proposition.  Who gets the last laugh on the tenured professors?

 

Consumers want histories that are alive and relevant, not the histories of scientific materialism and legal argument.  They are tired of beans and barrels of oil history with its legions of Marxist interpreters.  People look for content and meaning because life has its meaning in the lesser mentioned phenomena like motive, context, passion, and spirit.  It’s insufficient to say those ingredients are the only considerations.  Scholarship plays an important role, but the professors who actually teach and write history should also have a due respect for the other dimensions of humanity, especially, the spiritual side.  History is not a science laboratory or court room.

 

Properly taught history open’s the Christina’s World of the individual and subjects him to what we used to call a liberal education – seeing all sides of the story and confronting the individual with those who have gone on before.  That reality which Thomas Carlyle says is the first reality means intrigue, murder, terror, conspiracy, real people and their weaknesses, real motives, and blood and guts.  It does not mean atomization where reason, timeline, and motive are displaced with unrelated and incomprehensible events that float around like dust in a wind storm. 

 

Most people except cloistered scholars, politicians, and media types are familiar with the human side of life because they live it.  They know what office politics and intrigues are and it’s not a leap of faith for them to eventually recon their observations and primal instincts with histories they can understand and respect.  It is possible to know why wars are fought, why successional murders occurred, why our country has deteriorated, and who or what is to blame.  Those intellectual sappers who dominant the institutions and airways do not fully understand that most people rely on the old saying, “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.”  If history is to be revived and not reviled, it should be relevant, written with common sense, and above all, be personal.

JFK: The Front Sniper's Nest

So far in all the 50^th anniversary coverage of the assassination of John Kennedy I’ve found not one reference to the obvious location of the front sniper’s nest where common sense and a few discoveries of my own have convinced me of its existence.  My suspicions along with millions of other Americans had been firmly planted when a political context or motive of the shooting was never discussed by the Media.  Baby Boomers, after all, grew up on TV shows similar to Dragnet.  Even if you didn’t like history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was a best seller among us. In other words, Baby Boomers are the most educated generation in history.  The power brokers stood no chance in trying to fool all of the people all of the time.  It was the study of the assassination in minute detail in context over decades colliding with suppressed evidence that spurred conspiracy theorists on, not the convenient explanation of simple minded people concluding that a lone gunman could not have done something so earth shaking.

 

Being from the Ozarks and handling weapons had much to do with my evaluation of the assassination and that’s apart from the political considerations written about in my Journal of the Silent Majority to be published.  The Zapruder footage indicates a front shooter.  The genius of Oliver Stone’s JFK was that it dared to show the film in political context; history does not take place in a vacuum.  My disappointment came when he failed to locate the front gunman’s position, but my concern didn’t last long.  Then came Votescam: The Stealing of America by James and Kenneth Collier, a team of investigating reporters who researched how the Media co-opted America’s vote tabulation process.  With a lead from “assassination buff” Mae Brussell, they agreed that the Media supported the Warren’s Commission findings in return for the tabulation authority.  Indeed, Associated Press published The Warren Report and after many media transformations ended up with the tabulation monopoly.

When the Collier Brother’s investigated the roots of the securing of the national tabulation authority, they stumbled into the CIA-Media conspiracy that sanctioned it.  The least they could do was to locate the front sniper’s nest . . . and they did.  The last 30 minutes of their film sequel, Votescam: The Stealing of America, not only shows the likely spot of the nest based on bullet trajectory and witness accounts, but reveals the hidden drain cavity itself.  My sketch is based on the film.  The film made in 1988, further reinforced my own conclusion of conspiracy.  In all the JFK coverage so far I’ve not seen one mention of the Collier brothers or the storm drain nest.

Wait.  Is not that enough?  In a similar not-ever-mentioned book, That Day in Dallas, by Richard Trask, a photo records witnesses to the smell of gun smoke and of the sound of rifle shots rushing to the exact spot.  (Reporter Robert MacNeil is shown hanging on to the fence.)  My sketch shows the approximate layout of the underground escape passage superimposed on the grassy knoll.  So, for me to believe there was a front shooter, it was the Zapruder film.  For me to locate the JFK sniper’s nest, it involved two more critical pieces of evidence to prove its existence and it took many years to do it.

Crossing Over to Sweden

I stayed with the other tourists except for the time when the ship neared Gothenburg harbor after a three hour trip.  I’m a sucker for duty free bitter sweet chocolate and pound cake after my five week back packing experience in 1972 – especially after going hungry in France.  On deck I was wearing my poncho and a utility cover because it was raining.  I was listening at the screws turning and waiting for the fog to lift in order to get my first glimpse of Sweden.  As we passed the rocky shoals to the starboard and into the harbor, I had another rare attack of déjà vu, this time it was really strong; like I'd been there before at this exact spot.  About the same time there occurred an opening in the clouds and I beheld a double rainbow which arched over the ship from port to starboard.  It was a spiritual moment and more than just someone coming home after many years.

 

I quickly found a room with some other tourists who were also booking and I immediately set out for the local shopping center.  Before long, an English bum approached me to get a handout.  Without me saying a word he had identified me as American and I never figured out how he did it.  Perhaps it was the style of my glasses or maybe I just looked American.  When strangers start acting chummy, always check your wallet.

 

Tourists quickly notice the explicitness of the Swedish advertising media at the newsstands.  Nudity is common and no discretion is given to women's products in context, even on giant outdoor billboards.  The stores sell parts of cattle that would make Americans blush and become queasy.  There was a large supermarket (I think it was called Tasco) with long rows of refrigerated meats prominently displayed.  I soon discovered whatever is under-the-counter here in the United States, it’s over-the-counter there: mountain oysters, brains, etc.  I uncomfortably remember one lady in particular who was gingerly examining a bull’s private parts like it was Sunday night’s roast.

I didn't think too much of Gothenburg because it was too industrial for me, but in fairness I wasn’t planning a long stay in Sweden at this point because Norway was my next stop in my circular route, besides, I would eventually end up back in Sweden after Norway. 

Book Review: Killing Kennedy

Whenever two or three are gathered together there is a committee and that’s what Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot is all about.  It’s never been more popular for a nationally known celebrity like Bill O’Reilly to take the credit for actually writing a book and to attach his name for marketing purposes in order to cover for poor scholarship and elevate a cotton candy story.  Every time Bill tells the world that his book is the best thing since sliced bread, he should mention that Martin Dugard is the co-author and the writer who, I suspect, did the heavy lifting.

 

There are telltale signs that O’Reilly and Dugard are at odds concerning critical elements of the story like who actually shot JFK.  Bill says on TV that Lee Harvey Oswald absolutely was the shooter, but Dugard is pretty vague about it.  Look for it.  Concerning the Zapruder film; “We watched it time after time after time to understand the sequence of events . . . .”  What part of “head snap backwards, means front shooter” don’t they understand?  The head shot was not a “sequence”, but the proof of conspiracy.

 

Of course, there’s the bountiful photos eulogizing and endearing John Kennedy to the non-critical masses: family portraits, Jackie with John-John, JFK in the Oval Office or on PT109, Carolyn and John-John dancing in front of Kennedy’s desk, a photo with Frank Sinatra and more.  There was not one photo of Dealey Plaza or the crime scene, just black and white maps similar to the Warren Commission’s substitute drawings of the official autopsy.  Killing Kennedy is full of tributes, fond memories, and anecdotes of JFK.  It’ almost as if Bill O’Reilly was a Kennedy himself in mourning, but one should remember the word, “killing” in title of the book.  It implies the act of murder involving motive, capabilities, and bad guys.  The generation contemporary to the assassination wants to know “Who and why?”  If you do, don’t buy the book.

 

If Killing Kennedy was my term paper, I’d get an “F” because even though there are plenty of quotes, there are no footnotes supporting them, just general bibliographical sources.  Perhaps the authors are so distinguished they need no documentation.  There’s not even a Table of Contents (TOC).  Perhaps it was an editorial concession for possible e-Book conversion.  Nonetheless, scholarship means references supported by footnotes.  Bill O’Reilly and Conspiracy Deniers in general fail to understand or admit that time and its mountain of accumulated evidence by people smarter than themselves have made the lone gunman assertion ridiculous.  The least O’Reilly could do for the rest of us is to rename the book Praising Kennedy.

Frederikshavn: The Baltic Culture

Frederikshavn is on the northeast coast of Jutland and lies directly across from Goteborg, Sweden.  After a short trip by train from Alborg I decided to stop over for the night before heading for Sweden the following morning.  Frederikshavn is a perfect example of a thriving sea coast town with all kinds of Baltic Sea traffic including cargo ships, Danish naval vessels, and ferries scurrying in every direction.  One, the Destroyer F346, didn’t make a good picture because it was gray on a day with clouds, and besides, I felt like a spy photographing it.

 

I watched from my telephoto lens two crew members of the DSR Reefer (refrigerated) Service  tend their ship, the F. Freiligarth.  A man and a woman were on its bridge swabbing the deck and coiling some ropes on a life boat.  It occurred to me that maybe these crew members were more than 9-to-5 employees.  Perhaps they lived on board even while docked and maybe they were its captain and first mate – literally.  The more I thought about it, the more I considered what I was seeing was perhaps a way of life typical in the cold and dismal Baltic.  What I witnessed was a seafaring culture that stretched all the way around the Baltic to Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Copenhagen, and back.

There was my ferry, the Stena Danica, which passed between Frederikshavn and Goteborg several times a day.  Fortunately, my hotel room was on a higher floor and the light was temporarily good enough for some decent photos.  The ferry had slipped into her berth with the assistance of an underwater propulsion system.  In 1977 and even being in the Marines at the time, I’d never head of bow thrusters.  The photo shows their wake.  As it drew near to the dock, the tip of the bow opened up like a parrot’s beak and dropped a ramp for departing passengers and vehicles.  I’d never seen anything like it.  She could take on 2,274 passengers and 550 cars.  The cruise ship, Peter Wessel, is docked behind and to her right.

Sgt. Rock and a Hard Place

What will it take for Sgt. Rock to wake up?  From the Republicans he gets recession, depression, economic ruin, and endless war with its death and legions of cripples.  From Democrats he witnesses the relentless destruction of his Christian moral values by militant atheists and Socialists who become emboldened by Christian toleration.

 

It only took a day or so after the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” for homosexuals to begin flaunting their remarkable victory achieved by the spurt of a pen (Presidential Directive) from a socialist Commander in Chief.  Millions of Americans then saw Wheel of Fortune when the lesbian army captain ended her short biography with “. . . and my husband Carla.”  The wedding chapel at West Point must be working overtime.  The worst elements are on a roll:  advocating unisex attire for Marines; trying to take God out of military oaths (Air Force Academy’s oath “So help me God”); garnering spousal benefits, and capturing national headlines with stories like Brady Manning wanting to be a girl and an ex-Navy Seal’s quest to be a woman.  It’s also likely within a few years the feminization of the military will be complete with the inauguration of the first woman President.

 

Thousands of Marines realize the fox is now in the chicken house.  The anticipated deployment of Red Guard sensitivity trainers and commissar lawyers must be at its peak on the eve of the Marine Corps Ball, November 10th, in celebration of the Marine Corps’ birthday.  I expect Freedom-Rider-type enforcers to arrive at the high profile celebrations in Quantico and Washington, D.C. with direct Blackberry links to the President.  After the introduction of the oldest and youngest Marine, Sgt. Rock will have to endure the spectacle of homosexual married couples being patronized and feted?

 

By now Sgt. Rock should be questioning his place in the pecking order where he actually ends up protecting those with values he abhors.  The irony is even more astonishing when Russia condemns homosexual activity and America embraces it.  So what is Sgt. Rock fighting for?  What are his current thoughts regarding the desirability of a constitutional republic and what can he do in the short run?  The answer to the latter comes from the legacy passed down by the Left and Gandhi – passive resistance.  All across America in the next week wherever the Marine Corps balls are held, Sgt. Rock can boycott or walk out of them when the worst elements make their debut.  When he wins a few of these little skirmishes he might become conscious of his own strength and that’s something the worst elements fear.

Our Mercenary Dilemma

Private mercenary armies like Blackwater were hired as a part of George W. Bush’s prosecution of war by fraud and deception in order to lessen the political impact of employing huge number of troops.  Now, those armies have become the norm.  Where will they go next?  I’m sure their activities continue somewhere in the world besides Iraq and Afghanistan.  Could they be hired and used against ordinary Americans as surrogates in future Wacos or incidents like the Bonus March of 1932?

 

During times in which the two party system rules there will be no need of the services of mercenaries to eliminate opposition in the traditional sense.  The rigged election process does that.  Things will go on as usual, but what would happen in the aftermath of an irreversible economic crash, calamity (Katrina) or a national uprising against the government when it functions no longer?  Will the Democrats and Republicans go silently into the night to be replaced by new and inevitable powers that have been fashioned?  In such times would the Media, the mother of both, create its own socialist private army like Hitler’s SA?

 

During Reconstruction after the Civil War the most extreme precedent of hiring private partisan armies to subdue and persecute American citizens became a reality.  Radical Republicans corned the market on it.  In 1870 in South Carolina Governor Robert K. Scott armed 7,000 Negroes with Winchesters and recruited James E. Kerrigan’s New York gunmen.  In Louisiana Governor Henry Clay Warmoth created the Militia Bill as a way to subject white Southerners.  If that didn’t work, he could always call in official Federal bayonets and Gatling guns. In Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton created another Republican Negro militia backed by mountain gunmen.  In Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames created his black militia.

 

Private armies have ingrained themselves into the American political scene to such as extent that I predict their future role will be as political catalysts for better or worse.  The American breakup looms closer every day.  In the meantime our national cohesiveness as a people depends on those who look beyond the purse of the old corrupters and who will not sink to the level of morphing into another SA, Black Shirt, Gestapo (national police), or Cheka.

Westport High School, 1967

Some people are blessed with the existence of their Alma Maters.  I have only one left myself; Rollins Grade School - burned down; Westport High in Kansas City finally closed after more than 100 years; and Metropolitan Jr. College went defunct right after I graduated in 1969.  What I can say about the buildings themselves is they were brick fortresses made to last.  Apparently, I’m one of those who are always on the tail end of things, but at least I saw them in their better times.  The older I get, the more I sympathize with the English people who highly regard and esteem continuity.  I’m also sad to say my old Main Street neighborhood has crumbled and changed so much for the worse that I hardly recognize it.  It’s now like an entire culture and people never existed.

 

The photos show Westport High School at 39^th & McGee in Kansas City, Missouri and a corner of the old Metropolitan Jr. College across the street that many of Westport’s graduates attended.  It looks to me like they were built by the same company and, of course, there were no conveniences in those days.  When it got hot, it was really hot.  There was no carpeting.  There were no elevators and those stair wells went straight down to the concrete slab in front of the cafeteria; I was always careful not to get too close to the rails that only came up to a little above the knees.  Hallway lockers had those wire mesh doors which only partially aired funky gym clothes and the resident hoods were always prying them open.  On the other hand, fights were a rarity because the bad guys would be promptly sent to Coach Webster for swats or to the principal’s office for expulsion.  That was Mr. Evans' job.  Mr. Ball was the Principal.  This was before the Left and its mischief had destroyed convention, custom, and a respect for the law and its enforcement.  There were no drugs use at Westport and there was only a rumor or legend of someone getting stabbed.

 

Westport High School was more than a hot brick building.  The student teacher ratio could be 48:1 and I remember many of them (1962-1967).  Miss Bonnie, my Biology teacher, liked to show off the baby in a bottle she kept in her supply room.  It looked just like the one shown in the movie, 2001.  Coach Murphy, before he became the head football coach, used to walk to the showers in the most remarkable fluffy house slippers.  Dave Morton, a Kansas City TV weatherman taught at the same time at Westport and I had him for U.S. History.  I’m embarrassed to say he gave me an “I”, one of the two I received - ever.  Everyone liked him because he was easy going and always fumbled with his words, at least in class.  White haired Inez Pletcher, the English teacher, was a favorite of mine not only because I liked English, but because she knew I was openly “helping” Rod Patterson, our basketball star, with his and let me get away with it.  There were others:  Mrs. Riley, the flamboyant art teacher; Mr. Michaels, Math; Ernie Paris, the typing teacher; Mr. Blair, Shop; Fred Pohlman, Civics: Mr. Lehman, English; Mr. Miles, English (I think); Mrs. Batista, Chemistry, and Ray Dice, Algebra.  Others are found in the complete set of Westport High School yearbooks preserved in the new Mid-Continent Genealogy Library in Independence on Lee’s Summit Road.

Alborg and the Rusty Tanker Zeitz

My travels in Denmark were coming to an end with only two or three days to go before crossing over to Sweden on a ferry from Frederikshavn near the northernmost tip of Jutland.  The flatlands of Denmark weary the traveler, but other sights like its islands, inlets, harbors, and ships of all descriptions made the journey easier.  Did I mention of all the farmland I saw, I did not spot one strand of barbed wire?  From Thisted by rail, I had to go south past Viborg to Arhus and turn north on my way to the coast and Frederikshavn.

 

Despite the chill, the clear blue skies of the season made for good 35mm camera shots.  Downtown Alborg was like the best of American shopping malls; clean as a whistle, modern, and more easily traversed because all the shops were on ground level.  I saw Danish servicemen milling about smartly (hands in pockets) looking at the girls who were dressed in the bell-bottom trousers and clogs fashionable in 1977. I also noticed the big Danish bank, the Sparekassen Nordjylland, had a pleasant Neo-Classical Ionic façade instead if the International Style of steel and glass.

 

It was September and the icy water of Limfjorden, the narrow passage from the Baltic to the North Sea, was deep blue when I went for a long walk to the docks.  Alborg has a waterfront downtown and I saw a marvelous old rusting hulk there, the Zeitz, out of Rostock which is a German Baltic seaport.  The motorcar bridge that links the two parts of Jutland is in the background.  From the looks of Limfjorden it appears, besides being a passage, to be a safe haven during storms for smaller ships.  The bigger ships like the tanker Zeitz docked at Alborg to take on cargo or to be repaired at the dry docks.

When Ma Killed the Golden Eagle

West of Grandpa Newberry’s blacksmith shop and east a few steps from the chicken coup was his hawk trap placed on the top of a long pole.  I’d never known it to have caught anything; the weasels usually were the ones that slipped past the dog to do their dirty work.  At night chickens naturally leave the ground to roost in the fruit trees or move into coups where they are protected by farm dogs only too anxious to have it out with a predator.  You’d never think about chickens being in danger during the day.

 

Ma told me in her old age about how, in 1951, she noticed the disappearance of her chickens, one chicken every day for two days.  On the third day she saw a Golden Eagle finishing off another on the ground where it had been killed.  Before Ma could finish, I said it couldn’t have been a Golden Eagle, to which she replied, “I know what a hawk and an eagle look like!”  She also said it was colored brown and not a Bald Eagle.  She told me that she ran out of the house with a broom stick in hand and summarily beat the eagle to death.  Ma was quick to say, “It was either her chicks or my chicks.”  It’s not as silly or as odd as you might think.  People were poor even in 1951.  During the Depression in 1936 in the drought, old timers used to tell me that if it hadn’t been for turnips, they would have starved to death.  Sundays would be the time when families had meat and that meant chicken.

 

This is no ordinary story.  I’ve never heard anything like it, but it happened to our family.  I suppose to some it’s like the passing of many other chapters in the history of the Ozarks; Uncle Carl shot one of the last wolves in Howell County.  Grandpa Ike Cherry accidentally killed a wild turkey with a rock and was so terrified because turkeys were endangered that he buried it.  The deer were wiped out early on by legions of Ozark boys and so were the eagles, mostly by DDT.  After many decades with the Missouri Department of Conservation’s help, most of the animals are returning – even bald eagles. 

 

Although Ma’s story was personal and real it’s easy to exaggerate its significance.  I’m not particularly superstitious, but what happened to us after Ma killed the Golden Eagle, as recorded in the memoir side of the Journal of the Silent Majority, might prove that the eagle got its revenge after all.