Category Archives: military news

International news, military news, Uncategorized

We 'lost' the war … 40 years ago

In a couple of days, many Americans are going to look back four decades at the end of a chapter that turned terribly tragic, not just for the United States, but also for an ally with whom we fought side by side for seemingly forever.

Saigon fell to North Vietnamese Army troops on April 30, 1975. They rolled into the capital city of South Vietnam, took down the defeated nation’s flag at the presidential palace and raised the flag of North Vietnam.

Twenty-five years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Bui Tin in Hanoi, the man who accepted the surrender of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He was in the tank that had smashed through the gate at the presidential palace and accepted the surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van “Big” Minh.

I was among a group of journalists touring the country and Bui Tin was among the dignitaries we got to meet. He told us his memories of the end of the Vietnam War.

Bui Tin, of course, was on the winning side.

His memory is different from that of some of the journalists who questioned him that day. A handful of us had served in Vietnam during the war. But what a marvelous encounter it was to talk candidly with a key player in that long and tragic struggle.

I wrote a blog for Panhandle PBS, which tonight broadcast a special, “The Last Days in Vietnam.” It tells the story of the end of that war. It was inglorious for our side.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/blogs/public-view-john-kanelis/last-days-in-vietnam-recalls-true-heroism/

For our former enemy, well, it meant something quite different. The “American war” had ended. The enemy outlasted us, even though military historians have noted for decades that we actually prevailed on the battlefield. We inflicted far more casualties on them than they did on us. We scored military victory after military victory against the NVA and the Viet Cong.

Talk about losing the battles but winning the war.

They had the patience we didn’t have.

I ran across this quote, from North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, who in December 1966 said this to New York Times reporter Harrison E. Salisbury:

“How long do you Americans want to fight? … One year? Two years? Three years? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? We will be glad to accommodate you.”

Yes, they were glad.

It was being fought on their ground, in their homes … and on their terms.

And we haven’t gotten over it yet.

military news, national news, political news

Mr. President, you see … we have this bomb

I posted earlier today a blog item about how Franklin Roosevelt’s death changed the vice presidency for the better.

Vice President Harry Truman became president upon FDR’s death in April 1945. He took office, asked his Cabinet to pray for him and then set about finishing off the Axis Powers as World War II came to an end. Nazi Germany surrendered just about three weeks after FDR’s death. The Pacific combat remained to be fought.

But he knew next to nothing about the secrets that FDR took with him to the grave. One of them involved the Manhattan Project. Imagine the conversation taking place between Secretary of War Henry Stimson and the president of the United States.

Stimson: Uh, Mr. President? I’ve got something to discuss with you.

Truman: Sure, Henry. What is it?

Stimson: Well, sir, we’re developing this bomb out in New Mexico. We’ve been working with really smart fellow: Bob Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein, to name just three.

Truman: Bomb? We’ve got all kinds of bombs. We dropped them by the thousands every day in Europe and we’re still doing so in the Pacific.

Stimson: But Mr. President, this bomb is a big one. Really, really big. It’s an atomic bomb. I mean, when it explodes, it registers enough firepower to equal several thousand pounds of dynamite.

Truman: Holy s***, Henry. One bomb equals all that power?

Stimson: Yes sir. We’re going to detonate one of them in July out in Alamogordo. It’ll be the first one. If it works, we’re going to propose something quite dramatic.

Truman: And that is … ?

Stimson: We think we ought to use it on Japan. Send them a message that if they keep fighting we’ll use it again and again. Mr. President, we don’t think the Japanese will have the stomach for many of these.

Truman: OK, Henry, we’ll wait to see how the test blast goes and then we’ll make that call.

***

The test went off successfully. Less than a month later, President Truman issued the order to bomb Hiroshima. The Enola Gay took off on Aug. 6. Three days later, Nagasaki was demolished by the second A-bomb — and the rest is history.

God bless President Truman.

military news

Do we need to ID remains from Pearl Harbor?

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I’ve been struggling with this story since I first heard about a couple of days ago.

The Pentagon is going to exhume the unidentified remains of more than 400 sailors and Marines who died on Dec. 7, 1941 aboard the USS Oklahoma, one of several warships sunk in the sneak attack that brought the United States into World War II.

http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/uss-oklahoma-victims-exhumed-identified/2015/04/15/id/638587/

Why the struggle?

I cannot decide if it’s totally necessary to use DNA technology that’s now available to identify the remains that have been resting in peace in “unknown” graves since “the date which will live in infamy.”

Their remains were reburied in a Honolulu national cemetery in 1950. Some of the remains reportedly were “co-mingled” with others’ remains. So it’s not clear who’s buried in each of the graves.

I understand that the technology now available will allow — through painstaking work — forensics experts to identify the remains. It will take time, perhaps years, to finish the job. Indeed, the family members deserve some closure and identifying the remains will give it to them.

However, the family members of the 429 sailors and Marines who were lost have known they were lost aboard the Oklahoma when it capsized at its mooring after being hit by enemy bombs and torpedoes.

Does it do any good now to exhume those remains and subject them to meticulous DNA research?

Why not simply let those heroes rest in peace?

I’m open to comments on this one. Your thoughts? Please?

 

military news

Purple Hearts for Fort Hood victims? Yes

Do you want a more graphic demonstration of how the war against international terrorism has changed the rules of engagement?

Try this: Texas lawmakers are gathering at Fort Hood this morning to present 40 Purple Hearts to active-duty service personnel who were wounded in a 2009 shooting on the sprawling Army post.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/04/09/fort-hood-victims-be-awarded-purple-heart-medals/

Army Major Nidal Hasan was convicted of murdering 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009 rampage and has been sentenced to death for his crime.

This is a deserving honor for the individuals wounded in the attack. Given that the international war on terror — and Hasan clearly committed a terrorist act when he opened fire at Fort Hood — has redefined the “battlefield,” the individuals deserve the Purple Hearts.

As the Texas Tribune reported: “Federal authorities initially classified the incident as workplace violence, and victims and their supporters spent years trying to convince the government to call the act terrorism so they could qualify for the Purple Heart and benefits that come with it. Hasan has said he planned the attack as a way of protecting Muslim insurgents abroad.”

Several Texas officials plan to attend the ceremony this morning. One of them, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — an announced Republican presidential candidate — calls the award long overdue. “This attack was a clear act of radical Islamic terrorism, conducted on American soil — the original decision to designate it ‘workplace violence’ and deny these honors was a betrayal of the sacrifice of each of the victims,” Cruz said in a statement. “We can never undo the events of that day, but we can properly honor the courageous patriots who protect our nation and remain forever grateful for them.”

The government today will do the right thing by honoring those who wounded by Nidal Hasan.

 

International news, military news

Our former enemy shares his wisdom

Kaname Harada once fought against the United States of America.

He was a Japanese fighter pilot. He’s 98 now. Frail. Near the end of the line … apparently.

Harada has some wisdom for his government, one that sent him and other young warriors to fight in World War II: Don’t get involved again, ever, in war.

Harada is concerned that Japan might rewrite its constitution to allow its fighting forces to deploy abroad. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is thinking about revising the document, which prohibits Japanese armed forces from doing anything other than protecting the island nation from attack.

Abe was incensed at the Islamic State’s brutal murder of two Japanese journalists. Indeed, the world was incensed.

He ought to heed to advice of an aging Japanese Zero pilot.

Harada spoke recently to an audience about his experience in WorAS ld War II. They were enthralling and chilling all at once. According to the New York Times: “Nothing is as terrifying as war,” he began, before spending the next 90 minutes recounting his role in battles, from Japan’s early triumph at Pearl Harbor to its disastrous reversals at Midway and Guadalcanal. “I want to tell you my experiences in war so that younger generations don’t have to go through the same horrors that I did.”

Indeed, I have learned in recent years that the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor is attracting aging Japanese warriors who are coming to the United States to pay their respects at the memorial that stands over the sunken hulk of the battleship sunk during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack — which brought the United States into the world war. These men are now getting old, just as our brave men and women are aging. They were following orders and doing their duty as they saw it.

As Harada told the Times: “I fought the war from the cockpit of a Zero, and can still remember the faces of those I killed,” said Mr. Harada, who said he was able to meet and befriend some of his foes who survived the war. “They were fathers and sons, too. I didn’t hate them or even know them.”

This old man’s wisdom is profound. It is gripping. It needs to be heard by all those who believe war ever is a sane option to any dispute between or among nations.

It isn’t.

 

military news, Uncategorized

Code Talkers provided unique heroism

NAVAJO COUNTY, Ariz. — I guess it goes back to the first time I ever heard of the Code Talkers.

Every time I see the word “Navajo,” I think of those brave men.

We blazed through Navajo County today on our way home and the thought of the Code Talkers came pouring through.

Equally compelling, in my view, is thinking of the individual who conceived the mission our armed forces handed these brave Americans. Credit for employing the Navajo Code Talkers has gone to Philip Johnston, a civil engineer for the city of Los Angeles. He was raised on the Navajo reservation as the son of missionaries … and spoke the language fluently.

The Navajo weren’t the first Native Americans to answer the call to become Code Talkers. Their language is believed to be the only one the enemy never  decoded.

The mission handed to Navajo Indians was to devise a code that would baffle the Japanese in the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Someone in the War Department figured that the enemy couldn’t possibly understand what was being said between Americans who spoke a language that was as unique as any on the planet.

Japanese cryptographers were able to decipher some coded messages during the war. So, to get around their knowledge of how to break our codes, U.S. war planners devised a code using the Navajo language.

Imagine sitting in a Japanese communications monitoring station, listening to individuals speaking to each other in a language you’ve never heard. You cannot identify it as, say, French, Russian or Spanish — let alone English.

That was the work of the Code Talkers. They’re all gone now. They were heroes in the absolute truest sense of the word.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/06/04/r-i-p-heroic-american/

I’ve long honored them for the heroism they performed. I also have honored Philip Johnston, who concocted this crazy notion of employing a language the enemy couldn’t decipher.

Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant.

 

military news

Sgt. Bergdahl's life is getting complicated

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s life got mighty complicated the day he disappeared from his post in Afghanistan and was held by Taliban terrorists.

He was repatriated in 2014 amid cheers to those who were glad we were able to recover one of our fighting men.

Now the young man’s life is getting decidedly more complicated. This story might not end well for Sgt. Bergdahl.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-military-bergdahl-may-face-life-in-prison-if-convicted/ar-AA9ZMmM

The Army has accused him of desertion and with misbehavior before the enemy. The desertion charge carries a five-year prison sentence if he’s convicted; the misbehavior charge comes with a life sentence if he is found guilty.

All of sudden, just like that, the man once considered a near-hero must prove to the military that he didn’t join the enemy willingly and deserted his post, abandoned his comrades and in effect shirked the duty he took an oath to perform.

The Army is going to send this case to an Article 32 hearing, which is equivalent roughly to a grand jury proceeding. There it will be determined Bergdahl’s case goes to court martial.

I would hate for Bergdahl to be convicted of either charge. If he is, then, well … the young man needs to be punished.

His life, no matter if he spends it behind bars or is acquitted, has become far more complicated than he ever imagined.

military news, national news, Uncategorized

Finally! A clarification of 'natural-born citizen'

Where were these fellows, say, in 2007, 2008 and for most of Barack Obama’s first term a president of the United States?

Two former solicitors general of the United States have settled — in my mind, at least — the issue that polluted the political atmosphere until the time Obama was re-elected in November 2012. They’ve defined the term “natural born citizen” as stated in the U.S. Constitution.

http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/03/on-the-meaning-of-natural-born-citizen/

Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, writing for the Harvard Law Review, say with virtually zero reservation that “natural  born citizen” applies to anyone who becomes an American immediately upon  birth, irrespective of where that birth occurred. At issue is whether that circumstances affects the qualifications of anyone seeking to run for president. Is that constitutionally qualified yes? Katyal and Clement say “yes.”

The issue has been discussed at times. Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona before Arizona became a state. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory. George Romney was born in Mexico. Ted Cruz was born in Canada. Three of those men already have run for president; Cruz is expected to run for the 2016 Republican nomination.

All four men were U.S. citizens upon birth. Goldwater’s parents were citizens, as were McCain’s and Romney’s. Cruz’s mother is an American. Therefore, that qualifies them to hold the highest office in the land.

Oh, and what about Barack Obama?

Remember all that baloney about whether he was constitutionally qualified, that he was born in Kenya and that, according to the yahoos who sought to make a big deal out of his birthplace? Katyal and Clement say none of that mattered one little bit.

Obama’s mother was an American, which meant he was bestowed full U.S. citizenship the moment he was born to her and his Kenyan father — in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state to join the Union.

A cousin of mine sent me the attached link to let me know that Ted Cruz also is qualified to run for president. My cousin is likely to support Cruz’s president.

But in truth, I’ve long believed that Cruz was qualified under Article II of the Constitution to hold the office, just as I was certain that Goldwater, McCain Romney and Obama could serve in that office.

I just wish the Harvard Law Review article could have settled this issue long before now.

Better late than never, right?

military news

Talk about actual troops, not just 'boots'

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Critics of President Obama have taken to challenging his use of language, such as his declining to use the term “Islamic terrorist” to refer to the enemy with whom we are at war.

Allow me to turn that semantic debate on its head. Why don’t the media, politicians and peanut-gallery observers stop using the term “boots on the ground” to describe what they really desire in prosecuting this war against terrorists.

US boots needed to defeat ISIS, Boehner says

House Speaker John Boehner today used the “boots” terminology to suggest he wants to send young Americans back onto the battlefield in Iraq and to deploy them to Syria.

“Somebody’s boots have to be on the ground,” Boehner said in a live interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “We have some 3,000 boots on the ground today. Let’s not suggest that we don’t.”

The media have fallen into that trap as well, preferring to sanitize what’s really at stake. We aren’t talking about footwear, folks; we’re talking instead about the human feet that will fill it.

It reminds me a bit of how the media — and I’ll include the newspaper where I used to work, the Amarillo Globe-News — use the term “harvest” to describe the killing of wild animal by hunters.

If we’re going to suggest that we send young Americans back into battle, then say it: It is time to redeploy American men and women, return them to the fight, put these young Americans in harm’s way.

Boots on the ground? Give me a break.

 

military news, State news

Kyle's killer gets life without parole

This is likely the least-surprising jury verdict to come down in most folks’ memory.

Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty of murdering Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield at a shooting range south of Fort Worth in 2013.

The case has drawn international attention, as Kyle’s exploits have been portrayed in the acclaimed film “American Sniper.” Kyle was the Navy SEAL sharpshooter who served four tours in Iraq and is credited with 160 confirmed kills, believed to be a U.S. military record.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/killer-of-american-sniper-kyle-jailed-for-life/ar-BBhV9Nz

Routh sought acquittal on the grounds of insanity. The jury, which deliberated in a Stephenville court building for two hours, didn’t buy it.

The verdict and the sentence bring to a close a most dramatic case.

Kyle’s devotion to doing his duty for his country has been honored across the nation. “American Sniper” tells a gripping story of a young man torn by the terrible deeds he did on the battlefield.

The terrible, tragic irony, of course, is that Kyle survived those four harrowing tours of the Iraq War, only to die at the hands of a former Marine who committed an act of brutality against Kyle and Littlefield. He shot them multiple times in the back.

Routh now will be put away for the rest of his life.

The families of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield have been delivered the justice they deserve.