Another Painful Reminder That He’s Still President

And this is why he’s been coined the “Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserable Failure”.

The Forever Young Who So Willingly Paid The Price Of Our Freedom

There are places where America’s war dead are best known and still mourned.  Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery is but one example and yet stone sentinels of forgotten military men jut out from rolling grassy hills all across this country.  Some have not seen a single visitor kneel at their graveside for more than a century.

Known originally as Decoration Day as proclaimed by Gen. John Logan on May 5, 1868, the special day was borne out of the desire to honor the Union war dead and decorate their graves with flowers. 

By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans.

Our co-bloggers Proof and Adrienne join me in offering our thoughts and prayers to all those who are grieving.  Nothing we say can lessen your sorrow, but we do know your loved ones are in the arms of God guarding the gates of Heaven.

A Petulant President Scurried Like A Rat To Hiroshima

I’m beginning to loathe the very sight of The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer.

On Friday, May 27th he became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, the most potent symbol of the dawning of the nuclear age where the dropping of the first atomic bomb helped end World War II.

Media outlets throughout the globe used honeyed words to describe the event:

“In a solemn ceremony on a sunwashed afternoon, Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe placed wreaths before the cenotaph, a simple arched stone monument at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park.” 

“Only the clicking of camera shutters intruded on the moment as Obama closed his eyes and briefly bowed his head.” 

“Then, after each leader gave brief remarks, Obama approached two aging survivors of the bombing who were seated in the front row, standing in for the thousands still seared by memories of that day.”

For those who were born after the end of the global conflagration, anti-American historical revisionism sanitized accounts of that day do little to explain what led to President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

On August 6, 1945 returning to America from the Potsdam Conference, Truman was informed that the bomb had been dropped.  Aboard the USS Augusta in the mid-Atlantic ocean, he informed the nation:

“Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.” 

“The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. [Emphasis mine]  And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. In their present form these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development.” 

“It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.” 

“Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1's and V-2's late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb at all.” 

“The battle of the laboratories held fateful risks for us as well as the battles of the air, land, and sea, and we have now won the battle of the laboratories as we have won the other battles.” 

[SKIP] 

“We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.” 

“It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such number that and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.”

In the summer of 1945, the city of Tokyo was decimated in the firebombing which killed about 100,000 people.  Even so, the Japanese refused to surrender.

The near instant death of thousands in Hiroshima had to be followed by a second bombing of Nagasaki three days later to prove to the Japanese that America could annihilate them.

Between 50 and 80 million people died during the war.  The death toll for the Japanese on their soil was a small price to pay to prevent the casualties of perhaps millions more had the war in the Pacific ground on.

The Japanese Imperial Army committed scores of war crimes.  Thousands died in the Bataan Death March because of the brutality of their captors who starved and beat the Filipino and American marchers.

In 1942 about 3,500 men, British and Australian, had been brought to Sandakan camp to build an airfield for the Japanese.  Suffering from Allied bombing raids, the Japanese decided to march the POWs 164 miles into the jungle interior to Ranau. None of the approximately 800 British POWs survived the ordeal of the march and accompanying massacres and atrocities. Only six Australians were alive at the end of the war.

In February of 1942, a group of 21 nurses and a large group of men, women and children evacuated to Johor Baharu in Malaya after the Japanese invaded.  The ship they boarded was sunk by Japanese aircraft near Radji Beach on Banka Island.  They swam ashore and were joined the next day by about 100 British soldiers.  The Japanese killed the men then motioned the nurses to wade into the sea then machine-gunned them from behind in what is known as the Banka Island Massacre.

There were also horrific accounts of cannibalism.in Wewak, New Guinea and the book Flyboys recounts how Lt. Col. George Herbert Walker Bush was among nine airmen who escaped from their planes after being shot down during bombing raids in Chichi Jima.  He was the only one to evade capture by the Japanese.

The other eight “flyboys” were tortured, beaten and then executed, either by beheading with swords or by multiple stab wounds from bayonets and sharpened bamboo stakes. Four were then butchered by the island garrison's surgeons and their livers and meat from their thighs eaten by senior Japanese officers.

Their horrific fate was established in subsequent war crimes trials on the island of Guam, but details were sealed in top secret files in Washington to spare their families distress.

Curtis Houck, writing for Media Research Center noted that notorious liar Brian Williams appeared on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports to “throw some shade in the direction of the US military and then-President Harry Truman complaining that ‘we’re the only nation to have used them [atomic bombs] in anger” against the horrifying Axis Powers member.

The Washington Free Beacon reported that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will not be visiting Pearl Harbor to reciprocate Obama’s visit to Hiroshima.

On the 75th anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which killed more than 2,400 Americans, President Obama also will not visit Pearl Harbor.  This is odd given the fact that he spent much of his childhood in Hawaii.

I found Obama’s Hiroshima visit repugnant.  This is the weekend we commemorate Americans who fell on the battlefield including those who died fighting a war the Japanese started.

The atomic bomb gave Japan its postwar mission for peace.  Obama doesn’t understand this.  His ideological world has little or nothing to do with American reality.

There are simply not enough expletives to adequately express my disgust with this man’s disgraceful apologies to nations undeserving of them.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of The Pirate’s Cove and thanks to the Admiral for linking to this post.

They Left The Vivid Air Signed With Their Honor

An aerial view of the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, near Omaha beach, site of the vast military operation by Allied forces in Normandy, which turned the tide of World War II, eventually leading to the liberation of occupied France and the end of the war against Nazi Germany. 
(Photo credit JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

As many of you champ at the bit waiting for the three day weekend commemorating Memorial Day to start, I wanted to take a moment to share my thoughts on the magnitude of what this “holiday” means to America.

President Ronald Reagan, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery in 1982, noted that Abraham Lincoln dedicated a small cemetery at Gettysburg marking a terrible collision between the armies of the North and South.  He concluded that Lincoln was wrong when he said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.”

Reagan said, “His remarks commemorating those who gave their ‘last full measure of devotion’ were long remembered.  But since that moment at Gettysburg, few other such addresses have become part of our national heritage—not because of the inadequacy of the speakers, but because of the inadequacy of words.”

“I have no illusions about what little I can add now to the silent testimony of those who gave their lives willingly for their country. Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.”

On Memorial Day or any other day, the cemeteries for those Americans who fell in battle offer profound lessons.

In 1950, four-star General Mark W. Clark wrote about returning to Italy after World War II was won. It was Memorial Day, as it happened, and Clark was with his wife.

“We visited the American cemetery at Anzio and saw the curving rows of white crosses that spoke so eloquently of the price that America and her Allies had paid for the liberation of Italy,” he wrote. “If ever proof were needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest, it could be found in these cemeteries. Here was our only conquest:  all we asked of Italy was enough of her soil to bury our gallant dead."

How can we remember those who have sacrificed their lives for our country?  To honor its war dead who remained overseas, the United States maintains 24 permanent military cemeteries; 22 of them in 8 countries follow the path of American forces in World War I and World War II in the European Theater and the Pacific Theater of the global conflict.  These are some of the most highly maintained shrines of their nature in the world.  Among the graves are tales of dedication and heroism for the nation.

Beneath the neatly patterned white crosses and Stars of David lie the remains of 125,000 Americans. There are 94,000 more names commemorated on Walls of the Missing whose bodies were never found. Dignified and serene, they were created to honor America's fallen, but they are also intended to inspire and eloquently teach the living the scope of their sacrifice and loss in the sweep of history.

The next few paragraphs are dedicated to my friends who are veterans of Vietnam.  I bear no shame in telling you that I revered Ronald Reagan.  No one did more to heal the nation with his optimism and patriotism and the promise that America was indeed a land that God had blessed.

On Veteran’s Day 1984, President Reagan spoke at the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue.

“Those who fought in Vietnam are part of us, part of our history. They reflected the best in us. No number of wreaths, no amount of music and memorializing will ever do them justice but it is good for us that we honor them and their sacrifice. And it's good that we do it in the reflected glow of the enduring symbols of our Republic.” 

“The fighting men depicted in the statue we dedicate today, the three young American servicemen, are individual only in terms of their battle dress; all are as one, with eyes fixed upon the memorial bearing the names of their brothers in arms. On their youthful faces, faces too young to have experienced war, we see expressions of loneliness and profound love and a fierce determination never to forget.” 

“The men of Vietnam answered the call of their country. Some of them died in the arms of many of you here today, asking you to look after a newly born child or care for a loved one. They died uncomplaining. The tears staining their mud-caked faces were not for self-pity but for the sorrow they knew the news of their death would cause their families and friends.” 

“As you knelt alongside his litter and held him one last time, you heard his silent message—he asked you not to forget.” 

“When you returned home, you brought solace to the loved ones of those who fell, but little solace was given to you. Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between our native distaste for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. But there's been a rethinking there, too. And now we can say to you, and say as a nation: Thank you for your courage. Thank you for being patient with your countrymen. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to stand with us together.” 

“The men and women of Vietnam fought for freedom in a place where liberty was in danger. They put their lives in danger to help a people in a land far away from their own. Many sacrificed their lives in the name of duty, honor, and country. All were patriots who lit the world with their fidelity and courage.”

Please stay safe this weekend.  Enjoy your freedom and thank you for your readership.

Freedom’s Shield And Hope

A passerby snapped this picture of two Navarino, WI boys who were riding their bikes on Memorial Day on a street lined with American flags.  Parker Diemel, 12, and Ayden Lengo, 11, spotted one that had fallen into a ditch.  They picked it up and got it back to where it needed to go.

Old Glory has no other character than that which we pass on from generation to generation.

Kevin Conradt, Navarino Town Chairman, says he’s proud to have such wonderful kids growing up in Navarino: “People desecrating the flag and the protests and the riots and the stuff that’s going on. It’s really nice to see some young kids stepping up to the plate.”

The young heroes showed true patriotism—a testament to how our flag speaks majestically to us of our past and the sacrifices made by the men and women who went before us.

Ayden’s mom said, “…I’m glad he knew the American flag is something he should be proud of and take care of.”

They Stepped Forward To Say “Send Me, I Will Go,” And Never Came Home

Pausing today to remember the sacrifices of our fallen warriors, it has been difficult to watch the gains of ISIS in Iraq’s Anbar Province and the subsequent fall of Ramadi where America’s first Navy SEAL, Marc Lee, was killed in a ferocious firefight.

Gold Star mother Debbie Lee, Marc’s mom, traveled to Ramadi in 2007 and returned home with some of its powdery soil in a plastic bag where her son’s blood was shed.  She sat watching her TV as the black flag of ISIS flew above the city.  Her outrage and grief can never be fully imagined.

So deep was her anguish she wrote a letter to Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey following his controversial comment about the fall of that city.  Dempsey said, “The city itself is not symbolic in any way.  It’s not been declared part of the caliphate on one hand or central to the future of Iraq.”

In her letter Lee wrote, “I’ve traveled to Ramadi and visited Camp Marc Lee in 2007. I brought back soil from that city where Marc breathed his last. I interviewed Iraqi General Anwer in 2010 when I returned. I asked him if you could say one thing to the American people what would you tell them. He paused and with deep emotion said, ‘We will tell our children and our grandchildren for generations to come what Americans have done. There is American blood poured out on our soil.’” Lee added, “It seems the Iraqis understand the importance more than you do sir.”

Dempsey sent a short letter of apology stating he did not mean to add to her grief writing, “Marc and so many others died fighting to provide a better future for Iraq.  He and those with whom he served did all that their nation asked.  They won their fight and nothing will ever diminish their accomplishments nor the honor in which we hold their service.”

Dempsey has gained a reputation for being more interested in his post-military career and future benefits than the well-being of our troops.  He has become, as Sen. John McCain stated, “the most disappointing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that I have seen, and I have seen many of them…he has basically been the echo chamber for the president.”

On D-Day seventy years ago, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said in his address to the troops who would storm the beaches of Normandy, “You are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have striven these months.  The eyes of the world are upon you…I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.  We will accept nothing less than full victory.”  These inspiring words are inscribed on a wall at the World War II Memorial.

There are other inscriptions at the memorial referring to America’s “righteous might” and the “destruction of the enemy.”  At the northern end there is a monument that bears the words of Gen. George Marshall:  “Our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.”

There is no monument in Washington and there may never be one to the American soldiers who have fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan thanks to the Commemorative Works Act of 1986.  The act prohibits new war memorials until at least ten years after the officially designated end of a conflict.  If military operations against the evil forces of terrorism mean a permanent state of war, there may never be any memorials in our nation’s capital.

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s fixation on his legacy will prove most discomforting if his words were to be carved in stone.  After the Islamic State won major battles in Iraq and Syria last week he said, “I don’t think we’re losing.”

At Arlington National Cemetery, alabaster headstones are a sobering reminder that even in death our soldiers stand as sentinels of unquestionable courage and sacrifice and we must honor those virtues.

At sunrise this morning, I lowered the flag on the 20-foot flagpole in my yard to half-staff.  All morning it hung there motionless.  According to tradition, at noon I reverently hoisted it to full height.  As if on cue, it caught the wind and flapped proudly as if to signal hope beyond death.

Tell Mom And Dad I Gave ‘Em Hell

Photo Credit:  Reuters/Reece Lodder, U.S. Marine Corps

They were sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, and friends. Nearly all of them left behind a void in the lives of those they knew. For them, time stopped on the day they were killed. They are forever young. To generations that have followed them, and will follow them in the future, their graves are living memorials to the past, to what Americans once did in a place so far from home. They gave their collective future to ensure ours.

Obama Skips Golf To Visit Overseas Contingency Operation For Photo-Op

On the eve of Memorial Day, The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer, who is down in the polls, decided to head over to Bagram Air Base to thank the troops there.

This was Obama's fourth visit to Afghanistan as president, but his first since winning re-election in 2012.

Good on him for going but…

Call me cynical. This is about the Veterans Administration scandal and crisis management on Memorial Day weekend.

One of the five rules of crisis management for leftists is to use the media and politics.  So what we have here, in a nutshell, is a photo-op to prove he cares about our troops followed by a visit to Arlington National Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns followed by a commencement speech at West Point later this week.  No sir, there’s no political strategy at work here.

I noticed one curious thing while reading the reports of this “secret visit”.  Ben Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, said in a CBS report that “the administration had been trying to plan a trip to thank the troops for some time, and the timing was good. The president did not meet with Karzai or candidates in order to avoid injecting America's presence into the ongoing election.” [Emphasis mine]

I say curious because, as we all know, the 2014 mid-terms are a mere five months off and the VA scandal stories keep coming.

Meanwhile CNN's John King, host of Inside Politics, sheepishly conceded:

"Forget for a moment that Republican outrage.  More and more Democrats in key 2014 races are calling for the president to get a spine, they say, and fire his Veterans Affairs secretary. And what more and more Democrats are saying privately is scathing, calling the president and his team detached, flat footed, even incompetent.”

Noted media lapdog, Maggie Haberman further expounded, "That’s what strikes me, what Democrats are saying privately in the wake of the healthcare (dot) gov problems, they see a president who doesn't want to take command, doesn't want to act fast. Raising the competence question. Some Democrats, who believe in government, [are saying] this White House doesn't appear to have its hand on the lever.  All of this adds up to somebody who just doesn't seem at all involved."

Egads Mags, ya think?  Somebody call Captain Obvious.

Didn’t we recently learn “that the world seems to disappoint him?”

Dream Of Battlefields No More

“On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation!”—Thomas William Parsons

All I Know Is What I Read In The Papers

His coal mine canaries are ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and MSNBC.  When they start covering a scandal then he’s compelled to come forward. 

Every damned time The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer is confronted with a scandal his modus operandi is to feign outrage, blame George Bush and/or the Republicans.

For good measure he tosses in a milquetoast threat implying he will not tolerate it and will make sure that “we find out exactly what happened on this” and then…buries it.

TWMDCO addressed the issue of long wait times and secret waiting lists at VA hospital facilities for the first time in three weeks Wednesday, but did so insufficiently given the scope of the problem.

According to the latest reports, 26 VA facilities nationwide are now being investigated for preventable deaths due to delays in treatment.

In 2007 in Kansas City, Missouri TWMDCO, vowed to tackle the issue of insufficient care for veterans at a campaign event during his first run for the presidency in a speech entitled “A Sacred Trust”.

“When a veteran is denied care, we are all dishonored.  It’s not enough to lay a wreath on Memorial Day, or to pay tribute to our veterans in speeches.”

A CNN report says that three senior VA officials identified as Dr. Thomas Lynch, Assistant Undersecretary for Health and Clinical Operations; Joan Mooney, Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Michael Huff, a Congressional Relations Officer failed to appear before the House Health Care and Wellness Committee citing that the committee did not provide enough notice.

Rep. Jeff Miller, committee chairman said, “My intent is to go ahead and subpoena them for a hearing” before his on committee on May 30th.

It is unquestionably Socratic irony that we observe Memorial Day this weekend.

As our attention is directed to those 624 fenced acres of Arlington National Cemetery where more than 320,000 heroes are interred we are called upon to remember that the soil there is watered by the silent tears of the mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters they left behind and a triangular folded American flag that is all that remains for them to hold.

That From These Honored Dead

Image Credit:  TheAtlantic

For every man, woman and child who wakes up on Memorial Day the responsibility of remembering those who gave their last full measure of devotion falls to us.

It is a day to remember not only our fallen warriors but those they left behind.

On a day not too far off, the last connections we have to wars past will be severed.  The memories of those who died in World Wars I and II and Korea will belong to history.

On a cold winter day in November of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg Address:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

As a free people we should remember that Memorial Day is not about the end of school, the beginning of summer, barbecues or auto racing; it’s about our fallen heroes, their widows, widowers, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and children.