The shifting battleground.

Yesterday being the celebration of Memorial Day, I was thinking about our nation and those who live in her embrace and yet despise her. For one thing, as I've said here in the past, it's become abundantly clear that Leftists only admire Americans who fight other Americans; there is no place in their admiration for Americans who fought foreign enemies. How can there be? If all foreigners are superior to us in this blighted country, there's no foreigners that we should defeat. 

That calculation seemed to start as defending the Native Americans, then moved on to others who were believed to have been unjustly at the sword point of the American military -- the Mexicans, the Spanish, and so on. Pretty much anyone who could be classified as Not White fell under that umbrella. Certainly we should not have been fighting the Vietnamese; it's not like they attacked us! That worked backward as well, that in retrospect we shouldn't have been fighting the Koreans. 

Admiration for the Confederates was swept away early, but then for the Union military too, as they most assuredly were not fighting to end slavery but for some selfish cause. The military in World War I were suckers and eventually dropped beneath notice. 

Holding out to the very end were the American warriors of World War II, and they mostly hung by a thread because of Pearl Harbor and the Final Solution. But Hiroshima eventually made us turn on America's fight against Japan, and now apparently the Left hates Jews, so the Nazis are not as bad as they used to be either. 

Now we're able and encouraged to despise all American fighters, unless they fought America herself. What a relief it must be to no longer wonder if one would have had the sustained courage to go to war for the nation, the sheer guts to stand firm in the heat of battle! Discarding respect for America's military means you never have to look up to them for anything anymore.   

It's easy to do this kind of thing when you don't teach genuine history. The younger generations literally know nothing about anything other than what Leftists choose to teach, and they certainly don't want to teach anything that shows America in a good light. 

But that's not even what I wanted to write about. I set out to write about the American Dream and how the idea has been mangled, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. 

Family.

Maybe I've mentioned it before, but I don't know of a single member of my family on either side that died fighting for the United States of America. A lot us only got here recently -- like, in the last century or so -- and since then we've all been either too old or too young when a crisis broke out that was beyond the capacity of the standing forces. One of the men was 4-F with asthma, though he tried to enlist; another was old enough to join in World War II only as it was coming to a close; another did die while serving, but at home, in peacetime, of natural causes. 

The most recent miss was 9/11. But I was too old, too out of shape, and had absolutely no skills that the military would have deemed necessary enough to waive my lack of youth and vigor. Being able to translate English into... better English is not something they care that much about.

But I hope that I'm not presumptuous to claim a familial loyalty to those who loved America enough to put their lives in danger, to face the possibility of the ultimate sacrifice, although mine is a loyalty far less tested than theirs proved to be. I hope everyone who loves the United States and the principles upon which it was founded -- principles that we seem so far away from now, alas -- can find the feeling of brotherhood with those who died in service for all our benefit. 

We salute our honored dead on this Memorial Day weekend. We should not and shall not ever forget. The blood is far too strong. 

Valor.

Valor is a word one doesn't hear much anymore, not even in connection with those who have demonstrated it unquestionably. Funny thing, isn't it? 

Courage may be in short supply these days, but it isn't one of those virtues (like chastity or temperance) that have been diminished to ridicule in popular culture. What it has been diminished to is badassery. The badass is the kind of hero we celebrate now. 

"Well, Fred," you probably are not saying (because you're not a dummy), "the badass and the person of valor are both fearless in the face of opposition. Ain't no difference."

Oh, yes, my fine straw-filled person, there is a huge difference, as we shall see. 

Valor, according to Merriam-Webster, means "strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness : personal bravery." Badass, however, is defined as "ready to cause or get into trouble : MEAN," or "of formidable strength or skill." This is a world of difference, the difference between the men who manned up (yes, manned up, sue me) who stormed Omaha Beach and the Mary Sue of fiction, who is never really in danger because she's such a badass no one can lay a glove on her. Slay KA-WEEN!

The badass in modern nomenclature may not be mean, but definitely knows how to pick the right targets, generally those constrained by law or integrity from pulverizing them. The valiant, on the other hand, have little say in what targets they will strike, and many of them will be remembered today because the targets turned out to be unassailable. The badass, then, is little more than a kid putting on Hulk gloves and trying to beat up Daddy, while the valiant are able to steel themselves in the face of death itself.

But even more important than that, the badass is usually only fighting for his own interests. It’s always about one’s own glory, never about being part of something more important. To the badass, the self is the most important thing.

P.J. O'Rourke wrote:

I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat.

God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on literally everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God's heavenly country club.

Santa Claus is another matter. He's cute. He's nonthreatening. He's always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who's been naughty and who's been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without the thought of quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he's famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.

And for that matter, the fallen heroes of America that we mourn today exist, while the badass, in all his or her movie and TV glory, does not. 

In memory eternal.

Edward Dickinson Baker, senator from the newly minted state of Oregon, was the first member of Congress to not only address the chamber in full military uniform, but to resign his seat to lead his regiment to war. He believed in Constitutional order; he loved the United States, and had served in the Mexican War. Sadly, his career in the Union Army did not last long, as he was killed less than three months later in the Battle of Ball's Bluff: "Lightly schooled in military tactics, Baker gamely led his 1,700-member brigade across the Potomac River 40 miles north of the capital, up the steep ridge known as Ball's Bluff, and into the range of waiting enemy guns. He died quickly—too soon to witness the stampede of his troops back over the 70-foot cliffs to the rock-studded river below. Nearly 1,000 were killed, wounded, or captured."

Colonel Baker was hardly the only intelligent man caught fatally by the change of war tactics in the Civil War. The Gatling gun, invented in 1861, came as something of a shock too, although it was not as commonly used in the war as I had been led to believe in history class.

I had heard that disease killed more men than either the Blue or the Grey, and that is correct. In fact, it's more lopsided than I thought. The National Park Service Civil War site lists these figures:

The 642,427 total Union casualties have been divided accordingly:

·         110,100 killed in battle

·         224,580 diseases

·         275,174 wounded in action

·         30,192 prisoners of war

The 483,026 total Confederate casualties have been divided accordingly:

·         94,000 killed in battle

·         164,000 diseases

·         194,026 wounded in action

·         31,000 prisoners of war

Baker was in the distinct minority, as the Union disease deaths were two to one over battle deaths.

In these Chinese Death Virus times, we remember that those who put on the uniform in war are resigned to the possibility that they will never take it off, whether by enemy action, accident, or illness. God bless them, and God rest the souls of our war dead.

Armistice, veterans.

When I was a kid, there were still plenty of old-timers around who called November 11 Armistice Day, even though it had been decades since Dwight Eisenhower changed the name of the day to Veterans Day, in 1954. Ike made it a day to recognize veterans of all U.S. wars. The holiday was moved to October in 1971, but Gerald Ford moved it back, because of the significance of the end of World War I on November 11. As he wrote in 1975, "I believe restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 will help preserve in the hearts and lives of all Americans the spirit of patriotism, the love of country and the willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good symbolized by this very special day."

I think President Ford, who died in 2006, would have been surprised at how little the centennial of the end of World War I was marked in America last year.

It's funny how our national-history-related holidays have worked out (I know in a way all  our observed holidays are national-history-related, but you know what I mean). When I was kid the old-timers still remembered VE Day (May 8) and VJ Day (August 15), commemorating the victories of World War II in Europe and Japan respectively. They were marked as national days of note, but were never national holidays. Had the whole of World War II ended with a single enemy surrender, the way World War I closed with the armistice on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we might have gotten another national holiday out of the end of WW II. But World War II was kind of two different tremendous wars that happened to be going on at the same time, with lots of little side wars, and the Japanese were not cooperative enough to give up the game when the Nazis capitulated. It's funny that we remember Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, and D-Day, June 6, more clearly than VE or VJ Days.

Memorial Day was another one that was known to the elderly by a different name, that being Decoration Day. (Was I living in some weird time warp?) Decoration Day began as sort of a commemoration of the Civil War, but sort of not; the history of the holiday is a mess, with claims of origination in at least 25 locales. But it doesn't seem to have coincided anywhere with the date of the South's surrender in the war, which is April 9.

Only one major holiday marks the beginning rather than the end of a war -- our national Independence Day, the Fourth of July. Which is kind of weird when you think about it. It's kind of like NASCAR having its biggest event at the start of the season. In 1776 it looked pretty unlikely that the thirteen colonies under the British crown could pull this crazy stunt off, and it took until October 19, 1781, to do it. But we don't celebrate October 19 as Independence Day, when we actually got a surrender, or September 3, when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, or May 12, when the treaty took effect the following year. Maybe marking the date of the beginning of official hostilities says something about American character -- belligerence? Optimism?

Or maybe none of this matters much anymore. So many of the younger generations really don't seem to give a damn about American history, as the gatekeepers at colleges and formerly great newspapers treat it like an endless parade of slavery, bigotry, violence, blundering, and greed. The major text used in institutions of so-called higher learning is a debunked fabrication, but it serves its purpose, Forces in our country have wanted for a hundred years or more to declare Year Zero and start everything anew. Which is awfully sad, because such thinking always ends in agony.

I pray, as I often do, that our country be more worthy of the sacrifices made by the men and women whose lives were and still are spent and lost in its defense.

Memorial Day weekend.

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear

Above their heads the legions pressing on:

(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,

And died not knowing how the day had gone.)

O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see

The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar;

Then let your mighty chorus witness be

To them, and Caesar, that we still make war.

Tell them, O guns, that we have heard their call,

That we have sworn, and will not turn aside,

That we will onward till we win or fall,

That we will keep the faith for which they died.

Bid them be patient, and some day, anon,

They shall feel earth enwrapt in silence deep;

Shall greet, in wonderment, the quiet dawn,

And in content may turn them to their sleep.

--John McCrae, "The Anxious Dead"

Shameless plug!

Hello, dear readers. You know I usually like to plug Fearless Fred's Fabulous Fiction on this blog, but today I wanted to plug a book by reader and frequent commenter, Mongo! No, it's not How to Punch a Horse or I'm OK, Sheriff Bart OK. 

It's this:

Dig In! An Infantryman's Journal is Bob (Mongo) Fallon's father's story of his journeys in World War II, from 1943 to 1946. An awful lot of it is funny, and a lot of awful bits are harrowing, and a lot of them are both.

There is (just for one part chosen at random) an account of an attack on the outskirts of Hagen, Germany, that turns bad quickly, "bogged down in a rain of heavy mortar fire." Timothy Fallon rushes off the road with the other men, taking cover in a cemetery, "behind a good thick headstone," just in time as heavy machine gun fire rakes the area.

The whole attack became a shambles. We couldn't move forward, and the shelling was obviously so well directed that it would follow us all the way in. Men were being hit right and left. The fellow next to me was spattered with fragments all through his legs and hips. I dragged him back of my headstone (and it was beginning to look as though it would really become my headstone), pulled his pants down, and tried to bandage him up a bit. His legs were drenched with blood.

A Platoon is ordered to take out a building being used to direct fire for the enemy, and our hero's Platoon is sent. I won't give away the rest of this one story, except to say that one paragraph is a terrible example of what happens in war, and the very next is hilarious. Every bit of it has the ring of truth.

I highly recommend the book, especially with Memorial Day almost upon us. Don't let the day be all about the hamburgers and hot dogs -- although Mongo might insist that there be beans.

⭐🗽⭐🗽⭐🗽⭐

On another barely related note, Lileks commenters are familiar with the strange work of Flangepart, who regularly produces covers for books and albums that don't exist. I've been honored to be included, with a fictional band called the Fred Key Trio. My favorite so far:

Who wouldn't want to listen to that? Well, anyone, if you knew that my musical background is more checkered than the tablecloths above. And I can't lead a trio; even the dogs don't listen to me and I own them. Anyway, it's always nice to be mentioned on an album with Robot on the cover.

Not much.

Hi, gang! I don't have much to report today. The weekend was full of events; we had folks here from out of town, and it was all I could do to keep up regular posts. After all, 4 out of 5 doctors recommend a dose of Vitamin Fred daily, and I can't disappoint my public. (That fifth doctor is a freaking no-good Commie bastard. Just saying.)

I hope to have some info tomorrow about the weekend's events that you might find interesting. One of the events of the weekend was that baby dog Nipper turned two years old. He didn't seem worried about getting older, wasn't looking for wrinkles or gray hairs. I guess in dog years he's just 14, though, so it makes sense. I suppose he'll be looking to get his driver's license soon -- after all, he'll be 21 in dog years next May -- but I won't do it. Dogs are terrible drivers. Maybe better than cats, but still.

Anyway, more tomorrow! And remember: No Commie Doctors!

Memorial Day.

Decoration Day.

When I was a kid some of the older members of my family still called it Decoration Day, the name that went back to 1868, when the headstones of and monuments to Civil War dead were decorated in their honor.

Wikipedia reports that the name gradually changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day, and the holiday did not get its official name until 1967. I do think Memorial Day is more descriptive, telling you why you're doing something rather than just what you're doing. "Decoration Day" doesn't explain what it's about. Heck, we got Party City now; we decorate for everything.

Memorial Day both benefits and suffers from its place in the calendar.

According to the US Memorial Day site, May 30 was the original date for the holiday, chosen because it was in the spring (when cemetery decorating usually occurred, flowers being in bloom) and because it was one date that had no Civil War battles, so the day wouldn't be over who won and who lost. (There were so many Civil War battles, I'm surprised they found a date at all.) Since 1971, by federal law, the holiday is officially celebrated on the last Monday in May.

Its spot, though, marks it as the unofficial start of summer, even though summer doesn't start for for weeks and schools are not out everywhere. When I was a kid we sweltered in non-air-conditioned classrooms in June, dying a little inside as the hours ticked by. (Then we walked home uphill in the snow! In bare feet! By cracky! Made men of us!)

That unofficial summer thing helps people to pay attention to Memorial Day, unlike Veterans Day, which tends to go unnoticed and is not a day off for most of us. We always know Memorial Day is coming, we have the day off, we make plans.

And that brings us to the problem with the holiday's place in the calendar; we pay attention in part for the wrong reason -- barbecues and parties, mostly. There are parades, of course, and other public observances, but I've noticed attendance locally has plummeted as 9/11 grows smaller in the rearview mirror. Maybe it's a New York thing. We suck at war. New Yorkers may be tough individually, but get us in a group and we surrender.

I'm as bad as anyone; there's a Mass today for all the town's war dead that I'm not going to be able to make this year, to go with the parade I was unable to make yesterday. My excuses are valid, but excuses don't honor anybody.

I notice that there's a growing campaign against wishing people "happy Memorial Day," and I think that's good. I don't want to stop others from doing fun things on the weekend, but that's weekend stuff; the Memorial stuff is not fun.

I'm sorry I won't be doing my part to honor our dead. I try to donate to veterans' causes and I pray for our fallen fighters, that God will bless their souls, that God will make us more worthy of their sacrifice. Because a nation that worships celebrities, has no respect for the law, and spends its time fighting over whether men can use the girls' room is not a nation that's worth fighting for, let alone dying for.

Memorial Day 2015.

Went to one of the local Memorial Day parades this weekend. Most towns have some kind of tribute to our fallen men and women, but nothing really big. In fact, this one has dropped off quite a lot in the last ten years.

The weather was great, and attendance was meh. Not just along the streets; also in the parade itself. Past years have seen military trucks, police in dress uniform, pipers, Freemasons, you name it. None of them made it this year, except for one old Army Jeep. Thank God for the Boy Scouts. Maybe the others got a better offer from another parade.

Of course, we're tired of endless war, but it looks like radical Islam is tireless in bringing it to us and everyone else around them. We don't always have a choice in whether we want to fight. It's a hard lesson, and one that all too many Americans willfully refuse to learn. We do, however, often have a choice in whether we want to win.

When we left Vietnam in 1973, we were not whipped dogs; nor, whatever they say, had we gotten our heads handed to us in the Tet Offensive of 1968. The South Vietnamese were prepared to hold off the North, with the aid we promised to send. That aid was cut in a political move by Congressional Democrats, and Saigon fell in 1975.

When our military barracks in Lebanon was bombed and 241 servicemen killed in 1983, President Reagan chose to leave---a decision I suppose I will never understand, a decision that has encouraged terrorists for the last 32 years.

President Obama utterly wiped out our victory in Iraq by pulling out our troops lock, stock, and barrel in 2011, letting the nation fall into the hands of ISIS. Ramadi was captured last week, in case you couldn't hear the news over the rest of the blather on TV. Boy, that Letterman sure had quite a run, huh?

The bloody sacrifices made by our servicemen in these and other conflicts were completely undermined by politicians, pandering to the most panicky or deluded in our population. Our nation could never have won its independence, survived civil war, or beaten Hitler with this kind of bizarre combination of foolishness and self-serving.

Our phony-medal-throwing creep Secretary of State John Kerry once famously asked, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Here's one for you, Secretary Asshat: How do you ask a man to be die for a cause when he knows the jackwipes in Washington will make sure it means nothing?

Memorial Day.

When a man like me reads about D-Day, or the Battle of Midway, or Gettysburg, or the Hundred Days Offensive, he cannot help but be astonished by the courage shown by the Americans involved, courage I have never needed or probably ever will need. The worst injury one person has ever inflicted on me was a kick to the solar plexus in sixth grade. It hurt. But no one has ever shot at me.

Not yet, anyway -- you never know -- but if they do it will be one insane person who got mad at wasting time with my knock-knock jokes, not hundreds of thousands of them.

I have a number of veterans among my acquaintances, and they rarely talk about their war experiences. Not to me, anyway. Why would they? Some people have experiences so outside our ordinary day-to-day blah that to describe them would be like speaking Latin to an Aleut. (An Aleut who doesn't speak Latin -- yes, don't be funny.)

It's almost hard to be properly grateful when you can't even understand the sacrifice. It ties in with my old Wonderama Theory of Human Sympathies.

You zygotes don't remember Wonderama, but it was a kids' TV show that ran for more than 20 years on Sunday mornings. There was one segment where kids from the audience would get up and sound off on things they hated. I remember one kid talking about getting bitten by an animal and having to go through rabies shots, something like eight big needles in the stomach in those days, very painful and quite frightening. The audience just looked at him. The next kid complained about how much he hated peas, and everyone went crazy cheering. No one had had rabies. Everyone hated peas.

When Hollywood wants to make a film about the military these days, the guys are either madmen, victims, or jerks. Hollywoodites have to filter everything through the lens given them by their Vietnam-dodging college professors. When so many of us were in the military or lived with people who had served or buried loved ones who had sacrificed everything, we could understand it. Now it's like a lost culture to us, mysterious as the early Etruscans.

I'm glad that I never had to serve. I'm glad most of us don't have to. But by abandoning our knowledge of war, we have lost something crucial in the understanding of those whose sacrifice allows us to be so ignorant. I often pray that our country may be more worthy of that sacrifice.