“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

He’s probably right

This war is a new kind of war. It is different from all other wars of the past, not only in its methods and weapons but also in its geography. It is warfare in terms of every continent, every island, every sea, every air-lane in the world.

That is the reason why I have asked you to take out and spread before you (the) a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me in the references which I shall make to the world-encircling battle lines of this war. Many questions will, I fear, remain unanswered tonight, but I know you will realize that I cannot cover everything in any one short report to the people. The broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we are constantly being challenged by our enemies.

This week President Obama is in Asia. Next week he will be in Europe. He will actually order his plane-not to land, but to fly AROUND his troops in Afghanistan, his troops in the Persian Gulf, his troops in Iraq, and around Iran where he could land and give diplomacy one last serious chance before Israel attacks and casts the Arab world into war (from the Mediterranean Sea to the Bay of Bengal). Nope, Obama will fly around all those places-literally dodging his responsibility as a wartime commander and as a peace-seeking statesman. When did Presidents lose their courage? Maybe he needs to read up on his Democratic Party idol. I found it interesting.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS:
Washington’s Birthday is a most appropriate occasion for us to talk with each other about things as they are today and things as we know they shall be in the future. For eight years, General Washington and his Continental Army were faced continually with formidable odds and recurring defeats. Supplies and equipment were lacking. In a sense, every winter was a Valley Forge. Throughout the thirteen states there existed fifth columnists — and selfish men, jealous men, fearful men, who proclaimed that Washington’s cause was hopeless, and that he should ask for a negotiated peace.

Washington’s conduct in those hard times has provided the model for all Americans ever since — a model of moral stamina. He held to his course, as it had been charted in the Declaration of Independence. He and the brave men who served with him knew that no man’s life or fortune was secure without freedom and free institutions.

The present great struggle has taught us increasingly that freedom of person and security of property anywhere in the world depend upon the security of the rights and obligations of liberty and justice everywhere in the world.

This war is a new kind of war. It is different from all other wars of the past, not only in its methods and weapons but also in its geography. It is warfare in terms of every continent, every island, every sea, every air-lane in the world.

That is the reason why I have asked you to take out and spread before you (the) a map of the whole earth, and to follow with me in the references which I shall make to the world-encircling battle lines of this war. Many questions will, I fear, remain unanswered tonight, but I know you will realize that I cannot cover everything in any one short report to the people. The broad oceans which have been heralded in the past as our protection from attack have become endless battlefields on which we are constantly being challenged by our enemies.

We must all understand and face the hard fact that our job now is to fight at distances which extend all the way around the globe.

We fight at these vast distances because that is where our enemies are. Until our flow of supplies gives us clear superiority we must keep on striking our enemies wherever and whenever we can meet them, even if, for a while, we have to yield ground. Actually, though, we are taking a heavy toll of the enemy every day that goes by.

We must fight at these vast distances to protect our supply lines and our lines of communication with our allies — protect these lines from the enemies who are bending every ounce of their strength, striving against time, to cut them. The object of the Nazis and the Japanese is to of course separate the United States, Britain, China and Russia, and to isolate them one from another, so that each will be surrounded and cut off from sources of supplies and reinforcements. It is the old familiar Axis policy of “divide and conquer.”

There are those who still think, however, in terms of the days of sailing-ships. They advise us to pull our warships and our planes and our merchant ships into our own home waters and concentrate solely on last ditch defense. But let me illustrate what would happen if we followed such foolish advice.

Look at your map. Look at the vast area of China, with its millions of fighting men. Look at the vast area of Russia, with its powerful armies and proven military might. Look at the (British Isles) Islands of Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Dutch Indies, India, the Near East and the Continent of Africa, with their (re) sources of raw materials — their resources of raw materials, and of peoples determined to resist Axis domination. Look too at North America, Central America and South America. It is obvious what would happen if all of these great reservoirs of power were cut off from each other either by enemy action or by self-imposed isolation:

(1.) First, in such a case, we could no longer send aid of any kind to China — to the brave people who, for nearly five years, have withstood Japanese assault, destroyed hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and vast quantities of Japanese war munitions. It is essential that we help China in her magnificent defense and in her inevitable counteroffensive -for that is one important element in the ultimate defeat of Japan.

(2.) Secondly, if we lost communication with the southwest Pacific, all of that area, including Australia and New Zealand and the Dutch Indies, would fall under Japanese domination. Japan in such a case could (then) release great numbers of ships and men to launch attacks on a large scale against the coasts of the Western Hemisphere — South America and Central America, and North America — including Alaska. At the same time, she could immediately extend her conquests (to) in the other direction toward India, (and) through the Indian Ocean, to Africa, (and) to the Near East and try to join forces with Germany and Italy.

(3.) Third, if we were to stop sending munitions to the British and the Russians in the Mediterranean area, (and) in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, (areas) we would be helping the Nazis to overrun Turkey, and Syria, and Iraq, and Persia — that is now called Iran — Egypt and the Suez Canal, the whole coast of North Africa itself and with that inevitably the whole coast of West Africa — putting Germany within easy striking distance of South America — fifteen hundred miles away.

(4.) Fourth, if by such a fatuous policy, we ceased to protect the North Atlantic supply line to Britain and to Russia, we would help to cripple the splendid counter-offensive by Russia against the Nazis, and we would help to deprive Britain of essential food supplies and munitions.

Those Americans who believed that we could live under the illusion of isolationism wanted the American eagle to imitate the tactics of the ostrich. Now, many of those same people, afraid that we may be sticking our necks out, want our national bird to be turned into a turtle. But we prefer to retain the eagle as it is — flying high and striking hard.

I know (that) I speak for the mass of the American people when I say that we reject the turtle policy and will continue increasingly the policy of carrying the war to the enemy in distant lands and distant waters — as far away as possible from our own home grounds.

There are four main lines of communication now being travelled by our ships: the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. These routes are not one-way streets, for the ships (which) that carry our troops and munitions out-bound bring back essential raw materials which we require for our own use.

The maintenance of these vital lines is a very tough job. It is a job which requires tremendous daring, tremendous resourcefulness, and, above all, tremendous production of planes and tanks and guns and also of the ships to carry them. And I speak again for the American people when I say that we can and will do that job.

The defense of the world-wide lines of communication demands — compel relatively safe use by us of the sea and of the air along the various routes; and this, in turn, depends upon control by the United Nations of (the) many strategic bases along those routes.

Control of the air involves the simultaneous use of two types of planes — first, the long-range heavy bomber; and, second, the light bombers, the dive bombers, the torpedo planes, (and) the short-range pursuit planes, all of which are essential to (the) cooperate with and protect(ion) (of) the bases and (of) the bombers themselves.

Heavy bombers can fly under their own power from here to the southwest Pacific, either way, but the smaller planes cannot. Therefore, these lighter planes have to be packed in crates and sent on board cargo ships. Look at your map again; and you will see that the route is long — and at many places perilous — either across the South Atlantic all the way (a)round South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, or from California to the East Indies direct. A vessel can make a round trip by either route in about four months, or only three round trips in a whole year.

In spite of the length, (and) in spite of the difficulties of this transportation, I can tell you that in two and a half months we already have a large number of bombers and pursuit planes, manned by American pilots and crews, which are now in daily contact with the enemy in the Southwest Pacific. And thousands of American troops are today in that area engaged in operations not only in the air but on the ground as well.

In this battle area, Japan has had an obvious initial advantage. For she could fly even her short-range planes to the points of attack by using many stepping stones open to — her bases in a multitude of Pacific islands and also bases on the China coast, Indo-China coast, and in Thailand and Malaya (coasts). Japanese troop transports could go south from Japan and from China through the narrow China Sea, which can be protected by Japanese planes throughout its whole length.

I ask you to look at your maps again, particularly at that portion of the Pacific Ocean lying west of Hawaii. Before this war even started, the Philippine Islands were already surrounded on three sides by Japanese power. On the west, the China side, the Japanese were in possession of the coast of China and the coast of Indo-China which had been yielded to them by the Vichy French. On the North are the islands of Japan themselves, reaching down almost to northern Luzon. On the east, are the Mandated Islands — which Japan had occupied exclusively, and had fortified in absolute violation of her written word.

The islands that lie between Hawaii and the Philippines — these islands, hundreds of them, appear only as small dots on most maps, but do not appear at all. But they cover a large strategic area. Guam lies in the middle of them — a lone outpost which we have never fortified.

Under the Washington Treaty of 1921 we had solemnly agreed not to add to the fortification of the Philippines (Islands). We had no safe naval bases there, so we could not use the islands for extensive naval operations.

Immediately after this war started, the Japanese forces moved down on either side of the Philippines to numerous points south of them — thereby completely encircling the (Islands) Philippines from north, and south, and east and west.

It is that complete encirclement, with control of the air by Japanese land-based aircraft, which has prevented us from sending substantial reinforcements of men and material to the gallant defenders of the Philippines. For forty years it has always been our strategy — a strategy born of necessity — that in the event of a full-scale attack on the Islands by Japan, we should fight a delaying action, attempting to retire slowly into Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor.

We knew that the war as a whole would have to be fought and won by a process of attrition against Japan itself. We knew all along that, with our greater resources, we could ultimately out-build Japan and ultimately overwhelm her on sea, and on land and in the air. We knew that, to obtain our objective, many varieties of operations would be necessary in areas other than the Philippines.

Now nothing that has occurred in the past two months has caused us to revise this basic strategy of necessity — except that the defense put up by General MacArthur has magnificently exceeded the previous estimates of endurance, and he and his men are gaining eternal glory therefore.

MacArthur’s army of Filipinos and Americans, and the forces of the United Nations in China, in Burma and the Netherlands East Indies, are all together fulfilling the same essential task. They are making Japan pay an increasingly terrible price for her ambitious attempts to seize control of the whole (Atlantic) Asiatic world. Every Japanese transport sunk off Java is one less transport that they can use to carry reinforcements to their army opposing General MacArthur in Luzon.

It has been said that Japanese gains in the Philippines were made possible only by the success of their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. I tell you that this is not so.

Even if the attack had not been made your map will show that it would have been a hopeless operation for us to send the Fleet to the Philippines through thousands of miles of ocean, while all those island bases were under the sole control of the Japanese.

The consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor — serious as they were — have been wildly exaggerated in other ways. And these exaggerations come originally from Axis propagandists; but they have been repeated, I regret to say, by Americans in and out of public life.

You and I have the utmost contempt for Americans who, since Pearl Harbor, have whispered or announced “off the record” that there was no longer any Pacific Fleet — that the Fleet was all sunk or destroyed on December 7th — that more than (1,000) a thousand of our planes were destroyed on the ground. They have suggested slyly that the Government has withheld the truth about casualties — that eleven or twelve thousand men were killed at Pearl Harbor instead of the figures as officially announced. They have even served the enemy propagandists by spreading the incredible story that ship-loads of bodies of our honored American dead were about to arrive in New York harbor to be put into a common grave.

Almost every Axis broadcast — Berlin, Rome, Tokyo — directly quotes Americans who, by speech or in the press, make damnable misstatements such as these.

The American people realize that in many cases details of military operations cannot be disclosed until we are absolutely certain that the announcement will not give to the enemy military information which he does not already possess.

Your Government has unmistakable confidence in your ability to hear the worst, without flinching or losing heart. You must, in turn, have complete confidence that your Government is keeping nothing from you except information that will help the enemy in his attempt to destroy us. In a democracy there is always a solemn pact of truth between government and the people, but there must also always be a full use of discretion, and that word “discretion” applies to the critics of government as well.

This is war. The American people want to know, and will be told, the general trend of how the war is going. But they do not wish to help the enemy any more than our fighting forces do, and they will pay little attention to the rumor-mongers and the poison peddlers in our midst.

To pass from the realm of rumor and poison to the field of facts: the number of our officers and men killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December seventh was 2,340, and the number wounded was 940. Of all of the combatant ships based on Pearl Harbor — battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, aircraft carriers, destroyers and submarines — only three (were) are permanently put out of commission.

Very many of the ships of the Pacific Fleet were not even in Pearl Harbor. Some of those that were there were hit very slightly, and others that were damaged have either rejoined the Fleet by now or are still undergoing repairs. And when those repairs are completed, the ships will be more efficient fighting machines than they were before.

The report that we lost more than a thousand (air)planes at Pearl Harbor is as baseless as the other weird rumors. The Japanese do not know just how many planes they destroyed that day, and I am not going to tell them. But I can say that to date — and including Pearl Harbor — we have destroyed considerably more Japanese planes than they have destroyed of ours.

We have most certainly suffered losses — from Hitler’s U-Boats in the Atlantic as well as from the Japanese in the Pacific — and we shall suffer more of them before the turn of the tide. But, speaking for the United States of America, let me say once and for all to the people of the world: We Americans have been compelled to yield ground, but we will regain it. We and the other United Nations are committed to the destruction of the militarism of Japan and Germany. We are daily increasing our strength. Soon, we and not our enemies, will have the offensive; we, not they, will win the final battles; and we, not they, will make the final peace.

Conquered nations in Europe know what the yoke of the Nazis is like. And the people of Korea and of Manchuria know in their flesh the harsh despotism of Japan. All of the people of Asia know that if there is to be an honorable and decent future for any of them or any of (for) us, that future depends on victory by the United Nations over the forces of Axis enslavement.

If a just and durable peace is to be attained, or even if all of us are merely to save our own skins, there is one thought for us here at home to keep uppermost — the fulfillment of our special task of production –uninterrupted production. I stress that word “uninterrupted.”

Germany, Italy and Japan are very close to their maximum output of planes, guns, tanks and ships. The United Nations are not — especially the United States of America.

Our first job then is to build up production — uninterrupted production — so that the United Nations can maintain control of the seas and attain control of the air — not merely a slight superiority, but an overwhelming superiority.

On January 6th of this year, I set certain definite goals of production for airplanes, tanks, guns and ships. The Axis propagandists called them fantastic. Tonight, nearly two months later, and after a careful survey of progress by Donald Nelson and others charged with responsibility for our production, I can tell you that those goals will be attained.

In every part of the country, experts in production and the men and women at work in the plants are giving loyal service. With few exceptions, labor, capital and farming realize that this is no time either to make undue profits or to gain special advantages, one over the other.

We are calling for new plants and additions — additions to old plants. (and) We are calling for plant conversion to war needs. We are seeking more men and more women to run them. We are working longer hours. We are coming to realize that one extra plane or extra tank or extra gun or extra ship completed tomorrow may, in a few months, turn the tide on some distant battlefield; it may make the difference between life and death for some of our own fighting men. We know now that if we lose this war it will be generations or even centuries before our conception of democracy can live again. And we can lose this war only if use slow up our effort or if we waste our ammunition sniping at each other.

Here are three high purposes for every American:

1.

We shall not stop work for a single day. If any dispute arises we shall keep on working while the dispute is solved by mediation, or conciliation or arbitration — until the war is won.
2.

We shall not demand special gains or special privileges or special advantages for any one group or occupation.
3.

We shall give up conveniences and modify the routine of our lives if our country asks us to do so. We will do it cheerfully, remembering that the common enemy seeks to destroy every home and every freedom in every part of our land.

This generation of Americans has come to realize, with a present and personal realization, that there is something larger and more important than the life of any individual or of any individual group — something for which a man will sacrifice, and gladly sacrifice, not only his pleasures, not only his goods, not only his associations with those he loves, but his life itself. In time of crisis when the future is in the balance, we come to understand, with full recognition and devotion, what this nation is and what we owe to it.

The Axis propagandists have tried in various evil ways to destroy our determination and our morale. Failing in that, they are now trying to destroy our confidence in our own allies. They say that the British are finished — that the Russians and the Chinese are about to quit. Patriotic and sensible Americans will reject these absurdities. And instead of listening to any of this crude propaganda, they will recall some of the things that Nazis and Japanese have said and are still saying about us. Ever since this nation became the arsenal of democracy — ever since enactment of Lend-Lease — there has been one persistent theme through all Axis propaganda.

This theme has been that Americans are admittedly rich, (and) that Americans have considerable industrial power — but that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight.

From Berlin, Rome and Tokyo we have been described as a nation of weaklings — “playboys” — who would hire British soldiers, or Russian soldiers, or Chinese soldiers to do our fighting for us.

Let them repeat that now!
Let them tell that to General MacArthur and his men.
Let them tell that to the sailors who today are hitting hard in the far waters of the Pacific.
Let them tell that to the boys in the Flying Fortresses.
Let them tell that to the Marines!

The United Nations constitute an association of independent peoples of equal dignity and equal importance. The United Nations are dedicated to a common cause. We share equally and with equal zeal the anguish and the awful sacrifices of war. In the partnership of our common enterprise, we must share in a unified plan in which all of us must play our several parts, each of us being equally indispensable and dependent one on the other.

We have unified command and cooperation and comradeship.

We Americans will contribute unified production and unified acceptance of sacrifice and of effort. That means a national unity that can know no limitations of race or creed or selfish politics. The American people expect that much from themselves. And the American people will find ways and means of expressing their determination to their enemies, including the Japanese Admiral who has said that he will dictate the terms of peace here in the White Mouse.

We of the United Nations are agreed on certain broad principles in the kind of peace we seek. The Atlantic Charter applies not only to the parts of the world that border the Atlantic but to the whole world; disarmament of aggressors, self-determination of nations and peoples, and the four freedoms — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

The British and the Russian people have known the full fury of Nazi onslaught. There have been times when the fate of London and Moscow was in serious doubt. But there was never the slightest question that either the British or the Russians would yield. And today all the United Nations salute the superb Russian Army as it celebrates the twenty-fourth anniversary of its first assembly.

Though their homeland was overrun, the Dutch people are still fighting stubbornly and powerfully overseas.

The great Chinese people have suffered grievous losses; Chungking has been almost wiped out of existence — yet it remains the capital of an unbeatable China.

That is the conquering spirit which prevails throughout the United Nations in this war.

The task that we Americans now face will test us to the uttermost. Never before have we been called upon for such a prodigious effort. Never before have we had so little time in which to do so much.

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Tom Paine wrote those words on a drumhead, by the light of a campfire. That was when Washington’s little army of ragged, rugged men was retreating across New Jersey, having tasted (nothing) naught but defeat.

And General Washington ordered that these great words written by Tom Paine be read to the men of every regiment in the Continental Army, and this was the assurance given to the first American armed forces:

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the sacrifice, the more glorious the triumph.”

So spoke Americans in the year 1776.
So speak Americans today!

FEBRUARY 23, 1942 AT 10:00 PM , E.W.T.

As the wife of a Navy enlistee during the Vietnam War, I can say that my military life still remains a strong and humbling memory in my life. The comraderie is unlike any bond I’ve seen… from soldiers and shipmates to their families. Their unquestioned loyalty to freedom, liberty and this country is uncomprehendable to most civilians. During decades of wars conducted on foreign soils – indeed even the strategic and import of these missions being even more foreign to the layman’s understanding – the sense of ultimate sacrifice of self for fellow Americans and country has suffered from lack of respect. Nay… has even been demeaned by some with words and spittal.

With this diminished view of our nation’s warriors in mind, I settled on honoring that less heralded and honored Marine crew of WWII, the Code Talkers.

I have no intention of deliberately slighting any of the 18 tribes that contributed Code Talkers to the great battlefield. For all Code Talkers returned to their reservation homes as heroes without a heroes’ welcome. Very little was revealed of their role in order to reserve this uniquely Native American communication system for future conflicts. But little by little over the decades, more has come out of their importance in the war, and the untold many lives they saved.

So with both an honored bow to not only the Native American tribes, and our remaining veterans and currently serving military personnel, I devote this post to the story of the more well known Navajo Code Talkers of the USMC.

AP’s Ula Ilnytkzy had a story today that also acknowledges the Code Talkers… but touches on their fear that their legacy will die with them. Out of the 400 Code Talkers, only 50 are believed to be alive. Thirteen of them came to NYC – many using canes – to walk in the Veterans Day parade today.

The young Navajo Marines, using secret Navajo language-encrypted military terms, helped the U.S. prevail at Iwo Jima and other World War II Pacific battles, serving in every Marine assault in the South Pacific between 1942 and 1945. Military commanders said the code, transmitted verbally by radio, helped save countless American lives and bring a speedier end to the war in the Pacific theater.

They were sworn to secrecy about their code, so complex that even other Navajo Marines couldn’t decipher it. Used to transmit secret tactical messages via radio or telephone, the code remained unbroken and classified for decades because of its potential postwar use.

“We were never told that our code was never decoded” or given identities of the original 29 Navajos who created it, said Keith Little, 85, who joined the Marines at 17 and remembers crouching in a bomb crater amid heavy fire on Iwo Jima.

“It was all covered by secrecy. We were constantly told not to talk about it,” Little said. The Code Talkers felt compelled to honor their secrecy orders, even after the code was declassified in 1968.

~~~

“The code did a lot of damage to the enemy,” said Samuel Tom Holiday, 85, of Kayenta, Ariz., who also is joining the parade. He was a 20-year-old Code Talker when he and two other Marines went behind enemy lines on Iwo Jima to locate a Japanese artillery unit advancing on American forces.

Once the unit was located, Holiday transmitted a coded message to Marine artillery, which fired a big shell at the Japanese. After the Marine rifleman proclaimed it “right on target,” Holiday messaged “Right on Target” to a Navajo Code Talker in Marine artillery.

Prior to the entry of the original 29 Navajo Code Talkers, the Japanese – armed with exceptional English speaking code breakers – swiftly thwarted every attempt at a secure communication code between the allies. But the Japanese didn’t reckon with America’s first citizens.

Per the story on the Official Navajo Code Talkers website, it was Phillip Johnston – a California civilian and son of a Protestant missionary who grew up on a Navajo reservation and one of the few outsiders fluent in their difficult language – who came up with the idea to create a code using the Native American Navajo and pitched it to Major General Clayton B. Vogel, the commanding general of Amphibious Corps, Pacific Fleet, and his staff.

With plenty of fluent English speakers at their disposal, they [the Japanese] sabotaged messages and issued false commands to ambush Allied troops. To combat this, increasingly complex codes were initiated. At Guadalcanal, military leaders finally complained that sending and receiving these codes required hours of encryption and decryption—up to two and a half hours for a single message. They rightly argued the military needed a better way to communicate.

He realized that since it had no alphabet and was almost impossible to master without early exposure, the Navajo language had great potential as an indecipherable code. After an impressive demonstration to top commanders, he was given permission to begin a Navajo Code Talker test program.

Their elite unit was formed in early 1942 when the first 29 Navajo Code Talkers were recruited by Johnston. Although the code was modified and expanded throughout the war, this first group was the one to conceive it. Accordingly, they are often referred to reverently as the “original 29″. Many of these enlistees were just boys; most had never been away from home before. Often lacking birth certificates, it was impossible to verify ages. After the war it was discovered that recruits as young as 15 and as old as 35 had enlisted. Age notwithstanding, they easily bore the rigors of basic training, thanks to their upbringing in the southwestern desert.

One of the original 29, now 92, was present for today’s Veteran’s Day Parade in NYC.

The young native Americans gathered at Camp Pendleton and devised an ingenious code of 200 terms, which grew to 600 by the war’s victory. What took coding machines 30 minutes to do could now be transmitted in 20 seconds – accurate, concise and undecipherable by the enemy.

It consisted of native terms that were associated with the respective military terms they resembled. For example, the Navajo word for turtle meant “tank,” and a dive-bomber was a “chicken hawk.” To supplement those terms, words could be spelled out using Navajo terms assigned to individual letters of the alphabet—the selection of the Navajo term being based on the first letter of the Navajo word’s English meaning. For instance, “Wo-La-Chee” means “ant,” and would represent the letter “A”. In this way the Navajo Code Talkers could quickly and concisely communicate with each other in a manner even uninitiated Navajos could not understand.

According to Katrena Wells on the WWII history site, there was only 30 or less non-Navajos that could speak the language at the beginning of WWII. In fact, translation of this new code baffled even the untrained Navajo soldiers themselves.

The Navajo language, which was spoken on Navajo reservations in the American Southwest, was unwritten and quite complex as it relied on the use of tone, syntax, and dialects. A Navajo soldier that was not trained as a code talker became a prisoner of war at Bataan and was forced to listen to transmissions in his own tongue. The Fact Sheet cited above quotes that Navajo soldier after the war as saying, “I never figured out what you guys who got me into all that trouble were saying.”

After training, they were sent to the Pacific theatre. Forbidden to write anything that referenced the code and it’s secrets, these Native American warriors became “living codes”, with the military taking great lengths to insure their survival. It was of this unique focus on particular soldiers’ lives that the Nicholas Cage/Christian Slater 2002 movie, “Windtalkers”, was born. In typical Hollywood versions of history, what was not made clear was that the Code Talkers were not only transmitters, but often performed the functions of messengers, along with the duties and responsibilities of any other Marine.

Left—Right: Cpt. Johnny Manuelito (Naschitti, NM); John Benally (Fort Defiance, AZ), Pvt. Rex Kontz (Fort Defiance, AZ), Howard Billiman (Sawmill, AZ), Peter Tracey (Ganado, AZ) Design the NTC Project: Tech Sgt. Phillip Johnson (Leupp, AZ)

Praise for their skill, speed and accuracy accrued throughout the war. At Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor, 5th Marine Division signal officer, declared, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. Those six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error.

In this Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 photo, Keith Little, 85, of Crystal, N.M., attends a book signing with fellow Navajo Code Talkers in Albuquerque, N.M. Little will join 12 other Navajo Code Talkers in the New York City Veteran’s Day Parade on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Navajo Marines helped the U.S. prevail at Iwo Jima and other World War II Pacific battles with an unbreakable code that stymied the Japanese. The code of Navajo language-encrypted military terms used to transit secret tactical messages was classified for decades after the war – and was so complex that even Navajos Marines who weren’t in the elite unit could’t decipher it. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca)

Code Talker Keith Little, 85 (pictured above) was one of those in Iwo Jima.. where in the first 48 hours they coded over 800 transmissions with perfect accuracy alone.

Despite their importance and value, the Code Talkers returned home, ordered to remain silent on their skills and communication codes. It took decades before their code was declassified in 1968.

Long overdue for official recognition, George H. Bush’s Department of Defense honored 35 former Marine Code Talkers at the Pentagon in September, 1992.

Thirty-five code talkers, all veterans of the U.S. Marine Corps, attended the dedication of the Navajo code talker exhibit. The exhibit includes a display of photographs, equipment and the original code, along with an explanation of how the code worked.

Dedication ceremonies included speeches by the then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Atwood, U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona and Navajo President Peterson Zah. The Navajo veterans and their families traveled to the ceremony from their homes on the Navajo Reservation, which includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The Navajo code talker exhibit is a regular stop on the Pentagon tour.

It took another nine years before another Bush… this time the son, George W… again honored the Navajo Code Talkers by presenting four of five living Code Talkers, plus the relatives of 24 others, with the Congressional Medal of Honor in an afternoon ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda in 2001. [Mata Note: link is to a July 2001 CNN story of the ceremony presentation]

“Today we give these exceptional Marines the recognition they earned so long ago,” Bush said. The president said they brought honor to the United States as well as the Navajo Nation.

“Our gratitude is now expressed for all time in the medals you are about to receive,” he said.

Before Bush presented the medals, the names of the code talkers were read aloud and those attending the event gave them a standing ovation.

“It is, I think, one of the greatest honors that you can bestow on the code talkers,” said code talker Chester Nez. “I’m really happy about it.”

~~~

“When we went into the Marine Corps, we didn’t know what it was that we were going to do,” said Nez. “But after we got out of boot camp and went to a place called Camp Elliot … and there was the first time we found out that we was to use our own language to translate in the combat area.

“All of the 29 Marines that I went in [with], we got together and made a code in our own language. There were over 400 or 500 words that we made up at that time. We memorized them and everything was up here,” Nez said, pointing to his head.

“And nobody knew. The Japanese pulled all of their hair out trying to decipher the code. But it’s one of the hardest languages to learn, that’s why it was never decoded or deciphered.”

But like their ancestors and our warriors today, these quiet heroes never demanded recognition, nor craved the spotlight. Yet for posterity, such a breed of Americans should not be lost to history and their stories buried.

“They really weren’t given any special recognition,” Melson** said. “Most of them I don’t think wanted special recognition, other than that they had done their duty and they had survived, because there was a lot of people that they knew who did not survive.”

[**Mata musing: Chuck Melson, chief historian for the U.S. Marine Corps]

“This was a chapter of our military history that has not been given sufficient attention, and there are some real genuine heroes here who deserve recognition,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, who sponsored the congressional resolution to honor the code talkers. The Navajo reservation is in New Mexico and Arizona.

Such is the stuff of American heroes. And the Code Talkers stand tall amongst the best of them this Veterans Day. Many in this nation owe our very existance to their superb service, for it may have been our parents or grandparents who’s lives they saved. We are forever grateful for their innovative skills, and their dedication to fight for their homeland against foreign enemies.

1. If all the world hated America because of George W Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq….then why was America attacked on Sept 11, 2001; 2yrs before that invasion?
2. Why has Al Queda been trying to exterminate every American for the past 17yrs?
3. Did you want Bush to fail in Iraq, or did you want America to succeed?
4. Given that Osama left Afghanistan in 2001, and Al Queda was largely destroyed in Afghanistan in 2002, how did the Bush Administration “take its eye off the ball [Afghanistan] by invading Iraq” in 2003?
5. What caused the great recession of 2007?
6. How have Democrats ensured that we don’t have another $13 TRILLION dollar Great Recession?
7. If FOX, Hannity, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, etc are examples of right wing propaganda…then what is an example of left wing propaganda?
8. If Republicans lie, and all politicians are liars, then what are some lies told by Democrats?
9. Since President Obama’s Israel/Palestine talks have failed, and he’s been unable to stop Iran’s nuclear program, and since he’s completely clueless on what to do in Afghanistan…what is PLAN B for keeping Israel from bombing Iran and starting a regional-possibly a world war?
10. Obama’s a quarter of the way done with his presidency. What will history record as his greatest accomplishment?

btw, I could come up with more, but these were my top 10. Anyone who thinks they have one that deserves being on the list, please, please, please feel free to suggest it. I probably won’t add it out of sheer laziness, but I think we’d all love to see em.

President Barack Obama, flanked by members of Troop A, First Squadron, 11th Armored Combat Regiment, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009, during a ceremony honoring their service with the Presidential Unit Citation for their actions during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

From the NYTimes at the beginning of this month:

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — On the day Ray R. Moreno came home from Vietnam, the day antiwar protestors called him a baby killer, he decided to pack away his Army uniform for good. Memories and nightmares still intruded, but he rarely discussed them. Battle buddies were forgotten.

Until, that is, he started attending reunions of his troop a few years ago. Suddenly, a door reopened. “They were there; they understand,” Mr. Moreno, 58, said. “If we want to cry, we do. If we don’t, we don’t.”

For many members of his unit, Alpha Troop of the 11th Armored Cavalry, the annual reunions for veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia have become a form of therapy: a chance to reconnect, salve wounds and share bonds forged in an unpopular war.

But this year’s reunion was special for another reason.

At a hotel ballroom in September here, Alpha Troop unveiled a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest military honor for a unit, it received this year from the Army for “extraordinary heroism” in rescuing more than 70 soldiers from a larger North Vietnamese force on March 26, 1970. In the coming weeks, the veterans hope, President Obama himself will formally bestow the citation at a White House ceremony.

Today, President Obama honored the veterans of Troop A, 1st Squadron of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment….

From the AP:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has awarded an Army squadron the highest honor given to a military unit for the daring rescue of about 100 soldiers during the Vietnam War nearly 40 years ago.

Obama was joined at the White House by dozens of veterans of Troop A, 1st Squadron of the 11th Armored Combat Regiment. Also at the ceremony were some of the soldiers they saved in the jungles of Vietnam.

The Presidential Unit Citation is the highest unit award in the military and the equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross for every man in the unit. On March 26, 1970, the unit rescued about 100 members of an American infantry company that had stumbled onto amassive underground enemy bunker of North Vietnamese forces.

“These soldiers define the meaning of bravery and heroism,” Obama said.

Though their battle may not have changed the course of the war, and may not have made the newspapers back home, Obama said the troop’s efforts are “a proud chapter in the story of the American soldier.”

The president credited the unit’s leader, Capt. John Poindexter, for his efforts to ensure that his soldiers were ultimately rewarded for their service.

Obama said the unit is a reminder of America’s obligation to honor its veterans and their families, and only send troops into harm’s way when it’s absolutely necessary.

L-R: Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy, President Rev. Patrick Mahoney, of the Christian Defense Coalition and Father James Heyd hold a prayer service in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington. Today the high court will hear oral arguments in a case on involving the building of a memorial with a cross by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) in a remote area within what is now a federal preserve.
Mark Wilson-Getty Images

Is anyone really damaged by seeing the 10 Commandments displayed on a government building? Are any of you offended when you see a Christmas tree in a public square? When the White House hosts an Easter egg hunt each year, as well as iftar dinner and menorah lighting? Are your feelings hurt because we have national holidays that are Christian?

Why?

Religious expression is part of this nation’s history. The jihadist crusade of the ACLU and militant secular extremists is beyond reason in its successful attacks over the last several decades against public expression of Christian traditions and national heritage that has been a part of this country’s 200-plus year history.

Today, the Supreme Court began deliberations over the Mojave Desert Cross:

At issue was a cross that sits atop Sunrise Rock in a remote part of the Mojave National Preserve. Since 1934, the cross has existed, in one form or another, as a war memorial. Different court documents refer to it as 5 to 8 feet tall.

A decade ago, it came under legal attack from a former park service employee who, though a Catholic, thought it was inappropriate to favor one religion over another in the preserve. The National Park Service had turned down a request to have a Buddhist symbol erected nearby.

A federal judge and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the stand-alone display of the cross in the national preserve was unconstitutional and, further, Congress’ move to transfer it to the private VFW did not solve the problem.

The Obama administration, joining with the VFW, urged the high court to uphold the display of the cross now that it is in private hands.

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan said that the “sensible action by Congress” to give the VFW control of the cross and the land under it solved the 1st Amendment problem. The cross is no longer on government land and under government control, she said.

“It’s VFW’s choice” how to preserve it and maintain it now, she said.

Not all of the justices sounded convinced. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens noted that the Mojave cross was designated as a national memorial and that Congress said it must be preserved as a cross to honor America’s war dead. If not, the land and the cross would revert to government control, they said.

Eliasberg argued that the transfer was an obvious ploy to maintain the cross after it had been declared unconstitutional by a federal court.

He agreed that crosses in a national cemetery would not pose a constitutional problem because other religious symbols, such as a Star of David for Jewish soldiers, are included as well.

By the end of the hour, it was not clear what issue the justices would decide. They could decide whether the transfer of the cross to the VFW solved the legal problem. Or they could go further back and decide whether it was constitutional to erect the cross on public land.

Some lawyers thought the justices could focus on whether the original plaintiff, former park service employee Frank Buono, had legal standing to object to the cross. But that issue was hardly mentioned in the court Wednesday.

It will probably be several months before the court hands down a decision in the case of Salazar vs. Buono.

More here.

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON.” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).

link to official USAF request to speed up procurement of special bunker buster bomb

Sgt. William Olas Bee, a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, May 18, 2008. Sgt. Bee was not injured.
REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

2008’s Battle of Wanat, in which 9 American soldiers were killed, is still being investigated (with Jonathan Bostrom’s father pressing for an independent investigation); and being used as a lesson template in how not to win in Afghanistan.

The calamity and its roots have been described in bitter, painstaking detail in an unreleased Army history, a devastating narrative that has begun to circulate in an initial form even as the military opened a formal review this week of decisions made up and down the chain of command.

The 248-page draft history, obtained by The New York Times, helps explain why the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing so hard for a full-fledged commitment to a style of counterinsurgency that rests on winning over the people of Afghanistan even more than killing militants. The military has already incorporated lessons from the battle in the new doctrine for war in Afghanistan.

~~~

The author, the military historian Douglas R. Cubbison, also included a series of criticisms in his review, sponsored by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that laid blame on a series of decisions made before the battle.

The draft report criticized the “lack of adequate preparation time” before arriving in Afghanistan, which meant there was little training geared specifically for Afghanistan, and not even a detailed operational plan for the year of combat that lay ahead.

Pentagon and military officials say those initial criticisms are being revised to reflect subsequent interviews with other soldiers and officers who were at Wanat or who served in higher-level command positions. After a round of revisions, the study will go through a formal peer-review process and be published.

The battle stands as proof that the United States is facing off against a far more sophisticated adversary in Afghanistan today, one that can fight anonymously with roadside bombs or stealthily with kidnappings — but also can operate like a disciplined armed force using well-rehearsed small-unit tactics to challenge the American military for dominance on the conventional battlefield.

Official judgment on whether errors were made by the unit on the ground or by any leaders up the chain of command will be determined by a new investigation opened this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus of United States Central Command at the urging of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The call for such an independent review came from family members of the fallen, including David P. Brostrom, father of the slain platoon commander and himself a retired Army colonel, as well as from a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia.

The history is replete with wrong turns at every point of the unit’s mission, starting with the day it was reassigned to Afghanistan from training for Iraq.

Further reads:
Captain’s Journal

It’s not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can’t be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn’t really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War turned foes into brothers-in-arms.

Conspiracy theories-often fueled by politics-still rage over the 911 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, whether or not Roosevelt deliberately allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to happen, whether or not the U.S. Navy knew the U.S.S. Maine had a boiler explosion and wasn’t sunk by a mine. People still think that the Lusitania was set on a suicide mission to get the United States into World War One. These myths will always remain, and it’s good that they do because they spark investigation and a search for understanding of these world changing events. The relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is interesting in that both have a long list of conspiracy theories attacked to each, and yet the abstract, more indirect relationship between the two events is dismissed out of hand. To that end, even if one believes the relationship between Iraq War and 911 attacks is a conspiracy theory, it’s worthwhile to examine if for no other reason than harvesting a better understanding.

Opponents of President Bush and of the invasion of Iraq often claim, “Iraq did not attack the United States on Sept 11, 2001,” but Germany, Italy, and the rest of the Axis didn’t attack Pearl Harbor either and yet the U.S. went to war with them as well as the Japanese. Why? Because those Axis powers had an alliance, an agreement to help the Japanese. It was a paper only agreement (history shows us that there were no battles with uber-racist NAZI S.S. troops fighting alongside Japanese troops), but it was an agreement none-the-less. Additionally, the Axis nations declared war on the United States after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Similarly, we know from Clinton Administration claims, from captured documents, from pre-war and post-war intelligence that Saddam’s intelligence agencies had relationships with various groups in the Al Queda terrorist network of groups. We know from the 1998 Clinton Administration indictment of Osama Bin Laden that the two had reached an agreement to get WMD into the hands of the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.

the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement
with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that
they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons
development.

We also know from 1990-2003 Saddam’s government considered itself at war with the United States and from 1992-today Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda network of terrorist groups has been at war with the United States.

Why?

Why did Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda go to war with the United States in 1992? According to the 911 Commission’s final report, the reason that the Al Queda network went to war with the United States, and ultimately the reason for the September 11, 2001 attacks was 4 different things (pg48-49)

He [Osama Bin Laden] inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest sites.
He spoke of the suffering of the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and
he protested U.S. support of Israel.

Why were American forces in Saudi Arabia from 1992-2001? They were there for one reason: to enforce no-fly-zones over Iraq which were there to protect Iraqis from Saddam. If the United States had removed Saddam in 1991, then the U.S. forces wouldn’t have been needed in Saudi Arabia, and Osama Bin Laden’s first casus belli wouldn’t exist.

Why was Osama concerned about the suffering of the Iraqi people? He was concerned-like many around the globe-because the U.S. led sanctions were starving tens of millions of people as a failed means of influencing Saddam. Again, had the United States removed Saddam in 1991, Osama Bin Laden’s second casus belli against the United States-his second reason for the 911 attacks-wouldn’t have existed.

Why was Osama Bin Laden so concerned about the United States support for Israel in the 1992-2001 period when Al Queda went to war with the United States? What was unique about that period in America’s support for Israel? In much of the Arab World (and in anti-Semitic circles around the world as well), America’s continued pressure on Saddam Hussein’s regime was viewed as an American shield for Israel; as the United States protecting Israel from Saddam and other aggressive Arab regimes.

The historical lesson and inescapable fact is that if the United States had chosen to remove Saddam from power in 1991, OR if the United States had simply walked away from Iraq in 1991 and washed their hands of Saddam’s regime without trying to compel compliance with United Nations resolutions, then Saddam’s regime would have remained in power, BUT the reasons for Osama Bin Laden and the Al Queda terrorist networks’ war on the United States simply would not exist; i.e. the reasons for the Sept 11, 2001 attacks wouldn’t have existed.

Would Osama Bin Laden and his network still have found other reasons to wage war on the United States? One cannot tell for certain, but it does seem that their nature and their destiny has been to fight superpowers, and with the United States as the sole superpower in the 1990’s, it seems more than likely other excuses for casus belli would have been claimed.

Would Saddam Hussein have still been a threat to the United States if he had been left in power in 1991, and if the United States didn’t pursue compliance with U.N. Resolutions? Absolutely. In 1992 U.N. inspectors found that Saddam’s regime had actually built a nuclear bomb, but lacked enriched uranium for it. From 1992-1995 U.N. inspectors found vast amounts of WMD. Saddam had invaded or attacked every single one of his neighbors during his reign, he’d used WMD in the past, had ordered them used against U.S. troops in the 1991 Gulf War (Iraq Survey Group Report, transcript of recording, vol II). Few reasonable leaders would argue that Saddam was not a threat, and no one would argue that a Saddam Hussein who still had ballistic missiles, WMD, and more in 1992 was not a regional or even global threat. Determined that he was a threat, Saddam either had to be removed in 1991 by the United States, in the 1991-2003 period by internal forces (multiple attempts at which all failed with increasing futlity), or by the United States in 2003.

The abstract, and more indirect relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is simple: the war with Al Queda and their attacks on the United States (including the 911 attacks) were blowback, consequences, fragmentary effects of the 1991 invasion of Kuwait and Iraq.

The DIRECT relationship between the 911 attacks and Saddam’s regime is far more debated. To be clear, the hijackers were no more Iraqi than the pilots who bombed Pearl Harbor were German and Italian. However, the question of direct Iraqi ties to the 911 attacks go back to that very day when-as the attacks were happening-Iraq shot down an unarmed Predator drone over Iraq that was searching for WMD etc. On that day, after getting sparse, scattered, and chaotic information about the attacks-while they were happening, and while getting 2-3x as many false reports and rumors of attacks, members of the Bush Administration were not at all culpable or irresponsible for asking if Saddam’s regime was behind the attacks.

In fact, at the time it had become a common cultural expectation. During the 1990’s the Clinton Administration repeatedly claimed that Saddam’s regime and the Al Queda network worked together. Mass media reports of the time carried this theme fully and without question. It was even showing up in movies where characters would claim anything-even meteor showers on New York City were the result of Saddam (Armaggeddon ffwd to 1:40).

Unfortunately, on Sept 11, 2001 there was no way to tell if the attacks were directly or just indirectly related to the on-going American war against Saddam (a war that was so poorly reported that most Americans even today fail to realize it even happened, but conversely was so burned into the minds of the Arab Street at the time that it still conjures up bitter memories in the region).

The question of direct Iraqi involvement in the 911 attacks was investigated first by the Bush Administration, and they found no evidence to make a conclusion. Subsequent investigations by the CIA, FBI, the House and Senate intelligence committees, the entire intelligence community, the 911 Commission and more all ran into the same problem: there was no evidence. For political partisans opposed to President Bush and/or the invasion of Iraq that was enough to support their argument that the invasion was somehow not necessary. The conclusion they promoted-that there was “no evidence” of a direct involvement was but 1/3 of the truth. Another 1/3 was the reason that there was “no evidence’ was because almost none had been collected or analyzed, and the reason for that (almost always ignored by political opponents of the Iraq invasion) was that from December 1998-December 2002 the United States had not a single spy inside Iraq. For four years there was no evidence collected, and thus there was “no evidence.”

Most alarmingly, after 1998 and the exit of the U.N. inspectors, the CIA had no human intelligence sources inside Iraq who were collecting against the WMD target.
- Senator Pat Roberts 070904 SIC Release of WMD investigation report
Press Conference transcript

The last 1/3 is the most obvious, and the most deliberately ignored for political purposes: every single investigation that looked at the question of direct regime ties to the 911 attacks and/or the Al Queda network of terrorist groups ALWAYS pointed out that because so little evidence had been collected, the issue was to remain open-not closed or concluded.

After the invasion, innumerable direct ties between the Al Queda network of terrorist groups and Saddam’s regime have been uncovered. These ties are shown in captured and authenticated documents, in the interrogation of former regime leaders, and in the capture of Al Queda operatives. In fact, the relationship between the regime and the network was far far more involved than any relationship between Germany and Japan or Mussolini and Tojo.

Yet it remains a political issue more than a historical one today. six years after the second invasion of Iraq, eight years after the 911 attacks, 17 years after Osama and the Al Queda network declared war on the United States, and 18 years after the United States and Saddam’s regime went to war over Kuwait.

Perhaps, now that President Bush is gone, and there is no more need to use the invasion of Iraq as a draw issue for his opposition…perhaps now people can be mentally brave enough to recognize the undeniable blowback/more-indirect relationship between the Ignored War on Saddam’s regime (1991-2001) and the 911 attacks. There certainly is no more reason to deny this fact, and there’s no more reason to avoid a conclusive investigation into the depth of regime ties to the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.

Today, I am reminded that our military are also toiling daily… sans days off and always on call. And while all deserve mention and our respect, I’m here to tell you the story of just one crew, from one crew member’s personal story.

On Sept. 14th, the Crew of Torqe 05, 40th Airlift Squadron, Dyess AFB, Texas, will be the recipient of the Lt. General William H. Tunner Award for 2009 in a ceremony at the Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington DC.

To examine the honor of this award, we might want to first examine the man for whom it was named… Lt. Gen. William H. Tunner, the most outstanding authority on airlift operations of the United States Air Force (and Army Air Corp in WWII). The below are excepts from a biography, written by a grateful recipient of Tunner’s “Candy Bombers” in Germany as a young girl.

Lt. Gen. Tunner first helped orginally create, the “Air Corps Ferrying Command” divisions in the early 40s.

July 1942, the name “Ferrying Command” was changed to Air Transport Command. General Tunner, by now a Colonel, was made Commanding Officer of the Ferrying Division. At that time, this division was ferrying 10,000 aircraft monthly to the Allied Forces, which was of vital importance in the early days of World War II.

In Sept of 1944, then Col. Tunner was called to command “The Hump” airlift transport of supplies to the Chinese people in the China-Burma-India theatre of the war. It was there he demonstrated his exceptional abilities to organize efficient and successful airlift missions.

This was the legendary “Hump” airlift, so named because the airplanes had to clear the 16,000 foot high Himalaya Mountains. And even though all air traffic had to be channeled over this enormously high range, Tunner and his crews delivered 71,000 tons of material to China, far beyond what had ever been carried by air before. In OVER THE HUMP, published in 1964, he told of his experiences in this operation.

The Hump airlift laid the foundation for his next, and even more famous airlift mission four years later, The Berlin Airlift – a mission defying all odds and embarrassing the Russians by supplying what was then the fifth largest city in the world (2.5 million people plus 6000 occupation troops), by air alone. In a ten month period, over 2.3 tons of supplies were flown into the city, dwarfing even future airlift operations. For example, between 1992 and 1997, there was a total of 179,910 tons brought into Sarajevo – less than the amount flown into Berlin in merely one month.

The Berlin Airlift earned a later Maj. General William Tunner, and his airlift crews, the H.H. Arnold Award in 1949.

From all over the world, veteran Air Force personnel had been jerked from their peacetime homes and were now flying endlessly through three 20-mile-wide air corridors, which were the only means of access.

The immensity and the danger of the mission should never be forgotten. In the heavy-laden and slow cargo planes, the pilots would have been clay pigeons for Russian fighter aircraft if Moscow had chosen to block the air lanes, too. Day after day the planes kept coming. The runways were repaired. A third airport (Tegel) was built. The crews were rotated. The planes refurbished and augmented. And the tonnage crept upward and upward, reaching the 4,000 daily minimum, then exceeding it, and eventually, in the spring of 1949, reaching the old pre-blockade level.

There were bad weather periods, and hard weeks, and frightening moments, but the personnel and General Tunner continued to perform and enlarge upon the miracle, which was lovingly known as “Operation Vittles”. Because of the masterful direction by General Tunner and his crews, the airlift was succeeding far beyond all calculations. By May 1949 the battle was finally over and won. Once again General Tunner had set new records for tons of food, material and coal into Berlin, and flying a total of 124.5 million miles. He had also proven that great bodies of troops, or great numbers of civilians, could be sustained by air transport alone.

It was a William Tunner, with the rank of General by then, who was called in to repeat this extraordinary airlift performance during the Korean War… a success by both commander and crews that earned General Tunner an on-the-spot Distinguished Service Cross from General Douglas MacArthur.

By the time he retired from the Service May 31, 1960, he had successfully organized and commanded the three largest airlift operations up to that time.

The first recipients of this award I can find was a 1st SOW Combat Talon crew for mission “Urgent Fury” in 1983, and after Tunner’s death in April of 1983. This was a seven day operation, centered at Point Salines Airport, effecting the rescue of Americans from Grenada. Since then, many crews have been honored annually for their outstanding contributions. And indeed, there is illustrious company.

So today I pass on the story of the 2009 recipients of the Lt. General William H. Tunner Award.

Greetings all,

As you may know by now ( thanks mom), my last desert crew is the recipient of the Lt. General William H. Tunner Award for 2009, The Crew of Torqe 05, 40th Airlift Squadron, Dyess AFB, Texas.

“The award is given to recognize extraordinary achievement by the most outstanding airlift crew in the United States Air Force.” We will be presented with the award on Monday, September 14th at the Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition in Washington DC.

So how did we get this honor? Funny you should ask. Let me share a story with you.

So there we were, just a few minutes into a long flight from Kuwait to one of our bases in Africa. As our plane climbed out we detected a faint, but growing, odor in the aircraft. Strange smells in flight are rarely a good thing. As the odor got stronger we discussed returning to base. In the meantime, we were trying to find out the origin of the offending smell. We soon made the decision to don our oxygen masks and emergency depressurize the aircraft in order to evacuate the now very acrid fumes.

A little about donning oxygen in flight (for your education), we have helmets much like those seen on any cheesy war flight movie, with masks that fit over our headsets. There are also four portable oxygen bottles to use when we have to move about the aircraft. These portable bottles can be refilled from the aircrafts oxygen supply as needed. That point will be important later in my story. The passengers, we had five, two crew chiefs and three security forces, had to put what amounts to a plastic bag with an oxygen generating canister attached, over their heads.

As I said before, we made the decision to done oxygen, depressurize, open a top hatch and evacuate the fumes from the aircraft. This is standard procedure for smoke and fumes elimination. Unfortunately, in situations like this, things are rarely standard. As I began the procedure, blink, a loss of hydraulic pressure light illuminated. Now, I thought, I may have bigger problems. I called for the loadmaster in the back to check our #1 hydraulic system and make sure it has fluid in the reservoir. After all, it may just be a false indication. No, unfortunately, it was not a false indicator. We lost the entire system, which meant no flaps, no landing gear, and one-half of our hydraulic assist for the flight controls were gone. So we did have bigger problems!

Wait, this gets even better!

We continue the fumes evacuation, which never fully dissipates so we must remain on oxygen. I now have to use one of the portable oxygen bottles to work on getting the landing gear and flaps down. The pilots are calling back to the base, declaring an emergency so we can get priority landing, and have all fire and rescue ready as we turn back to base.

Oh, by the way, the passengers are now passing out!

Passing out! As if we didn’t have enough to do already. The passengers had put the EPOS, emergency personal oxygen system, ‘bags’ over their heads and were now passing out. Well there goes one of the two loadmasters to help these guys breath. We would find out later they were improperly activating the bottles rendering them useless, and suffocating themselves in the process. Five guys would eventually go through sixty EPOS’ before we landed. This had never happened before.

After we got the guys breathing again, it was time to try and get the flaps and gear down so we could land.

That’s where I come in with the portable oxygen canisters.

To lower the flaps I must go through a process to release the brake and then hand crank the flaps down. This takes some time and effort which means heavy breathing for a big guy. Heavy breathing while on portable oxygen meant that I would go through a bottle in about a minute. So, one loadmaster fills a bottle, takes about a minute, the other swaps mine out as soon as its empty, in about a minute, and the process continues over and over again. While I’m hand cranking the flaps down, we are in communication with the pilots to slow the aircraft so as not to over-speed the flaps.

OK, passengers are breathing, the flaps are finally down, and it’s time to lower the gear. This is a simple process on our aircraft so there’s not much to tell here. We can free fall the gear and just verify a down and locked position for landing. But since we lost the #1, or utility hydraulic system, we have no steering once we land! All we can do is hope we can stay on the runway! This shouldn’t be too bad really, as long as the pilot remembers not to touch the nose wheel steering and the crosswinds are mild. Either one would send us shooting off into the sand.

Obviously, we landed safely. You would have heard about this sooner if we hadn’t. As soon as we stopped on the runway, we got the hell off that aircraft. The cops that passed out were hauled off to the hospital to be checked out while we got a pat on the back and asked the question of the day, “we have another plane which can be ready in about ten minutes if you want to take that one to Africa.” We took it.

Al

Thanks to the training, and efficiency under duress, they and their precious human cargo are not being mourned by families. Nor are they fodder for the nightly news, and part of another statistic to be used for political purposes.

Instead they will be honored, along with others receiving various National Aerospace Awards. And I could not be more proud, and thrilled at the outcome. You see, this young Air Force crew member is my nephew… one of two serving our country in the USAF.

White House officials are increasingly worried liberal, anti-war Democrats will demand a premature end to the Afghanistan war before President Barack Obama can show signs of progress in the eight-year conflict, according to senior administration sources.

These fears, which the officials have discussed on the condition of anonymity over the past few weeks, are rising fast after U.S. casualties hit record levels in July and August.

Read more: www.politico.com…

Gosh
Why would they fear that?

Admiral Mullen has called the situation in Afghanistan “deteriorating” and in jeopardy. Others say the entire mission is in doubt, and that the forces being used are woefully inadequate. They are correct. The purpose of US and NATO forces is to hunt down Al Queda and provide security from their Taliban allies, but there are not enough forces for that mission.

This leaves President Obama an ugly choice-the kind of decision where he has historically sought compromise at the expense of decisiveness. He can either abandon the mission, pull out American forces, and live with the consequences of Afghanistan returning to its pre-OEF condition (a condition that directly led to the 911 attacks as well as others), or he can decide to fight the war by sending more troops, spending more money, and convincing more than half the American people that the price in blood and treasure is worth it.

Obama is a charismatic man. He is also head of the party that contains the bulk of the anti-war movement. If anyone can convince the anti-war movement to be silent, he can (and has), and if anyone can use charisma to inspire a nation to wage war…he can. However, he lacks the will, and his supporters lack the will, and half the American people have lost the will.

Can Obama revive that will to fight? Can he make the decisive decisions that war requires? Will he return from his quasi vacation and lead the nation at war, or will he spend more time talking about cash for clunkers, a stimulus that doesn’t stimulate for years, and healthcare bills that he’s never read?

Make no bones about it, there are huge domestic problems here at home, and he needs to focus a great deal of energy on them (thankfully, he has his army of Czars to help), but wars don’t wait. History can’t be paused.

Historically, it takes about 6 months from the moment a President decides to make a major military offensive until the forces are in place and the full effect of the offensive can begin. If President Obama were to decide on a major military change in course today, it wouldn’t start to take full effect until February or March 2010. However, that gives any potential Obama-offensive only 8 months to completely turn things around before the mid-term elections where Democrats will be held to account for their control of Congress, their failures, their broken campaign promises from 2006, and the state of the nation in 2010. Making matters worse is Afghanistan itself where almost nothing is militarily possible for either side during the winter months from October to March. The idea that a major, modern, American-military force can deploy into Afghanistan during the winter, and prepare for a Spring offensive is optimistic at best.

The enemy doesn’t sleep. The time for decision on Afghanistan is at hand: stay or go?

Fight or flight?

get more forces in, or get everyone out ala Yorktown, Dunkirk, or Saigon.

Only foreign policy offered a bright spot: 52 percent of poll respondents approved of his job on this front, compared with 38 percent who disapproved.

Proof yet again that opposition to President Bush’s policies was just opposition to Bush.