Saturday, May 5, 2012
In Tampa
On the road again. I'm in Tampa visiting my boys. I intend to blog several times while I'm here, but I have to wait for my son Ben to get here from wedding in Mexico so I ve password to open his laptop. Way too tedious to blog on an iPad.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Gettysburg
I have been a professional historian my entire working life . . . correction, it's what I am, not what I do, and I suppose I've been a historian since the days of my early youth when the American Civil War captured me for life. As a kid, born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, I was fortunate to have spent hours in the sprawling national military park there even before I was a teenager. For my money, Vicksburg is still the best Civil War park, but now, having spent a careful couple of days at the Gettysburg park, I can tell you that this one is a close second.
There's no learning about a battle like the learning you get from actually seeing the ground. I can attest that the mental pictures I had of the battlefield, drawn from reading and photographs only slightly resembled the reality I confronted on those two days. What have I told people since? Well, that I learned a ton.
And part of what I learned, or more accurately, recalled was the old lesson that has been on my heart ever since I first grasped what war is all about a long time ago. War is not about ideals. It's not about freedom. It's not about any of the worthy causes and aims we cloak it with to somehow justify its horror in our minds. War is first and foremost about killing. Killing young people. Killing innocent people. Killing whoever is in the way. It's about cruelty and destruction. It's about death and tears. And it is the grossest of all obscenities. War, any war, solves nothing. They all serve the same purpose. They serve as but introductions to the next war.
I can tell you that from another source, we know that the poor pitiful remnants of what used to be a young man pictured above was likely a Georgian in Semmes Brigade. He died on July 2, 1863 in a field adjoining the Rose Woods. He was photographed on July 5. An artillery shell has ripped him nearly in half and blown off his left arm. The photographer has staged some items into the picture: the canteen, rifle, and artillery shell doubtless to increase (quite unnecessarily) the drama of the shot. The body has already bloated in the July heat. One can only imagine the stench, the vast swarm of flies . . . This is the glory of war.
How many people were killed at Gettysburg? A horrendous number. The "official" tally puts the total death around 8,000. Historians since have revised the number upward to the neighborhood of 12,000. Total casualties at the battle were over 51,000 killed, wounded, and missing (almost surely dead)/captured.
The museum, the cyclorama, the film and etc. in the Visitors' Center did not do much for me. I know all that stuff already. I walked around for two days with the dead, suffering, and tragedy constantly on my mind. They are still.
There's no learning about a battle like the learning you get from actually seeing the ground. I can attest that the mental pictures I had of the battlefield, drawn from reading and photographs only slightly resembled the reality I confronted on those two days. What have I told people since? Well, that I learned a ton.
 |
| But one of the thousands of Gettysburg dead |
I can tell you that from another source, we know that the poor pitiful remnants of what used to be a young man pictured above was likely a Georgian in Semmes Brigade. He died on July 2, 1863 in a field adjoining the Rose Woods. He was photographed on July 5. An artillery shell has ripped him nearly in half and blown off his left arm. The photographer has staged some items into the picture: the canteen, rifle, and artillery shell doubtless to increase (quite unnecessarily) the drama of the shot. The body has already bloated in the July heat. One can only imagine the stench, the vast swarm of flies . . . This is the glory of war.
How many people were killed at Gettysburg? A horrendous number. The "official" tally puts the total death around 8,000. Historians since have revised the number upward to the neighborhood of 12,000. Total casualties at the battle were over 51,000 killed, wounded, and missing (almost surely dead)/captured.
The museum, the cyclorama, the film and etc. in the Visitors' Center did not do much for me. I know all that stuff already. I walked around for two days with the dead, suffering, and tragedy constantly on my mind. They are still.
Monday, April 30, 2012
We're Back
Just enough time to check in and say we have had the most marvelous time over the past few days. Not only was the history just really excellent, but the company of my sister and brother-in-law for the several days was an unvarnished treat. To say that I was impressed with the battlefields at Gettysburg and Sharpsburg would be belaboring the completely obvious. I'll have some reflections on what I saw tomorrow. For now, just happy to be home . . . and away from the airline experience. My daughter had us over for supper after we got back. That was sweet of her. And thoughtful, too.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Lapse Is Upon Us
A trip out of town for a next few days will silence me, to your great relief, I'm sure. But not to worry. I will be back on Sunday more than ready to waste your valuable time with my blatherings. In the meantime, pray for peace.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Pope is Pissed
Who would you rather have praying for you? These people?
I submit to you that this is really no choice at all. Who is God more likely to heed? Holy women who have spent their entire lives in service to the poor, sick, and disadvantaged, who are best known for hospitals, prayer, and schools . . . or a pseudo-royal pontiff--best known for being part of the worldwide conspiracy in the Church to protect pedophiles and avoid paying their victims--who can find nothing better to do these days than beat up on nuns for not hewing strictly to the party line?
Yes, the Curia--Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--has issued a report condemning the Leadership Conference of Woman Religious, which represents about two-thirds of the 57,000 American nuns. It seems that the holy women have not been sufficiently vocal about their support of Vatican policies on homosexuality and, even worse, the Church's insistence on ordination for men only. They have generally been polluted by "radical feminism," according to the Vatican.
I'm delighted to report that the nuns have received an outpouring of public support (see here; see also here and here.) How, really, could it be otherwise? Now maybe if the Pope got pissed off at something besides deviations on Church doctrine, people would be more inclined to lend an ear. When is Rome going to stop sounding like a hectoring old ninny and start really speaking the language of the Christ it claims to be sole manifestation of on Earth?
Don't hold your breath.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Old Guys
Every once in a while I come across a poem that just gets me in the heart. The poem below is such a one. I cannot really even articulate why it gets me in the heart. Perhaps its tone of unrelieved sadness. Perhaps it's because I've seen such people in real life. Or perhaps its because the poem is so true it makes you cry.
Driving beyond a turn in the mist
of a certain morning, you'll find them
beside a men-at-work sign,
standing around with their caps on
like penguins, all bellies and bills.
They'll be watching what the yellow truck
is doing and how. Old guys know trucks,
having spent days on their backs under them
or cars. You've seen the gray face
of the garage mechanic lying on his pallet, old
before his time, and the gray, as he turns
his wrench looking up through the smoke
of his cigarette, around the pupil
of his eye. This comes from concentrating
on things the rest of us refuse
to be bothered with, like the thickening
line of dirt in front of the janitor's
push broom as he goes down the hall, or the same
ten eyelets inspector number four checks
on the shoe, or the box after box
the newspaper man brings to a stop
in the morning dark outside the window
of his car. Becoming expert in such details
is what has made the retired old guy
behind the shopping cart at the discount store
appear so lost. Beside him his large wife,
who's come through poverty and starvation
of feeling, hungry for promises of more
for less, knows just where she is,
and where and who she is sitting by his side
a year or so later in the hospital
as he lies stunned by the failure of his heart
or lung. "Your father" is what she calls him,
wearing her permanent expression
of sadness, and the daughter, obese
and starved herself, calls him "Daddy,"
a child's word, crying for a tenderness
the two of them never knew. Nearby, her husband,
who resembles his father-in-law in spite
of his Elvis sideburns, doesn't say
even to himself what's going on inside him,
only grunts and stares as if the conversation
they were having concerned a missing bolt
or some extra job the higher-ups just gave him
because this is what you do when you're bound,
after an interminable, short life to be an old guy.
of a certain morning, you'll find them
beside a men-at-work sign,
standing around with their caps on
like penguins, all bellies and bills.
They'll be watching what the yellow truck
is doing and how. Old guys know trucks,
having spent days on their backs under them
or cars. You've seen the gray face
of the garage mechanic lying on his pallet, old
before his time, and the gray, as he turns
his wrench looking up through the smoke
of his cigarette, around the pupil
of his eye. This comes from concentrating
on things the rest of us refuse
to be bothered with, like the thickening
line of dirt in front of the janitor's
push broom as he goes down the hall, or the same
ten eyelets inspector number four checks
on the shoe, or the box after box
the newspaper man brings to a stop
in the morning dark outside the window
of his car. Becoming expert in such details
is what has made the retired old guy
behind the shopping cart at the discount store
appear so lost. Beside him his large wife,
who's come through poverty and starvation
of feeling, hungry for promises of more
for less, knows just where she is,
and where and who she is sitting by his side
a year or so later in the hospital
as he lies stunned by the failure of his heart
or lung. "Your father" is what she calls him,
wearing her permanent expression
of sadness, and the daughter, obese
and starved herself, calls him "Daddy,"
a child's word, crying for a tenderness
the two of them never knew. Nearby, her husband,
who resembles his father-in-law in spite
of his Elvis sideburns, doesn't say
even to himself what's going on inside him,
only grunts and stares as if the conversation
they were having concerned a missing bolt
or some extra job the higher-ups just gave him
because this is what you do when you're bound,
after an interminable, short life to be an old guy.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Oh, What a Deal!
I just saw this story in Google news, and I'm so pissed off about it, I'm putting another story that I'm pissed off about on the back burner. Here's the gist of it: the U.S. has committed itself financially and militarily to the Afghanistan for the next 12 years. The story gives no indication how much money we're talking, but one cent is too much if you ask me. Here's what the story does say:
. . . the United States expects to make substantial contributions toward the cost of Afghanistan’s security forces beyond 2014. A total figure for the United States of $2.7 billion a year has been discussed, and it could easily be more; there would most likely be aid for civilian programs as well.We got involved in that God-forsaken place in 2001. Now we're on the hook to be coughing up money for those crooks till 2024. We are going to continue to line the pockets of Karzhai and his rotten, corrupt family while in this country, some politicians actively seek to diminish aid to the poor, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick. While their (yes, I fear) millions of supporters don't bat an eye at this obscene waste. But this ain't even a one-party affair. The Democrats are not going to worry about this travesty either.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Playing with the Dead, Chapter II
Following up from yesterday, and the what-I-consider-absurd statement by Leon Pinetta, that "that's not who we are" in regards to American soldiers dishonoring the bodies of killed enemies in Afghanistan . . . here's a take on the reason why the military and the White House is so intent on keeping the American people from finding out about stuff like this. There was an intense effort by the administration to keep the LA Times from printing the pictures. Easy to understand why the government doesn't really want us to know what's going on, but get a load of the bullshit we're being told as to why the American people should not know the kind of behavior they're paying for in our lovely little Middle East war. Does anybody think anybody really believes this stuff?
After they appeared, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the media that he did "not want these images to bring further injury to our people or to our relationship with the Afghan people." White House Press Secretary Jay Carney chimed in: "We're also very disappointed ... about the decision made to publish these photographs two years after the incident."
This refrain, that the overriding concern in Washington was that publication of the photos would inflame Afghan public opinion and provoke an intensification of attacks on US troops in Afghanistan, is based on a lie.
The Afghans do not need to see a picture on the front page of the LA Times to hate the foreign occupation of their country, which has lasted for over 10 years and inflicted hundreds of thousands of casualties together with daily humiliation and oppression. The Afghans are living it, not merely reading it in a newspaper.
The real concern in Washington is the impact that the latest photographs, together with the unending succession of atrocities in Afghanistan, will have upon American and world public opinion. In the United States, opposition to the war is at record levels, with barely 30 percent of the population believing that it is worth fighting.
Internationally, people who are incessantly told that the US is engaged in a global crusade for "human rights" can see through these photos what American soldiers and their commanders in Afghanistan are really up to: murder and brutality on a massive scale.
To counter antiwar sentiment, the government and the military have done their best to control the reporting on the war and, above all, the photographic images that are accessible to the American public. (Source)
Thursday, April 19, 2012
That's Not Who We Are
The latest military outrage from Afghanistan--they come now about one a month on average--is the publication of embarrassing photos of U.S. troops with dead bodies of enemies. Mocking the dead, like we've seen before. The L.A. Times printed two of them out of a reported dozen or so sent to the paper by another U.S. soldier concerned, he said, with the breakdown of discipline among his comrades. Gee, ya think?
Anyway, top American officials are expressing appropriate levels of outrage. Leon Pinetta, secretary of defense, was the administration's point man for the required breast-beating. The behavior of the troops was "foolish" and "unacceptable," he said. He seemed to be saying that war is ugly and sometimes young, immature people make foolish decisions . . . in this case, to pose with bloody trophies. Do I sound cynical? That's because I am. We heard this sort of thing before. And we've also heard what Pinetta went on to say, i.e., that such behavior is "not who we are."
Well, sir, I respectfully disagree. This is exactly who we are. How much more evidence do we need that our troops routinely engage in savage behavior? We've had Abu Ghraib. We have had marines pissing on dead bodies. We've had burning of the Qur'an. We've had countless killings of innocent people ("collateral damage"). We've had revelations of massacres by U.S. troops. We've had other pictures of U.S. troops mutilating bodies. We've had just recently a berserk soldier who goes out and murders a bunch of Afghan women and children in their sleep.
This is exactly who we are: a society that was perfectly OK for 10 years with a war built on a passel of lies. That doesn't get outraged when people get shot down in their classrooms, repeatedly over years. A society who has incarcerated over 2 million people, that still endorses the death penalty, that has rampant police brutality, that spies on its own citizens, that has lately been characterized by more than its usual level of meanness in its refusal to endorse a viable safety net for the health and well-being of its citizenry and cannot wait to get at social security for the elderly.
No, Mr. Pinetta. You're wrong about this. Dead wrong.
Anyway, top American officials are expressing appropriate levels of outrage. Leon Pinetta, secretary of defense, was the administration's point man for the required breast-beating. The behavior of the troops was "foolish" and "unacceptable," he said. He seemed to be saying that war is ugly and sometimes young, immature people make foolish decisions . . . in this case, to pose with bloody trophies. Do I sound cynical? That's because I am. We heard this sort of thing before. And we've also heard what Pinetta went on to say, i.e., that such behavior is "not who we are."
Well, sir, I respectfully disagree. This is exactly who we are. How much more evidence do we need that our troops routinely engage in savage behavior? We've had Abu Ghraib. We have had marines pissing on dead bodies. We've had burning of the Qur'an. We've had countless killings of innocent people ("collateral damage"). We've had revelations of massacres by U.S. troops. We've had other pictures of U.S. troops mutilating bodies. We've had just recently a berserk soldier who goes out and murders a bunch of Afghan women and children in their sleep.
This is exactly who we are: a society that was perfectly OK for 10 years with a war built on a passel of lies. That doesn't get outraged when people get shot down in their classrooms, repeatedly over years. A society who has incarcerated over 2 million people, that still endorses the death penalty, that has rampant police brutality, that spies on its own citizens, that has lately been characterized by more than its usual level of meanness in its refusal to endorse a viable safety net for the health and well-being of its citizenry and cannot wait to get at social security for the elderly.
No, Mr. Pinetta. You're wrong about this. Dead wrong.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
It's This Easy
It's just this easy to blow off . . . what? . . . almost a week of blog posts. A few times during this silence I've told myself I ought to be making a blog entry today. But today slipped into tomorrow and then the next day and before you know it, I've been gone a week from these entries, almost as if I were out of town, which I soon will be for a good period of time off and on over the next few months. Next week, a week from tomorrow, Susan and I head up to Gettysburg. Here I am, a professional Civil War historian and I've never seen anything but photographs of the most famous battlefield in the United States. I'm going to try and resume normal production, but I'm about to enter a period of heavy travel. About a week after Gettysburg, it's to Florida to see my boys, then at the end of May, first part of June in Louisiana, then for two weeks in July to Canada, then a wedding in Houston in September . . . I'll miss lots of blogging during those times.
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