11/10/23

 Friday, November 10, 2023

In bed at 10, up at 7:20, let Lilly out, 36°, high of 44°, sunny now, cloudy later, wind WNW at 11 mph, 7-14/20. The sun rose at 6:38 and will set at 4:32, 9+54.    

Treadmill   30:12    0.74 at 4:45 p.m.

Marine Corps 248th birthday.  Arond the world, U.S. Marines will gather for "birthday" dinners or other obseervations of the creation of the corps by the Continental Congress.  Officers and senior staff NCOs will dress in "mess dress" or "dress blues" for formal birthday balls or dinners with toasts to the Corps, the Commandant, the President, et al., and a cake cutting.  From Wikipledia: 

"MARINE CORPS ORDERS

No. 47 (Series 1921)

HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS

Washington, November 1, 1921

The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,

Major General Commandant

------------------

It would be hard to overstate the importance of history and tradition in the Marine Corps.  Not all of the history is so glorious, as amply demonstrated by Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler's War is a Racket and in our  own experience in Vietnam.  My father had no love for his Marine Corps affiliation, which was in part at least involuntary, and my feelings are at best mixed, although my association was entirely voluntary and against the advice of my father.  It's not easy to become a Marine, quite the opposite, even for officers, so it seems pretty normal to take some pride in having passed through the gauntlet.  Oqn the other hand, I take no pride in the purposes to which we were put in Vietnam by LBJ or that my successors were put in Iraq by GWB, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.  The topmost photograph above is of Maj. Gen. John Kelly observing the Marine Corps Birthday in Fallujah, Iraq in 2008.  Little did he know what he was getting into when he agreed to serve as Donald Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security and then as his Chief of Staff.  Now is has been identified in the press of one of the former aides Trump intended to punish by DOJ investigation and indictment if Trump is elected once more to the presidency.  Sic transit gloria mundi.  Semper fi, General.  The lower photo is of a Marine officer in "mess dress" uniform.

"Far too many Palestinians have been killed" says Anthony Blinken.  "Far too many have suffered these last few weeks."  These words are certainly true enough and welcome, but they ring a little hollow after all the words spoken by Biden, Blinken, and Austin the last month seeming to give Israel to do what it will in response to the slaughter of its people on October 7th.  It's a little late now to be ruing "far too many" deaths and far too much suffering.  

My posting on FB today. " Today is the 248th 'birthday and Marines around the world will mark the occasion in various traditional and respectful ways depending on their location and their missions.  I still think sadly  of my friend "Moon" Mullen and of this family.  I learned of his being shot down over Laos when I had been transferred from Vietnam to a Marine base on Okinawa and I am re-experiencing the feeling of numbness I had when learning of it.  I remember too my loss of innocence about being repeatedly lied to by our government during that time which led to a lifelong skepticism, indeed cynicism, about what we are told by the politicians and bureaucrats who control our government.  Just as I can't believe what I am told by our own government, I am just as skeptical, indeed cynical, about information by the governments involved in the Ukraine/Russia conflict and the Israel/Hamas conflict.  It is truly said that the first casualty of war is always Truth and that applies whether we are being provided information by our friends or our enemies.  We need to be at least skeptical, if not cynical, about information provided by those deeply engaged in warfare.

3 Years Ago

Charles Clausen   November 10, 2020.

Today is the 245th Birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps and the 38th anniversary of the Vietnam Wall being opened to the public in Washington.  On panel 7E, line 11 of the Wall is the name of a friend of mine at the huge airbase at Danang, RVN, Captain William F. Mullen, known to his fellow Marines in Headquarters Squadron 1 of the 1st Marine Air Wing as "Moon."  My warmest memories of Moon are of him reluctantly giving in to coaxing from others at the Officers' Club to sing "Danny Boy," solo and a cappella.  Moon worked at the Wing's Intelligence Office or "G2" but he also flew combat missions in A4 aircraft.  On one of those missions, on April 29, 1966, he was shot down over Laos.  The telegram sent to his wife Barbara (after a personal visit from and notification by another Marine officer) said he "became missing while on a flight mission in the Republic of Vietnam" because the US was maintaining to American citizens and to all the world that we conducted no military operations in Laos where the Ho Chi Minh Trail was located.  On the Wall, Moon is listed as among the "missing," the MIAs, and, as far as I know, neither he nor his body was ever recovered.  So on this birthday and anniversary, I am feeling regret for Moon, for his widow and two sons, and for the other 58,279 men and women whose names are on that Wall and for their families, and for the perhaps 3 million Vietnamese men, women, and children who died there.  I feel regret for the untold number of Vietnamese people who today suffer the consequences of our promiscuous use of Agent Orange and other teratogenic defoliants.  I feel regret that our government generated so many lies to try to justify the tremendous suffering that it caused to so many millions of people over so many years.  And I feel regret for my early personal participation in that horrific misadventure.  Mea culpa.  Would that the end of that war had marked the end of lies being generated to American people by "our" American government.  Regrettably, no."

A photo I took in 1965 of two boys in "Dogpatch", our racist name for the hamlet across the road from our tents in 'officers' country at the Danang airbase.  Were they still alive when I left RVN?  When the US withdrew its troops in 1973?  When Saigon fell to the NVA and VC iin 1975?  Did they support the corrupt military government in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh?  Did we and the  generalissimos in Saigon ever win their "hearts and minds" by bombing, burning, and defoliating their country and bombing, burning, poisoning, and terrorizing their countrymen?  What became of their daily exposure to Agent Orange and other defoliants and poisons from living across the road from our Death and Destruction factory?  The American government gives me and millions of other American veterans monthly disability payments for spending even one day in Vietnam presumably exposed to Agent Orange.  What did these boys get for a lifetime of exposure not only to Agent Orange, but to years of warfare, burn pits, polluted water, so much?  I get a monthly disability check and free health care for the rest of my life for my piddly role in the invasion.  What did these boys get?

Did LBJ ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he did.  Did RMN ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he didn't.  Did Robert McNamara ever lose sleep over boys like these?  I suspect he did.  Did Henry Kissinger ever lose sleep over boys like these?   I suspect he didn't.

[One of the aspects of this photo that touches my heart is that the shorter of the two boys has his right arm around the sholder of the taller of the two.  Are they brothers?   cousins?   'just' friends?  And theyare holding on to the barbed wire that we had strung around our tent city to keep them away from us, their  nominal protectors and saviors.  We protectors and saviors referred to the little village in which these boys lives as "Dogpatch", the mythical home of hillbillies L'il Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, Marryin' Sam, and Stupifyin' Jones.  At some time after I took this photo, a boy came onto the base holding a hand grenade, probably a concussion grenade.  The weapon blew up in his hands, ripping open his stomach and abdomen, and blowing off his lower jaw.  Was it one of thse boys?  I'll never know.  Was it a "VC sympatizer" intending to throw the grenade into one of our tents, to 'frag' us"  I'll never know.  Was he bringing the grenade onto the base to turn it in to us, as a 'friendly'?  I'll never know.  In any case, this snapshot that I took almost 60 years ago, haunts me.]

A portion of an oil on wood board that I did many years ago, "The Annunciation", my view of what would have been the reality of the Angel Gabriel's 'annunciation' to the BVM.  The image of the horrified virgin has come to represent for me other horrifying percipiences.