Category Archives: History

June 4, 2012 · 23:52

70 Years: Celebrating the Miracle at Midway

It is hard to imagine now but in June of 1942 it seemed a good possibility that the Americans and British could be on the losing side of the Second World War.

In June 1942 the Japanese onslaught in the Pacific appeared nearly unstoppable. The Imperial Navy stormed across the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the months after Pearl Harbor decimating Allied Naval forces that stood in their way.  The British Battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by land based aircraft off of Singapore. A force of Royal Navy cruisers and the Aircraft Carrier HMS Hermes were sunk by the same carriers that struck Pearl Harbor in the Indian Ocean.  Darwin Australia was struck with a devastating blow on February 19th and on February 27th the Japanese annihilated the bulk of the American, British, Dutch and Australian naval forces opposing them at the Battle of the Java Sea. American forces in the Philippines surrendered on May 8th while the British in Singapore surrendered on February 15th.

In only one place had a Japanese Naval task force been prevented from its goal and that was at the Battle of the Coral Sea.  Between 4-8 May the US Navy’s Task Force 11 and Task Force 17 centered on the Carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown prevented a Japanese invasion force from taking Port Moresby. Their aircraft sank the light carrier Shoho, damaged the modern carrier Shokaku and decimated the air groups of the Japanese task force. But it was the unexpected raid by US Army Air Corps B-25 Bombers launched from the USS Hornet under command of Colonel Jimmy Doolittle on April 18th 1942 which embarrassed Yamamoto so badly that he ordered the attack to take Midway and destroy the remaining US Naval power in the Pacific.

In May US Navy code breakers discovered the next move of the Imperial Navy an attack on Midway Island and the Aleutian islands.   Since the occupation of Midway by Japanese forces would give them an operational base less than 1000 miles from Pearl Harbor Admiral Chester Nimitz committed the bulk of his naval power, the carriers USS Enterprise CV-6, USS Yorktown CV-5 and USS Hornet CV-8 and their 8 escorting cruisers and 15 destroyers.  His force of 26 ships with 233 aircraft embarked to defend Midway while a force of 5 cruisers and 4 destroyers was dispatched to cover the Aleutians.  Midway itself had a mixed Marine, Navy and Army air group of 115 aircraft which included many obsolete aircraft, 32 PBY Catalina Flying Boats and 83 fighters, dive bombers, torpedo planes and Army Air Force bombers piloted by a host of inexperienced but resolute airmen.

The Japanese Fleet was led by Admiral Isoroku Yamamato and was built around the elite First Carrier Striking Group composed of the Pearl Harbor attackers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu. Led by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo its highly trained and combat experienced air groups composed of 273 aircraft. This force was escorted by 2 Battleships, 3 Cruisers 12 Destroyers. Yamamoto commanded a force of  2 light carriers, 5 Battleships, 11 cruisers and 27 destroyers.  Meanwhile a  force of 4 battleships, 12 destroyers assigned screen to the Aleutian invasion force which was accompanied by 2 carriers 6 cruisers and 10 destroyers. The other carriers embarked a further 114 aircraft.  The Japanese plan was ambitious but it was so ambitious that the Japanese Task forces were scattered over thousands of square miles of the Northern Pacific Ocean from which they could not rapidly come to the support of each other.

With the foreknowledge provided by the code breakers the US forces hurried to an intercept position northeast of Midway. They eluded the Japanese submarine scout line which the Japanese Commander Admiral Yamamoto presumed would find them when they sailed to respond to the Japanese attack on Midway.  Task Force 16 with the Enterprise and Hornet sailed first under the command of Rear Admiral Raymond A Spruance in place of the ailing William “Bull” Halsey. Task Force 17 under Rear Admiral Frank “Jack” Fletcher was built around the Yorktown which had been miraculously brought into fighting condition after suffering heavy damage at Coral Sea. Fletcher assumed overall command by virtue of seniority and Admiral Nimitz instructed his commanders to apply the principle of “calculated risk” when engaging the Japanese as the loss of the US carriers would place the entire Pacific at the mercy of the Japanese Navy.

On June 3rd a PBY Catalina from Midway discovered the Japanese invasion force and US long range bombers launched attacks against but inflicted no damage. On the morning of the 4th the Americans adjusted their search patterns in and the Japanese came into range of Midway and commenced their first strike against the island.  In response land based aircraft from Midway attacked the Japanese carrier force taking heavy casualties and failing to damage the Japanese task force.

The American Carrier task forces launched their strike groups at the Japanese fleet leaving enough aircraft behind of the Combat Air Patrol and Anti-submarine patrol.  As the Americans winged toward the Japanese fleet the Japanese were in confused.  A scouting report by an aircraft that had been delayed at launch discovered US ships but did not identify a carrier until later into the patrol.  This was the Yorktown and TF 17. The Japanese attempted to recover their strike aircraft and prepare for a second strike on the island and then on discovery of the carrier embarked on the task of unloading ground attack ordnance in favor of aerial torpedoes and armor piercing bombs.  The hard working Japanese aircrew did not have time to stow the ordnance removed from the aircraft but by 1020 they had the Japanese strike group ready to launch against the US carriers.

As the Japanese crews worked the Japanese carriers were engaged in fending off attacks by the US torpedo bomber squadrons, VT-6 from Enterprise, VT-8 from Hornet and VT-3 from Yorktown.  The Japanese Combat Air Patrol ripped into the slow, cumbersome and under armed TBD Devastators as they came in low to launch their torpedoes.  Torpedo Eight from Hornet under the command of LCDR John C Waldron pressed the attack hard but all 15 of the Devastators were shot down.  Only Ensign George Gay’s aircraft was able to launch its torpedo before being shot down and Gay would be the sole survivor of the squadron.

Torpedo 6 under the command of LCDR Eugene Lindsey suffered heavy casualties losing 10 of 14 aircraft with Lindsey being one of the casualties.  The last group of Devastators to attack was Torpedo 3 under the command of LCDR Lem Massey from the Yorktown.  These aircraft were also decimated and Massey killed but they had drawn the Japanese Combat Air Patrol down to the deck leaving the task force exposed to the Dive Bombers of the Enterprise and Yorktown.

There had been confusion among the Americans as to the exact location of the Japanese Carriers, the Bombing 8 and Scouting 8 of Hornet did not find the carriers and had to return for lack of fuel with a number of bombers and their fighter escort having to ditch inn the ocean and wait for rescue.  The Enterprise group under LCDR Wade McClusky was perilously low on fuel when the wake of a Japanese destroyer was spotted.  McClusky followed it to the Japanese Task Force.  The Yorktown’s group under LCDR Max Leslie arrived about the same time.  The found the skies empty of Japanese aircraft. Aboard the Japanese ships there was a sense of exhilaration as each succeeding group of attackers was brought down and with their own aircraft ready to launch and deal a fatal blow to the American carrier wondered how big their victory would be.

At 1020 the first Zero of the Japanese attack group began rolling down the flight deck of the flagship Akagi, aboard Kaga aircraft were warming up as they were on the Soryu.  The unsuspecting Japanese were finally alerted when lookouts screamed “helldivers.” Wade McClusky’s aircraft lined up over the Akagi and Kaga pushing into their dives at 1022. There was a bit of confusion when the bulk of Scouting 6 joined the attack of Bombing 6 on the Kaga.  The unprepared carrier was struck by four 1000 pound bombs which exploded on her flight deck and hangar deck igniting the fully fueled and armed aircraft of her strike group and the ordnance littered about the hangar deck.  Massive fires and explosions wracked the ship and in minutes the proud ship was reduced to an infernal hell with fires burning uncontrollably. She was abandoned and would sink at 1925 taking 800 of her crew with her.

LT Dick Best of Scouting 6 peeled off from the attack on Kaga and shifted to the Japanese flagship Akagi. On board Akagi were two of Japans legendary pilots CDR Mitsuo Fuchida leader of and CDR Minoru Genda the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack and subsequent string of Japanese victories.  Both officers were on the sick list and had come up from sick bay to watch as the fleet was attacked.  Seeing Kaga burst into flames they stood mesmerized until Akagi’s lookouts screamed out the warning “helldivers” at 1026.  Best’s aircraft hit with deadly precision landing tow of their bombs on Akagi’s flight deck creating havoc among the loaded aircraft and starting fires and igniting secondary explosions which turned the ship into a witch’s cauldron.  By 1046 Admiral Nagumo and his staff were forced to transfer the flag to the cruiser Nagara as Akagi’s crew tried to bring the flames under control. They would do so into the night until nothing more could be done and abandoned ship at 2000.  Admiral Yamamoto ordered her scuttled and at 0500 on June 5th the pride of the Japanese carrier force was scuttled.

VB-3 under LCDR Max Leslie from the Yorktown stuck the Soryu with 17 aircraft, only 13 of which had bombs due to an electronic arming device malfunction on 4 of the aircraft including the squadron leader Leslie.  Despite this they dove on the Soryu at 1025 hitting that ship with 3 and maybe as many as 5 bombs. Soryu like her companions burst into flames as the ready aircraft and ordnance exploded about her deck. She was ordered abandoned at 1055 and would sink at 1915 taking 718 of her crew with her.

The remaining Japanese flattop the Hiryu attained the same fate later in the day after engaging in an epic duel with the Yorktown which her aircraft heavily damaged. Yorktown was abandoned after a second strike but when she did not sink her her returned to attempt to save her. However despite their efforts she and the destroyer USS Hamman DD-412 were torpedoed by the Japanese Submarine I-168. Hamman sank almost immediately with heavy loss of life while Yorktown sank on the morning of the 7th.

It was quite miraculous what happened at Midway in those five pivotal minutes.  Authors have entitled books about Midway Incredible Victory and Miracle at Midway and the titles reflect the essence of the battle.  A distinctly smaller force defeated a vastly superior fleet in terms of experience, training and equipment and when it appeared that the Japanese Fleet would advance to victory in a span of less than 5 minutes turn what looked like certain defeat into one of the most incredible and even miraculous victories in the history of Naval warfare.  In those 5 minutes history was changed in a breathtaking way.  While the war would drag on and the Japanese still inflict painful losses and defeats on the US Navy in the waters around Guadalcanal the tide had turned and the Japanese lost the initiative in the Pacific never to regain it.   The Japanese government hid the defeat from the Japanese people instead proclaiming a great victory while the American government could not fully publicize the information that led to the ability of the US Navy to be at the right place at the right time and defeat the Imperial Navy.

When one looks at implications of the victory it did a number of things. First it changed the course of the war in the Pacific probably shortening it by a great deal.  Secondly it established the aircraft carrier and the fast carrier task force as the dominant force in naval warfare which some would argue it still remains.  Finally those five minutes ushered in an era of US Navy dominance of the high seas which at least as of yet has not ended as the successors to the Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown ply the oceans of the world and the descendants of those valiant carrier air groups ensure air superiority over battlefields around the world.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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June 3, 2012 · 23:58

The Diamond Jubilee: All Glory is Fleeting

Whenever I see anything about Queen Elizabeth II, especially the grand celebrations that reverberate around the nations that at one time or another were the exploited subjects of the British Empire I am less than excited. Nothing against the Queen or her predecessors I am less than impressed by the tabloid  media spectacle that currently surrounds the House of Windsor. At one time the British monarchy meant something, it was the titular symbol of an empire that spanned the globe. It was the symbol of the world’s mightiest navy, and largest and most powerful economic system.  It was the symbol of a nation that had stood alone against Napoleon and Hitler, it was the symbol of stability in times of tumult that Britons of all political leanings could rally around. But it was a symbol, a symbol of a nation that pioneered the rule of law and rule by a government of the parliamentary majority in the House of Commons. While the monarch was and is the “Head of State” their influence since the 1701 Act of Settlement  has been mostly symbolic and the practical function of the monarch is limited to non-partisan activities such as granting honors and titles.

Today Queen Elizabeth reigns over a struggling nation and empire in name only. For much of her reign the Royal family has symbolized the decline of the empire with various members becoming the laughingstock of the world. While the Monarchy has recovered from the worst of its dips in popularity following the death of Princess Diana the the Royal family still surrounded by opulence and the splendor of history has with few exceptions seemed out of touch, indolent and irrelevant.  Some commentators have said that today’s “naval review” was important to give people a “sense of national pride at a time when the economy is in recession and people face deep austerity measures.”

The Fleet Review at Elizabeth’s Coronation (above) and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (below)

When I saw the news coverage of today’s “review” in the Thames I was happy for the Queen and how much it seemed to mean to a lot of the people present.  Yet at the same time I was saddened about the condition Britain. When King George VI, Queen Elizabeth’s father was crowned a real naval review showcasing over 200 warships from Britain and around the world were on display to pay honor to the new King. When Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 165 ships of the Royal Navy were present. In the sense of history I found the motley collection of some 1000 small craft that paraded down the Thames to be less than impressive, a testament of sentimentality over substance, a triumph of merchandising rather than might. The presence of several dozen antique survivors of the Miracle of Dunkirk in 1940 in the parade was interesting and meaningful but it was a reminder of how a nation rallied to save its Army from certain annihilation in 1940 that said more about the British people than the current monarchy.

The British monarchy is in decline and even the question of succession provokes questions as to what shape and influence it will have in the future. The sad fact is that today’s parade on the Thames in honor of Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee is a celebration of past glory that provides momentary comfort to a nation is crisis. It is a reminder that indeed “all glory is fleeting.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 24, 2012 · 23:59

The Memorial Day Order

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” From the Gettysburg Address 

“Dark and sad will be the hour to this nation when it forgets to pay grateful homage to its greatest benefactors. The offering we bring to-day is due alike to the patriot soldiers dead and their noble comrades who still live; for, whether living or dead, whether in time or eternity, the loyal soldiers who imperiled all for country and freedom are one and inseparable.” From Frederick Douglass’ Memorial Day Speech 1884

It was after the great bloodletting known as the American Civil War that Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day was established. The first observance was made by the recently freed slaves of Charleston South Carolina who honored the memory of the Union Soldiers who had died at the Washington Racecourse Prison Camp on May 1st 1865.  Other celebrations began around the country in May and June of 1866. By 1868 the Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic Union Veterans association General John Logan issued an order directing that the 30th of May 1868 be designated to the memory of the Union Soldiers, Sailors and Marines who had given their lives in the defense of the Union.

Since its establishment the holiday has grown to encompass the honored dead of all American wars.  However its roots were in the Civil War, a war that claimed the lives of between 600,000 and 700,000 American military personnel on both sides of the conflict. It is hard to imagine that on one, September 17th 1862 that over 23,000 Union and Confederate Soldiers were killed, wounded or missing. At Gettysburg more men were killed and wounded than in the entirety of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Two percent of the population was killed in the war. To put that in perspective that casualty rate would involve the deaths of more than 6 million soldiers, well over twice as many men and women as currently serve on active duty and in the reserve components.

The order is remarkable in its frankness and the understanding of the war in the immediate context of its conclusion.  In 1868 the day would be observed at 183 cemeteries in 27 States and the following year over 300 cemeteries. Michigan was the first state to make the day a holiday and by 1890 all states in the North had made it so. In the South there were similar observances but the meaning attributed to the events and the sacrifices of the Soldiers of both sides was interpreted differently. In the North it was about preserving the Union and in the South the interpretation of the Lost Cause.  Yet in both regions and all states, the surviving Soldiers, family members and communities honored their dead.

This Memorial Day we will honor all that have fallen but in our mind are the few that fight our current wars, wars that unlike that terrible Civil War, the majority of the population does not experience.

The order of the Grand Army of the Republic establishing Memorial Day is posted below.

Peace

Padre Steve+

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, “of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.” What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.

By order of

JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief

N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General

Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

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May 23, 2012 · 17:50

The First Memorial Day

The acrid smell of smoke of the last battles of the American Civil War was still lingering over many towns and cities in the South on May 1st 1865.  Charleston South Carolina, a hotbed of secession was particularly hard hit during the war. In 1861 Cadets of the Citadel and South Carolina militia forces began the war with the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Union Forces laid siege to the city in late 1863 which ended with the city’s surrender on 18 February 1865. By this time much of the city had been destroyed by Union siege artillery and naval forces.

Charleston had also been the home of three of the Prisoner of War Camps erected by the Confederacy, one in the Charleston City Jail and the other at Castle Pinckney. Another camp was erected on the site of the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club in 1864. This was an open air camp and Yale Historian David Blight wrote that “Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand.” (See http://www.davidwblight.com/memorial.htm)

By the end of the war most of the white population of the city had left and most of those remaining were recently freed slaves. After their liberation and the city’s occupation by Federal forces including the famous 54th Massachusetts as well as the 20th, 35th and 104th US Colored Troops Regiments. A number, about 28 Black men went to work and properly reinterred these 257 Union dead on the raceway building a high fence around it. They inscribed “Martyrs of the Race Course” on an arch above the cemetery entrance.

On May 1st over 10,000 Black Charlestonians gathered at the site to honor the fallen. Psalms, Scriptures and prayers were said, hymns were sung and many brought flowers. A parade of 2800 children covered the burial ground with flowers.  They were followed by members of the Patriotic Association of Colored Men and the Mutual Aid Society whose members provided relief supplies to Freedmen and provided aid to bury those Blacks who were too poor to afford burial. More citizens followed many laying flower bouquets on the graves. Children then led the singing of The Star Spangled Banner, America and Rally Around the Flag. The Brigade composed of the 54th Massachusetts and the 35th and 104th Colored Regiments marched in honor of their fallen comrades. Following the formalities many remained behind for a picnic.  A contemporary account can be found here: http://media.charleston.net/2009/pdf/firstmemorial_day_052409.pdf

Other communities would establish their own Memorial Day observances in the years following the war, with the Charleston event preceding the next earliest event by a full year. The first “Official” commemoration was on 30 May 1868 when Union General John Logan and head of the veteran’s organization called The Grand Army of the Republic appealed to communities to honor the dead by holding ceremonies and decorating the graves of the fallen. In the South three different days served a similar purpose.  In Virginia people commemorated the day on June 3rd, the birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the Carolinas marked the day on 10 May, the birthday of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, while in the Deep South the event was conducted on the anniversary of the surrender of General Joseph Johnson’s Army to General William Tecumseh Sherman.  For many in the South the day would become about “The Lost Cause” or “the defense of Liberty” or “States Rights” and was often caused the “War of Northern Aggression.”

The “Martyrs of the Racecourse” cemetery is no longer there. The site is now a park honoring Confederate General and the White Supremacist “Redeemer Governor” of South Carolina Wade Hampton. An oval track remains in the park and is used by the local population and cadets from the Citadel to run on. The Union dead who had been so beautifully honored by the Black population were moved to the National Cemetery at Beaufort South Carolina in the 1880s and the event conveniently erased from memory. Had not historian David Blight found the documentation we probably still would not know of this touching act which so honored those that fought the battles that won their freedom.

The African American population of Charleston who understood the bonds of slavery and oppression, the tyranny of prejudice in which they only counted as 3/5ths of a person and saw the suffering of those that were taken prisoner while attempting to liberate them stand as an example for us today.  Within little more than a decade they would be subject to Jim Crow and again treated by many whites as something less than human.  The struggle of them and their descendants against the tyranny of racial prejudice, discrimination and violence over the next 100 years would finally bear fruit in the Civil Rights movement whose leaders, like the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. would also become martyrs.

Frederick Douglass spoke to Union Veterans on Memorial Day 1878.  His words, particularly in light of the war and the struggles of African Americans since and the understanding of what those who were enslaved understood liberation to be are most significant to our time. It was not merely a war based on sectionalism or even “States rights,” it was a war of ideas. He said:

“But the sectional character of this war was merely accidental and its least significant feature.  It was a war of ideas, a battle of principles and ideas which united one section and divided the other; a war between the old and new, slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization; between a government based upon the broadest and grandest declaration of human rights the world ever heard or read, and another pretended government, based upon an open, bold and shocking denial of all rights, except the right of the strongest.” 

I do hope in the days ahead as we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, as we prepare to honor those Americans who died that others might be free to look back at what freedom actually means and not forget the sacrifices of those that give their lives that others might live.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 18, 2012 · 17:59

In Praise of Nurses

Last week, May 5th-12th was National Nurses Week as well as the 104th Anniversary of the Navy Nurse Corps. Nurses are the lynchpin of medicine. Physicians are incredibly important and as a society we usually ascribe more value to them. However in many case, if not most it is a nurse who is the person that does the heavy lifting in the care of the sick. Before the modern era of nursing was often done by Nuns or by women that volunteered to assist military physicians.

It was in the quagmire of the Crimean War that Florence Nightingale brought about the modern era of nursing, even though physicians and hospitals often saw the women who served as nurses as inexpensive help to care for the sick. Despite this nursing became more and more professional and technical over the years without ever losing that particular calling of ministering to the afflicted that is the essence of their history. In the later 1800s the first nursing schools were established and in 1901 New Zealand was the first country to have Registered Nurses. In 1903 North Carolina became the first US State to require the licensure of nurses.  The US Navy Nurse Corps was established n 1908 with nurses being commissioned as officers and assigned to Naval Hospitals.

However it was the needs of war that brought nursing into the modern age where it is formally recognized as a key component of Health Care. In the World Wars nursing came into its own as a profession. Nurses were among the US personnel that endured the initial onslaught of the war in the Pacific. The Army and Navy Nurses that served and cared for the wounded, starving and emaciated Soldiers, Martines and Sailors on Bataan and Corregidor were heroes in their own right.

The profession of nursing continues to grow and the women and men who serve as nurses at various levels, from the most highly trained Clinical Nurse Specialists and Nurse Practitioners, or other highly specialized Register Nurses many of whom have advanced degrees including doctorates down to the most humble Licensed Vocational (or Practical) Nurse and even Certified Nursing Aides. These women and men are the backbone of medicine and despite the long hours, the years of training and certification required of them, many people don’t fully appreciate them until they become sick and are cared for by these wonderful people.

I have been blessed to have known and worked with many amazing nurses in the course of my career as a Medical Service Corps Officer in the Army and as a Chaplain in the military and civilian settings. As I wrote yesterday I lost a dear friend and co-worker, Commander Marsha Hanly a Navy Nurse who died unexpectedly yesterday. Marsha exemplified the best of nursing and thank God there are so many more like her who serve so well, and care so well for those committed to their. Likewise many a physician and chaplain for that matter owe a great deal to nurses.

God Bless all Nurses tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 13, 2012 · 23:59

Mother’s Day Miscellany

Happy Mother’s Day to all those of you that are mother’s out there and those that tried to be but for whatever reason never had children or lost your children. Mother’s Day is a day that for some is happy and others not. That is one of the perplexing parts of the day. I had a happy childhood and my mom endured the life of a Navy Wife and mother raising two boys with her husband deployed, traveling or underway.  She did a pretty good job if you ask me. I think of the times that when dad was gone that she cheered me at Little League baseball and hockey games and would take my brother Jeff and me to the Navy Base Dispensary when we were sick. I also remember the time that she took on a neighbor who had threatened to hurt me when I was out on my paper route. The guy stood about 6’ 6” and worked for a competing paper.  Of course I was 12 years old and he was an adult. Mom marched down the street, and standing about 5’ 2” got right up on him and chewed him up one side and down the other and if I recall threatened his life if he laid a hand on me. It’s good to have a mom that can do dad’s job when dad is on an extended deployment in a combat zone.

Thankfully my mom is still alive and doing okay. I know that for those that have lost their mothers that this day can be hard.  Likewise for those who did not have mom’s that cared for or nurtured them the day can be hard. I was able to talk to my mom today and though separated by a continent it was good to talk with her and wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

I spent today at home with Molly my little dog at the Island Hermitage catching up on laundry, having some time of prayer and a celebration of the Eucharist. It has been a taxing few weeks with much travel and activity and after a celebration of the Navy Nurse Corps 104th Anniversary and National Nurses Week which cumulated in a Luau last night I was ready to do very little today.

I have been doing some reading, I am almost done with William Sheridan Allen’s book The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945. It is an excellent read and should be a cautionary tale for anyone that puts their faith in radical politicians that promise “clear solutions” to difficult problems, especially social and economic conditions and those that appeal to displays of religious faith and tradition to attack and vilify their political opponents.

Later in the afternoon I ran the furthest distance that I have since before I went to Iraq, a bit over 7 miles on the beach. It was a slower pace than I wanted because of the condition of the sand because of the tide, heavy surf and number of tourists who had tread upon it this weekend. Despite the slow pace it was really nice to get the distance in without any problems. A lot of credit goes to my new running shoes, the Merrell “Barefoot” model. I have been running in them for 2 months and for the first time in years I am running without pain and not twisting or turning my ankle. Likewise when I am done running I no longer am tight or in pain. I look forward to knocking our my Navy Physical Readiness Test on Friday. I feel like I am in the best shape I have been in years.

I finished the day watching baseball and then the film Nuremberg which is about the Nuremberg trials.  It does a good job in portraying the major Nazi War Criminals either justified themselves or came to see the gravity of crimes and guilt.

Anyway, have to get ready for bed and give my wife Judy a call to say goodnight since I was unable to be with her this week or last. All my stuff is packed to take to work in the morning.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 7, 2012 · 23:59

Europe on the Edge: France and Greece Point to Dangerous Times Ahead

New French President Francois Hollande

The people of France and Greece have repudiated the European Union’s austerity mandate and Europe stands on the edge of chaos.  Maybe not immediate chaos but chaos that will engulf the continent as country after country elects for its own history, culture, tradition and economic freedom.

This is nothing new. In fact the situation in Europe resembles the period of the early 1930s as the Great Depression brought about the rise of political extremist on the Right and Left in very new and fragile democracies, as well as more established democracies.  Parallels can be found in many European nations. In France the election of Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party over Nicolas Sarkozy sent a shiver through the EU. Combined with the implosion of the conservative and liberal coalition in Greece in and results of other European elections the reality is that the European Union could be on the verge of breaking up. The Greek situation is especially foreboding as any coalition government will have to deal with the election of both hard line Communists and Neo-Nazis to parliament.

Greek Neo-Nazis

Now how it breaks up is not pre-determined, however it is obvious that the most strident voices in many European countries are people and parties that in good times are relegated to the political fringe. However social crisis driven by long term economic problems, especially high unemployment and reductions in support to those displaced by the economy are things that have historically brought about revolutions and dictatorships.

The European Union: Can it Survive?

Despite the Socialist win in France the trajectory of Europe is toward anti-democratic, ultra-nationalist and Xenophobic regimes.  Such will bode ill for the world economy as well as peace and the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities. Europe’s long term record on these issues is dreadful and the ghosts of that record seem to rise up almost every time that you think it is safe to go out in the water.

Germany under Chancellor Merkel and her allies in Brussels are attempting to hold together a creation that can only hold together when times are good and money easy.  When the hard times come, nations as well as individuals return to their basest and most primal concerns, not any utopian ideal.

The Hitler apologist and radical conservative pundit Pat Buchanan seems to think that this is a good thing in his latest column. He seems to revel in the potential collapse of the European Union. But then for a man that defend’s Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and blames everybody but Hitler for the war this is not surprising.  While he may diagnose some of the problems inherent in the EU he also forgets that the EU held as its model the United States, the creation of a United States of Europe.

Nazi Election Poster

While I have always thought that the rush to admit nations to the EU in the 1990s and early 2000s was ill-conceived the threat posed by its break up is worse. This is simply because history shows us time and time again that such break ups are fraught with danger.

Likewise the same forces are at work in the United States. Long term economic difficulties are leading people to embrace extremes that in good times they would never consider.  We are not all that different from the Europeans in this. Looking back to the period before the Nazi takeover of Germany one observer told historian William Sheridan Allen that “Most of those that joined the Nazis did so because they wanted a radical answer to the economic problem. Then too, people wanted a hard, sharp, clear leadership- they were disgusted with the eternal political strife of parliamentary party politics.” (The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 Revised Edition, Franklin Watts Publishers, New York, London 1965, 1984 p.86)

These are dangerous times. It is not time to look to extremists of any stripe that promise simple and radical solutions to the solve the crisis. To do such is to make a deal with the devil.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 1, 2012 · 23:52

Remembering the Killing of Osama Bin Laden While Realistically Looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan

A year ago US Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six and other Special Operations Forces made a daring night raid into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden.  Bin Laden had orchestrated the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11th 2001 which killed over 3000 Americans, the near sinking of the US Navy Destroyer USS Cole, the Luxor Massacre of 1997 and the bombings of the US Embassies in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and Nairobi Kenya in 1998 and numerous other terror attacks throughout the Middle East. Bin Laden was the sworn enemy of the United States. The killing of Bin Laden was a victory, perhaps the biggest victory that we have achieved in over 10 years of war. In fact Bin Laden was the reason we went to war, the reason that we became embroiled in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden had been the “guest” of the Afghan Taliban government and used Afghanistan as his base of operations to train his fighters and plan his operations. After September 11th the United States attacked Afghanistan, toppled the Taliban and put Bin Laden on the run. Pakistan which had supported the Taliban government following the fall of the former Soviet supported Republic of Afghanistan and subsequent civil war which brought the Taliban to power. Pakistan’s President Musharraf quickly allied his country with the United States.  However over the course of the 10 year war in Afghanistan the government and certain elements of its security and intelligence services gave tacit support to the Taliban as well as Al Qaeda. The most damning was the fact that Bin Laden had resided in the Pakistani military town of Abbottabad with a significant amount of his family for five years.

President Obama gave the order for the SEAL team to kill Bin Laden over the objections of his Vice President and Secretary of Defense. It was a ballsy move. If it had gone wrong which it easily could have many US troops could have been killed, captured and placed on display by the Pakistani government.  The credit to the planning and execution of the operation has to go to the SEALs and Special Operations Command, but credit for the order to do it needs to be given to the President.  If President Bush had succeeded in killing Bin Laden I would feel the same way.

The fact is that President Obama has been successfully waging war against Al Qaeda, not only killing Bin Laden but other top leaders. Even Bin Laden before his death was concerned about the toll being taken on his organization by the reinvigorated US campaign.  The Pakistanis enraged by the United States taking the war against Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies inside Afghanistan, something that it should have been doing but had not despite Jihadist terrorist attacks on it cut the supply lines to US and NATO forces running through it months ago and have not reopened them. Some ally.

But that is not surprising. As far back as November 1979, before the Soviets intervened in Afghanistan the US Embassy was ransacked and burned by Pakistani mobs, an attack which killed a US Marine. The Pakistanis only began to reluctantly cooperate with the United States in supporting some of the Afghan Pashtun Mujahideen fighters.  After the Soviets left Afghanistan it continued to support its Pashtuns against Uzbek and Tajik Afghans, support which eventually allowed the Taliban to take over the country. Despite US protests in the 1990s the Pakistanis did little to nothing to hinder Bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Taliban regime. While it quickly and officially “supported” the US under former President Musharraf factions within its ISI intelligence service are believed to have continued to support Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters and encouraged attacks on US, Afghan and  NATO troops.

Pakistan itself teeters on the edge of collapse. Its economy is in shambles, it cannot control its borders, its intelligence service is often at odds with the government while extremist groups gain more power every day. It is a rapidly failing state with nuclear weapons. Every day it grows more antagonistic towards the United States which under the Obama Administration had been persistent in using arial drones to attack suspected terrorists in Pakistan. The relationship between the United States and Pakistan is as bad or worse as it was in 1979.

In the mean time our former nemesis the Russian Federation, the former Soviet Union has been stalwart in allowing our troops and supplies to flow through their country and the neighboring Central Asian Republics into Afghanistan. The Russians having experienced the agony of Afghanistan and the reality of Jihadist terrorism emanating from it as well as Chechnya do not want the US and NATO mission to stabilize Afghanistan to fail.  Currently without the support of the Russians we would be unable to supply our troops in Afghanistan.

Today President Obama travelled to Afghanistan and announced the signing of a long term security and cooperation agreement with the Afghan government. The agreement will take effect after the current plan to withdraw most US and NATO troops by 2014. We have no idea how well this will turn out and despite all the good intentions on our part I doubt that the agreement stands the test of time because of the nature of Afghanistan and its competing ethnic, religious, political and tribal divisions. It is my belief that we will be lucky to get out as well as the Soviets did in 1989 because I do not see a truly united Afghanistan coming out of this and it is more than likely that Pakistan will descend into chaos making our presence in Afghanistan even more problematic.

The mission started to get Bin Laden after 9-11. In the process it became something different as we attempted to transform Afghanistan. A year ago we finally succeeded in killing Bin Laden and have significantly degraded Al Qaeda.  That is why we went to war.  That is probably the best it will get.

At some point President Obama or his successor will likely have to decide to withdraw completely from Afghanistan and like former Soviet Premier Gorbachev admit that “We are not going to save the regime. We’ve already transformed it.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 29, 2012 · 22:00

Remembering Chernobyl, a Divided Europe and Looking to a Greener Future

Chernobyl Burning 

I was in Germany this week to testify at a military court-martial but besides the obvious stress of travel and watching a friend go through hell up close and personal, it was also a time for remembering other things.

In the course of our lives that there are events that help define history. At the time when they occur most of us are oblivious to their full impact.  On April 26th 1986 I was a young Army officer in Germany.  On that day the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the city of Pripyat in the Ukraine which was then part of the Soviet Union experienced a catastrophic accident during a systems test.  The disaster is considered the worst in nuclear power disaster in history, only one of two to be rated as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale.  31 deaths were directly caused by the mishap almost all of who were workers and emergency responders, another 50 emergency responders died of radiation exposure. Thousands of other incidents of death from cancers have been linked to the disaster.

Of course that was before there was the 24 hour cable news cycle so what little information we had was from newspapers and television. In Germany at that time we were pretty much dependent on the Stars and Stripes newspaper and news coverage from ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN provided by the one channel aired by the Armed Forces Network back then.  As such we knew that it was a bad situation but even with other coverage provided through German news sources, at least for us that red German our information was limited.  A lot was because of the fact that the incident occurred in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Not much news got in or out of the USSR except that which was cleared by the Politburo itself.  Even Soviet citizens in the local area received little information, in fact no evacuation or alert was issued by Soviet authorities until April 28th.  We were advised to minimize outside exposure and keep our pets inside and out of grassy or wooded areas.

The Abandoned and Highly Radioactive City of Pripyat (Photo by Jason Minshull)

The disaster resulted in the evacuation of a 31 kilometer circumference around the reactor. This boundary still exists and the city of Pripyat remains an empty reminded of that day, abandoned and remaining much as it was that tragic day, a city frozen in time.  Ukrainian officials and scientists believe that the area will be uninhabitable for the next 20,000 years.  Effects are being felt in Belarus, Ukraine and many European countries to this day.

Back in 1986 Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. Then Germany was two countries, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. I made a number of trips to the inter-German border as part of my duties to know the terrain that we would fight on should war break out and in November 1986 Judy and I would make the trip via the Helmstedt Corridor through East Germany to Berlin.  I was reminded about the division of Europe, particularly Germany by two mementos displayed near the front gate of Kelley Barracks. One was a piece of the Berlin Wall, the other a sign warning people of their proximity to the inter-German border.

Since then Germany has been reunified and is a prosperous country without which the economy of much of Europe would collapse. It is also a leader in eliminating the need for nuclear power and is in the process of shutting down its nuclear plants. It is a leader in reliable public transportation and alternative energy. In fact some of those alternative energy projects including solar and wind are helping the German economy with high tech jobs and I have to admit that air quality is amazing. The country is becoming less dependent on fossil fuels and cleaner to boot.

There are many that continue to insist that we in the United States should double down on our use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy despite the real environmental dangers of both and the economic stranglehold of OPEC on the United States.  When I look at Germany I wonder why we don’t take our great technical ability, our tremendous capacity for innovation and our now underused industrial power to make the change secure our freedom from the tyranny of OPEC and protect the environment.  There has to be big money to be made, money that could make us much more prosperous and a world leader in something other than arms sales.

But now days in the minds of some you are a socialist if you believe in reducing dependance of fossil fuels, nuclear energy and want clean air and water. The truth is that throughout our industrial period we have done some terrible damage to our environment mostly preventable.  We have made a  lot of progress but we could do better.   Here’s to a greener and more prosperous future.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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April 21, 2012 · 15:52

Faux Fact Factory: The Twisted World of Fake “Historian” and “Hero of the Faith” David Barton

I have been wanting to write a little piece about David Barton for some time now. Barton is the most prominent “historian” among Evangelical Christians now days and since his works are cited by many members of the more conservative media and prominent politicians it is high time to write about him. Since I actually have a Bachelors and Masters Degree in History in addition to my Master of Divinity and schooling from the Marine Corps Command and Staff College I figure that I have enough academic firepower to back up my words.  David Barton is not a historian. He is a fraud and huckster who plays on ignorance and fear while playing fast and loose with history.

The website for his Barton’s ministry Wallbuilders describes him in this manner:

“His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues and he serves as a consultant to state and federal legislators, has participated in several cases at the Supreme Court, was involved in the development of the History/Social Studies standards for states such as Texas and California, and has helped produce history textbooks now used in schools across the nation.

A national news organization has described him as “America’s historian,” and Time Magazine called him “a hero to millions – including some powerful politicians. In fact, Time Magazine named him as one of America’s 25 most influential evangelicals.” (See http://www.wallbuilders.com/abtbiodb.asp retrieved 21 April 2012.) 

Yes Barton is influential and he is considered by some with an obviously skewed idea of heroism to be a “hero.”  He is no hero unless you believe that making up things and calling them facts is honest. Heroes save lives, heroes take real risks in fighting injustice and for freedom. Barton is no hero.  But since Rick Scarborough the President of Vision America calls Barton a “Hero of the Faith” I guess that he must be right?

Likewise he is not a trained historian and he is constantly being proven to be a fraud. He has been proven to make up quotations from the founding fathers, he misrepresents people like the Deist Thomas Jefferson to be something akin to a modern Evangelical Christian.

J Brent Walker, a Southern Baptist and the head of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty takes Barton to the woodshed in this 2005 article:

http://www.bjconline.org/index.php option=com_content&task=view&id=2377&Itemid=110

Since the Baptist Joint Committee is not exactly a den of liberals so what comes out of it concerning Barton should be taken seriously by honest Evangelicals and others concerned about historical truth.

Walker is not to be trifled with in his very accurate summation of Barton’s view of the United States being found as a “Christian Nation” saying: “Barton thus argues that since the majority of Americans are Christians, or at least religious people, they should be able to use the government to privilege their religious perspective. Those who disagree should, at best, be tolerated or, at worst, discriminated against.”

This is something that I have been saying for a while but the point is most accurate and I would even add fuel to the fire by saying that Barton and his disciples are little different in their religious perspective and view of non-Christians as others that persecuted people in Jesus name time and time again. This would include the Puritans who just loved hanging Quakers and other dissenters by the neck until dead.

The fact that real Christian historians that are also Evangelicals take issue with Barton’s mythological American “Christian” history seems to matter not to the pundits, preachers and politicians that take what Barton, as well as his older and equally historically challenged but less known comrade in lies Marshall Foster as the unadulterated and incorruptible truth.

Dr. Stephen Stookey a Professor of Church History and Director of the Master of Arts in Theological Studies at Dallas Baptist University at the 2011 meeting of the Baptist History and Heritage Society said:

“in reacting to perceived revisions of American history, Christian America advocates recast American history, creating a quasi-mythical American tale—a story with just enough truth to give the air of credibility but riddled with historical inaccuracies,” said Stookey.

Proponents of Christian America presuppose the United States “was, is and should continue to be a constitutionally established Christian nation,” he explained. Any evidence to the contrary is ignored or recast, he said.

“Supportive data is either exaggerated or manufactured,” Stookey said. “In short, this camp presumes an inerrant historical understanding of America, as well as the original intent of the Constitution.” (See http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12554&Itemid=53 )

Barton’s work is so bad that he had to actually admit that he fabricated quotes, however that does not stop him. His recently published book “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson”  is full of historical whoppers and his biggest supporter in the right wing media, Glenn Beck calls Barton “one of the best, if not the best historians in America. He is doing everything he can to turn history back and write it and put it back to where it was and tell history like it was….”

Beck’s support is not surprising as Beck also promotes the work of the late Dr. Cleon Skousen, a member of Beck’s LDS church who espoused many of the same ideas as Barton. The Christian Nation idea is a key element of LDS eschatology because according to Joseph Smith the United States is God’s elect nation and where the New Jerusalem will reside. Skousen’s book The Great Cleansing is cited and promoted by Beck asserts that America is on the verge of the great cleansing predicted in Smith’s eschatology. Stookey in discussing Barton and Skousen noted that “Skousen, like Barton, employs spurious historical material, skewed historical interpretation and Mormon-nuanced understandings of the past, present and future trajectory of the United States.”

However I am not surprised to see how many people lap up Barton’s falsehoods. He plays on the genuine historical ignorance and fear of his audience to sell his faux history. That is what makes Barton, the fraud and huckster a dangerous.  As J Brent Walker said so well the danger is the error that Christians should be a privileged class of citizens in this country and that others should be “at best, tolerated, at worst, discriminated against.”

Barton is incredibly influential in American politics and in Evangelical Christian circles. He is called a “historian” by leading politicians, pundits and conservative Christian leaders like Gary Bauer, James Dobson and the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. Barton’s website biography promotes this view, but he is not a historian.  His work is shoddy and more resembles the work of a unschooled preacher who uncritically “proof texts” the Bible to make his sermon points. He is charismatic and in his lectures and speeches bundles just enough truth with his fiction to mesmerize his largely historically ignorant and fearful audiences. But then what do you expect from a man whose highest earned academic degree is a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Education from Oral Roberts University? Of course the Unholy Trinity of Politicians, Pundits and Preachers love him so expect him to remain in demand.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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