Interesting place to see a F/A-18….
I couldn’t make out the squadron markings though.
F/A-18 at Islip
Military
Andrew Sullivan: “I was wrong”
ANDREW SULLIVAN on Iraq: I feared the worst. I was wrong. Expect to see more like this from other pundits in the coming months….
Via Citizen Smash
SFC Paul Ray Smith, Medal of Honor
There’s nothing more to say – the citation says it all:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of Congress the Medal of Honor to
Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith
United States ArmyFor conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:
Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy near Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq on 4 April 2003. On that day, Sergeant First Class Smith was engaged in the construction of a prisoner of war holding area when his Task Force was violently attacked by a company-sized enemy force. Realizing the vulnerability of over 100 fellow soldiers, Sergeant First Class Smith quickly organized a hasty defense consisting of two platoons of soldiers, one Bradley Fighting Vehicle and three armored personnel carriers. As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60mm mortar round. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.
Lex: On Certainty
Over at Neptunus Lex, Lex’s latest takes a shot across the bow that those that can’t seem to get past the last election:
Nothing do I see that clarifies for me any more than all of that which has gone before, the necessity of the fight, or how long it might last. How many more must die, or be maimed, before we come to the clearing at the end of the path. Everything points on to a grim slog, a painful task that needs being done. And this is only one theater, in a much larger, potentially generational struggle between the forces of modernity and those of reaction. And make no mistake – even as events in Lebanon, Syria, Israel/Palestine, Baghdad and even Saudi unfold in a direction which could scarcely have been imagined a few short years ago, the forces of reaction are not about to strike the tent and fade into the background. Their death struggles will be titanic, because for them, like for us, there is no turning back, no possibility of surrender.
But I am persuaded, and have been for a long time, of the necessity of taking the fight to the Salafist heartland. Of winning it there, by supplanting tyranny with hope.
[..]
But there are some out there that just can’t get over it, any of it. They can’t get the politics out of their head, even while brave soldiers engage in incredibleacts of heroism, and some of them make ultimate sacrifices. They can’t get over the fact that the last national election was nothing if not a judgment on all that went before, and a mandate on how to finish – even if it wasn’t a whole-hearted endorsement of the process. These folks are justso damned certain that the war’s Original Sin blots out any chance to salvage a righteous outcome. For these folks it’s all a part of some right wing plot to… do what? Ruin the country, I gather. Quite how, I’m never sure. Many of them evidently keep their fingers crossed hoping for bad news (payable in Iraqi and American lives) while stuffing their fingers in their ears whenever good news comes out. For these folks, and their despicable certainty, I have nothing but genial contempt – and much less patience than Smash.
I’m an impatient irritable bastard usually, so I’ll be even more impatient. I can’t even discuss the war anymore with the folks that Lex describes in his last paragraph – it’s not worth my time.
Was it not as in the old days?
I just finished re-watching Ken Burn’s incredible series The Civil War – only appropriate since I’m slogging my way through Shelby Foote’s deep series on the war as well.
This quote, read by Shelby Foote at the end of The Civil War, is a fitting end:
“In time, even death itself might be abolished; who knows but it may be given to us after this life to meet again in the old quarters, to play chess and draughts, to get up soon to answer the morning role call, to fall in at the tap of the drum for drill and dress parade, and again to hastily don our war gear while the monotonous patter of the long roll summons to battle.
Who knows but again the old flags, ragged and torn, snapping in the wind, may face each other and flutter, pursuing and pursued, while the cries of victory fill a summer day? And after the battle, then the slain and wounded will arise, and all will meet together under the two flags, all sound and well, and there will be talking and laughter and cheers, and all will say, Did it not seem real? Was it not as in the old days?”
— Sergeant Berry Benson, Army of Northern Virginia, 1880
Unconditional Surrender
Headquarters, Army in the Field
Camp near Donelson, February 16thGeneral S. B. Buckner
Confederate ArmySir:
Yours of this date proposing Armistice, and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation is just received.
No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted.
I propose to move immediately upon your works.
I am sir: very respectfully
Your obedient servant
U.S. Grant
Brig. General
The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville, by Shelby Foote [p. 213]
Shelby Foote’s The Civil War
I’ve begun reading Shelby Foote’s incredible three volume series on the Civil War. I’m about 200 pages into the first volume Fort Sumter to Perryville. Foote, as you may know, is one of the preeminent historians of that age, and became famous for his commentary on Ken Burn’s Civil War series on PBS.
Of Abraham Lincoln’s departure from Illinois on the eve of his assuming the Presidency, Lincoln says – and is quoted by Foote:
“My friends, no one not in my situation can appreciate any feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kidness of these people I owe everything. Here I have lived for a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”
The train pulled out and the people stood and watched it go, some with tears on their faces. Four years and two months later, still down in Coles County, Sally Bush Lincoln was to say: “I knowed when he went away he wasn’t ever coming back alive.”