Monthly Archives: November 2024

Book News

Pardon My Advertisement

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Christmas is coming. Do you know a Marine who might not have read that fantastic book about some young kid from the rural area along the Chesapeake Bay outside of Baltimore who was going nowhere, decided to get out of school in his senior year before the report cards came out and enlisted in the Marine Corps? Well, here’s your chance to give him a great Christmas present personally inscribed to him and signed by the author. How can this happen you may ask. Well, it’s simple. you see, I happen to know the author very well. It’s me. LOL

I still have about 20 or so of the hardcover copies left over from when I ditched the publisher once I determined just how much they were ripping me off. The publisher priced the book way out of line, but I had no say in it. We argued via emails, texts, and phone calls for over a month, but I lost out. They claimed it was all based on page count. It is a long book actually 564 pages, but for you Grunts (like me) it has lots photos, so they set the price at $42.95.  Would you believe that my profit on each book they and Amazon sold was $2.73.

Anyway, I bought a load of the book before I dropped the publisher. Of course they didn’t give me the same deal they gave to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I would like get rid of the books I have so I am offering a deal for this coming Christmas, but you have to hurry as we are leaving to attend my sister’s memorial service in Swansboro, NC on 9 December. Then we will continue north to our daughter’s house for Christmas in Pasadena, MD. We expect to be back home around 28-29 December. I will; however, have some books with me as we will travel north in our RV with the two cats and my new dog.

I will sell the hardcover version, which is a beautiful book by the way, personally inscribed to the person and signed by me. I have been selling it for $35.00, but for this one time Christmas deal, I sell it for  $30.00 and I will pay the postage, which is now $6.13. In the interest of full disclosure, I am making $5.94 on the each sale as I paid $17.93 per copy from the scumbag publisher. 

Anyway, if you are interested google my name on Amazon and it will take you to many reviews of the book. If your interest is then piqued, send me an email telling about this person you want to give it to, and whether you want it mailed directly to him/her or to you. That’s all there is to it. Email me at: sgt-b@comcast.net, or call me at (239)299-6738.

Here is the Table of Contents to give you a feel of what all the book covers if you’ve not read it.

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1                                                              “Brewed on the Shores of the                                                                                         Chesapeake Bay”

2                                                              From the Halls of Montezuma

3                                                              Parris Island

4                                                              Infantry Training Regiment

5                                                              The Private’s World

6                                                              Schools Demonstration Troops

7                                                              Republic of the Philippines

8                                                              Treasure Island

9                                                              Crossing the Pacific

10                                                           Welcome to Japan

11                                                           The Price of a Lucky Strike

12                                                           The Monkey House

13                                                           Battery D, Second Battalion, Tenth                                                                           Marines

14                                                           Drill Instructor School

15                                                           The DI

16                                                           The Platoon Leaders Course

17                                                           Schools Demonstration Troops—Redux

18                                                           Republic of Vietnam

19                                                           “Corpsman Up”

20                                                           Only a Sergeant

21                                                           Sparrow Hawk

22                                                           Sheer Terror

23                                                           Operation Hastings

24                                                           Anderson Trail

25                                                           LCpl Albert Brigham, USMC

26                                                           Cpl Gary Wayne Olson, USMC

27                                                           Bordering on Ridiculous

28                                                           WIANE

29                                                           The Silent Majority

30                                                           Oldest Post in the Corps

31                                                           “Who the Hell’s Jim?”

32                                                           Hail to the Chief

33                                                           Officer Candidates School

34                                                           Staff Sergeant “Chesty”

35                                                           Special Ceremonial Platoon

36                                                           Anchors Aweigh

37                                                           Company “E”

38                                                           Amphibious Warfare School

39                                                           Go Army!

40                                                           Methodist College

41                                                           Okinawa

42                                                           Marine Barracks, Lemoore, California

43                                                           Armed Forces Staff College

44                                                           Recruiting Station, Chicago

45                                                           College of Naval Warfare

46                                                           Huxley’s Harlots

47                                                           G-3 Training Officer

48                                                           Landing Force Training Command,                                                                             Atlantic

49                                                           The School of Infantry

50                                                           The Consequences

Epilogue

A                                                             Marine Corps Rank Structure

B                                                             Abbreviations/Acronyms

C                                                             Glossary

Current Events, Recent Posts

How callous can someone be?

What a disgrace. How callous can someone be? What have we become? Unbelievable!! I wish I would have been on that plane!!

perry

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — The father of a California soldier recently killed in Afghanistan says he felt disrespected and hurt by passengers who booed him and his family when they were on a flight to meet his son’s remains.

Stewart Perry, his wife and daughter were on an American Airlines flight Monday from Sacramento to Philadelphia with a transfer in Phoenix to receive the remains of his son, Sgt. John Perry, of Stockton, when the flight was delayed, the Stockton Record (http://bit.ly/2fFOIRc) reported Saturday.

Perry, an ex-Marine (former Marine) who lives in Stockton, said the flight to Phoenix was 45 minutes late and the crew, fearing the Gold Star family could miss their connecting flight, made an announcement for passengers to remain seated to let a “special military family” deplane first.

Perry said several passengers in first class booed, complaining that it was “baloney” and that they paid first-class fares. He said he doesn’t know if the passengers from Sacramento knew there was a Gold Star family on board or whether people sitting in the coach section complained.

“It was just disgusting behavior from people in first class; it was terrible to see,” Perry said.

Originally posted 2016-11-20 12:50:05.

Current Events, Recent Posts

The Price Is Riot

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The war of words continues. A very interesting article regardless of where you sit.

cecile_richards_2011_shankbone_2

 

 

Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America By David Shankbone (Own work)

By Tony Perkins
Originally published in Tony Perkins’ FRCAction on November 16, 2016
Tony Perkins is the President of the Family Research Council (FRC)

I wouldn’t be shocked that this group is going the extra mile to undermine the legitimate transfer of power (said former Senator Scott Brown, who watched the marches sweep through his own city of Boston). It comes to question whether they are using taxpayer money appropriately or even legally. This goes above and beyond their duty and ability to provide services for women.No wonder there are so many anti-Trump protests. Apparently, there’s good money to be made in joining them! Barely a week after his election, Donald Trump is already creating jobs. Thanks to Planned Parenthood Action, Americans can make a good living joining their phony demonstrations against the president-elect. Craigslist ads like “STOP TRUMP—up to $1,500/week. Hiring immediately. Call today, start tomorrow! $15-18 hourly rate + bonus + overtime, up to 77 hours per week!” have been running in major cities like Denver and Philadelphia for weeks. Clearly, the end of the election has only been the beginning of another phase of manufactured outrage.

Of course, questions have been swirling around Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer dollars for years. And while it’s illegal for Cecile Richards’s group to spend a penny of the government’s money on political advocacy, a full bank account certainly gives them the flexibility to. The reality is this:  Any group that can afford to spend $30 million influencing an election doesn’t need a half-billion in taxpayer assistance. For too long, Americans have been on the hook for the group’s corruption while women who need honest and safe care take a backseat to Planned Parenthood’s politics. (And unpopular politics at that!)

In the meantime, talk about an embarrassing display of the Left’s crumbling support. Cecile Richards’s group is so desperate for “followers” that it has to invent some. The Craigslist ads are exposing this movement for the mirage it is. This is exactly the kind of deceptiveness that we’ve come to expect from the Left. In this just-finished election Americans had a front-row seat to the dirty tricks liberals were using to disrupt Trump rallies—and worse, cheat the system. Thanks to undercover videos by James O’Keefe, voters learned that liberals were even willing to pay the “mentally ill” to disrupt Trump rallies in many cases with the full knowledge of the DNC and Clinton campaign.

A report by Fox News, based on arrest records of those arrested during a demonstration against Trump in Portland, showed that less than half voted. Something isn’t right when people will go to the trouble of protesting—and even getting arrested—but they won’t exercise their most basic and fundamental right as a citizen to vote. The bottom line:  don’t allow the manufactured outrage of the Left to mislead you into thinking that this effort is anything more than a vocal, well-funded minority.

Originally posted 2016-11-20 12:40:04.

Reviews

The “Root”

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Today is a day that we Marines of yesteryear will never forget.  Some of you reading this post may not have even been alive on that dreadful day. It was a day where we as Marines suffered more losses in one day since the battle for that infamous island of Iwo Jima. While I was not there in the heat of all of it, I was impacted indirectly. I was the CO of the Corps’ largest recruiting station at the time, and two of the Marines  lost on that tragic day were from Chicago. The city mourned and SgtMaj Collins and I participated in its mourning. Quite a memorable experience for us both. It’s all in “The Book.”

My friend and Marine brother Greg pays tribute to that fateful day. Thank you Greg.

Twenty and Counting                                        By: Greg Maresca

For those not keeping count, it was 20-years ago that this column first appeared in these pages. Through the auspices of the now retired Jake Betz, former editor of The News Item, he gave a fledgling part-time sports’ stringer and broadcaster an opportunity to write a featured op/ed.

Sometimes I wonder if Jake regrets unleashing this space that grew like a cancer – slow at first and then metastasizing to other publications and outlets who were willing to give it a play. That first column has mushroomed to nearly 1,000 was something I debated about writing.

I had possessed no desire to write it but felt compelled. Such an overreaching sentiment would rise like a phoenix about many subsequent issues, questions, and concerns that live rent free within my DNA.

Back in 2003, as the run up to the 20th anniversary of the Hezbollah attack on the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit’s headquarters at the Beirut International Airport approached, I waded through TV guides searching for at least one program on this forsaken piece of American history that should be anything but.  Sadly, and to no surprise, there was nothing, no documentary to be seen, heard, or read about. Not one news’ program discussing where the genesis of the War on Terror had its deadly roots firmly planted.

Seemingly, the day was going to innocuously pass like any other.

This was not going to happen on my watch.

There was just too much blood and treasure spent on that fateful early Sunday morning nearly half a world away to not remember.  The casualty count on this cowardly suicide attack on the Marine Corps hadn’t been that high since the battle for Iwo Jima.  The largest non-nuclear blast since both atomic bombs were unleashed during World War II would claim 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers nestled away in their bunks at 6:22 on that fateful Sunday morning October 23, 1983.

Being a used book aficionado, I found one of the few tomes written on the Beirut deployment in a flea market for the pricy sum of a quarter.  The volume was practically brand new, and I wondered if anyone had even read it before being exiled to the flea market circuit. No bookmarks or any notations were found within its pristine binding.  The late esteemed military history writer Eric Hammel’s “The Root: The Marines in Beirut” now stands guard over my ever-growing stack of must reads.

John Chipura had quite an incomparable story to tell but never would have the opportunity, but I would.  When I read about his tale months after the 9/11 attack, its irony was nauseating. Chipura, a New York City native of Staten Island, was serving in Beirut the day of the attack. He returned unscathed only to meet his end as a member of the NYFD based out of Brooklyn at the World Trade Center nearly 18 years later.

Regrettably, not much has changed as the Middle East remains the graveyard of American foreign policy after years of trying to fashion the region into a stable, peaceful, and prosperous place.

Taking on edgy and provocative issues encouraged me to read widely, while at the same time fostering the principles of an open society and free markets, which are today more important than ever in a culture growing with leftist orthodoxy and fanaticism.

Facts, analysis, and experience are the guide where edification matters more than good intentions or telling folks what they want to hear.  You cannot be concerned with what people think, do, or say, since being called into question and criticized is the byproduct and where having the skin and guile of a crocodile is all part of the gig. For those who disagree, the hope is to challenge them with a better understanding of an alternate yet reasoned out perspective.

Putting accuracy ahead of popularity and running counter to the contemporary ethos is both costly personally and professionally. There are plenty who do not care for this column, but thankfully there are also plenty more who do.

Out of fidelity to the truth, certain things must be said and written about.

There is no other way.

Thank you for reading.

Very well said Greg, thank you kind sir!

 

 

 

 

Originally posted 2023-10-23 11:09:15.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Another View of Snowflakes

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This is an interesting piece that perhaps provides another view of Millennials and why they are they way they are. This is an interesting take on the snowflake theory. It’s worthy of the read and thought, IMHO You read and decide.

We’re Not Snowflakes: How Millennials Approach Conflict

By Rebecca Whitworth
Over the last week, a new topic trended on my Facebook. Since it had nothing to do with the election, I was immediately interested. A study of a new male birth control drug had been discontinued after several men suffered from extreme depression; one committed suicide. The reaction from my female friends was unanimous. “Sure, we have to take birth control and suffer the side effects, but men get to quit as soon as they get uncomfortable.” This outrage led to a lot of backtracking as soon as they realized they were essentially making fun of suicide, but their reflexive outrage reminded me of another argument. A few weeks ago, there was a flare of pro-choice memes. The resounding chant was “Babies are not a punishment for sex.” I stared at that for a minute, not even sure how to react. No, they’re not a punishment, but they are the biological result. We’ve evolved for thousands of years in such a way that sex reliably produces babies.

 

It took a while, but I finally realized that my friends believe they have a right to have sex without getting pregnant. They believe that there should be a foolproof way for them to prevent having babies, free of side effects.

I was thrown for a loop. But that logic explained so much. I grew up to understand that the world was a preexisting system, full of established hierarchies and old traditions. When I look at situations, I seek patterns. In hierarchies, I look for where I fit and how I can be effective. However, this was not what I was taught in school.

In school, our heroes were Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Their faces stood ten feet tall in my middle school auditorium. These were heroes that made a stand through non-participation. Over and over, we were taught that disagreeing with something was enough to force change.

English class required us to read books that dramatized the lives of the downtrodden, the underdogs, and even the morally reprehensible. One detailed how a poor boy who had done even more poorly in school forged his high school transcript to get into college. Another detailed the final days of a murderer, who was the protagonist of the story. The worst, Perfume, told the story of a psychopath who hunted women to turn their scents into perfume. He was also the protagonist.

I say “protagonist” deliberately because these men weren’t touted as heroes outright. But between these books and the entire semester we spent on books detailing graphic deaths, the tone was uniform and clear. We were taught that survival means working outside of the system, and we were forced to stare at our own mortality. And the books told us that our lives would be even shorter if we played by the rules.

In history class, we learned about the wars. But the people we learned as heroes were those who took a pacifist stance, who simply refused to participate. We learned about desertion from the Vietnam War, but we didn’t learn that it was wrong. And we certainly covered the Vietnam protests, but never covered the discrimination and violence faced by veterans upon their return. The message was that protesters were attacked, usually for just protesting, because protest was a powerful weapon. We were taught about Rosa Parks, the Suffragettes, and more aggressive protesters such as Malcolm-X. We learned the moral way to affect change was to refuse to participate in the system. The message was that all uses of force were oppression, and that oppression was evil. Not only was boycotting moral, it was the only moral route.Outside of class, we watched movies and played games and read comics all designed to glorify the rebel and the anti-hero. It played perfectly into our teenage angst. Our heroes overthrow evil corporations. As long as they were fighting, it didn’t matter how they kept going; most action heroes are rough-around-the-edges, hard-drinking wrecks outrunning their emotions. We learned that the struggle was more important than the success—what good was a hero without a tragic back story? The ends justify the means.

 

All my favorite characters—the stoic, loyal type that was honor-bound to their cause or their chain of command—never saw the end of their movies. Sacrifices to the plot. That’s what you get for trusting the system.

Further, and even worse, we saw our heroes attack our government. Again and again, we saw the “Pocahontas” plot line—the noble savage fights off the arrogant white man. In Avatar, the film stopped trying to mask its agenda and put the evil mercenaries in American military uniforms. We saw, repeatedly, that the government had shadow programs, and all shadow programs went rogue. We were taught that government transparency was the only way to keep us safe. We were never told, though, that everything the civilians know, the enemy knows, and that some secrets are kept for a reason.

Essentially, every moment our parents weren’t around, we were taught to act out. We were taught that if we hated something enough, it would change for us. That if we disliked something, we were morally obligated to boycott it, and to be vocally angry about it. We were told that we could be anything, but that the only thing worth being was a rebel. We learned that the strong bend the world by sheer force of will.

That’s why millennials feel the rules don’t apply to us. Not because we were told we were “unique, special snowflakes.” Certainly not because we were given participation trophies—most of us saw through that, and some took it as an insult. (Really? I might disagree with her on this point) It’s because of how we see the world. Because the system is rigged and the rules are dangerous, we don’t have to accept them.

If my peers were taught like I was, it explains why they request “safe spaces” at college instead of arguing—if boycotting is our most effective tactic, the best way to win an argument is to refuse to have it. It makes sense if our work ethic suffers when we don’t agree with a new company policy, because we see participation as paramount to support. We invent new words to describe the new genders and identities we’ve decided need to exist because it is our duty to bend the world towards what we believe. When an endangered animal is shot on the other side of the world, we tweet and post and yell about it, because outrage alone can create change.

Perhaps it’s not so surprising, then, that the millennial reaction to conflict is flat rejection. It’s always worked for us before.

Originally posted 2016-11-20 12:31:38.