All posts by Jim

Left HS before report cards came out. Enlisted in the Marines for four years. By the time those years were over, I was hooked - they had me for life. Spent nearly ten years as enlisted. Received a Silver Star, Bronze Star w/V, Purple Heart as a Sgt during first RVN tour. Upon returning to the State's received a combat commission to 2Lt. Retired after 36 total years as a Colonel. Book follows my career, but is more about the heroes with whom I served, the great mentors I had, and the leadership principles they instilled in me.
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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.

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From the Colonel of Truth

I am truly humbled to have such great friends and brothers forever! What did I ever do to be blessed with friends like Andy? Simple, I joined the Marines! Do you have such people in your life? If not, what a shame. I feel sorry for you.

Col Andy

http://acoloneloftruth.blogspot.com/2016/11/post-script-salute-to-our-flag.html

Originally posted 2016-11-19 15:30:32.

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Why Did Donald Trump Win?

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Of late there has a boat load of conjecture by a bevy of analysts as why the impossible happened. The MSM has even resorted to blaming us, the people, for lying or deceiving them about who we were for, which led them to happily assume “H” would move to the White House again. I have even posted some of my assumptions as to why this historic event played out.

A friend sent me this open letter via email, which I believe explains it in terms that maybe, just maybe, our participation trophy-trained generation might be able to comprehend. But then, maybe not since they know better because their parents raised them that way. You decide. I can’t wait for 1/20/2017, but I will begrudgingly have to —   sixty-two days and counting!

The letter comes from

Chris Bitterlin, Mooresville, NC 28117

Dear all,

Four years ago, I sent along my View from the Porch after Mitt Romney lost to President Obama. I had suggested that the Republican party needed to reinvent itself due to changing demographics in the electorate. I did not envision a candidate like Donald Trump emerging as the nominee for the party and I seriously doubt that anyone else did either. I had always felt that the great American experiment called Democracy had, at its core, the ability to straighten out the snake when it weaved itself too far left or right. As of last Tuesday evening as late as 10PM, I also thought that the snake had veered so far off course that it was hopelessly lost.  Two hours later, the wisdom of those who designed the republic 240 years ago emerged as the people chose a new leader. To those who could never vote for Donald Trump because of the public comments about women and others, I get it and many others do as well. This election, however, was clearly about far more existential issues than distasteful and politically incorrect comments by one candidate or the other.

I have no data nor have I researched such regarding the underlying miracle behind the Trump election but I am offering my opinion. I think that it goes much deeper than low voter turnout for Hilary.

The miracle I believe lies in a fictional character whom I am going to name Clarence (our dog’s name and also a wonderful character in a movie we all know). Clarence is a guy who lives in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, or North Carolina. He gets up every day and transports our goods, fixes our broken pipes, erects buildings in the middle of winter, maintains our power plants, operates a small business that is struggling to survive, patches our roofs in freezing temperatures and, in addition to working 60 hours/week, really contributes to our tax base. In years past, Clarence may or may not have participated in the electoral process because he was either too busy scratching out a living on election day and he could not make it to the polls or was simply too tired to go at the end of the day. Clarence is the heart and soul of our great nation, Donald Trump knows that and Clarence decided to participate and vote for him on Election Day. Clarence was also motivated by his questions about and objection to the far left direction that Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid had taken the country and other things that he did not understand or agree with as follows:

1)  Clarence is trying to figure out for what Black Lives Matter is asking. Juries similar to the OJ trial, reparations 160 years later, their more convenient version of the truth? Even Hilary on a hot microphone asked BLM the same question. And, he is trying to figure out what Al Sharpton wants other than chaos.

2)  The coddling of students at Yale, Berkeley and other institutions of “higher learning” who demand “safe spaces” for protection. Clarence does not have a safe space when he is welding steel 20 floors up in January in Cleveland. And, Clarence’s good friend in the Navy Seals does not have a safe space in the mountains of Afghanistan either while he fights to defend the First Amendment right for the Yale student to speak his/her mind.

3)    Why is he paying more and more for his healthcare while Obama brags about the number of new Obamacare enrollees who are covered but who pay nothing for premiums nor contribute to the tax base?

4)  Why is he struggling to make ends meet, paying his taxes when 50% of the population contributes nothing and expects everything? He found the time just recently to learn about how that worked out for Greece and he thinks it can certainly happen here as well. As smart as he is, he cannot get his arms around $20 TRILLION (and rising) in national debt.

5)  Why do we have sanctuary cities who create a safe harbor for those who break the laws that we have? Clarence doesn’t want to raid every house in America with illegal immigrants, just those who are felons and drug dealers.

6)  Why was he a victim of hate when he chose to wear his Trump hat to the local school play in which his kids were performing? Contrary to what the left had screamed, Clarence does not hate Hilary supporters, black people, Hispanics, women or Muslims (unless you are an Islamic terrorist in which case he does hate you). He is too busy working, supporting his family and paying his taxes to be filled with hate.

7)  He does not care what LeBron, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Robert DeNiro, Barbara Streisand, Rosie, Tom Hanks and Colin Kaepernick think about anything. Just shut up and play, sing or act.

8)  He has no idea how protesters and agitators have the time and the money to disrupt civil society. He presumes that they are very young, have only heard one point of view their entire lives and pay little or nothing in taxes. By the way, he does not hate them either unless they block his route to work to earn his paycheck.

9)  Clarence dismisses those who push us to Socialism and despises those who support the KKK. This year, he found the time and energy to watch the major networks, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. He wondered why there was a disparity in presentations of the candidates. And, for the life of him, he cannot figure out why so many are so diametrically opposed to listen to an opposing point of view. He remembers that Nancy Pelosi actually had proposed to shut down conservative talk radio. Clarence would oppose equally any desire by the elites (who try to tell him how to think and behave) to shut down Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity.

10)  He took the time to ponder the cumulative impact of the academic class running the country, many of whom had never signed a paycheck for another worker nor created a single job. Law professors, community organizers and career politicians simply do not understand the responsibility nor reward in doing that. They all talked about “helping” Clarence but the policies did the exact opposite.

11)  He does not hold a grudge against billionaires unless they are hypocrites, supporting the Paris Agreement and crisscrossing the country in their G-5’s. He likes the billionaires who build things, start businesses and hire guys like Clarence to complete those projects, make those businesses successful and to whom all the credit is given.

12) And, FINALLY, he is hoping that some degree of fiscal sanity and deregulation will ignite the economic engine that will propel Clarence to have a better life for him and his family.

So, those of you and your friends who may be “terrified or scared” (I have heard both since the election) with a Trump presidency, I can only remind you of how the left branded Ronald Reagan as Ronnie “Ray Gun” back in 1976 when Gerald Ford was the Republican nominee. I think that he was the greatest American President in my lifetime and, like no other post WW II, one who turned around a country going nowhere at the time. Given his affinity for President Reagan, I suspect that a President Trump will be a lot more like him and less like Donald the campaigner. We all owe my friend and Trump voter Clarence and President-elect Trump an open mind and certainly patience as he navigates his way through the Washington swamp.

Many in this country judge the quality of our people by where they went to college, how many degrees they might have, how much money they have made, etc. That is all fine and many on this email have passed that “test”. Donald Trump, however, made it very clear and said many times that guys like Clarence, members of our military and our veterans among others who work hard, may have little or no higher education, have not accumulated great wealth and, most importantly have taken care of their families are “great” people. The billionaire with a degree from Penn understood that and Clarence believed him. That is why he won the election. Thanks for the indulgence and, God willing, I will chime in again in 2020. In the meantime, fingers crossed.

Love to all and God Bless America,

Chris

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted 2016-11-19 11:31:03.

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Dear College Cupcakes

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Once again Mr. Starmann presents us with a superb piece filled with facts, not innuendos, or suppositions. Our college grads, in general are pussies, pampered spoiled children who lack an educational foundation to enable think logically; they have been stained by a system that tells them they are important and have been given participation trophies all their lives. And now they are unable to grasp what has just happened. The MSM convinced them she was going to win, and the pollsters even added to it. Now OMG, what has happened to my world, I do not know what to do is their cry. Someone lied to me and told me I am loser for the first time in my life, and I cannot  handle it.

None of the historical events to which Mr Starmann speaks means squat to these kids — they were never taught about them by their Kool Aid drinking teachers nor their do-good, helicopter parents. I doubt that many of them can even identify what the first and third photos depict. What a shame, and it’s frightening to think unless there is a dramatic 180 in our education system and the treatment of these un-gifted zombies, they will be the leaders of tomorrow. America, we have our work cut out for us.

An open letter to America’s college cupcakes on Veterans Day

By Ray Starmann

Dear College Cupcakes:

America has watched for the last year or so, as our nation’s universities have been consumed by a new strain of left wing totalitarianism that has all the traits of the haunting Marxist dictatorships of the past.

Free thought and expression and discussion are disappearing from college campuses and being replaced by behavior and lexicons out of 1984.

In the greatest arenas of free speech across this land, you shriek and howl and cry and stamp your feet like two year olds when someone disagrees with you.

You have mental meltdowns when reading passages from the world’s greatest literature that somehow offend you in every conceivable way, shape or form.

You feel oppressed and terrorized when viewing someone in a Halloween costume that you dislike.

You are triggered by opposing views from Presidential candidates, who do nothing more than say things that you may disagree with.

When triggered by every imaginable word, phrase and action on this planet, you find it necessary to retreat to so-called safe spaces, where you will be further coddled by counselors, Play Doh and Bubble Guppy videos.

Like raving martinets, you accuse anyone you disagree with of being a racist, a rapist, a sexist or any other derogatory term you can create to soothe your tender and warped psyches.

You have been told for your whole lives how special you are and these fantastical words have been reinforced by the ridiculous behavior of helicopter parents and idiotic teachers who found it necessary to control every facet of your lives and ensure that each of you precious little snowflakes received a trophy, even though many of you only deserved a kick in the behind.

Your latest irrational tirades concern the election of PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP. Inspired by the lunatic behavior of your socialist professors, you are the laughing stock of the rest of the country as you hold cry-ins, need therapy dogs and hide under the covers in your dorm rooms because a man was elected President.

Today is Veterans Day, when we honor those who served, which I have no doubt none of you ever have. The nation particularly honors our combat veterans who drained deep the chalice of courage and who fought against real racists, like the Nazis; real boogeymen like the Imperial Japanese Army, the Chinese, Victor Charlie, the Republican Guard and the Taliban.

ike1

 

Today, at this very moment, as you tearfully meltdown because Donald Trump is our next President, our current military is in harm’s way in Mosul, fighting real sexists who call themselves ISIS.

King George, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam, these were real threats, some of the greatest madmen the world had ever seen and our veterans fought and defeated them in hot and cold wars.

dirty-grunt

Our veterans, men and women, many of whom were your age at the time they served, never had the luxury to wallow in self-pity over imagined nonsense and monsters.

Their threats weren’t created in the hallowed ivory towers of Harvard Yard. Their threats were created in the British Parliament, in Bavarian beer halls, in jungle outposts and jettisoned across the globe to cause havoc and death. The only thing that stopped them, the only thing that prevented the world from descending into darkness was the US military and our veterans.

There were no safe spaces on Iwo Jima or Omaha Beach. There were no cry-ins on Bunker Hill or at the Frozen Chosin. There were no counselors in the Ia Drang Valley or at Khe Sanh. There was no time to protest imaginary enemies at Fallujah. The enemies were real and were doing their damnedest to kill Americans and destroy our way of life.

As I stated, our enemies were fighting against Americans who were mainly your age. I and many Americans have serious doubts that you aggrieved marshmallows could rise to the occasion and fight anyone, much less the Redcoats or the Waffen SS.

revolutionary-war

How and why America has gotten to a point where being a wimp is looked upon as normal behavior for young people is the subject of another article and a disgrace in itself.

Instead of claiming half the nation is racist for voting for Donald Trump, you precious little snowflakes might want to get off your asses and read about men who overcame real prejudice and racism and fought for their country; like the Tuskegee Airmen.

Instead of being offended by words in books, you precious little cupcakes might want to step out of your safe spaces and read about American matadors at places like Trenton, the Wheatfield, Seminary Ridge, the Meuse-Argonne, the Bulge, New Guinea, 73 Easting and Tal Afar.

As for the election, get used to saying President Trump.

Suck it up buttercups.

Ray Starmann

Editor in Chief, US Defense Watch

 

 

Originally posted 2016-11-17 12:19:37.