Memories: Opinion on reactions to “American Sniper.”

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Memories: February 4th, 2015

Some of the topics discussed below are dated now, but the opinions are still the ones I hold about so much of where we as a nation have found ourselves recently on the international stage. 

I don’t often comment on many political things these days; I did more often back in 2015. The Iraq War and its repercussions are topics with which I feel I have some level of expertise and experience which qualify me to share my opinions. 

“Several sad observations from a liberally-minded ex-military member... I was amused by the response of some liberals who criticized the movie "American Sniper" for not highlighting the wrong-headed premise for going into Iraq in the first place. 

As a military member, your job is to do your best to come out alive and to keep your colleagues in arms alive, to the best of your ability, while trying not to cause undue harm to innocents. By the time forces are sent in to fight, it does not make sense to ask a sniper to question the bigger picture in each moment of life or death struggle. 

Now we see in Iraq a development that justifies boots on the ground, but due to past choices, we are politically hamstrung, and financially impotent even in Europe, where old-style Russian thinking threatens while leaders have been hiding their heads in the sand. 

The lesson of Iraq is one of choosing your battles, and of how choosing the wrong ones can force the hands of politicians and young men and women for generations. We should be fighting ISIS on the ground, but we wouldn't be facing that threat in its current form if we'd just stayed in Afghanistan in 2003.  

So much of what we see today in the Middle East could have been circumvented if we would just have had a backbone in our dealings with Israel over their illegal settlements and crimes against humanity aimed unjustly at the Palestinians. We should have supported the protesters in Bahrain. We should have supported the democratic process in Egypt. We should be supporting Ukraine against Russian "separatists." 

We should be supporting the US Constitution against domestic enemies, but our military has become irretrievably intertwined with the biggest domestic enemy of the spirit of that sacred document. 

A great dichotomy exists in the reality that while we are still a great nation, with amazing potential to do good for ourselves and for humankind, in another disturbingly trivialized sense, the terrorists of 9/11, whether inspired by a misguided view of religion or by covert funding, have won a major victory over the "we" that we once were. If you can't see that, then you aren't paying attention. 

End of my soapbox rant for tonight.”

~ as written February 4th, 2015.

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Dallas Texas - St. Paddy's Day 2016

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JFK Memorial

Texas School Book Depository Building 

(on the left)

Dealey Plaza

"X's" on the street mark where the bullets struck.

Early Dallas Log Cabin

The Old Red Courthouse

Dallas City Views

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Codebreaker - 4 Stars

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Codebreaker is another of many recent documentaries about Alan Turing. It covers the many noteworth points of his fascinating life that we've all seen in the previous productions of late, and a bit more. One new aspect of his studies brought to light and covered in some detail by this presentation is Turing's work in the area of biomorphology. Turing was interested in why the particular number of petals on a given flower often corresponded to Fibonacci numbers, and how individual cells in an organism "know" what kind of cells to become in a fully formed organism.

"Morphogenesis," of particular interest to Turing, describes how shapes and patterns emerge in living organisms as they develop. Turing was the first to try to develop a mathematical explanation for how stripes and spotted patterns form in nature. His pioneering work in the 1950's showed that chemical processes, following simple mathematical rules, could spontaneously create striped and spotted patterns such as those we observe in nature. Turing's scientific paper, "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis," described the process by which spots on cows are formed. 

I found the scenes in which the actor portraying Turing speaks with his psychiatrist about his life and his feelings to be a bit contrived, but not a major distraction. Those scenes still managed to convey something of the character of the man that may have been difficult to present in any other way. Overall production was extremely informative and entertaining. I give it 4 stars out of 5, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone with even a cursory interest in the life of Alan Turing.

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Cold War History Programs

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NOVA: Astrospies

Produced by C. Scott Willis and James Bamford ". . . Millions remember the countdowns, launchings, splashdowns and parades as the U.S. raced the USSR to the Moon in the 1960s. Few know that both superpowers ran parallel covert space programs to launch military astronauts on spying missions. In Astrospies, NOVA delves into the untold story of this top-secret space race, which might easily have turned into a shooting war in orbit. In Astrospies, viewers meet the elite corps of U.S. military astronauts, several of whom have never before talked about their clandestine training missions during the 1960s. As seen in footage broadcast for the first time, they practiced in full-scale mock-ups of the spy station, complete with spy cameras capable of resolving three-inch objects on the earth below. While the Apollo astronauts enjoyed ticker-tape parades, their astrospy colleagues trained in total obscurity until cost overruns and the new satellite technology doomed the program. Meanwhile, in response, the Soviets actually built three manned spy stations named Almaz and flew five missions during the 1970s. NOVA gains first-time access to a surviving Almaz station in a restricted Russian space facility, where an ex-cosmonaut demonstrates the high-powered spy cameras that were trained on U.S. cities. With a cannon designed to destroy hostile satellites or attack American astrospies Almaz was probably the only manned spacecraft ever equipped for space war."

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Access to History - Blackbird: The Fastest Spy Plane - SR-71

Published on Oct 15, 2013 - In this episode of Access to History, we leave the studio for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar Hazy Center, where student veterans who are part of Montgomery College's Combat2College Program got up close to aircraft that made history. They also spent time with Retired Air Force Colonel Joe Kinego, who recorded over 900 hours piloting the famed Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird in military reconnaissance missions all over the world during the Cold War. Traveling up to 17 miles above the Earth at over 3 times the speed of sound, foreign powers tried to shoot down the Blackbird but none were successful. Colonel Kinego's presentation to the students during this visit contained information that at one time was Top Secret.

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American Signal Corps 1947-1960 


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Cold War Spies (1944-1994)

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Radio History Programs

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Tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher
"2005 Radio 4 documentary on the mysterious number stations that send  their 
cryptic covert messages to 'agents in the field' on the outer limits of the short-wave band.
The BBC stopped "live" broadcasts of the bells of Big Ben during WWII, because German 
analysts could actually deduce a lot about weather conditions in London, by examining 
differences in the acoustic characteristics of the bells' sounds from day to day.

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NPR: The Shortwave Numbers Mystery

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Empire of Noise

Documentary about radio jamming.

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Yosemite Sam Transmission

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  Shortwave Radio Oddities

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Roman Histories - by MRM - 1 March, 2014

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Then there was
Mr. Titus Livy,
Who wrote of recent Roman truths,
To which he was privy.
Rome's once virtuous glory
Had been quite a blast.
But that was then, and this was now.
It could not last.

Tacitus
Was not at all so taciturn...
Was he watching Nero fiddle,
  Back when Rome was burned?
"Power makes men immoral,"
Is what Tacitus said.
The moral of this story is:
They're all now dead.

Augustine
Was the Bishop of "Hippo-land:"
If he lived in that place today,
He'd be an Algerian.
  He wrote of "The City of God"
vs. "The City of Man."
Augustine said that, "In the end,
It's all God's plan."

To Augustine,
Time was linear,
(As opposed to merely cyclical)
Derived from his understanding
Of all things scriptural.
His idea of predetermination
Is "Teleology."
"God already knows the ending
Of His story."

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Parricide

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In Napoleon's France, 

You'd want to hide, 

If you'd committed parricide. 

For at that time, 

In Bonaparte-Land, 

Once you were caught, 

You'd lose your hands.

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The Catholic Church and International Corporations

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It is interesting to compare the influence of the Catholic Church over rulers of nations during the Middle Ages to the influence of international corporations over the rulers of nations today. 

Just a thought.

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Reflections on the Words of Darrell Anderson

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The reality on the ground in a war zone (declared or undeclared) is often much different than the picture painted in the news media. There is no doubt that the majority of our military members have good intentions. Many individuals and units have and consistently do perform many wonderful humanitarian services in their relatively small spheres of influence. Our military personnel are usually trying to do their part to make the world a better place.

Intentions, acts of goodwill and rebuilding do not detract from the fact that lives are changed forever for some military members when they are ordered to eliminate questionable "targets" in their country's name, not to mention the way that lives are changed for the loved ones of those killed. The number of innocents killed during the Iraq War is astronomical. There are many veterans in our country today who are trying to deal with feelings of guilt over their actions during the war, even though they may have felt that they had no choice.

I love what Darrell Anderson had to say, several years ago now, about his experience as a soldier in Iraq. As it becomes increasingly clear that the Obama administration's policies in the US and around the world are no less frightening and ominous than those of its predecessor, I think that Anderson's words deserve to be revisited and introduced to anyone considering joining the military.

You never know exactly what the military is going to ask you to do. It's too late, when you are given the order to shoot, to consider the broader implications of, or the rationales for your nation's policies. In an instant, you may be forced to choose between protecting your life and the lives of your comrades in arms, or killing potentially innocent people caught up in a political game, at the wrong place and time... Pawns, just like you.

The time to consider whether or not you will take up arms and who you will carry your weapon for is before you agree to carry the weapon, and to follow orders. If you are thinking about joining the military, research our country's policies and recent developments. You never know what political events might occur during your military tour. You never know who you may be ordered to kill.

Don't join the military with your eyes closed. You will take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, from all enemies foreign and domestic. Do you believe that this is what the US military did in Iraq, is doing now around the world, and in our own country? The time to consider that question is now.

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War Resister Darrell Anderson on Democracy Now

 

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Other videos of Iraq War vets' testimony:

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Documentaries Featuring Morse Code

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I have recently begun reacquainting myself with my old amateur radio hobby. While doing some online research over the last few days, I've come across a few interesting videos that feature the history of Morse Code. The links are posted below. I will continue to add new links to this post as I discover more videos that I find interesting and informative.

The Morse Code

BBC: Code Breakers -- Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes

An Ode to Morse Code

 Jean Shepherd - Code School

The Man Behind Morse Code 

Joe Myers, World War II Vet - Pacific Theater: Cryptographer

Military Affiliate Radio System : A Visit To MARS - 1970 Film

Decoding Japanese Morse Code - Lecture

1939 Film: New Zealand Shortwave Communications; Morse code (CW)

The History of Morse Code 

The Birth of Telecommunications

A Turning Point in History

 

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Chicksands RAFB and the Chicksands Priory

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Without any doubt, the best assignment of my military career was my very first one. I was stationed at Chicksands, RAFB from October of 1992 until June of 1995. During this time I was able to travel all over England and Wales; I absolutely loved the UK, and sincerely hope to have the opportunity to go back again.

While stationed at Chicksands, I took many tours of the priory. Military personnel used to be able to rent the building overnight, and a group of us once spent a spooky and memorable night there. There were many tales about the medieval inhabitants of the structure, but I never put much stock in their veracity. 

Today I was searching for information on Chicksands on Google and discovered this 45 minute long YouTube episode of the British program "Time Team," which focused on trying to rediscover some of the forgotten history of the Chicksands Priory.

Time Team S09-E04 Chicksands,.Beds

I also have a Pinterest board, where I've posted pictures discovered online related to my favorite British Air Force base.

Bedford and Chicksands UK

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Old News - The Walls of Ironton Speak.

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Last weekend, we visited the ghost town of Ironton, which is not far from Ouray. There were many interesting things to see, but one of the unexpected bits was finding old pieces of newspaper, which had apparently been used as insulating material, still nailed to the walls.

"Colorado"

Newspaper headline to an article about bees, by G.M. Doolittle, who, it turns out, is known among entomologists and beekeepers as "The father of modern queen (bee) rearing."

Mining is mentioned in many of the clippings.

Mining news from around Ouray, CO. 

This clip may to be from between 1890 and 1893. 

"The Slide" mine was only operated during those years. 

It was reopened in later years as "The Newsboy Mine." 

"The Midnight" is another mine in the area.

View of some of the Ironton structures from the outside.

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Ironton - Colorado Ghost Town

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The most prominent structure in Ironton
Saturday, October 12th, 2013

The road that led us there.

The structure pictured above, from the opposite side.

With the mountains in the background.

Inside.

Looking outside.

 

More unidentified structures of Ironton.

Inside these structures, we found some interesting newspaper clips (apparently part of pages which had been used for insulation nailed to the walls.

One of the best preserved houses.

From the entrance.

There was still wallpaper on the walls, and patterns on the floors.

Three wasp nests hanging from the ceiling.

We also saw a huge rat in the wall of this room.

An outer building with several distinct sections.

One was an outhouse.

That's the one.

A very solid looking log cabin style house

behind the ruins of a structure in the foreground.

 

E. O. Milton Larson was the last person who lived in Ironton Colorado. This interesting and amusing episode of "I've Got a Secret," from the early 1960's features Mr. Larson.

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"Secrets of the Viking Sword" Synopsis.

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I came across an interesting documentary yesterday:

Secrets of the Viking Sword

If you are at all interested in ancient technology, anthropology, Vikings, or ancient trade routes through the Far / Middle East, then I recommend this program.

Spoiler Alert!!!

The Ulfberht was a type of Viking sword that used technology 1000 years ahead of its time. Only a relative few have been found, all marked with the word "Ulfberht." This steel had comparatively few impurities and had a much higher carbon content than its contemporaries. The swords were often given ancestors' names, incorporating their power. Burnt bones from ancestors or powerful animals such as bears may have been used to add the very specific amount of necessary carbon and a mystical, magical power to these exceptionally strong and flexible blades. This type is steel is thought to have originated in Central Asia, known as "Damascus Steel" and later "Crucible Steel." As an interesting side-note, thousands of artifacts from the Far East, including a Buddha from India, and an exquisite ring with the word "Allah" engraved in it, have been found in Viking graves. Islamic coins were commonly traded during that era in Scandinavia. It is probable that the special steel originated in Iran, along the Volga trade route. The Vikings didn't know how to make this steel, and the swords disappeared from history once the Volga Trade Route ceased operation.

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