159 Comments

1. toad:

As time went on the actors, writers, and others in Hollywood who had actually served faded form the scene. Also telling is that since the draft ended in 1973 you are really hard put to find any vets in the industry. I think that tells more about the industry than it does the vets.
I heard a couple of vets committing about how unrealistic scenes were from Prvt. Ryan. Walking along in the open yaking away for example.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:34 am 2. bob from Idaho:

But since there was no way to physically measure the drugs the judge wanted to know how much the mule was probably bringing in.

That case is ripe for an appeal.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:43 am 3. Doug:

Did have near real time flicks of the Korean conflict in the 50’s, though.
Many were the Mig 15 vs Sabre Dogfights, nearly always with the signature bullet and blood riddled cockpit shots.
Far above the frozen misery below.
40 Aces flew Sabres 1 flew a Corsair!

Checkerboards

Memorable WWII Corsair “shootdown:”

“One particularly interesting kill was scored by a Marine Lieutenant R. R. Klingman of VMF-312 Checkerboards, over Okinawa. Klingman was in pursuit of a Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (”Nick”) twin engine fighter at extremely high altitude when his guns jammed due to the gun lubrication thickening from the extreme cold.

He simply flew up and chopped off the Ki-45’s tail with the big propeller of the Corsair. Despite missing five inches (127 mm) off the end of his propeller blades, he managed to land safely after this ramming attack. He was awarded the Navy Cross.[53]“

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:28 am 4. winslow:

The history of science is the story of ever expanding frames of reference, often in mathematics. For Euclid, two parallel lines were parallel forever. After Riemann assumed that they might meet eventually, Einstein adopted the assumption, leading to a curved universe.

For Capitalists, the frame of reference is prosperity; for Socialists, it is justice.

All intractable arguments can be traced to incompatible frames of reference.

Metaphysical discussions are necessarily conducted in hypothetical frames of reference. Post-modernists attempt to preempt these frames of reference by rewriting history

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:32 am 5. Walt:

There is one more element to your frame re the mule; location. There are places in this world where the mule would have been summarily dispatched, regardless of quantity of drugs, regardless of number of trips, regardless of time of year. If he were lucky to be caught in a lenient society, he might get a mere forty years in jail, other places he would be beheaded. It is only in the West in general, and the United States in particular, that the justice system insists on an accurate count of the number of smiling angels dancing on the head of the pin.

Your honor, as counsel for defense
I submit to you the case
That this young man in every sense
Should never have to face
The possibility that he
Might serve a term in jail
And so I ask you set him free
And please return his bail
My client says he never had
A single ounce of drugs
He knows that stuff is really bad
He’s not one of those thugs
We realize your honor that
Red-handed he was caught
But I am here to go to bat
‘Cause that’s how I was taught
The calendar says it is June
The poppies are not ripe
We all agree he had a spoon
As well a well-used pipe
As for the airport locker keys
He met a friend that night
He’d not arrived from overseas
He never made that flight
As to the tiny bags of smack
They found inside his coat
He says if you will send him back
Next time he’ll take a boat

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:34 am 6. bogie wheel:

Re: Private Ryan, I heard the same criticism as toad about the “walking & yakking” scenes. Also criticized was the, to put it politely, incessant kvechting of several characters … the criticism being, these guys were Rangers, not regular Army, the attitude & discipline would have been better. Plus you can interpret the opening shot (faded flag) in two fairly opposite ways, one of them not reflecting well on the movie’s patriotism quotient. And then there was Spielberg’s comments when the movie came out that he figured he was most like the character of Upham (the terminal FUBAR). Was this an endorsement of Upham’s behavior or the modesty of someone saying they would be a scared little bunny wabbit if ever plunked into a combat situation?

So, yeah, there are a number of shades of gray with that movie. But it was still a helluva lot better film than “Shakespeare in Love,” which won Best Picture that year. Even in 1998, Hollywood was still in the mood to “make love, not war.”

1938 “Robin Hood” – A gloriously fun film! Saw it during senior year in high school and have been a fan ever since. You are right, the dialogue is snappy. Casting was also spot-on. Technicolor! Errol Flynn’s laugh & vine-swinging! Basil Rathbone! Petite li’l Olivia de Havilland! Alan Hale! And Roy Rogers’ Trigger doing double duty as Maid Marian’s horse! Great swordfighting! What’s not to love?

Claude Rains and Michael Curtiz are common to both this film and “Casablanca,” which I covered in my film class a few weeks ago. I pointed out to the students that the film was made during WWII, and in ‘42, when the outcome was nicht so klar. Submission of personal desire to duty and The Cause of Liberty was therefore an inevitable theme, but played in such a way (exotic setting, exotic characters) that it came across more as a parable than a sermon.

You rarely see the duty theme in movies these days except those rare pictures that take military characters on their own terms (ie not distorted under someone else’s editorial agenda).

“Battleground” (1949) is another WWII film that I think is exceptionally well done. The non-combat scenes are a little too chipper for my taste (I think the humor would have been more morbid, in real life) but the shortcomings of these sequences are made up for by the battle scenes, pretty grim and straightforward as you could get in 1949.

And any film with Richard Widmark is a film I will take time to watch.

I dunno about the entire 1960s being a decade of using WWII fare as anti-war propaganda, Wretchard. I tend to think that took over more towards the last few years of that decade when Vietnam really heated up on the home front as a political football.

In 1962 you still had the all-star vehicle “The Longest Day,” which doesn’t strike me as an anti-war film. And the TV show “Combat!”, which ran from 1962-1967, was extremely sympathetic to the American soldiers who were the show’s core characters. The Burt Kennedy episodes (Kennedy was a vet) are IMO particularly good insights into combat soldier psychology esp. as they advanced the characterization of Sergeant Saunders, played by Vic Morrow. Saunders was Lee Marvin before Lee Marvin was Lee Marvin. This was one old-school NCO, at least in terms of what Hollywood cranked out.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:48 am 7. Don51:

Context. A number of years back a journalist looking for fame claimed to have dug up a massacre of civilians by the Americans during the first days of the Korean War. It was presented as new and a revelation. As the story developed, the specifics of the incident and its context started to unravel its intended hard hitting message. However, what was apparent was the journalist’s contemporary context in that he sought to push his agenda. It was really nothing new. Hollywood, in fact, had covered the subject and put it up on America’s big screens during the war itself. Robert Mitchum, not a farm team movie personality, stared in One Minute to Zero (1952). The crux of the story was the horrors of war and the hard choices that had to be made to prevent the enemy from infiltrating lines by using civilians as shields and cover. The contextual difference for America was it still had the WWII population and near memory of hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties to the horrors of war be they intentional or unintentional collateral damage. The names of London or Coventry were aligned with Hamburg or Tokyo in context of civilian deaths and war. The mind set they journalist played to was many generations later.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:51 am 8. bogie wheel:

For Capitalists, the frame of reference is prosperity; for Socialists, it is justice.

I dunno, winslow, wouldn’t Friedman argue that liberty was a more basic frame of reference for the free market?

And the *stated* goal of Socialism is justice … but seeing as how it routinely produces just the opposite, something else is going on. As has been observed on BC many times before, it is more about control than it is about anything else.

Individual liberty vs. control of individuals is about as stark a conflict of frames of reference as there is.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:55 am 9. Walt:

As long as we’re talking about war movies, my favorites, in no particular order, are:

Gunga Din (1939 – Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen)
Breaker Morant
Zulu
Dr. Strangelove
Sahara

I’ve seen them all a dozen times, watch them every time they come on. Unlike me, they never get old.

Walt Erickson

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:00 am 10. Lifeofthemind:

The size of the frame should depend on the consequences of error. The Constitution specifies that congressional apportionment be based on the actual decennial census of persons present. The Fourteenth Amendment in part reads

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

The Left has tried for years to replace the actual head count with statistical sampling and failed. What they have noticed is that the text apportions according to persons and not citizens, only reducing the allotment for citizens unfairly denied the vote. So they are seeking to increase the representation of left leaning districts by increasing the presence of illegal immigrants and hiring fraud prone partisans to conduct the Census.

For a criminal legal case the bar should also be set high. To put someone’s life and liberty at risk because of testimony that other persons in similar circumstances had carried a volume of drugs is very close to assigning collective guilt. That is not to say that I am opposed to circumstantial evidence. That is used with expert testimony all the time to get a conviction. Fingerprints are circumstantial evidence that someone was present. In the drug case an experienced investigator could testify that the mule had possessions that were consistent with carrying a volume of drugs. If they had carried internally then a physician might testify to the condition of their digestive organs regarding the probable volume carried. Still if the evidence is not there then the government should not just make it up. Sometimes you have to let the bad guy go and keep an eye on them.

For civil cases the standards are lower. The slippery slope of using statistical evidence to shape a legal case and subsequent public policy goes back to Brown v Board of Education. The argument that separate was not and could not be equal that was relied on by the Court to reverse Plessy v Ferguson depended on psychological studies such as the “doll test” that are subject to criticism.

The Halls of Montezuma could not stretch its frame beyond the experience of its crew and audience. What it shared with The Adventures of Robin Hood was a common culture shared by the audience that believed in the essential rightness of a system of liberty and law and the sovereign right of a free people to defend that. The film about the more mythical past could affirm the justice of fighting for the Rights of Englishmen, using Robin and King Richard as archetypes without considering their real characters. To some extent that is always true and every portrayal of the past says more about the present. The Iliad tells us more about early Iron Age Hellenic Civilization then it does the Mykenaean warriors that sacked Troy. Yet it does carry the memory of Bronze Age individual combat into a tale told by Bards to an audience focused on the themes of Honor and Pride. As the Editor said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

bogie wheel,
Concur with your analysis and Walt’s list.

Add:
In Which We Serve
They Were Expendable
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Das Boot

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:06 am 11. hdgreene:

Wretchard, you might enjoy the TV series “numb3rs,” which deals with math, statistics, and (usually violent) crime. It’s by one of the Ridley’s. Or is it one of the Scotts? Tony Ridley Scott. I don’t watch it myself because the math they use confuses me — it’s enough to make me believe in global warming. Especially when they start sticking letters in their formulas. I mean, two times three divided by A. What’s with that? Then you get to find the cosine. What the hell’s a cosine? Well, according to the wiki’s:

The cosine of an angle is the ratio of the length of the adjacent side to the length of the hypotenuse. In our case: \cos A = \frac {\textrm{adjacent}} {\textrm{hypotenuse}} = \frac {b} {h}\,.

Yeah, that cleared it up.

Now on “Numb3rs” they not only put letters amongst the numbers, they put numbers amongst the letters. Fortunately, there are enough murd3rs on that show to k33p it int3r2sting. Sorry, misp3ll3d int3r3sting. I gotta do my homework.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:15 am 12. Right Wing Realist:

Not to hijack the thread, but Richard what is the reason for closing a thread? The previous two were shut down with about 200 posts to each. I’ve seen others go double that.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:25 am 13. bogie wheel:

To some extent that is always true and every portrayal of the past says more about the present.

This seems to hold true for movies about the future as well.

I didn’t see the first “Terminator” until a few years ago. My biggest laugh came during the rebel fighters sequence, in which the anti-robot human guerillas were all shown to be wearing …. Olivia Newton-John headbands!!! Let’s get physical, anyone?

Of course, unlike the future, where it’s anyone’s (educated) guess as to what will happen, history is *supposed* to have a little more consensus to it, but apparently not. Not when Oliver Stone is involved, at any rate.

LOTM – I found the phrase “exluding Indians not taxed” very interesting. What was the rationale behind that? Were there Indians who claimed and were treated as members of sovereign nations, i.e. not United States citizens? Or was it merely a “no representation without taxation” issue?

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:34 am 14. winslow:

#8 Bogie I agree that liberty can also be a frame of reference. I also agree that Socialism is a fraud.

Frames of reference are usually selected by someone making a case. For an honest presentation they are used to isolate relevant information. For dishonest cases, they are selected to exclude relevant information.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:42 am 15. Dave the Kapampangan:

I think the whole reason why there are statistical distributions is because the factors are too random and beyond control to know the frame with certainty. Therefore it is impossible to know the frame, and one has to rely on probabilities based on previous, known history. After selecting the least wide frame possible for this situation that still has historical probabilities, a second decision must be made regarding standard deviation, i.e. if drug mules smuggle between XX amount and YY amount, shall we assume he smuggled in the bottom number or the top number, especially if these numbers could deviate considerably from the middle or the average? My initial thought is to select the least wide range that is pertinent to the situation, and then assume he is fairly innocent, and select the bottom range of amount smuggled.

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:11 am 16. Habu:

10. Lifeofthemind..very nice piece of work.

In no particular order.

* A Year of Living Dangerously
* Top Hat, Fred & Ginger dance to Irving Berlin

* Fort Apache ..if we ever screwed any group it was the Indians

* Apollo 13 .. real life drama
* Most any Robert Mitchum movie, Thunder Road..he was a man.

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:24 am 17. John Costello:

Carl Foreman’s 1963 The Victors was the first anti-war movie about WW2 I remember. I never read the book.

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:28 am 18. Habu:

P.S.
My father was one of several CO’s of VMF -312 in Korea. Won the Navy Cross, two DFC’s and fininshed flying the bent wing F4U with more carrier landings than any Marine in history.

Nov. 10 Marine Corps Birthday

Semper Fi Devil Dogs

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:31 am 19. E. Nigma:

RE: Battleground (1949). IMHO, a most profound clip from that movie. Click my name to link to it.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:07 am 20. Annoy Mouse:

Some years back I spent the summer walking the Sierras by myself. The southern half was made even lonelier by the fact that the forest was closed due to a fire that started east of me so even the rangers and the cattlemen had gone. At night, faithfully at 9:00pm, I listened to old-time radio shows. I remember going to bed early one night and then awaking to the moon rising over a hill above a shallow valley, illuminating the woods like a peering search light. I have heard many a strange noise in the dark of the night but nothing is as eerily as the woods on a moon lit night. I tuned to the am radio show and was soon entranced with the adventures of the Lone Ranger or Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. But by far, the best was the Lux Radio Theater hosted by Cecil B. DeMille. CB would trot out Hollywood’s finest to do the programs and all of the actors mentioned in the post, or at least most of them, found their way onto the Lux Radio Theater program, perhaps the most excellent of them that I recalled was Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. A bygone era and even the station that beamed high into the Sierra every night now plays Mexican polka music 24/7, a small comfort, perhaps, to the indentured servants of the Mexican cartels that now operate there with impunity and guardianship of a Left that will destroy nature in its bid to destroy Western Civilization to grow the weed that Americans wont grow.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:11 am 21. LYNNDH:

A bit of trivia. The movie They Were Expendable with John Wayne had as screenwriter Spig Weed. Spig was Navy aviator at the beginnings of Naval Aviation. Later on John Wayne played Spig in a movie, which I have now forgotten the name. All the movies mentioned above were excellant. I wonder which, if any, movies from the past ten yrs will be remember 40 yrs from now.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:13 am 22. KareninPA:

My favorite war movie is my favorite movie of any kind: Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V. If you have not seen this, do. It’s magnificent.

For World War II movies, I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Thin Red Line. I haven’t watched it since seeing it in a theater, because I think much of its impact came from the beautiful cinematography, and we have only a small TV. Jim Caviezel. Tarawa. I remember being overwhelmed by the way it raised a question that’s usually raised stupidly and naively, but dealt with it in a way that was not. You know, the “why must there be wars” (when we could just be handing out flowers). But beyond that childishness, there’s a way in which it is a deep question, worthy of poetry and philosophy and religion: we are brothers, why do we kill each other? The Thin Red Line seemed to get there.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:37 am 23. HEPT:

What Price Glory, James Cagney.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:41 am 24. Annoy Mouse:

“But since there was no way to physically measure the drugs the judge wanted to know how much the mule was probably bringing in.”
I find this confusing. You either caught someone with a quantity of drugs or you didn’t. Were they trying to extrapolate over a past and future career? The truly heinous crime is committed by those who sent the mule in the first place. They risk the least and gain the most. The only consideration for the mule ought to be getting that asset out of the hands of the traffickers, like you’d impound a truck. The top cartel members are so well politically connected it makes ordinary citizens look like riff-raff.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:43 am 25. F:

Re #19 E. Nigma: Thanks for the clip. I had completely forgotten the silver cross in the fitted box. My father brought his back from China, where he carried it for several years traveling from base to base all over the country. He was part of SACO, a group so small it is almost unknown today, but he brought back some amazing 16mm home movies of China in the early 40s. And that silver cross.

I have to agree with every one who equates socialism with a false call for justice. Every time I hear the word in a political context I know the perp is really talking about control, not equity. F

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:07 am 26. JD:

“The Halls of Montezuma” was the first war movie I can remember seeing. It is what triggered my desire to be a U.S. Marine. Although I was only 12 or 13 when I saw it, it made a big impact on me. I still watch it whenever it’s on.

The Thompson (Widmark carried one) is a great close quarters weapon….I alway thought “Chopper” was an appropriate nickname.

Happy Birthday to all my fellow Leathernecks!

Semper Fi!

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:07 am 27. tommy:

Breaker Morant. Gotta love rule 303.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:20 am 28. bogie wheel:

Karen in PA @ 22:

I liked “The Thin Red Line” pretty well until I went & read the James Jones novel. I then liked the movie a whole lot less. All that “why war” stuff is entirely Terrence Malick’s imposition (and I use that word deliberately) on the novel. If Malick wanted to make a “why war” WWII movie, fine, just don’t hijack James Jones to do it.

There were some nice touches … Nick Nolte’s Col. Tall getting all vein-popped and red-faced screaming at someone (can’t remember who, it has been a while), John Cusack taking a hill, the scenes in the native village, and the overall sense of scale it gave to the combat. It’s easier to get into a war movie (any movie, really) when you have a small cast of characters whom you follow throughout, but this approach of personalization goes in the opposite direction of the hugeness and depersonalized nature of an event like WWII.

I also liked the voiceovers expressing the thoughts of the individual soldiers in the opening sequence as the boats went in (every man taking stock of himself as they head into combat) … though again, this wasn’t James Jones at all, purely Malick.

Jones’ characters were not reflective in that way. I think another director, say someone like a William Wyler, a realist who let the actors bring it out instead of burrowing inside their heads with camerawork & editing & symbolism, would have been more faithful to the novel, at least if Wyler were shooting today. I still think that no one has yet done a genuine James Jones adaptation. (Fine as the Zinnemann “From Here to Eternity” was, it was heavily bowdlerized for the times.)

Since no one else has mentioned “A Walk in the Sun” and, for pete’s sake, the awesome “Twelve O’Clock High,” I will!

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:26 am 29. bogie wheel:

Habu – If you are at Arlington visiting your dad anytime soon, give him a shout out for me.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:28 am 30. Joshua:

bogie wheel, #13, re: films about the future: You could say the same thing about J.J. Abrams’ recent cinematic update of Star Trek (which, as it happens, has its DVD release next week) as well.

The original TV series, whose three-year run on NBC coincided with the height of the anti-Vietnam-War movement, was decidedly cerebral and pacifist in its outlook (though not particularly utopian or socialistic – that wouldn’t come until Star Trek: The Next Generation twenty years later). Abrams’ film remake, on the other hand, is hardly cerebral and certainly not pacifist. After the grand-scale attack midway through the film (think 9/11 on a planetary scale), Spock is left in command of the Enterprise and his ever-so-logical response is basically to turn tail and run. James T. Kirk, naturally, would have none of that, and you don’t even have to have seen the film to know how that turns out, or to understand that Kirk is the one Abrams wants us to root for.

Imagine that – a filmmaker glorifying the use of deadly force against an attacker, in a movie adaptation of a TV series known for its pacifism, made (and originally intended to be released) while George W. Bush was still in office. Sure, Abrams’ Star Trek could just be an outlier here, but could it be that Hollywood’s anti-war inclinations are finally starting to run out of steam?

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:28 am 31. Josh:

Facts not in evidence, your honor.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:31 am 32. Al_Batross:

“The Longest Day, which doesn’t strike me as an anti-war film” bogie wheel@6.

Personally, it did strike me as an anti-war film when I saw it in my early teens, not in the sense of “war is hell”, but of “war is futile”. Although often visually memorable, it has an angle to pursue, and to make it’s case the film throws historical accuracy under the bus when necessary.
The Ranger attack on Point-du-Hoc is the example which springs to mind, with the battery found to be gun-less, and the “all this way for nothing” script.
The historical details are more accurately portrayed in the video game Call of Duty 2, with the Rangers pressing on with their mission, and finding and destroying the re-located guns further in-land. It is perhaps encouraging that there are young game-makers who want to try to get the story right.
From memory, Stephen Ambrose comments extensively on the film in his D-Day book (and/or in his Pegasus Bridge book).

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:32 am 33. Tarnsman:

The Adventures of Robin Hood, one of my all time favs. Any other telling of the story pales in comparison.

“Sir, you speak treason!”

“Fluently”

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:36 am 34. hdgreene:

KareninPA,

There is a 1964 version of “The Thin Red Line” which I saw 1964. I still remember it as “gritty” and realistic but not necessarily anti-war. Still, I can’t quite recommend a movie I saw as a boy 45 years ago.

I ran across the movie “Pork Chop Hill” in the Library a while back (Gregory Peck). In that movie they have to take the hill in Korea to prove they are willing to die for a few acres (to impress the Chinese during the armistice negotiations). Apparently it worked and the battle help terminate active hostilities, at least in the Hollywood retelling.

I wonder what the impact of abandoning whole nations and geographic regions will be — in the Hollywood retelling.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:41 am 35. Subotai Bahadur:

In reference to your drug case, you apparently have a lower boundary already established of the amount that was sufficient to get the conviction for possession with intent to sell. At least that is how I read the problem. The point in question is the amount they can use for sentencing purposes. If the bulk of the drugs is beyond recovery, you cannot consider them. You have no evidence. If the mule ingested the drugs, and appropriate tox screens were done, a reasonable scientific calculation can be made as to the amount ingested; however that has its own upper limit involving the amount that is incompatible with life. If no such screen was done, the evidence is gone. For other than ingestion, if the evidence cannot be measured and tied to him specifically [what is to rule out a multiplicity of mules on the route, some of which may have lost part of their shipment?]. Sometimes the bad guys win. In the hypothetical, the win is to be on the low end of the range of sentencing. I will accept that level of loss, in return for a system of laws, and not men. Granted, that in the absence of such system ….

I do not know if your hypothetical case is in the US or in Australia. If it is Australia; I readily admit absolute ignorance as to your rules of evidence, precedents, etc. and drop out of the discussion. If it is the United States, material evidence has to either be present and its interpretation subject to cross examination by the defense, or if it is presented as a conclusion by an expert witness, has to be pretty airtight and scientifically acceptable. And it is subject to being countered by other expert witnesses and cross examination. If the bulk of the evidence is truly gone, you should be limited by the physical evidence that you have in hand. At least in an American court.

To do otherwise, to “Make [deleted] up”, and for the State to change the rules of criminal procedure and evidence at will in the middle of the game …. well that is what Democrats do and that leads to tyranny.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:45 am 36. Sotos:

Don’t forget Robinhood is what it is in part to the brilliant score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who along with Hindemith was one of the few lyrical musical geniuses of 20th century formal music. The processional march leading up to the aborted coronation of John is extraordinary – so much so one wishes they had cut some dialogue and let the music speak for iteslf (as it would if this had been a silent movie).

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:02 am 37. Josh:

The average defendant is guilty, so – so are you.

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:04 am 38. Habu:

29. bogie wheel:

I’ll be proud to. When you are buried in Arlinton you receive a pass with a unique number which allows the bearer to have immediate access to the roads not authorized to the general public. I framed mine and hung it below a picture of my father in front of his Corsair.

I will make my springtime honor call and then my annual pilgramage to Gettysburg just up the road.

I also visit my other hero’s gravesite. MajGen Marion Carl http://tinyurl.com/ylc3voo
His story is largely unknown outside the aviation community but he was a giant, my hunting buddy, next door neighbor at five duty stations. For reasons unknown to me he always gave me the seat of honor at dinner parties. I was fortuneate beyond belief to have such men as role models for there are so few left.

Semper Fi

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:17 am 39. Habu:

Ok,
“When you are buried in Arlinton you receive …..

the family recieves.

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:19 am 40. Habu:

DOUG 3

You picture is of the FJ Fury later flown by 312. Scroll down this site for a good shot at the Corsair version.

http://tinyurl.com/yj7l8fd

BTW..folks this url was 366 characters long, reduced to 25 by using Tinyurl.com …a great tool.

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:31 am 41. marymcl:

“Operation Burma” with Errol Flynn is another good WWII picture – “Saving Private Ryan” is like a lot of Spielberg’s *important* movies. He’s a great technician but whenever he tackles a serious historical subject his PC mindset gets in the way. You always hear about the first half hour of “Saving Private Ryan” but the last half hour made me wonder what the hell his point was.

My favorite war movie is “Zulu”, made in 1964 about the battle of Roark’s Drift. It’s a British picture and likely the only actor in it whose name is still a household word is Michael Caine (it may have been his first feature role). Anyway it has great acting and cinematography, and there’s no sidelong preaching about the futility of war etc, which is the defining feature of most war movies made during the 60’s. Just a straightforward story of an extraordinary event that doesn’t glamorize anything or caricature anyone either – pretty exceptional for both war movies and historical pieces. I read somewhere that Peter Jackson said it was his inspiration for the way he staged the battle of Helm’s Deep.

“Tell it to the Marines” is a really good silent movie with the great Lon Chaney playing the lead as a Marine drill sergeant – one of the only surviving pictures where he wasn’t playing a freak or a monster and it shows what a genius of an actor he truly was – the Jim Thorpe of motion pictures.

“Ivanhoe” (the original from 1951 with Robert Taylor, George Sanders, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine)is a great period piece – though the opening scene with Robert Taylor playing troubadour is a bit of a joke. He’s no Mario Lanza, that’s for sure. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how faithful the adaptation is, but the production is stunning, it’s a good story and the jousting scenes are awesome.

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:33 am 42. Gordon:

Some others have mentioned the Marine’s birthday, two days hence. I want to share a piece I submitted to the local paper. It may not run but at least the editor asked to see it:

Today is the United States Marine Corps’ birthday. For 234 years, since before we had a country, they have fought our wars. Contemplating this, as I do this time of year, I always remember some Marines I’ve known.

The first one was a welder where I was hired for summer oil field labor. A farm boy who joined up early, he went to the Pacific and was in three major campaigns. He talked frankly about the horrors and black comedy of jungle war, of fighting hand-to-hand in pitch darkness with fists and rifle butts, then between battles regrouping in New Zealand where the menfolk had been in North Africa for three years. In all that time he was not wounded: “Never got a scratch. Can you believe that?”

A younger man in our crew was stationed post-war in Tientsin, China and told ribald tales of life among refugees, White Russians, Methodist missionaries and the Chinese black market.

During my service I met Marines who had already done two or three thirteen-month tours in Viet Nam. One, a self-described “Brooklyn hoodlum”, lied about his age and enlisted one step ahead of the juvenile judge. His 17th birthday found him in the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir. Thanks to a kindly gunnery sergeant—a “gunny”—he was kept relatively safe, mainly fighting frostbite. He went on to three tours in “The ‘Nam” and retired a sergeant major.

Another was a Texan from Lufkin. Walking through tall grass with his sidearm drawn, he had a face-to-face shootout with a Viet Cong sniper who popped out of a hole, wounding him in the arm before dying from the pistol shots. His young, mostly-adolescent platoon was quite impressed with this Asian OK Corral and gave him a cartoon-like drawing he carried in his wallet: “The LT smokes Charlie”. On it my friend is standing, gunslinger style, with a huge jet of flame coming out of his pistol, the bullet passing through a neat hole in the enemy.

And there was the Marine captain who briefly dated my daughter and whom I wrote about on these pages 15 years ago. Enlisting as a private, he rose through the ranks and was doing anti-terrorist ops in the Philippines before Desert Storm. Moved from jungle to desert, while assaulting Kafji he found an Iraqi soldier desperately holding a tourniquet around the remains of his arm. He gave first aid to the wounded man but the encounter was more profound than he knew and later he realized something was lost that day. He resigned with his honors and is now a doctor.

Finally, there is one I didn’t know: Lance Corporal Cody R. Stanley of Rosanky TX who fell in Helmand Province, Afghanistan last month. In the USMC young men are given big responsibilities and LCpl Stanley clearly met the expectations of his seniors. His obituary describes a fellow who “ . . . did all the things country boys love to do . . .” and one of the pictures shows a cheerful fellow in a straw cowboy hat. But beside it, in marked transformation, is a young Marine in dress uniform, serious and looking straight into the camera. This is no longer a country boy—this is a man, the man we lost in Helmand.

So today–please–remember him and countless others who have stepped up to the line for the rest of us since 1775—we owe them at least that much. Happy Birthday, USMC—Semper Fi!

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:37 am 43. Lifeofthemind:

Not a Leatherneck but I did drive the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) so that should make me a Devil Dog.
Happy Birthday to all and theirs.

For those who want a good under noticed anti-war film I recommend Sidney Lumet’s The Hill (1965), starring Sean Connery.

Both versions of Henry V are worth watching and Battleground was brilliant. When I was at OCS the Chaplain who gave us the lecture on their role specifically disavowed the idea that they would preside over services for another faith.

The biopic of Spig Weed was The Wings of Eagles
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051198/

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:45 am 44. Batman:

Many great films have been mentioned. May I add Soldier of Orange as another fine war film (even though it doesn’t emphasize battle action)?

And the point about frame reference is on point. An 85% fatality rate for disease XYZ refers to large groups. Whatever happens to you is 100%. 85% of the group will have a 100% death outcome, and 15% will have a 100% survival rate.

Should we require some basic math for Congress?

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:59 am 45. JD:

LOTM: I should think your service aboard the BW would certainly qualify you as a “Devil Dog”, it being the mascot of that heritage rich ship.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Bwbigdawg.png

And I must correct my previous comment. Widmark I believe actually carried an M1. Vic Morrow had the Thompson.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:07 am 46. Josh:

Nobody has mentioned the movie Patton?

It’s not about the war so much, *as* the frame.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:11 am 47. NahnCee:

Two Questions and a Comment:

1. RE: the drug mule, would the kind of dope involved make any difference? A pound of marijuana would not be the moral equivalent of a pound of heroin, for example, and therefore a marijuana mule might should receive a lighter sentence.

2. Do we see Westerns as being a totally different genre than war movies, or is it the same kind of story told 150 years earlier? In the lists cited above I see a couple of titles that I think of as Westerns (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon) but a movie like “The Searchers” or “Liberty Valance” doesn’t have the same frame of reference as “Private Ryan” or “A Bridge Too Far”.

But on the third hand, you could see Butch and Sundance fitting in very comfortably with the Dirty Dozen or going after those Guns of Navarone. And “The 300″ is very definitely a war movie, despite the lack of guns.

So in Wretchard’s initial reference what is the frame we are
referring to when we classify something as a “war movie”?

Comment to REalist in #12: I think Wretchard just gets bored with the comments and wants to move on. It’s his blog and his perogative. Deal with it.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:16 am 48. PA Cat:

Several BCers have already mentioned Henry V and The Longest Day. I’d add Victory at Sea (1952-53), which was a 13-hour TV documentary with music by Richard Rodgers; and Sink the Bismarck! (1960). The actor who portrays the captain of the Prince of Wales in this film had been a gunnery officer aboard the real battleship and had been severely wounded during the engagement with the Bismarck.

And who can forget the charge of the 20th Maine in Gettysburg (1993)? That film was particularly interesting, IMO, for its stress on freedom (as in Joshua Chamberlain’s speech to the mutineers) and its ability to showcase the bravery of the Union soldiers without demonizing the Confederates.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:16 am 49. E. Nigma:

Lynndh @ 21:

You are thinking of “On Wings of Eagles”, directed by John Ford.
Ward Bond appears in the movie as “John Dodge” (heh), apparently playing Ford himself in his movie about Wead.

Ford was a Navy man who thought the world of Frank “Spig” Wead, and this movie about him was a labor of love, as he recalled it.

A few other favorites, for no particular reason:

“Run Silent, Run Deep”, from the novel by Edward Beach, a historic Naval submariner himself.

“The Bridges at Toko-Ri”, from the novel by James Michener. Perhaps Habu can tell us the true incidents that the story was actually based in (from the Korean War).

General Carl sounds like he was one tremendous Marine. Semper Fi!

The classic “Dawn Patrol”, which I was as a kid +40 years ago.

My late father always liked “Mr. Roberts”, because the character that Jimmy Cagney played reminded him of one of his own CO’s in WWII; a real jerk. John Ford directed that movie, too.

“I Bombed Pearl Harbor” was another movie I saw as a kid about the first six months of WWII from the Japanese perspective, ending with the Japanese defeat at Midway. It was actually pretty good, although it was dubbed into English, with probably a modified title. The last part of the movie showed the confusion of the Japanese command at Midway, in alternating between a ground attack on Miday and an air strike against the US Navy.

Along with “12 O’Clock High” is another old movie, “Command Decision”, with Walter Pidgeon and Clark Gable. I once knew a few men who were in the
“Mighty” 8th AAF, but I think they are all dead now.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:17 am 50. Sylvia:

What film has Victory at Sea as the soundtrack? Used to watch that with my dad (USMC) and later played the tune in school orchestra. Still remember the cello part at letter G.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:25 am 51. Marie Claude:

there’s a pannel of WWII films

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_films

Not many films were made in France, except some with derision, such as the “Traversée de Paris” about nighty trafficants, about collaboration, “Lacombe Lucien”, about rapting Jews,”Aurevoir les z’enfants”, “Mr Klein”… “Is Paris burning” is the “epopopée” style of the liberation of Paris, almost alone.

Most of the Movies makers didn’t want to wake up some quarrels and their choice were more about treating people life under a comedy light

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:25 am 52. toad:

During the Viet Nam war the troops had to switch from jungle/open country fighting for combat in urban areas. There was a shortage of how to and FM’s on the subject. But some noted that in the TV show “Combat” showing on the bases, they were doing a fair amount of street clearing. Notes were taken and applied.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:29 am 53. PA Cat:

Do we see Westerns as being a totally different genre than war movies, or is it the same kind of story told 150 years earlier?

Interesting question. On one level at least some Westerns are war movies, partly because of the time frame involved (during or shortly after the Civil War and before 1900). But on another level they’re about exploring the unknown (like space travel movies) and bringing civilization as well as justice to the frontier. Westerns certainly served as a template for some of the GIs in WWII– the truck drivers of the 1944 “Red Ball Express” who carried supplies from France to Patton’s troops had to drive a route through parts of eastern France still infested with retreating Wehrmacht snipers. They referred to those areas as “Injun country.”

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:29 am 54. Gray Lensman:

Ah, frame of reference. Never seems to work in my favor. Go outside when it’s 85% chance of rain and everyone gets wet looking for that 15% dry spot.

By the way, I’ll watch Battleground anytime just for that end scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDQvYE8sbc8

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:40 am 55. E. Nigma:

Considering the Western as the American Morality play is one viewpoint.

Gene Roddenberry, who created “Star Trek” was also involved in the making/writing of the Western TV series “Paladdin: Have Gun Will Travel” starring Richard Boone in the early 60’s. The Western frequently embodied the American ethos and popular ideas of manhood, which might explain its demise in the ’70’s. Of course, cop shows and cop movies have replace the Western as that sort of vehicle, too.
Which is too bad, because the classic Western also embodied the beauty of the American West (something John Ford was conscious of in many of his westerns-using Monument Valley as a backdrop, for example). Cop shows generally seem to enjoy showing a masochistic ugliness in the settings of the shows, which I think also has profound and subconscious effect on the psyche of those watching it.

Maybe SF movies will be the new morality play in American movies, like “Serenity”? We could do worse (and have).

Perhaps Bogie Wheel can explain this better and more subtley???

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:47 am 56. RagnarD:

“Serenity” – Yeah, not really a war flick or even Earth based BUT deals with the ideas that corrupt leaders minds, iow, can we make man ‘better’. Liberty vs not-Liberty

Also, I hear that there is a project in the works for “Enders Game” – a basic treatise on the nature of humanity = what it takes to be classified as human.

And I have to mention “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” about the Doolittle raid. That story is one to inspire.

Others mention a lot of the ‘good’ war movies.

bogie @ 13:

Were there Indians who claimed and were treated as members of sovereign nations, i.e. not United States citizens?

Yes. That fact has become quite muddied in recent years.

hdgreene @ 11:

I don’t watch it myself because the math they use confuses me…

Best way I can put this is that mathematics is just another language used to talk about ideas. Learn math and you are learning the language. Mathematics is closely akin to logic and uses the same constructs for the most part.

habu @ 16:

* Fort Apache ..if we ever screwed any group it was the Indians

Good movie, but you trend to PC here? I say BS. The real history is the natives declared war and they LOST. TFB. Since then they have played their sanction as the victim into lots and lots of goodies at the expense of the winners. The latest are just the gaming compacts which do nothing but serve to legitimize activities the individual states deem illegal as legal under Federal protection. Sorry, they want it both ways and it really, REALLY s-cks.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:52 am 57. Habu:

Ok, it appears I must be the skunk at the picnic.

Steering a boat, living next to, knowing, or simply respecting the men and women who are active duty or have served in the Corps in no way entitles one to make any claim in any way of “being a Marine”

There is only one way you can become a U.S. Marine and that is by joining and serving in the Corps. All other claims cheapen the service of those who have gone into the Corp, many giving their last full measure to this country wearing the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

As fine a writer, as fine a gentleman LOTM is, he did not serve in the Corps and is not entitle to wear the mantle of U.S. Marine nor use one of its well known sobriquet’s alluding to the fact that he did. Nor does an endorsement by another to the claim add any legitimacy to that claim.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:07 pm 58. Habu:

56. RagnarD

Why don’t you list for me the number of traties we made with the various Indian tribes only to break them when it became convenient to do so?

I believe it will dampen the ardore you have for believing the American indian tribes received fair and honorable treatment by the United States during it’s drive for manifesy destiny.

I look forward to the list.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:13 pm 59. Josh:

The real history is the natives [American Indians] declared war and they LOST.

Goodness, we don’t even let them have their own names, we paint them with the names of an Italian mapmaker, an ancient country on the far side of the Earth, and the Europeans’ 12,000 mile mistake.

The Indians (sic) were beaten more by smallpox and whiskey than any decision they or we made. To population pressures and European technology. Let’s say they had little choice and little chance, and neither side was consistently honorable.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:20 pm 60. KareninPA:

Gettysburg, yes! And Gods and Generals. How could I have forgotten to mention them? It was the frame that did it. The discussion went from World War II movies, to all war movies. And for me I guess the frame of those two wonderful films is “Civil War” rather than “war movies.”

And how about Master and Commander, a great movie based on the Patrick O’Brian books, set during the Napoleonic wars. Russell Crowe’s characterization of Captain Jack Aubrey shows you a lot about leadership.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:22 pm 61. Sylvia:

48/PAC. Oh, duh, Victory at Sea *was* the film. Thanks — I was awfully young and soon after that we replaced Great-grandmother’s old B&W TV with books and a piano.

As for the frame topic, one of my friends was the first to survive a new form of chemo (met. melanoma). It was a leap of faith. She’s doing well, though she had to have cobalt-60 gamma knife brain surgery for more of the little tumors a few years after chemo. I’m so proud of her — she worked right through it, has been an excellent mother and wife, and is active in her church and community. As I’ve posted before, each day I live alters the lifespan/survival statistics for ocular melanoma. The health care death panel concept doesn’t do much for my peace of mind.

10/LOTM. “The size of the frame should depend on the consequences of error.” Nice! Good topic for my walk with DD today. Thanks.

Context/frame is as key to a story as the plot. When DD was in her hot pink Barbie phase and in speech therapy we taught her about context. She learned to build a story, to give us reference points, who-where-when-what-why!, so we could decipher the babble.

58/Habu. I agree.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:27 pm 62. RWE:

The film “Robin Hood” figured in one of my favorite movies, made in the late 80’s, “The Rocketeer.” The star of a film being made that was recognizably “Robin Hood” was the bad guy in The Rocketeer. When I saw this I was stunned, since it came on the heels of a book that claimed that Errol Flynn was a Nazi sympathizer. In any case, everyone in that film was perfect for the role.

Of course just prior to the film being made I was flying from the airfield where they filmed The Rocketeer and was launching rockets 20 miles away, so I have a special reason to like it.

Kelly’s Heroes is my favorite war movie. Well done and probably more accurate in many respects than many others. The details, even for very brief background shots, were incredible. I still wonder if those were real Tigers; they sure looked it.

The movie “Battle of Britain” is also tops, much better than most of the other big-budget war films of that era.

For WWII period war films “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” is my favorite.

Wretchard: I think the way to handle the problem is to estimate what percentage of the time he took the drugs through during each “marketing” period and then use those percentages times the estimated loads for each period. Don’t pick one frame but use all of them.

Habu: A book for you if you have not read it, “Semper Fi in The Sky” about Marine air battles in WWII. The fighter pilot experience is covered quite well, but I found some of the Marine dive bomber missions to be very impressive.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:35 pm 63. Subotai Bahadur:

56. RagnarD

I respectfully differ on the treatment of Indians [or Native Americans in case PC people are about]. Yes they lost. And I admit that I am both glad they lost, and I see the inevitability of it. Any time an aboriginal culture meets an expansive culture that is “civilized” [as in complex enough to have cities and surplus resources to devote full time to warfare], the aboriginals get stomped. It happens, and may happen again [little green men anyone? *smile*]. However, their military defeat was generations ago.

They are, if anyone is, Americans. They became literal wards of the state. If we can rebuild foreign adversaries who we have defeated, we certainly have responsibilities to those here. I am not advocating a Marshal Plan. Just that the Federales get out of the way. The Federal government and the BIA are terrified that there will eventually be enough educated Indians who can end the very profitable “stewardship” of tribal resources.

In my youth, shortly after we had chased the mastadons from the Front Range of Colorado, I went to college at CU-Boulder. I was involved with the Asian American Educational Opportunities Program [we Asians really did not need it, but Uncle Sam was dropping money out of the sky. I was making $8.50 an hour as a part time tutor and counselor, which was real good money in those days]. When I was not trying to translate political science concepts into pidgin English/Mandarin/Cantonese; like many of us I was involved in helping the brand new Native American EOP program. They had absolutely no one to help them amongst their own people, because of the lack of college educated Native Americans. They were the first generation to aspire to college in any numbers.

We had an ongoing war with the BIA. They would routinely threaten to cut off food or medical aid to reservation families with their kids in college; unless of course the kid dropped out. The head of their program [a freshman Yakima from Washington] was committed to a mental hospital by the BIA the moment he set foot on the reservation going home on Spring Break. When he did not come back to school, we found out what had happened and had to send a lawyer to spring him. No, he was not crazy, just a political prisoner.

Reservation Indians have horrendous problems. They are economic, cultural, and in large part self-inflicted. They are exacerbated by deliberate government policies. I just want the government to stop making things worse. Once a sufficient critical mass of Indians become educated and professionals [lawyers, doctors, etc.] they will be able to take care of themselves. YMMV. I grant also a large level of corruption in tribal governments. No one side has all the virtue, or all the faults.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:39 pm 64. RWE:

By the way, a bit of trivia my next door neighbor told me; he flew B-25’s in WWII and his squadron commander was one of the Doolittle Raid pilots.

An almost forgotten WWII film, “A Guy Named Joe” starring Spencer Tracey, Van Johnson, and Irene Dunn, had some interesting people working as “Extras” in it: the actual Doolittle Raid aircrews before they went on the mission.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:49 pm 65. JD:

As a Marine myself I don’t have issue with the USS BW having the Devil Dog as a mascot. LOTM stated he was not a Leatherneck and I took his reference to Devil Dog as referring to the mascot of his ship. Nothing more nothing less.

I well know what a Marine is and is not.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:56 pm 66. Rock:

@55. E. Nigma

Gene Roddenberry developed an interest in aeronautical engineering and subsequently obtained a pilot’s license. In 1941 he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, which in the same year became the United States Army Air Force. He flew combat missions in the Pacific Theater with the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Wing of the Thirteenth Air Force and on 2 August 1943, Roddenberry was piloting a B-17E Flying Fortress nicknamed the “Yankee Doodle”, from Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides when mechanical failure caused it to crash on take-off. In total he flew eight-nine missions for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal; he also received the World War II Victory Medal before leaving the Air Force in 1945

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:56 pm 67. Josh:

OT, or maybe not.
Abbas Won’t Seek Re-Election in Threat to Peace Efforts

“It’s time for you to find another donkey.” With those words, according to Palestinian sources, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas told the Palestine Liberation Organziation (PLO) executive committee that he would not seek re-election in January.

As title suggests, Time mag then goes on to say this is all about the Obama administration’s peace efforts – as if the parties involved were not the primary players.

Talk about your frame shifting!

I’ve always thought Abbas was a prisoner of his environment, I have no idea what his personal preferences have ever been, but the Israelis seemed to place some trust in him personally, … for all the good that has done them.

Nov 8, 2009 - 12:58 pm 68. sirius_sir:

Some others to consider:
“The Bridge over the River Kwai” (The transformation of Shears, especially)
“Braveheart”
“Gone with the Wind”

marymcl @ 41, re Spielberg’s “PC mindset”–consider all the lessons revolving around the surrender and release of the German machine-gunner, Steamboat Willie. Consider what happens later and who ends up killing him–with no thought of further mercy. I take that as a very un-PC lesson, made none-too-subtly. I’m surprised more people haven’t noted it.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:01 pm 69. geoffgo:

Being a VN era vet, I liked We Were Soldiers.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:10 pm 70. sirius_sir:

If, as someone noted above, Spielberg relates especially to the character of Upham, that’s also telling.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:12 pm 71. Habu:

62. RWE
I have not read the book you referenced but I have read “A History of Marine Corps Aviation in WWII”

I grew up knowing most of those aviators and lived two doors down from “Pappy Boyington” when we were based at MCAS El Toro. Of the living and still serving top 15 Marine ‘aces” I personally knew them all, hunted with some and played golf with others. I’ve already mentioned MajGen Marion Carl, the first Marine ace in the Corps history. Great,great men. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the book, thanks.

Prior to Top Gun there was an event held called the Naval Air Weapons Meet at El Centro ,Ca. In 1958 my faher’s squardon had won the CNO’s award for the top Marine attack squadron, VMA-311. But for a hung bomb the meet would have been theirs. My father won the top award for strafing.

Simultaneous with this side event, VMA-311 flying A-4 Skyhawks, a new airplane at that time, was secretly working on delivery of the atomic bomb. Under my father’s command the sqaudron perfected the “loft” bombing technique and for a time was the only Marine sqaudron with atomic bomb delivery capability.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:14 pm 72. Lifeofthemind:

Habu,
Been out with the beast so I am late noticing your comment.

The identifier and mascot were clearly identified with a ship that was sunk to soon off of Hawaii and with the crew that were routinely so identified. More to the point my comment clearly made the important distinction that is understandably important to you and was associayed with the messages of praise and respect for your father and all either who served in the Corps or who were connected to those who did. If it failed to do so a private email would have been welcome. Sometimes the most important thing to do with an outstretched hand is to shake it.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:34 pm 73. Konyok:

I absolutely agree with LOTM@10 and Subotai@35. Legal *truth* is different than mathematic *truth* is different than scientific *truth* is different than spiritual *truth.* In the United States evidence must be empirical and specific to the case at hand (legal precedents are another matter). Statistical extrapolations in criminal cases would utterly destroy individual rights – all the prosecutor would need to demonstrate is the defendent’s probability of committing a crime. An approach commonly used by Soviet courts engaged in “social prophylaxis.”

The very word “frame” sends shivers up my spine, I can’t help but think of it as a poststructural/postmodern weasel word.

See this wiki for a taste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)

In this case Wretchard seems to be trying to marry a relatively non-controversial concept of “framing” with the definition of a statistical population. The nexus between estimating the mule’s load and the best war movie is the aesthetic expectation of the observer.

This conversation is related to the last thread – Hasan is muslim, Hasan made islamist statements on various occasions. Are there enough data points demanding a reasonable extrapolation that Hasan was an imminent threat? (I know the posters here will respond with a resounding YES!) Can an algorithm be devised to detect Major Hasan based on robust mathematics without subjective input? Perhaps one of the most serious casualties of PC is the legendary policeman’s hunch – on one hand we must not profile, but on the other hand we seek refuge in “zero tolerance” laws criminalizing six year olds carrying cub scout knives.

Similarly, much of the science supporting AGW consists of esoteric mathematics in service of aesthetic expectations. The same can be said for Affirmative Action, Wage Parity and myriad other enthusiasms of the left dressed up in statistical garments.

Nov 8, 2009 - 1:41 pm 74. bogie wheel:

Nahncee –

To add to what others have said:

The Western is about Civilization vs. The Frontier. In the classic Westerns, civilization was viewed as being a good thing, and the characters who represented or supported the advancement of civilization were the “good guys” (or gals). The frontier was beautiful but dangerous; and while it birthed rugged individuals, its lawlessness was not desirable as a perpetual state. The frontier had to be tamed.

Modern Westerns reversed that hierarchy of values by cherishing the frontier over civilization. Society was portrayed as either weak or corrupt (frequently both), and the truly honorable & admirable characters were those who represented the frontier.

“Butch and Sundance” is a quintessential modern Western. The outlaws (literally, the guys who are outside of civilization) are the good guys, and the lawmen & townsfolk are yahoos. The scene in which the marshal is trying to enlist a bunch of townsfolk to posse up after Butch & Sundance is a condensed, humorous version of Gary Cooper in “High Noon.” In “Butch” the marshal’s effort (futile, like Cooper’s) is taken over by a bicycle salesman … the movie’s commentary on modern America being the land of the BOGO … no more giants, just a bunch of PT Barnums.

Westerns and war movies may intersect in certain ways but they are two distinct genres. As somebody mentioned, urban crime movies (cops & robbers) are the natural descendant of the Western. The primary theme or focus is law vs. lawlessness … basically, another iteration of civilization vs. frontier.

This would include a movie like “Gran Torino.” Clint Eastwood (playing the “native American” in this story, heh) lives in a neighborhood that has gone from civilization back to frontier. Estranged from his own children and grandchildren, who have moved to other more inhabitable parts of the city, Eastwood’s character finds one teachable Hmong teenager and proceeds to “civilize” him. It’s not that the Hmongs don’t have a culture so much as the aspects of the culture that we see (cooking, gardening) are practiced & transmitted through the women. The young men are lawless gangbangers. Which makes rescuing this one teenager and civilizing him of paramount importance. Building, fixing, and enforcing law & order are the manly, civilized virtues acc. to this film.

I found it interesting that a movie like GT, which generated pretty positive reviews and a lot of discussion, resonated as it did precisely because it had its finger on the pulse of what concerns a lot of Americans … that our civilization is slipping away. Someone (don’t know who, only that Instapundit quoted them) also wrote a comment to the effect that, “It says something sad about this country when the toughest guy in American movies is 78 years old.”

Nov 8, 2009 - 2:20 pm 75. exdem13:

Another great post, Richard. I can endorse your point on statistical truth/proof being dependent on how you get the sampling done. Unfortunately these days there is a lot of massaging of the data being done before the report gets compiled and submitted for approval. At least your companions were being serious about building up their data frame. There are a lot of polls whose results we are supposed to accept as 100% accurate, but the associated frame is skewed, to say the least. Which can lead to doubts as to whether the framed data is reliable, or just nifty spin with pretty graphics.

As for the movies, the Adventures of Robin Hood is still a fun film. I haved watched it on regular & cable TV for years, and the general depiction of upright men shabbily treated and turning the tables on their oppressors is a story that will never go out of style. The first-rate story-telling and robust performance by a cast who are obviously having a good time makes it a classic for the ages. I haven’t seen The Halls of Montezuma, but I will keep an eye out for it on AMC or TCM in the future.

I always thought the final payoff of Saving Private Ryan was the aged Ryan asking at the captain’s grave if his saved life had been good enough. All those good men had died to enable him to complete his mission and go home to live the life they had been denied. That made the cost of victory and survivor guilt a real feeling for me. (I never served, so the experience will always be at best second-hand for me.) Although the Omaha Beach scene has earned war movie hall of fame status, I was equally if not more so drawn into the desperate battle to hold the bridge, with so much at stake. At that point, saving Private Ryan involved a lot more than the safety of 1 man.

Nov 8, 2009 - 2:40 pm 76. exhelodrvr:

Bridges at Toko-Ri

Helicopters and Mickey ROoney – you can’t beat that!!

Nov 8, 2009 - 2:44 pm 77. NahnCee:

“The Western is about Civilization vs. The Frontier. In the classic Westerns, civilization was viewed as being a good thing, and the characters who represented or supported the advancement of civilization were the “good guys” (or gals). The frontier was beautiful but dangerous; and while it birthed rugged individuals, its lawlessness was not desirable as a perpetual state. The frontier had to be tamed.”

Good.

So then … we do not consider the Nazi’s and Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor as being two different frontiers that desperately needed to be tamed. And were ultimately tamed in the very same way as Dodge was tamed in the Wild West.

(I thought Gran Torino was a comment on the use of tricky white man’s law to overcome and stamp out backwards uncivilized brown man’s lack of legal education and dependence upon guns and violence.)

Nov 8, 2009 - 2:44 pm 78. TANSTAAFLunch:

Speaking of war films from the 60’s, I’d add The Devil’s Brigade.

Re: Spielberg/Pvt.Ryan – I’d read that Spielberg intended the whole audience to be Upham. I think he was aiming for the modern audience’s complacency and show the need to fight when in battle (given that everyone pretty much has the same negative reaction to Upham – I have to think that had to be intentional on Spielberg’s part).

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:15 pm 79. peterike:

“All Quiet on the Western Front.”

“The Great Escape.”

A film on the fringes of war: “The Tin Drum.”

War in a very different time and place: “Ran.”

And I don’t know if it qualifies as a “war” film exactly, but “Spartacus.”

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:41 pm 80. bogie wheel:

So then … we do not consider the Nazi’s and Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor as being two different frontiers that desperately needed to be tamed. And were ultimately tamed in the very same way as Dodge was tamed in the Wild West.

No. People are not frontiers. Only physical spaces are frontiers. And you only tame what you inhabit or intend to inhabit.

War movies, broadly speaking, tend to be about defending an already established civilization. Westerns are more primitive than that. They are about establishing the civilization to begin with.

As I said, the genres have intersections (barbarian hordes, fer instance) but the fundamental premises are different.

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:41 pm 81. PA Cat:

One interesting development about movie framing is the reciprocal interaction between movies and the wider culture since the coming of YouTube. Maybe the best example is Der Untergang, a 2004 German film about Hitler’s last days. When the movie was released, there was a lot of discussion in the German-language media as to whether the film went too far in humanizing Hitler (i.e. used the wrong “frame”)– but other critics remarked that portraying Hitler as recognizably human (albeit a detestable specimen of humankind) was effective in that it reminded viewers that it was the German people who exalted Hitler to superhuman status, not any heroic qualities that he actually possessed. So these writers found the film’s framing a positive feature.

Der Untergang’s influence on popular culture is evident in the number of YouTube parodies that use Hitler’s ranting scene (when he realizes the war is lost) to frame recent events– everything from Hillary’s loss of the Democratic nomination in 2008 to Obama’s futile trip to Copenhagen to Brett Favre’s downfall.

Here’s the Hillary version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Ky1_pyn6Q

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:54 pm 82. RagnarD:

Habu – I am puzzled. You would say this about Maj. Hasan and Muslims:

They will never integrate with western culture. They are trying to destroy it. …. Kill them before they destroy us.

but you chose to let the PC world infect your view of Indians/Native Americans? There seems to be some cognitive dissonance here. How many treaties were broken with Muslims? I am just arguing the point here, btw. The Muslim world seems to think the west is completely disingenuous vis-a-vis contact with Western culture.

I have lived my life amongst the pueblos on the Rio Grande and the Apache tribes of the SW. They do just fine and really feel, for the most part, that they do not need to white man’s help or consideration.

My point is that I believe you are applying The Sanction of the Victim to one group of people but not another. This is inconsistent. Either we are all the same or not. We sanction victims or refuse to. Me, I refuse to.

…. “the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the ’sin’ of creating values.”

And no, I am not going to supply the list of broken treaties, do it yourself. That is just a cheap rhetorical trick applied to dismiss the discussion of the issues with someone considered inferior.

Oh, and I never said anything remotely like this:

….received fair and honorable treatment by the United States during it’s drive for manifesy destiny.

The losers of a war never do feel that way. The only society that has ever even attempted to treat the vanquished somewhat fairly? The US.

Nov 8, 2009 - 3:55 pm 83. small goverment:

The Plains Indians before the end of the Civil War were among the most free people that ever lived. This was their undoing. They couln’t organize. They still would have lost but they might have gotten better deal.

“The whites may get me at last but I will have good times till then. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon some hardtack and a little sugar and coffee.”
Sitting Bull on entitlements

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:03 pm 84. JMH:

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance here. How many treaties were broken with Muslims? I am just arguing the point here, btw. The Muslim world seems to think the west is completely disingenuous vis-a-vis contact with Western culture.

I don’t know of any treaties the US has broken with Muslim countries. Such may exist, I’m just not aware of it. And keep in mind, there is a segment of Islam (how large? Dunno.) that teaches Muslims are not required to abide by treaties with infidels.

Amerindian tribes are not a monolithic culture. Different tribes were different, but in general, there wasn’t much oath-breaking on their part, but the US Government did break many, many treaties with the Tribes. It’s not something to be proud of, though I’m not sure we shouldn’t just go the rest of the way and abrogate the remaining treaties.

The current situation with native tribes in the US is terrible. The Reservation system is just about the worst example of keeping people on the plantation we have. I know tribe members who raised their kids without any contact with aunts, uncles and cousins who still lived on the Reservation because they did not want their children exposed at all to the degenerate culture there that is nothing but a rump culture, not indicative of their real pre-Columbian culture, rather the result of BIA molding like Subotai mentions.

The rise of Indian Gaming is another perversion, one that conveniently funnels campaign cash to the politicians who enable the system. And of course, there are the occasional “new” tribes fabricated in order to build a casino. In the western states, we also have massive fisheries problems introduced by belated attempts to enforce certain treaty provisions giving native tribes half the fish and shellfish.

Our forefathers most certainly broke treaties with the native tribes. That is historical fact, not PC nonsense. What is PC nonsense is the whole “Moral Superiority of the Noble Savage” crap that fakes like Ward Churchill try to tap into. Plus, past injustices acknowledged, I’m not sure if there’s any net good to come from pretending to belatedly enforce the treaties today.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:17 pm 85. Habu:

LOTM.

Succinctly, you were what Marines refer to as a squid on a ship named after a famous battle the US Marines won.

But you are a clever man parsing your statement in the finest clintonian fashion.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:30 pm 86. Habu:

82. RagnarD

Listing the broken treaties too large a task for ya ,huh?

Also in point of fact we have always treated different countries and people in different ways. Usually it falls under the rubric of diplomacy. There is little doubt that overall our diplomacy with the native American indian was duplicitious from it’s very inception.

The Corps of Discovery encountered both hostile and friendly tribes. Over the following decades we gathered them all up and enslaved or killed them.

Since all analogies are false I will not deign to explain to you the difference between our treatment of the various indian tribes and islam .. certainly if you can’t , or won’t attempt to educate yourself on the number of treaties we broke with the indian tribes any attempt at a discussion of islams hostility to ALL other philosophies would be impossible

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:44 pm 87. Habu:

A few other good ones.

Inherit the Wind
On the Beach

I understand obama is a big fan of: Triumph of the Will

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:50 pm 88. Lifeofthemind:

John Ford made Cheyenne Autumn as his statement on the mistreatment of the Indians. While I have no idea what Richard Widmark’s personal beliefs are his character merges the disciplined ethics of a good army officer with the sensitivity of a man who hates injustice.

Nov 8, 2009 - 4:53 pm 89. jsallison:

RWE:

The ‘Tigers’ of Kelly’s Heroes were actually T-34’s that’d had some serious body work done on them. Check the track shoes, non-interleaved suspension, and positioning of the turret (too far forward for a tiger). I give them credit for the camouflage, though. Most flicks of the period just stuck black crosses on M47’s (Battle of the Bulge) or M48’s (Patton) and called it good. And Oddball was a tanker’s tanker. Woofwoof.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:07 pm 90. Josh:

The Muslim world seems to think the west is completely disingenuous vis-a-vis contact with Western culture.

That’s just seething and whining, they have no valid argument, but complaining and insult are cultural art forms for them, in case you haven’t noticed, not to mention outright lying to the kafir, which is sanctioned, and lying to themselves, which I guess they just do out of tradition.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:21 pm 91. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn:

Timely, as it pertains to the Berlin Wall.

John le Carre

Any film adaptation will do. The Great Game is timeless.

As general interest…

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/ori-deb/debuts4-eng.htm

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:26 pm 92. Lifeofthemind:

Josh,
complaining and insult are cultural art forms ,,, not to mention outright lying
Just thought of a reality TV idea for a Middle East network. Taqqiya House. The contestants all compete to see who can tell the most creative, outlandish, abusive and successful lies to achieve fame fortune and power. They are followed on their adventures by hidden camera. The winner gets a graft ready job in the host countries Ministry for Industrial Development to the cheers of their entire clan.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:31 pm 93. JFSanders031:

Habu, check yourself my friend. You are way overreacting to something that is not changeable nor is it important to tomorrow. The man was not trying to paint himself as a Marine. And by making churlish comments you do harm to your father’s memory. Be the better man.

As for the native Americans. I am of the opinion that we are all in the same boat and have the same end. Therefore we are to play by the same rules. I believe the words are:

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.

Not some of us or many of us or those who were here first are more equal than the others.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:32 pm 94. RWE:

Jsallison # 89:

Thanks for the info. The turrets did look too far forward but I thought the wheels looked pretty good. I doubted they were real Tigers, but could not figure out what else they might be. It makes sense that they were T-34’s, given that the movie was filmed in Yugoslavia. They were certainly the most realistic Tigers I have seen in a movie – Pattons just don’t cut it.

I found out recently that locally there is one of the largest private armored combat vehicle collections in the world. And I wish I had gotten together a team of enthusiasts and rescued that M-60 they had in the scrap yard up on the Cape in the 90’s.

Anyway, so the Kelly’s Heroes’ Tigers were not real. Bummer! You put out some negative waves, man!

Here is a question for all y’all” Name two war movies that featured an M3 Medium tank.

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:48 pm 95. Ammo Guy:

Does anyone remember the 1953 movie with Richard Burton about the siege at Tobruk? It was called “The Desert Rats” and, though it has been years since I’ve seen it, I remember it as a smashingly good war movie – check it out, but don’t tell me it has not stood the test of time, please leave me with my memories…faulty as they may be.
I also very much enjoyed a more recent movie that our gracious host may have found hits close to home: “The Great Raid.”

Nov 8, 2009 - 5:54 pm 96. Dr. Sanity:

My favorite WWII movie of all time is Where Eagles Dare, a 1968 movie with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. I also used to watch all the movies about the US Marines (like many of the ones already mentioned) since my Dad was a Marine and served in the war. He used to tell me and my brother the most exciting and frightening stories of his time on Iwo Jima.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:13 pm 97. twobyfour:

I’ve seen many WWII movies as a kid, but mostly Russian and Czech. Some good–there was an epic series about Great Patriotic War (what Russians call their side of WWII) and it was rather a decent 12 hour series. Most stuff, though was with some commie slant, one way or another. Some Polish and GDR stuff was pretty bad, with immortal heroes defying all odds.

But, from time to time, something got through, like Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Guns of Navarrone, Remagen Bridge (that was actually filmed partially in Czechoslovakia) during the Prague Spring in 1968.

Later they let through some flicks that were either apolitical or had some anti-US slant, like 3 Days of Condor, or Station WUSA. That one was funny, I remember a scene where some journo visited a poor woman as he did some article on American poor and had a checklist … stereo-yes, TV-yes 2, fridge-yes, car-yes… My friend said quite loudly: “I want to be poor in America!” And the whole theater laughed, almost hysterically.

Kurosawa’s Ran someone mentioned… a great flick!

Firefly series and Serenity — I can watch over an over.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:26 pm 98. Subotai Bahadur:

#94 RWE

My favorite movie tank story involves “The Bridge at Remagen”. It was filmed in then Davle,Czechoslovakia, right at the time of the 1968 Russian invasion. Some BC-ers may know of the Russian defector “Viktor Suvorov” who came over from the GRU, and later wrote several books covering his career. Before he went Spetznaz, he was a junior officer in a Motor Rifle Division. They were part of the invasion. When their armored column reached Davle, everything came to a screeching. As they came over a hill, they saw line upon line of American tanks with the white star very visible. There were panicked calls to the Division HQ, and from there to STAVKA. “You told us that the Americans would not intervene! Their army is right in front of us!”.

What it was, was the movie’s tank park. As the invasion started, the cast and crew had bailed post haste and left them behind. It took a little time for it to be sorted out.

You can figure that Wolper Pictures did more to effectively defend Czechoslovakia from Russian invasion than NATO.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:28 pm 99. twobyfour:

Subotai, hehe, did not know about that funny tidbit. Thanks!

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:37 pm 100. NahnCee:

Russians afraid of Americans? Do tell.

Nov 8, 2009 - 6:42 pm 101. RWE:

Subotai:

That is a good story! I had not heard that one.

I recall seeing pictures where some Japanese Neptune anti-sub aircraft paid a visit to Hawaii during the filming of Tora Tora Tora and the crews were more than a bit surprised to find themselves surrounded by Zeros, Vals and Kates when they landed.

When a TV show about an airliner being intercepted by a Soviet fighter was being filmed off the Calif coast they used a DeHaviland Vampire with red stars and fake missiles as the fighter. On the way back the Vampire had radio failure and got intercepted. Fortunately, everyone stayed calm and it turned out Okay.

The same thing happened during the filming of Air Force One. The 747 they were using got intercepted, and the fighter pilots reported “You’ll never guess what the bogie is! And someone has shot it full of holes!”

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:17 pm 102. Subotai Bahadur:

#100 NahnCee

It was the sudden appearance outside the character of what they expected that put their pucker factor into territory measured by the Mohs Hardness Scale. The appearance of a significant American armored force 16 miles south of Prague has inplications of an even more significant force behind it. And air cover. And the presence of that many American troops deep in Warsaw Pact territory carries the implication of nuclear back up. Remember, Nixon was president. They thought they had him figured out, but what if they were wrong?

If you are a devout Marxist-Leninist, you believe that the Party has everything figured out and plans for all contingencies without fail. The sudden appearance of American tanks was a боже мой moment. It took a while to figure out that they were unmanned.

Sadly, enjoying the discomfiture of some Russian troops having to suddenly change their pants is about the only good thing that happened for our side that day.

Subotai Bahadur

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:19 pm 103. twobyfour:

Some more WWII:

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Catch-22
Operation Daybreak
Tora! Tora! Tora!

Extensive list of WWII movies here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_films

Nov 8, 2009 - 7:21 pm 104. rickl:

81. PA Cat:

The Der Untergang parodies have become an internet tradition almost as popular as lolcats. There must be scores of them by now. I just found this one about Oktoberfest. Somebody ought to make a list of all of them.

I’d really like to see the actual movie. It sounds pretty good, although at this point I would probably end up laughing at the pivotal scene.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:15 pm 105. Charles:

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem

In 1931, the Czech-born mathematician Kurt Gödel demonstrated that within any given branch of mathematics, there would always be some propositions that couldn’t be proven either true or false using the rules and axioms … of that mathematical branch itself. You might be able to prove every conceivable statement about numbers within a system by going outside the system in order to come up with new rules and axioms, but by doing so you’ll only create a larger system with its own unprovable statements. The implication is that all logical system of any complexity are, by definition, incomplete; each of them contains, at any given time, more true statements than it can possibly prove according to its own defining set of rules.

Gödel’s Theorem has been used to argue that a computer can never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge is limited by a fixed set of axioms, whereas people can discover unexpected truths … It plays a part in modern linguistic theories, which emphasize the power of language to come up with new ways to express ideas. And it has been taken to imply that you’ll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself.
//////
That’s the quote. I also think Godel’s theorem suggests you can’t ultimately understand nature ie write the equation that perfectly describes nature — without reference to God or the uncaused (or perhaps unprovable) first cause.

Nov 8, 2009 - 8:38 pm 106. Wadeusaf:

The number of variables required to make even a reasonable mathematically based estimate about the worth of the mules load, makes the task incomprehensible. If only because a mule crossing numerous times using the same or a similar route while he will increase his understanding of the variables, will also increases the likelihood of being caught, or recognized, as well as displaying behaviors associated with the trade.

Each of these notions would factor into how much the mule is willing or able to carry, more with experience vs less due to increased odds of being caught. As there is no way of knowing the value of the stash, I would assume the greatest potential amount. Also as the mule has admitted to multiple crossings, I would consider adding on time for the value of each. If nothing else it will keep that mule off the beaten path, and with luck unable to collect for his successes or pay with his life some cartel for his failure.

it makes the answer easier to support and it also gives more incentive to work with authorities. Does the context of his story make any difference? Is he a willing participant? Are there negative consequences to failure that have not been brought to light.

I suppose the negative consequence of failure makes for a great deal of motivation. Even for otherwise nonviolent folks.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:01 pm 107. geoffb:

Many great war movies mentioned, I just want to add that I have always liked Das Boot and The Enemy Below. For tank scenes in a movie, the Russian attack in Cross of Iron is one I like to watch.

Nov 8, 2009 - 9:52 pm 108. visitor:

“Pork Chop Hill” is 100% accurate except the photographer did not volunteer to stay, he was trapped and not happy about it… so says my uncle who earned a Bronze Star on that hill.

ad to the list “Black Hawk Down” and “The Four Feathers”

Nov 8, 2009 - 10:52 pm 109. visitor:

Regarding Marine Corsairs in Korea…

It was said that any Marine who managed to down a Mig with his Corsair would be imediately shot down by his own wingman to prevent news of the arial victory from getting out. The Marines were always having to make do with outdated and cast off equipment and they feared if one of them downed a modern jet with an propeller driven fighter, they would never get jets.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:04 pm 110. Bob Murphy:

105. Charles
it has been taken to imply that you’ll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself.”
No wonder so many Asians think we are fools.
Slaves to chatter mind.
It would pay to keep a sense of humour about all that.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:17 pm 111. Dave:

geoffgo #69: Me Too. Thanks to Mel Gibson and Randall Wallace, we finally got a potrayal
of what we were really like up in the Central Highlands. Or as Joe Galloway put, it; “Hollywood finally got it right”.

No I was not at LZ X-Ray. But did have interesting times nearby. Plei Me, Duc Co, Cateka, Plei Do Lim, Plei M/Rong, Kontum,
Dak To, Dak Sut. The Oasis. And let us never forget
the immortal Titty Mountain. As Bob Hope noted, it was named after famed explorer Homer J. Titty, the first man to scale its Twin Peaks. (Highway 19B was the cleavage.)

So much for the first tour.

Somebody mentioned Kelly’s Heroes. Now that is a libertarian war movie. A study of the unforseen but enormous advantages to be gained when military personnel are free to seek adequate financial compensation for their patriotic efforts.

A good movie with the best typecasting ever done was “The Gallant Hours”. About the relief of Guadacanal. It starred James Cagney as Admiral William F. Halsey. Uncanny.

Best double entendre in a war movie: Lee Marvin in “The Big Red One”: “You just hold her head. I’ll take care of the pusay.”

And ANY movie featuring Kelly Johnson’s Cavalry will get my attention. (You know, the cavalry with the twin tail booms.)
(My natural father, who bought the farm a month before I was born, flew one.)

His unit: 548 confirmed. 88 probable. 227
damaged. 9 ships sunk. 126 locomotives destroyed along with assorted rolling stock.
And one Ploesti refinery. The record and what went into it is more amazing than any movie could be.

Marines used to call the P38 “The Flying Foxhole”. That is because they wanted one too.

Nov 8, 2009 - 11:55 pm 112. Jonathan Levy:

@32. Al_Batross:

And yet every single game I’ve seen reproducing the landing at Omaha Beach also uses one of
the big lies of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ – the huge tall concrete bunker from which the machine
guns fire.

There is no such bunker. There never was. I once spent a whole day touring Omaha beach.
All the bunkers on Omaha have openings facing along the beach, rather than out to sea.
Openings out to sea would be easy to identify and bombard from the destroyers and battleships.

And yet this bunker appears even in those games which pretend to be realistic, including ‘Medal of Honor’, and ‘Company of Heroes’.
It annoys me each time I see it.

Nov 9, 2009 - 12:16 am 113. presbypoet:

One of the great rules of life is a paradox.
“Learn what you don’t know.” The reason this is a profound paradox; you will never know what you don’t know. If you knew what you didn’t know, it wouldn’t be what you don’t know.

It may sound simple to say, “what I don’t know isn’t important, because I already know all the important stuff, so anything else is minor, and can be ignored.” That was the attitude of Cal-Trans with the San Francisco Bay Bridge when they patched a cracked beam Labor day weekend. When the patch failed, they closed the bridge down for a week, because they didn’t know what they didn’t know…

So we always need to live in the uncertainty of this paradox. Aware and mindful, ready to be reminded we don’t know what we don’t know. Just one of the five hundred paradoxes. Or is there only one paradox?

Nov 9, 2009 - 12:23 am 114. twobyfour:

presbypoet/113

42.

Nov 9, 2009 - 12:35 am 115. Dave:

presbypoet: Do not forget that if a widower with a PhD marries a (grass) widow with a PhD
at the same time his daughter with a PhD marries her new love who has a PhD, the resulting family unit is a “Double Pair O Docs”.

BTW: Glad the Bay Bridge only stayed closed one week. I remember 1989 Loma Prieta quake when
it took a good six months (I think) to fix it.

Nov 9, 2009 - 12:42 am 116. Karen Yvonne:

Visitor @108 – Agreed, “The Four Feathers,” one of my favorites too.

The previously mentioned “Zulu” and “Bridge on the River Kwai” are two that I always have to watch again every time they’re on. Another good one from 1950 based on a true story of a family imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, “Three Came Home.” Sessue Hayakawa portrays Col. Suga in this movie (reminiscent of his Col. Saito role in Br. on River Kwai) and a scene towards the end, where he learns his own family has perished at Hiroshima, is absolutely heartrending.

Nov 9, 2009 - 1:23 am 117. buddy larsen:

“A Bridge Too Far” was a great epic with enormous production value and great portrayals of the actual characters who were deep-interview by Cornelius Ryan for the eponymous book. “Band of Brothers” is top quality fimmaking also based on real characters in a real unit (a ranger company that was in damn near every famous fight from D Day +7 or so, on to the end), and at 15 or so hours of screen time (it used the tv serial form remember) it was able to slow down and portray the grinding waiting and marching, marching and waiting, in between short sharp fights that would focus on what happened right in front of E Company , say, around Christmas 1944, in a little town called “Bastogne”. If you wanted to know it was “The Battle of the Bulge” you had to find that info elswhere –the dogfaces sure weren’t talking about the Battle of the Bulge.

Nov 9, 2009 - 1:31 am 118. Bob Murphy:

100. NahnCee:
Russians afraid of Americans? Do tell.

I can think of several such occasions.
1.) Our development of reliable solid fuel ICBMs at a time Upper Volta with missiles just couldn’t do it. The result petrified them. It meant that if we did a first strike they would only be able to fuel and launch a total of about 6 ICBMs before we obliterated their bases. You see liquid fuelled ICBMs (as I understand it) could not sit on the pad “hot”. They had to be fuelled up shortly before launch.
The Soviets were petrified that if we found out about their weakness that they were stuffed. Of course the stupid paranoid bastards judged us by their own standards and just couldn’t figure out that we were simply not interested in doing so.
Their paranoia about their strategic weakness is what preciptitated their move to install IRBMs in Cuba because that was the only way they could redress their weakness.
2.) When they built the Berlin Wall they acknowledged that they were so second rate that they could not retain their best and brightest without incarceration. Having to build that wall and fortify the rest of the DDR border cast a pall on the Politburo they never recovered from.
3.) The development of computers, especially PCs. They just couldn’t compete with that with a system that was so paranoiac that they even required typewriters to be registered with the police because of their subversive potential.

Petrified? You betcha. But, they were scared of themselves. We just didn’t give a damn, or wouldn’t have if they just stayed at home and took care of business and let the Yanks and the Germans make things and the French wank and waffle about philosophy and other such useless and paralyzing affectations.:)

Nov 9, 2009 - 1:32 am 119. buddy larsen:

“Zulu” was great. Apparently in 1964 there must’ve still been plenty of old timey Zulu warriors around, because that crazy stuff they did, their psy war, with the spears knocking shields and call-response chant singing –THAT stuff was so unnerving just to someone sitting in a dark theater in a American suburban mall –it could not have been ritual facsimile’d for the movie cameras. That had to be the real Zulu war machine up there on the screen –well real as it had been eight decades earlier, reproduced by the old geezers who were there as youngsters or near enough to directly hear about it from the veterans who fought it.

Nov 9, 2009 - 1:54 am 120. JG27 AD:

Allow this Marine Dad to wish all you Marines a happy birthday!!!

AD
VPD of Lcpl Andrew
B Btry 1/11

Nov 9, 2009 - 2:17 am 121. Bob Murphy:

111. Dave:
“geoffgo #69: Me Too. Thanks to Mel Gibson and Randall Wallace, we finally got a potrayal
of what we were really like up in the Central Highlands. Or as Joe Galloway put, it; “Hollywood finally got it right”.”
Yeah, good movie, great book and I have the original After Action Report on my HDD.

But no one to my knowledge has ever criticised committing those troops to an ambush by almost overwhelming numbers of our enemy.

Why did they land there without having previously inserted recon troops? Our guys fought well but they walked into a trap. That is a massive failure of intelligence.

Arrogance? Stupidity?

Nov 9, 2009 - 2:53 am 122. Bruce:

The Australian Army used “Zulu” for years as a “training” film. The film was used to illustrate character under mortal stress and the ability to read ground, organise and deploy resources and “hold it together” in the face of that stress.

It lacks the “Sam Peckinpah” slo-mo slaughter and ultra-realistic wound images of other films, but it is absolutely none the poorer for that.

Nov 9, 2009 - 3:13 am 123. geoffgo:

BobMurphy@121,

I would’t characterize the engagement as a “trap.” NVA was not expecting US. We went lookin’ and found’em – a whole bunch more of’em than we anticipated. And, it’s not like MIL INTEL was ever mostly accurate in those days.

I don’t think it was either arrogance or stupidity. It’s what can and often happens when seach and destroy tactics are employed.

I reserve my studity and arrogance labels for the leadership in WDC, for permitting the North to continue to afford to supply that size force in the South, when all those NVA should have been urgently needed back home rebuilding stuff. Think “Linebacker” from day one and a one year war, rather than ten.

Nov 9, 2009 - 4:53 am 124. Lifeofthemind:

The movie used when I was at Navy OCS to illustrate the ideal officer was 12 O’Clock High. Interestingly Gregory Peck was one of the few people on the set who was not himself a veteran.
http://tinyurl.com/yfvcfnj
First impressions are so important.
http://tinyurl.com/ykf4n7e

Dave and geoffgo,
When I was at Chicago there was a man working for the university’s Plant Department (not Botany but the campus engineering) whose license plate read “IA DRANG.” We talked once, he was a fine gentleman.

buddy larsen,
The Chief of the Zulus in the film was the actual Chief Buthelezi who is the head of the Inkatha Freedom Party and a rival to the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela.

What makes me want to weep is knowing that the great-great grandchildren of the men of Roark’s Drift portrayed in Zulu, the great-grandchildren of the men who endured at the Somme, the grandchildren of the men who came back from Dunkirk, have it in them to triumph over any threat and won’t. They are throwing it all away.

Karen Yvonne,
I grew up reading Three Came Home. Decency is a matter of both inner values and outer action.

Bob Murphy and Charles,
Gödel’s Theorem relates to my interest in the flawed nature of God as portrayed by Islam and how it differs from the Jewish concept. In Islam everything there is to know was comprehended by a human being and was set down as understood by him or was demonstrated by his example. Nothing more is to be learned and nothing can be changed. Full Stop. In Judaism, and Christianity and every other faith system that I know of, God is by definition beyond the comprehension of the bounded human system.

We can comprehend principles and rules for guiding our life but can never be so arrogant as to think that we can bind that which is greater. There may be other answers or future answers to be revealed to other people. In Judaism that is partly expressed in the belief that while Jews have a true revelation and an obligation to act ethically as witnesses before the nations they do not deny that God can speak to others each in their own way. That makes it reasonable that Jews are reluctant to proselytize. For even if others are by some standard in error they are also part of a greater plan, bringing part of infinite complexity and wisdom into the world. Who would be so arrogant as to tell God that he is doing it wrong?

Nov 9, 2009 - 5:21 am 125. HEPT:

Oh for those in The Indian wars lets not forget the movie Soldier Blue. Defintly an anti war film for sure.
And then there is Path’s of Glory.
Life Of Mind: Handshake accepted gator Sailor ;^D

Nov 9, 2009 - 7:08 am 126. Sertorius:

LOTM @ #124: Yet if you ask the modern secularists, there is no difference between the believing Jew or Christian and the Taliban. Can you imagine Cromwell’s famous plea to his correligionists in Scotland (”I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.”) coming from Mullah Omar?

Dave @ #111: Speaking of movies, though Oliver Stone I think was in the 25th ID instead of the 173rd Abn, wasn’t “Platoon” based on Dak To? (BTW, I’ve always thought that the armchair generals who so criticized the Tora Bora engagement should go back and study that battle to see what happens when you start feeding companies into brigades.)

Nov 9, 2009 - 7:12 am 127. Ammo Guy:

I must say that I also enjoyed “Zulu Dawn” which was the prequel to the events at Rorke’s Drift depicted in “Zulu.” Though I thought “Zulu” to be the better film, I am still amused by the scene in “Zulu Dawn” where the British Quartermaster insists that the lads queue up to receive their ammo in a proper fashion despite their position being overrun by Zulu warriors…as an Ammo Guy by profession, I can totally relate to the crusty old QM – after all, we must get the ammo on the property book before expenditure, mustn’t we?

Nov 9, 2009 - 7:18 am 128. Tarnsman:

Memphis Belle – think that qualifies for the listing folks have made here. A straight war story, no political moralizing. Great cast and action.

“Jack, get the green bastard!”

“What am I suppose to do? Spit at him?”

Nov 9, 2009 - 8:53 am 129. Charles:

I’m not so sure that I didn’t come to terms with Christianity until I became acquainted in my mid forties with programming languages. I studied Java & C++ . I worked at it for about 2 years in about in 1999-2000 before I realized it was a young mans game. At the time Java was an up and coming language. The promoters of Java were called evangelists. Java had much in common with c++. But there were trade offs. Java could not do as much as c++. However, in exchange for versatility Java gave back stability. you could use java in high performance phones which were then becoming available. however phones all over the world were being created with newer capabilities or variations of doing the same thing–pretty much constantly. each of these capabilities required coding. each manufacturer left to their own devices would code differently. the result was that without consultation it would take no more than a year or so before phones made by different manufacturers around the world would be unable to “talk” to each other. consequently conferences were held several times a year at which senior java programmers for the major phone companies world wide got together to agree on the language/coding everyone would use for a particular task. likely this is ongoing.

why did knowing this help me to become a christian. because christianity begins with a proposition of language “In the beginning was the word” rather than an ontological proposition, a proposition of being “in the beginning God.

very much the same thing happens in the christian world and to a lesser extent in the Jewish world. the christian language is very plastic–robust if you will. It can be bent and shaped to mean anything really. Therefor conferences are constantly held as to the meaning of text. So that meaning ascribed by the speaker of the word is the same as meaning ascribed by the hearer of the word. ie its not so easy to get everyone on the same page — especially when you have the dynamic tension wherein Jesus is both fully God and fully Man.

The last really big change happened with the protestant reformation back in the 1500’s. But it could be argued that another big change happened because of newton in the english speaking world. imho he set off a math envy in christendom with his perfectly bounded math solutions–each one true for exactly the area it applied to–no more no less. he applied the same methodology to Christianity and darn near killed it.

In the Jewish world the last really big change– that I know of happened in the 2-3rd centuries AD when the book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilee were thrown out of the old testatment by the rabbis. (Both books were among the dead sea scrolls of the 1st century essenes). They remain in the Etheopian Jewish bible.)Christians pretty much took their cue for what is kosher in the old testatment and left out enoch and jubilee as well.

The bible records three assentions into heaven. That of Jesus, Elijah 2 Kings 2:1-24 and Enoch Gen. 5:23. According to answers.com “The silence of the early rabbis regarding Enoch is attributable to the New Testament’s citation of Enoch and Elijah as two witnesses to the truth of the ascension of Jesus to heaven (Revelations 11:3).”

I’ve also heard that the book of Enoch had way too many angels moving around in it at a time when the 2nd-3rd century rabbis were under pressure from the early Trinitarian(jewish) christians. So they threw out the book of enoch. I’m not sure what the reasoning was for the book of jubillee.

Nov 9, 2009 - 9:50 am 130. Habu:

93. JFSanders031

Upon reflection I can see where LOTM was , as many try to do, b=simply bask in the reflected glory of those who are Marines.
I should have let it pass. He was up front on his non Leatherneck status and that was certainly honorable.

LOTM from what I have read by him is too fine a man for the type of guffy I handed out. He does not fit the mild of those who attempt hijack the honor of the Corps. So the next contribution follows.

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:43 am 131. Whitehall:

I’m surprised no one has mention a war film with a unique value proposition:

The shower scene in “Starship Troopers.”

Crummy war/SF movie otherwise, but GREAT shower scene!

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:46 am 132. Habu:

LOTM,

I was off base yesterday. Wrong in my assessment of what you said and offer you an apology for calling into question your motives.

As you no doubt can tell the Corps has been such a large part of my life that I am often times too quick to judge.

Habu

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:47 am 133. Dave:

Sertorius: The movie Spitoon—-Platoon that is—was located in and around Cu Chi which is
slightly northwest of Saigon, the III Corps area. This is where Oliver Stone’s war crimes and atrocities (military service I mean) were comitted.

The Kontum to Dak To to Dak Sut area is the northernmost region of II Corps, the Central Highlands. This is where Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam borders all coincide. Go east from those towns to the coast and you will be in I Corps already.

About the 25th Division: When it first deployed to VN, two brigades went to Cu Chi
and the Third Brigade Task Force went to Pleiku
and saw action all over II Corps. It was them who would have been at Dak To at one time or the other. Stone was with the other two brigades and later on in the narrative.

When the 4th Division deployed to VN, it was vice versa. Two Brigades went to Pleiku (Titty Mountain) and one brigade to Cu Chi.
Then the brigade at Cu Chi assumed the colors of the 25th 3rd Bde and the 25th 3Bde assumed the colors of the 4th.

Don’t know what it did to the enemy but it confused the hell out of me. And if you think that was bad, you should have been around southern I Corps. There, three separate brigades plus a brigade from the 82 Airborne were cobbled together to form the 23rd Division (Americal). That was my 2nd tour and the only people who had that one figured out were all called Victor Charlie.

That was where they took land mine warfare to new heights—or lows if you prefer. Only friendlies who could abate that lethal nuisance were the Marine Corps CAP Teams.

Hell of a war, but better than none at all.

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:57 am 134. Dave:

Bob Murphy: The move into LZ X-Ray was in accordance with Air Cavalry Doctrine. BTW the Air Cav was N-O-T designed with VN in mind. The seminal thought on it came in Army Magazine in 1957 and was penned by General James Gavin. It was entitled “Cavalry And I Don’t Mean Horses”. Recognizing that the turbine engine had made the helicopter into something besides a toy, “Jumping Jim” made the case that technology could restore the traditional role of cavalry in Europe. (The machine gun had made the horse useless and no replacement had yet been found.)

Chief roles of cavalry had been recon and pursuit. But then there was also the deep penetration cavalry raid to neutralize key enemy positions deep in their own territory.
That was why Hal Moore’s 1/7 was sent into the base of Chu Phong Mountain.

The strategy worked, up to a point. Then micro-managment from office of Sec Def took over. Division wanted to put more troops into Chu Phong and clear the massif inch by inch rendering its fortifications useless to the enemy for a long time to come. Moore had broken the main resistance and the job could have been done. It would also have been long
arduous and somewhat bloody as NVA remnanats would have taken a tool of those clearing. (I would in all probability have been one of the warm bodies rounded up for the op.)

However, the clearing would have significantly reduced enemy capabilites in II Corps. As it was, WAshington ordered a symbolic B52 strike on the top of the mountain which accomplished nothing. Then McDades 2/7 which relieved Moore was ordered to march to LZ Albany. On the way they blundered by the bivoauc of the 66th NVA regiment and took twice as many men killed as Moore had taken against much larger forces.

The result was that Chu Phong was left intact. The 68 Tet offensive in that area came from there. The 1972 offensive came from there. And in 1975, the final NVA offensive came from there.

Now that sticks in my craw. No need of my being vengeful towards those responsible. I shall give them a free choice bewteen (a) being boiled in oil and (b) hanging, drawing and quartering.

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:21 am 135. marymcl:

@119 buddy larsen

I watched “Zulu” again last night – one of those films that never fails to inspire. Regarding the scene you described, when the defenders respond by singing “Men of Harlech” it has the same emotional power as the Marseillaise drowning out the Nazis in “Casablanca”. I’ve been humming it all morning

IIRC Robert Osborne at TCM said that Winston Churchill regarded the battle scenes in “Paths of Glory” as the most powerful and realistic he’d ever seen in a movie. Another great picture with a similar story (different time and place but also based on actual events) is “Breaker Morant”

peterike mentioned “Ran” – I have a thing about horses in movies. The scene where the third son’s cavalry crosses the river is the best I’ve ever seen. It’s a painting come to life. Speaking of Kurosawa, “Seven Samurai” gets my vote as the greatest motion picture ever made. It has everything you ever wanted in a movie except color.

One last mention “The Wind and the Lion” – loosely based on actual events prior to WWI. Leaving aside for the duration of the movie what we all now know about Muslim leaders in North Africa, it’s a great story well acted (with lots of horses!) plus a terrific sequence that shows the Marines marching into Tripoli. And Brian Keith’s portrayal of Teddy Roosevelt is priceless.

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:26 am 136. Dave:

Whitehall: Yep, said shower scene made a valid
point; You can have complete gender integration of all aspects of military life if and when bathing, bunking, using the john etc
is routinely done in plain view of the opposite sex. And not before. This gave the movie some (unintenional I am sure) redeeming social value.

And besides that, those girls had some nice hooters!

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:32 am 137. Dave:

marymcl: In the Ia Drang, the NVA were making harassing noises. Then Lt Rick Rescorla, a native of Wales, replied with a stirring rendition of Men of Harlech.

His boys joined in and the dinks hushed up.

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:40 am 138. marymcl:

I didn’t get to read the entire thread till this morning and so was unaware of the Indian issue coming up. I appreciate especially what Subotai and JMH had to say on the subject, though even with one foot in Indian country I can live with Ragnar’s point of view. At the end of the day, it’s like the old Indian veteran of the Korean war said to the young PC reporter who couldn’t understand why he’d volunteered – “It’s still our country”

And don’t think for a minute that Obama’s clueless response to the massacre at Ft. Hood went unnoticed. Lots of veterans out there in Indian country and I can guarantee you they don’t like it one bit.

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:43 am 139. presbypoet:

134 Dave
Thank you for the rest of the story. Has that wider story ever been included in any books about the war? Any maps you know of? Perhaps you should write more?

Interesting tactical success, but strategic failure. Perhaps that is why mac needed to apologize to all those he killed in VN due to his incompetence. Or was he so blind because he would not see? Afraid to kill a few by direct order, his cowardice killed millions, and enslaved more.

Sound familiar? Not the first time, and I fear not the last.

Nov 9, 2009 - 11:52 am 140. marymcl:

@137 Dave

Wow. There is something about patriotic music and a story like that really brings it home. Someone mentioned awhile back that that’s why bagpipes are a weapon. (In fact the Irish, who play traditional music on the Uillean, or Union pipes, refer to the Scots version as war-pipes)

Musing on that thought I’m reminded of an experience I had last year. Leaving work one evening after a what had been a demoralizing day I heard a piper playing inside the firehouse that’s situated in the same building as the hospital. No idea why he was there, but it stopped me in my tracks and somehow the combination of the twilight and the piper’s music was uplifting in a way I still find hard to describe. Something about it seemed timeless and enduring and also emblematic of the West. I had a moment rather like Sam’s epiphany about the passing nature of the Shadow. Music is such an extraordinary thing, and a great mystery too.

Nov 9, 2009 - 12:17 pm 141. marymcl:

@68 sirius-sir

Sorry, I missed your note earlier. That’s an interesting take on that situation, but I have to disagree. What struck me was that the same guy who cowered in the stairwell for what seemed like an eternity when he could’ve tried to save the life of his comrade was apparently redeeming himself by finally losing it altogether and shooting some unarmed POWs. Yeah, the bad guy gets no mercy in the end but it also suggested that there was no reason to be too hard on the Nazis for the POW massacres at Malmedy and elsewhere because it was all, you know, *relative*.

Dave – I went looking on Google for the words to “Men of Harlech” and found them in this post about Lt. Rescorla. Thanks BTW

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/000307.html

Nov 9, 2009 - 1:14 pm 142. Lifeofthemind:

Habu,
Accepted and appreciated Sir.

We are limited by the medium we use, we can see the words but not each other’s eyes. While I can needle a marine I would not do so on a thread where he was delivery an elegy to his father in honor of the Corp’s birthday. Equally I am confident that you can, and when appropriate have, deflated a squid Ensign. The key is that when we do it everyone can see the smile within and expect the hand on the shoulder. We take each as we find them, sailor, soldier, marine, aviator or taxpayer, and hope to get the best we can from them without breaking their spirit.

Happy Birthday.

Today I visited the newly commissioned USS New York (LPD-21) and while I wish it had more gunnery I am green with envy.

Nov 9, 2009 - 2:18 pm 143. marymcl:

@135 above that should be Tangier, not Tripoli. Too many songs in my head this morning.

Nov 9, 2009 - 2:19 pm 144. Evanston2:

As LOTM mentioned, “Twelve O’Clock High” was used for OCS training. For him as a squid, for me as a jarhead (we studied it in both NROTC and TBS). I joined post-Vietnam and was a logistics officer, so for what it’s worth (not much?) I found “We Were Soldiers…” to be the best at depicting the full range of hard training, foolishness, bravery, chaos, and tragedy on the home front.
LOTM, Wretchard shut down the thread but several weeks ago we were talking about public schools in America. I was responding to someone else who said that public schools were started (as in, begun, originated) as a reaction to Romanism. You mentioned the Blaine Amendments. These came much later. Protestants started the schools to promulgate literacy (since they want people to actually know the Bible’s contents, not “Cliff’s Notes” from the clergy) but the notion that the schools were started as some sort of reaction to Romanism is total hogwash. And while I appreciate the general tenor of your comments, I had mentioned vouchers in my comments and most assuredly was/am already familiar with the Blaine Amendments since they have been invoked (as you know) to stop vouchers from being used at religious schools. In sum, thanks for the response, but it wasn’t responsive to the question I was asking (to another BCer, not you).

Nov 9, 2009 - 3:44 pm 145. Al_Batross:

“There is no such bunker. There never was.” Jonathan Levy@112.

I have not seen ‘Private Ryan’, but this is perhaps a good example of the stickiness of film images, especially when a film’s authenticity is a big selling point. If Spielberg put a bunker there, then it is likely to stay there in the minds of the MTV generation, and then re-appear in games as a “tribute” to the film.
However, my point about the Rangers incident was more about realism in meaning rather than in tactical details. The Longest Day portrays the Point-du-Hoc attack as futile, which it might have been had the Rangers gone no further, whereas Call of Duty rightly assigns it value, because the Rangers actually pressed on, and thus saved many lives on that great and terrible day.

Nov 9, 2009 - 4:01 pm 146. Sertorius:

Dave @ 133 & 134 The Cu Chi AO explains the famous tunnel scene in the movie, I guess. Thanks for clearing up a very confusing order of battle!

Nov 9, 2009 - 5:17 pm 147. mariner:

wretchard,

Thank you for this thread.

After reading it, I checked out The Adventures of Robin Hood and watched it.

I was surprised at how good this 70-year-old movie still is.

Nov 9, 2009 - 6:39 pm 148. steveH:

@137 Dave:

Lt. Rescorla was born as Richard Cyril Rescorla in Hayle, Cornwall, UK. Some cornish are prickly about the difference.

Rescorla is also a village in Cornwall.

Nov 9, 2009 - 7:03 pm 149. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn:

marymcl@140

“All Through the Night”, from Cymru, in Cymraeg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEGgoi6zawg

Heyyoukids

Nov 9, 2009 - 7:12 pm 150. E. Nigma:

I think that I have read that Mr. Rescorla was singing during the evacuation of the South Tower on his Last Day. I could imagine him singing “Men of Harlech” through his megaphone, urging people down the stairs. He was that kind of man, I think.

Another war movie that I liked was “In Harm’s Way”, a movie about a “gut bustin’, mother lovin’ Navy war!”, to quote Kirk Douglas.

Fictional, of course, but an amalgamation of several campaigns in the Southwest Pacific, and it sort of felt “real”.
There’s a character who briefly appears, playing the Navy meteorologist in the movie, that bears a strong resemblance to my high school chemistry teacher who was also a Navy meteorologist in WWII. He retired in 1955 as a full Commander and chief meteorologist of the 7th Fleet. He was also present at a bunch of atmospheric nuke tests in the Pacific in the early ‘50.

Nov 9, 2009 - 10:23 pm 151. buddy larsen:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/scotland-the-brave-bagpipes/3798683607

Nov 10, 2009 - 12:59 am 152. JG27 AD:

When I was just a young’un I really enjoyed an old Wallace Beery film called “Salute to the Marines”. Alas I have not seen nor heard of it since the ’60s.

Netflixed “The Blue Max” last night. I think that Jerry Goldsmith’s score to that film is one of the best in cinema.

AD

Nov 10, 2009 - 2:04 am 153. buddy larsen:

Sgt. MacKenzie

Not the right tone for a birthday remembrance for the Marine Corp, nor for the Fall of the Wall, but it’s all in there. Rick Rescorla too –this song was used on the sound track of “We Were Soldiers” about the Battle of the Ia Drang.

Nov 10, 2009 - 2:19 am 154. Doug:

Dennis Miller had a caller whose dad fought at Guadalcanal.

Said he left home @ 210 lbs and came back at 129.
Had health and skin problems for life.

Son is 71, says he still remembers what his dad said when he was getting ready to ship off for Vietnam.

Although he never talked about Guadalcanal, when the son asked his advice, his dad said:
“Son, you don’t have to stand tall,
but you gotta stand.“

Nov 10, 2009 - 2:24 am 155. buddy larsen:

i don’t believe i’ve ever heard –hell i can’t even imagine hearing –any better advice than that. not for marble or the walls of Delphi, but folded in a mental note and kept in mind.

Nov 10, 2009 - 2:42 am 156. Charles:

110. Bob Murphy:

105. Charles
it has been taken to imply that you’ll never entirely understand yourself, since your mind, like any other closed system, can only be sure of what it knows about itself by relying on what it knows about itself.”
No wonder so many Asians think we are fools.
Slaves to chatter mind.
It would pay to keep a sense of humour about all that.
////////
in a word.

Nov 10, 2009 - 7:06 am 157. HEPT:

Happy Birthday Marines and for one Marine in particular, son, wish your were home but you are there in afstan, so check six and keep that head on a swivel.
Come home soon.
Dad

Nov 10, 2009 - 8:15 am 158. Marie Claude:

97 Twobefour,

during my high school years, we had a “cine-club” where most of the “big” russian films were shown. I particularly remember “The cranes are flying”, the images were impressing, especially the ones when the russian soldier was dying in a wood, I still see the trees above his head, circling and vanishing at the very moment of his death.

Also Japanese movies of Kurosawa were a great deal, don’t remember we had american films, that we could see on commercial screens elsewere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cranes_Are_Flying

Nov 10, 2009 - 9:38 am 159. buddy larsen:

H/157; just saw this, at Maggie’s Farm –bet your son would get a kick out of it!

http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/12847-Marine-Corps-Birthday.html

Nov 10, 2009 - 10:38 am

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