From Abe Lincoln to Ernie Pyle
"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."
Lincoln is supposed to have said that, though I have yet to find that quote in any publication that is not pro-Bush. I'm obviously not asking for a pro-Kerry, or a pro-Mark Dayton place, but just something a but more neutral.
I thought it was a good quote either way and if it really doesn't matter who said it because it is none the less true.
There are, have been, and always will be ways to voice your displeasure with the way something is being done or how some course of action might have been done better. The difference is when you call a war a mistake (not just now, but during the Vietnam War), the wrong war, and to say that, in appraising the war's worth, "it depends on the outcome" is very destructive to morale.
This is yet another reason Bush will not come out and talk about 'mistakes'. This is why Bush mentioned that history will decide, and it is true. History will also give distance to the subject, both in time and proximity, and that is something that is very much needed when you are dealing with putting a 'value' of if it was or was not worth going to any war.
Imagine if there were the reporters and cameras on the beaches of Normandy to kick off the month of June who sent back not images of Allied troops moving up the beach and taking control over the course of the next 6 days battled until solid control over that area - including Carentan - was complete.
What if, after being on the beaches, we had reporters and news crews delivering reports of casualties for Americans saying things like this in their INSTANT reports with video feeds:
Estimates are already at 14000 dead and could actually double that by the time this whole beachhead is secure. British forces report losing 6000, and those could climb to ten as well. Reports are slow to come in because there seems to be a complete lack of organization by the high command. We have heard stories that the new 'parachute' units landed nowhere near their targets and that even though they might have tried to walk there, German forces by mid day on June 6th were mustering to retake this area.
So here we are, stuck between German armor and a sea red with the blood of American soldiers. We can only hope the this beach, riddled with bodies and mines, is worth something more than the chaos we see. High command seems not to want to comment on losing 14000 people in a single day as something bad or negative. After a pep-talk and letter from Eisenhower I guess that is all these soldiers need before going into the meat grinder. Neither is anyone talking about what might happen if we are pushed back. It would appear that losing is not an option and that there is no contingency planning going on here...
Wait, I have another report, we now have casualty estimates that put losses at over 20,000! They could be as high as 30,000 by the time events settle - if they settle - here. 20,000 lives for a beach? High command still refuses to say this was a mistake. Soon they think Rommel will be en route as well, and that has to be on the minds of everyone here that if these second tier German commanders can kill 20,000 young American boys just imagine what Rommel will do.
Do we have anyone willing to comment at the White House at all?
Of course, in the end figures said that 29,000 Americans gave their lives securing that beachhead, another 106,000 wounded or missing.
We had people willing to walk into machinegun fire for the sake of the effort just to push the line forward. How can you ask anything of your troops - let alone ask them to die - when all you do is spout horrible words about the effort and NOT FUND THEM either?
Side note:
Here's a real article by Ernie Pyle and this is why we were able to win that war. Compare it to reporting from Vietnam forward and then talk to me about some sort of 'even handed' media:
NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 15, 1944--The ship on which I rode to the invasion of the Continent brought certain components of the second wave of assault troops. We arrived in the congested waters of the beachhead shortly after dawn on D-One Day.
We aboard this ship had secretly dreaded the trip, for we had expected attacks from U-boats, E-boats, and at nighttime from aircraft. Yet nothing whatever happened.
We were at sea for a much longer time than it would ordinarily take to make a beeline journey from England to France. The convoy we sailed in was one of several which comprised what is known as a "force."
As we came down, the English Channel was crammed with forces going both ways, and as I write it still is. Minesweepers had swept wide channels for us, all the way from England to France. These were marked with buoys. Each channel was miles wide.
We surely saw there before us more ships than any human had ever seen before at one glance. And going north were other vast convoys, some composed of fast liners speeding back to England for new loads of troops and equipment.
As far as you could see in every direction, the ocean was infested with ships. There must have been every type of oceangoing vessel in the world. I even thought I saw a paddle-wheel steamer in the distance, but that was probably an illusion.
There were battleships and all other kinds of warships clear down to patrol boats. There were great fleets of Liberty ships. There were fleets of luxury liners turned into troop transports, and fleets of big landing craft and tank carriers and tankers. And in and out through it all were nondescript ships--converted yachts, riverboats, tugs, and barges.
The best way I can describe this vast armada and the frantic urgency of the traffic is to suggest that you visualize New York Harbor on its busiest day of the year and then just enlarge that scene until it takes in all the ocean the human eye can reach, clear around the horizon. And over the horizon there are dozens of times that many.
We were not able to go ashore immediately after arriving off the invasion coast amidst the great pool of ships in what was known as the "transport area."
Everything is highly organized in an invasion, and every ship, even the tiniest one, is always under exact orders timed to the minute. But at one time our convoy was so pushed along by the wind and the currents that we were five hours ahead of schedule, despite the fact that our engines had been stopped half the time. We lost this by circling.
Although we arrived just on time, they weren't ready for us on the beaches and we spent several hours weaving in and out among the multitude of ships just off the beachhead, and finally just settled down to await our turn.
That was when the most incongruous--to us--part of the invasion came. Here we were in a front-row seat at a great military epic. Shells from battleships were whamming over our heads, and occasionally a dead man floated face downward past us. Hundreds and hundreds of ships laden with death milled around us. We could stand at the rail and see both our shells and German shells exploding on the beaches, where struggling men were leaping ashore, desperately hauling guns and equipment in through the water.
We were in the very vortex of the war--and yet, as we sat there waiting, Lt. Chuck Conick and I played gin rummy in the wardroom and Bing Crosby sang "Sweet Leilani" over the ship's phonograph.
Angry shells hitting near us would make heavy thuds as the concussion carried through the water and struck the hull of our ship. But in our wardroom men in gas-impregnated uniforms and wearing lifebelts sat reading Life and listening to the BBC telling us how the war before our eyes was going.
But it wasn't like that ashore. No, it wasn't like that ashore.
Lincoln is supposed to have said that, though I have yet to find that quote in any publication that is not pro-Bush. I'm obviously not asking for a pro-Kerry, or a pro-Mark Dayton place, but just something a but more neutral.
I thought it was a good quote either way and if it really doesn't matter who said it because it is none the less true.
There are, have been, and always will be ways to voice your displeasure with the way something is being done or how some course of action might have been done better. The difference is when you call a war a mistake (not just now, but during the Vietnam War), the wrong war, and to say that, in appraising the war's worth, "it depends on the outcome" is very destructive to morale.
This is yet another reason Bush will not come out and talk about 'mistakes'. This is why Bush mentioned that history will decide, and it is true. History will also give distance to the subject, both in time and proximity, and that is something that is very much needed when you are dealing with putting a 'value' of if it was or was not worth going to any war.
Imagine if there were the reporters and cameras on the beaches of Normandy to kick off the month of June who sent back not images of Allied troops moving up the beach and taking control over the course of the next 6 days battled until solid control over that area - including Carentan - was complete.
What if, after being on the beaches, we had reporters and news crews delivering reports of casualties for Americans saying things like this in their INSTANT reports with video feeds:
Estimates are already at 14000 dead and could actually double that by the time this whole beachhead is secure. British forces report losing 6000, and those could climb to ten as well. Reports are slow to come in because there seems to be a complete lack of organization by the high command. We have heard stories that the new 'parachute' units landed nowhere near their targets and that even though they might have tried to walk there, German forces by mid day on June 6th were mustering to retake this area.
So here we are, stuck between German armor and a sea red with the blood of American soldiers. We can only hope the this beach, riddled with bodies and mines, is worth something more than the chaos we see. High command seems not to want to comment on losing 14000 people in a single day as something bad or negative. After a pep-talk and letter from Eisenhower I guess that is all these soldiers need before going into the meat grinder. Neither is anyone talking about what might happen if we are pushed back. It would appear that losing is not an option and that there is no contingency planning going on here...
Wait, I have another report, we now have casualty estimates that put losses at over 20,000! They could be as high as 30,000 by the time events settle - if they settle - here. 20,000 lives for a beach? High command still refuses to say this was a mistake. Soon they think Rommel will be en route as well, and that has to be on the minds of everyone here that if these second tier German commanders can kill 20,000 young American boys just imagine what Rommel will do.
Do we have anyone willing to comment at the White House at all?
Of course, in the end figures said that 29,000 Americans gave their lives securing that beachhead, another 106,000 wounded or missing.
We had people willing to walk into machinegun fire for the sake of the effort just to push the line forward. How can you ask anything of your troops - let alone ask them to die - when all you do is spout horrible words about the effort and NOT FUND THEM either?
Side note:
Here's a real article by Ernie Pyle and this is why we were able to win that war. Compare it to reporting from Vietnam forward and then talk to me about some sort of 'even handed' media:
NORMANDY BEACHHEAD, June 15, 1944--The ship on which I rode to the invasion of the Continent brought certain components of the second wave of assault troops. We arrived in the congested waters of the beachhead shortly after dawn on D-One Day.
We aboard this ship had secretly dreaded the trip, for we had expected attacks from U-boats, E-boats, and at nighttime from aircraft. Yet nothing whatever happened.
We were at sea for a much longer time than it would ordinarily take to make a beeline journey from England to France. The convoy we sailed in was one of several which comprised what is known as a "force."
As we came down, the English Channel was crammed with forces going both ways, and as I write it still is. Minesweepers had swept wide channels for us, all the way from England to France. These were marked with buoys. Each channel was miles wide.
We surely saw there before us more ships than any human had ever seen before at one glance. And going north were other vast convoys, some composed of fast liners speeding back to England for new loads of troops and equipment.
As far as you could see in every direction, the ocean was infested with ships. There must have been every type of oceangoing vessel in the world. I even thought I saw a paddle-wheel steamer in the distance, but that was probably an illusion.
There were battleships and all other kinds of warships clear down to patrol boats. There were great fleets of Liberty ships. There were fleets of luxury liners turned into troop transports, and fleets of big landing craft and tank carriers and tankers. And in and out through it all were nondescript ships--converted yachts, riverboats, tugs, and barges.
The best way I can describe this vast armada and the frantic urgency of the traffic is to suggest that you visualize New York Harbor on its busiest day of the year and then just enlarge that scene until it takes in all the ocean the human eye can reach, clear around the horizon. And over the horizon there are dozens of times that many.
We were not able to go ashore immediately after arriving off the invasion coast amidst the great pool of ships in what was known as the "transport area."
Everything is highly organized in an invasion, and every ship, even the tiniest one, is always under exact orders timed to the minute. But at one time our convoy was so pushed along by the wind and the currents that we were five hours ahead of schedule, despite the fact that our engines had been stopped half the time. We lost this by circling.
Although we arrived just on time, they weren't ready for us on the beaches and we spent several hours weaving in and out among the multitude of ships just off the beachhead, and finally just settled down to await our turn.
That was when the most incongruous--to us--part of the invasion came. Here we were in a front-row seat at a great military epic. Shells from battleships were whamming over our heads, and occasionally a dead man floated face downward past us. Hundreds and hundreds of ships laden with death milled around us. We could stand at the rail and see both our shells and German shells exploding on the beaches, where struggling men were leaping ashore, desperately hauling guns and equipment in through the water.
We were in the very vortex of the war--and yet, as we sat there waiting, Lt. Chuck Conick and I played gin rummy in the wardroom and Bing Crosby sang "Sweet Leilani" over the ship's phonograph.
Angry shells hitting near us would make heavy thuds as the concussion carried through the water and struck the hull of our ship. But in our wardroom men in gas-impregnated uniforms and wearing lifebelts sat reading Life and listening to the BBC telling us how the war before our eyes was going.
But it wasn't like that ashore. No, it wasn't like that ashore.
posted by Edward W. Prather at 07:43
<< Home