Tag Archives: military

“Barbie Goes Native” sparks reevaluation of US Military posture

Posted on July 5, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The 1970s, pre-US military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan movie, Caravans, has come to the attention of US military planners.  Careful study of the overwhelming success beautiful actress, Jennifer Oneal, had influencing primitive tribesmen to behave themselves suggests new avenues of approach to US militarism.

Caravans 1978PG 125 minutes, An American diplomat is tasked with retrieving a famous politician’s daughter, who is married to an Iranian colonel but has run off with a rebel leader. More Info Starring: Anthony Quinn, Michael Sarrazin Director: James Fargo
 
“During past military adventures,” White House spokesmen declared, “The US had never put women into combat-like roles.  It was believed doing so would undermine the claims that wars were motivated by the need to protect moms, wives, sisters and potential girl friends from the evil forces of the enemy.”
 
But, he explained, today women occupy active roles in a wide range of combat positions and while the Draft statutes have not yet been amended to include women, modern warfare justifies doing so.
 
“Jennifer Oneal was married nine times during her years as an actress.  In Caravans she enjoyed huge influence among primitive Moslems.  Today a few women of the Jennifer Oneal variety might replace the entire US military presence in Afghaistan. 
 
“Female porn stars could probably serve the same real-life function today as Jennifer Oneal with her stunning blue eyes, blonde hair, and nine husbands did back in the 1970s, and the cost would not be prohibitive.
 
“Changing the outdated US conscription statutes to include beautiful females, particularly porn stars, might well be the key to shrinking US military involvement, in most foreign countries. “
 
A major general  in the Pentagon who wished to remain anonymous agrees.   “War has simply become too costly to allow it to be pursued by traditional means.  Drafting female porn stars to replace both male and females in combat, secretarial, and other position would greatly reduce costs and boost morale.”
 
Jennifer Oneal’s performance in Caravans was not considered particularly impressive when the movie arrived in theaters of the 1970s.  It was not nominated for Academy, nor any other awards. 
 
But history has proved them wrong. 
 
The NSA is now monitoring all online pornography sites with a view to voluntary recruitment pending the needed reevaluation of US Draft Law to determine whether it can be interpreted to allow conscription of beautiful females.
 
Old Jules
 
 

Leave a comment

Posted in 2014, Military, Movies

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declares during the “so called Rape of Nanking” Chinese women were “asking for it”.

Posted on July 4, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

As part of an ongoing general reappraisal by Japan about its involvement in WWII, Japan’s Prime Minister Abe announced the Japanese government has confirmed Chinese women present at Nanking during the invasion, “Wanted to have sex with multiple Japanese soldiers,”  A recent study, Abe says, found that, “Those were healthy Chinese women who had never encountered men such as our soldiers.  There was no Rape of Nanking!  Sex between consenting adults is not rape.”

“Chinese women,” Abe recalls his father and grandfather telling him, “Really like it rough!”  He shrugged.  “I’ve seen it myself on my diplomatic missions to China.  The more you force a Chinese woman the better she likes it.”

Abe went on to explain the myths of forced comfort girls from occupied countries was also consensual.  “Everywhere Japanese soldiers went the local women naturally wished to have sex with as many as possible.  During the post-WWII years this was misconstrued as forced servitude and sexual exploitation.  But in fact, the backward peoples all over Asia were the exploiters.  They wished to incorporate the superior genes of Japanese men into their local populations.  They gladly volunteered their wives, daughters, sisters and strange women for this task.”

 Japan is currently formulating a proposal for Asian countries where it enjoys a close familial relationship resulting from Japanese occupation.  “The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere didn’t end because it wasn’t a valid concept,” Abe explained.  “It was an idea before its time.  Today Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Burma, even North Korea would almost certainly welcome Japanese leadership in a Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

Once Japan reevaluated the Post WWII Constitutional Provisions forbidding wars of aggression whole new avenues of thinking became possible.  “What went wrong with WWII?”  Abe rolled back his eyes and lifted his arms above his head.  “The Battle of Midway!  Guadalcanal!  Bad luck.  We should have followed Pearl Harbor with an overwhelming attack on the west coast of the United States!”

Old Jules

 

2 Comments

Posted in 1940's, 2014, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“If those Japanese could have held out through one more atomic bomb we wouldn’t be eating this crap!”

Posted on July 4, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Here’s wishing you a fulfilling independence from having the British for your bosses ordering you around and making you drink their damned tea.  If our ancestors hadn’t won their independence from the British we’d have had to fight on their side during WWI and WWII, the way their other colonies did.

Anyway, that WWI museum got me thinking about what GIs used to eat.  There was a long shelf of displays of their mess kits, carved fancier than a POW would do.  Beautiful designs and artwork produced while their feet were rotting off in trenches between having the bejesus shelled out of them and being sniped at across no-man’s-land.

 In Korea, at least in the First Cavalry Division, what we ate in 1963-1964 whenever we were on field rations was all left over from WWII.  1945ish WWII.  K Rations.

Breakfast Unit Canned meat product Biscuits Compressed cereal bar Powdered coffee Fruit bar Chewing gum Sugar tablets Four cigarettes Water-purification tablets Can opener Wooden spoon

Breakfast Unit
Canned meat product
Biscuits
Compressed cereal bar
Powdered coffee
Fruit bar
Chewing gum
Sugar tablets
Four cigarettes
Water-purification tablets
Can opener
Wooden spoon

Camp Howze, Korea, had an enormous bunker chock full of K Rations of the nostalgic variety dating from before the Japanese surprised us with a surrender while we still had an atomic bomb and one-hell-of-a-lot of K Rations left.  I can testify from personal experience the US Army was patriotic and continued eating those rations 20 years after the premature and cowardly surrender of Japan.

Dinner Unit Canned cheese product Biscuits A candy bar Chewing gum Powdered beverage Granulated sugar Salt tablets Cigarettes Matches Can opener Wooden spoon

Dinner Unit
Canned cheese product
Biscuits
A candy bar
Chewing gum
Powdered beverage
Granulated sugar
Salt tablets
Cigarettes
Matches
Can opener
Wooden spoon

 Our quonsot hut had a corner filled with Ks still in the cartons so we could fill those long winter nights with partying song, beer, and anything worth eating in a crate of Ks.

Supper Unit Canned meat product Biscuits Bouillon powder Candy Chewing gum Powdered coffee Granulated sugar Cigarettes Can opener Toilet paper Wooden spoon

Supper Unit
Canned meat product
Biscuits
Bouillon powder
Candy
Chewing gum
Powdered coffee
Granulated sugar
Cigarettes
Can opener
Toilet paper
Wooden spoon

The cigarettes in ours weren’t Chesterfields.  Ours were Lucky Strikes in a Green package.  As in the old radio WWII jingle, “Lucky Strike green has gone to war!”  Lucky Strike changed colors after the war to red and white, but Luckies kept right on fighting in green until all those damned Ks were consumed by GIs.

Ahhh.  Nothing like sparking up a Lucky out of a carton of Ks, working fast to inhale a little tobacco smoke before it burned down to your fingertips.  Those smokes were 20 years old and we never found a way to add enough moisture to keep them smoking instead of burning.

And the chocolate!  The godforsaken chocolate turned white with age.  We didn’t care.  Everything in those Ks got tried and nobody ever died from them.  And I never heard of anyone getting drunk from them.

Fact was, a person with extra money could go to the PX and get crackers, but if he did he’d have to share with the whole hooch.  Same with sardines.  And we had KATUSAs in our hooch.  Four of them.  Korean Augmentations to the US Army.  And those bastards could go through a case of crackers, cans of sardines, quicker than you could make a grab for a can before they were gone.

But even the KATUSAs couldn’t make remarkably short work of a case of Ks.  There was always enough for everyone, along with some leftovers to munch on guard duty.

Damn.  These modern all-volunteer military guys are spoiled.  Except maybe in Korea.  Hell, in Korea they might still be eating Ks and wishing to hell the Japanese had gutted out another atomic bomb.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 1960's, America, Government, History, Military

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thank you for your service – Cold War Conscription era sleeze

Posted on June 10, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Someone posted a sign telling us veterans thank you for your service in one of the places I go, and in the Dollar Tree they asked again if I’d like to contribute to help the dependents of US active service military.  Fact is the romance and drama of thanking GIs for their service has been happening so long it’s probably okay to give it a break.

I got transferred once and hadn’t gotten paid yet, no money until payday.  Red Cross loaned me the money to last until the end of the month or my pay records caught up.  At loan-shark interest rates.  I was getting paid $68 per month at that time.

Maybe if they paid the all volunteer military less money they would be able to take care of their dependents without begging by proxy at the cash registers of the stores in the US.  Paying the bejesus out of them evidently hasn’t done the trick.

Seems to me it’s a sickness resulting from the supporting wars where you’re own kids aren’t being forced to go off to serve.  The out-of-balance “let’s you and him fight” paid for with a “Thank you” and nobody in my family had anything to do with the war and I support it so long as they don’t.  I’ll shower you with thankyous and give a buck down at the Dollar Tree for your kids.

All American Boy – Bobby Bare

Working for the Yankee Dollar
http://youtu.be/ol5e7GU-Z8Y

Hank Locklin, My Little Geisha Girl

Fraulein – Bobby Helms – 1957
http://youtu.be/FJKsAJFVMMw

Kitty Wells – I’ll Always Be Your Fraulein
http://youtu.be/9ITN8PpNWrs

COWBOY COPAS: “FILIPINO BABY”, 1945
http://youtu.be/kTQ-HWRm5ss

Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky – A Dear John Letter

Jean Shepard & Ferlin Husky – Forgive Me, John

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town

Ballad of the Green Berets – [HD] – – – SSGT Barry SADLER

Johnny Burnette…..God, Country, And My Baby

Merle Travis – Re-Enlistment Blues
http://youtu.be/fb1Fjm17rjs

Elvis Presley – G.I.Blues

I’m thinking of writing a CW song about GIs sitting around waiting rooms in VA hospitals wearing their VETERAN caps and wondering whether they made the secret lists.

Old Jules

 

4 Comments

Posted in 2014, America

Tagged , , , , ,

Rally Round the Flag Boys, by Max Shulman

Posted on June 10, 2014 by | Leave a comment

http://youtu.be/Oc7p-sAihuU

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

1959, 1960, I was reading everything Max Shulman wrote because of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  In that one he introduced Maynard G. Cribbs of later fame, and gave most people their first look at Beat, Beatniks, and much of the como se llama life outside anything most had considered.  Although Dobie Gillis had a TV series in his name, the Maynard Cribbs character lived longer in another vapid TV series about an Island somewhere.

So when I encountered Rally Round the Flag Boys in a box of books at a garage sale recently I happily paid out a quarter for an unexpected delight far in excess of my memories of the book from 50 years ago.

In a 278 page yarn filled with laughs and poignant human insights Shulman peels away the 21st Century fantasies of how America ‘was’, “Thank you veterans, for your service“, and any lingering thoughts you might have about romance, marriage and the American dream when  the citizenry saw career military men as “too lazy to steal“.

A wonderful, hilarious book before during and after its own time.  Story of a small Yankee town in Connecticut where the US Army needs to place a Nike Missile Site.  A brutally honest story of the wealthy people running the town and why they oppose a sanitary landfill because of the cost, oppose sex education in their public schools because of the danger of KNOWING, oppose anything that stands in the way of development of real estate into more neighborhoods for NYC commuters.  Neighborhoods located in quarries, bogs, swamps, with names like Powderhorn Hill and Patriot Valley.

What a fun book.  I’m finished with it and will happily mail it to you if you’d care to read it.  Contact me by email.

Old Jules

Afterthought note:  This book teeters on the brink of upcoming events, but barely pre-dates them.  No Berlin Wall until 1961, no Cuban Missile Crisis until 19 what?62?, no Vietnam War until 1965, no Kennedys assassinated yet, no Martin Luther King, no Watergate.   No Fidel Castro.   Cuba was still clean sandy beaches for US tourists.  And the book is the “How I view the world” of those US citizens back before things got nasty.  J.

Leave a comment

Posted in 2014, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Might as well face it: China isn’t a credible threat

Posted on June 6, 2014 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers:

Despite the fact the US military budget needs a second potential front we can fight wars on to justify being the war material overkill superpower we insist we are, China’s just not going to fill the bill.  Yeah, as Yahoo News reports, they’ve got a lot of military spending going on.  Whoopteedoo.

Fact is, China doesn’t win wars.  Maybe has never won a war in the entirety of Chinese history.  Didn’t win against the Japanese in WWII.  Didn’t win the Chinese Revolution thoroughly enough to take the Nationalists out of the picture.

Didn’t win the Korean War enough to make it all North Korea.  Didn’t even win in 1978-1979 against war-weary Vietnam.

Yeah, Washington and the threat-hungry news services would give a testicle if China could get out there and run someone off a piece of real estate they wanted.  But the Chinese have had their asses whipped so many times and in so many places they’re just hoping if they have to fight someone bigger than Tibet they can bluster enough to scare them off.

China ain’t going anywhere.  Might as well try to stir up some trouble with Mexico if we’re going to have a credible threat to justify a military budget capable of taking over all the banana republics and oil sheikdoms everywhere when the mood strikes us.  Even the Muslims are falling down on the job these days.

Old Jules

Leave a comment

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Five Freedom Fighters for One GI

Posted on June 2, 2014 by | 5 comments

Hi readers.

The old guys down at physical therapy are pissed.  Evidently five of the Arab freedom fighters the US has been holding captive somewhere are going to be released so’s to get back one GI Arabs captured.  Hell of a deal, seems to me, though some might argue a GI is worth ten of anyone else anywhere.

But there are a lot of different ways of looking at the matter.  Elected officials are afraid we didn’t get our moneys worth on the deal.  I’d have to suspect they think after five years captivity that GI isn’t going to be much use to anyone, which might be their rationale.

On the other hand, people get out of prisons all the time after being gang-raped repeatedly the way that GI almost certainly has been in captivity.  And it doesn’t hold them back.  Ex convicts are almost all able to stick up convenience stores, steal cars, sell drugs, do a little rape and mayhem.  Being gang raped in prison hardly slows them down at all.

So my gut feel is this guy’s probably going to be okay and if he plays his cards right maybe he can sit on top of a building with a rifle somewhere and plink off a dozen-or-so anonymous people of one sort or another.  Plenty of ex-GIs are doing that nowadays anyway who haven’t even been gang-raped that we know of.

Anyway, people who are against the trade still ought to feel good knowing an American is worth five Arabs.  I can’t help wishing it was ten, though.  Would have been ten back during WWII when it was Japanese, I’m guessing.

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Draft era Vets ponder all-volunteer era vet suicides in VA Med Center waiting rooms

Posted on April 8, 2014 by | 5 comments
This guy died last year. He'd have been 20 in 1948. The pic on the headstone shows him wearing Sgt. stripes. The stone says Lt. Col. Okay. Also says he was a 'left' gunner. Presumably a waist gunner on a B24? Did B17s have a machine gun blister on the waist? Anyway, 59 combat missions by a guy who didn't turn 17 until 1945? And decorated with a bronze star. Claims WWII, Korea and Vietnam as his own. Anything happen in his life afterward, you suppose? Something factual, for instance and worth remembering him for?

This guy died last year. He’d have been 20 in 1948. The pic on the headstone shows him wearing Sgt. stripes. The stone says Lt. Col.
Okay. Also says he was a ‘left’ gunner. Presumably a waist gunner on a B24? Did B17s have a machine gun blister on the waist? Anyway, 59 combat missions by a guy who didn’t turn 17 until 1945? And decorated with a bronze star. Claims WWII, Korea and Vietnam as his own.
Anything happen in his life afterward, you suppose? Something factual, for instance and worth remembering him for?

Lieutenant Colonel Smith in traditional reality.

Lieutenant Colonel Smith in traditional reality.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Hanging around the waiting rooms at the VA Medical Center today I got talking with other draft-era vets about these all volunteer military vets suiciding so frequently.  All of them I broached the subject with were anxious to talk about it.

Generally one possibility all expressed is that these modern-day vets are a bunch of woosies.  Nobody’s ruling that out early in the ponderings.  But digging into it, all agreed there must have been something in their expectations far removed from the reality they experienced.

What the hell could that be?  They joined knowing the US engages in all manner of protracted, meaningless wars.  They must have known they’d stand an excellent chance of ending up in one or another of them.

Well, okay.  A lot of them got to kill people who didn’t need killing.  Maybe more than back in earlier times.  And they got accused of being heroes when every last one of them knows THAT is a lie.

But what else?  They joined for the high pay, the benefits, house loan, educational and maybe  health benefits.  They got all that, plus 30 days vacation and 30 days sick leave per year.  They got the Dollar Tree stores and that ilk asking customers to give a dollar to support their kids with school supplies all in the same breath.  Which is to say, they became beggars by proxy.  Victims by virtue of some of the most bizarre reasoning of which the human mind is capable of indulging.

Unanimous about all this, we draft-era veterans.  Pondered it, I did, all the way back to Olathe discussing it with the transport driver who was a pre-Gulf War I veteran [never left Fort Blizz, Texas].  He agreed, too.

It took Jeanne, who doesn’t know pork from venison about military service, to add what might be the answer:

“How,” Jeanne asked me, “do you know they haven’t been killing themselves after every war since the Civil War?  How would you have heard about it without the Internet?”

In fact, probably nobody was even paying attention to the matter back then   Certainly not the sort of information the government would be waving around in recruiting offices.  “I WANT YOU!”, says Uncle Sam pointing, “And you’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

Old Jules

5 Comments

Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Human Behavior, Military

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans need to toughen up

Posted on April 1, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Evidently these people who volunteered for the most recent Presidential Wars seem to be coming home and offing themselves at a rate of 22 per day. Probably there’s a hidden message in there somewhere.

But the big problem is they’re whining and crying about it beforehand, trying through their, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization to get new special treatment and benefits for themselves and hire professionals to talk them out of it.

IAVA’s efforts have made an impact, as Sen. John Walsh (D-Mont.), the first Iraq war veteran to serve in the senate, introduced comprehensive legislation that would increase mental health professionals at VA, enhance collaboration with the Pentagon, and review cases of soldiers who may have been wrongly discharged for “invisible wounds.”

“Returning home from combat does not erase what happened there, and yet red tape and government dysfunction have blocked access to the care that saves lives,” Walsh said in a statement to Business Insider. “It is our duty to come together for real solutions for our heroes.”

Just my opinion here, but there’s a really money-saving way to prevent all that. Veterans speaking out noisily to potential enlistees telling them all the reasons they are going to hate themselves for volunteering to serve in a Presidential War might be a good beginning. Then quitting accusing themselves of being heroes next breath after rolling ’round on the floor weeping about not enough sympathy.  Recognizing there are concomitant sacrifices that come with the financial and other benefits for joining a military force.  Abdicating personal moral and ethical choices to politicians and soldiers where the information’s already out there about the brushfire wars the nation loves to submerge itself in.

Hell, these people offing themselves know best whether their lives are worth living. But if they want a shoulder to cry on there’s plenty of help available already through the VA, and it’s easily accessible. Just take a look on the right sidebar:

https://www.myhealth.va.gov/mhv-portal-web/anonymous.portal;MHV_JSESSIONID=slK7T6vZ49t4TLd81GkdytND025vBpWx4msqx0qJplMXny1WpT0B!-1419889142?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=mhvHome

What almost certainly won’t help is  S.2182,  the Suicide Prevention for America’s Veterans Act to liven things up.  It would save a lot of money and effort, not to mention veterans hating themselves afterward, if we’d just stay the hell out of Presidential Wars.  See if that doesn’t clear the problem up without any mindless legislation.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in America, Military, US Army

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ex Post Facto: The retroactive waltz of point-men and snipers

Posted on March 9, 2014 by | 15 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

I finally got to see a primary care physician in that KC VA Medical Center.

KC VA Med Ctr

I arrived early and put my defibrillator to the test carrying a 20# daypack 150 yards across that parking lot, up the hill to the entrance, and a quarter-mile of heroesque hallways.  Registered and waited around a comfy area filled with old vets.

At which point life became a hoot.

Jeeze we veterans are a bunch of liars!  And we all know it, but remain silent on the issue so’s when our turn comes all the the others will nod sagely and pretend we aren’t just blowing pure unmitigated horse manure back and forth at one another.

So here in this Hero Hall you’ve got close to a hundred of us, maybe a third wearing VIETNAM VET, or some other VETERAN nuanced headgear.  And roughly a third of those are talking in loudmouthed indignation about something a first sergeant did or said forty years ago in a different country.

Meanwhile the other 2/3 wearing the Veteran caps nod and wait patiently for that vocally active third to finish or pause for a breath so’s they can cut in and tell what some first sergeant did or said to THEM forty years ago in some foreign land.

Those of us not wearing Veteran headgear listen deadpan, saying nothing, doing nothing to break the spell of dramatic fantasies, of young men who never existed prowling through the jungles of our imaginary youths doing and saying courageous things for the betterment of mankind and Freedom.

“Hell man,” I muttered to the guy sitting next to me, “I must be the only person here who wandered Asia trying to get a dose of clap, never met a hero.  Never sacrificed a damned thing in the service of this country.  I can’t recall a first sergeant ever knowing I was alive.”

The guy smiled at me.  “Not me.  I was an Air Force Sniper working out of the finance office in Danang.  Spent the whole time killing zipperheads except when I was in an office doing payrolls.”

About then a nurse called my name and I trekked breathlessly back to see a physician.  He hadn’t received all my med records from the recent hospital stay, so we’re starting all over.  Got an EKG, Lab [blood] work, complete stomach sonogram, and XRays to get out of the way brand spanking new before I can be seen by a VA cardiologist.  He says they can’t get the records from the Olathe Medical Center work because the VA computer is connected to the National Defense computer system, which might be compromised if they allowed outside data to be transmitted into it.

So they’ll just have to do it all again.  Though if I go over to Olathe Med Ctr. and get them to photocopy everything and carry it along when I see the cardiologist he figures the specialist might look through it if I provide it that method and that context.  Maybe.

So at least I’ve got some things I can do to improve my health this week, picking up those records at Olathe Med, going over to KC MO VA for all that expensive medical testing I’ve donealready had, getting it again so’s to be able to see a cardiologist.

Confidence raising, being able to do something uncharacteristically positive.

Somehow it’s vaguely reminescent of back when I was an infantry point man and sniper in the US Army in a country I never had the pleasure to visit.

Old Jules

15 Comments

Posted in America, Government, Military, Senior Citizens, US Army

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,