Born 1954, I could have gone off to fight in the supposedly anti-communist crusade of the Vietnam War, but it was clear by 1972 that the US was once again bogged down in a “no-win” war.
Its real goals were to 1) enrich Wall Street (and the “military-industrial complex” which our President Eisenhower fiercely denounced in his final speech in 1961);
and 2) to deliberately kill off our best, bravest, most macho, patriotic and idealistic young men, and leave the pitiful survivors as “basket cases,” human wrecks who are racked by PTSD and multiple serious ailments, such as Agent Orange disease.
My maternal grandfather, John Thomas Col(d)well, was from Goole, Yorkshire, England, and his ancestors served for generations with pride in the Coldstream Guards, an elite infantry unit that also guards Buckingham Palace, the home of the Queen.
My own father, a staff sergeant with the Marine Corps in WWII (including the famous Battle of Iwo Jima) and then a Marine captain in the Korean War (fighting right next to a superb British Commonwealth division, and commanding at just 21 a whole battalion, because half the Marine officers in Korea around and above him were killed or wounded) warned me that officers from colonel on up too often were corrupt sell-outs.
They would do anything, or be shamefully silent, in order to get their promotions.and he predicted to me that America’s every war since WWII would ALL be pointless, no-win conflicts.
And how right he was.
So I waited until “Nam” was completely over, and then enlisted in the elite US Marine Corps in 1977. Since I was then enrolled at the prestigious Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and doing well,
…and married and planning on being a father – I went on to have two beautiful and successful daughters — I decided to join just the Reserve of the Marine Corps.
Erika and Ingrid
After the indeed brutal, legendary recruit training base at Parris Island, South Carolina (immortalized in the film “Full Metal Jacket”) ….
….I did weekend duty monthly — and temporary active duties in the summertime — going off to near Death Valley, California (desert training in 120 F/50-degree-C heat)…
Twenty-Nine Palms Marine desert warfare base
…to the Mediterranean (to Spain, France and Sardinia)…
service on the helicopter carrier USS Inchon
….and up to Eutin, Germany for NATO Reforger exercises.
Marine armored reconnaissance, Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany
I was gratified to be promoted three times in one year, 1978, and make non-commissioned officer (corporal).
My Jewish commander officer, however, a Harvey Philip Gold, discovered my pro-white leanings – and transferred me in 1979 to an all-black supply unit, full of all the battalion “losers.”
That was really a living death. 😉
So I requested an “inter-service transfer” over from the Marines to the Virginia Army National Guard. I went into an excellent, all-white, “Southern-boy” infantry unit, connected to the US Army. There I was named “Guardsman of the Year” in my company and made sergeant under Captain John Holt.
Looking back, military discipline is certainly good for a young lad and having a stern, fair male authority figure who will not accept any immaturity, laziness and excuses.
And if you are a white civil-rights activist, you can always win points by proving you may hate the regime, but you loved and served your country in the military, which is more than most men today can say.
But so many Marines and soldiers went off to real combat and were killed there…
Marines in Nam haul their dead lieutenant out of the jungle.
… or wounded, even amputated…–
….or poisoned and sickened for life by our toxic “burn pits” (trash-burning areas located, idiotically, right next to US bases, which every week send poisonous air into the base when the wind blows that way)…..
I personally know a former Army soldier (and great guitarist, btw) who is apparently dying at just 56, diagnosed with “terminal cardiac myopathy” from working next to a a burn pit in Iraq.
…by helicopter-fuel-polluted drinking water (I met a 20-year-old former Marine who is on 100% disability and gets kidney dialysis thrice a week at the VA hospital in Butler, Pennsylvania — the top brass at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina betrayed the troops and LIED and COVERED UP a serious helicopter-fuel spill that leached down into the ground water)….
…. or especially by our dozens of highly dangerous vaccines.
I know two big, handsome, married former US Marines, both with really attractive mates, one here in Ontonagon, Michigan, and the other in Natrona, Pennsylvania, who were made sterile by the horrible, unnecessary anthrax vaccine.
(You have to sign a permission slip that directly warns you the vaccine “may make you temporarily sterile” — a stinking lie!!)
Military service might indeed help your character; and it will definitely teach you as a man how to kill people, which might come in mighty handy if the “SHTF.”
….but, these days, you may just come back dead for absolutely nothing.
Your children will have no dad….
Your parents will get the news they dreaded all along.
….Your wife is a widow…
She is also saddled with your kids, but now is without any husband. And many men don’t date a woman with another man’s kids and just don’t want to deal with them. Your wife may be a widow for a long time, or have “unsat” boyfriends that your kids despise (or who might even be a “weirdo” and try to molest them)!
Chin up, bucko! The tv set will raise you now.
….or you come back technically “alive” but bitter, sick in both body and mind, and seriously suicidal.
Marine in a mental fog, and freaked-out, wanders around the battlefield during the Marine assault on the Japanese-held island of Peleliu (from the HBO series “The Pacific”)
US Army soldier after a patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan: hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror
Marine sergeant Brandon Ketchum killed himself after the VA [Veterans Administration] refused to see him despite pleading to the triage nurse that he had severe, constant suicidal thoughts.
Marines watch artillery land in Korea at -30 F (-34 C).
Marines discover a dead buddy, tied to a tree, tortured, eyes gouged out, and castrated by the Japanese, with his testicles stuffed in his mouth. The North Koreans did this too, and my dad saw it, and a crucifixion. My father had nightmares for six months after Korea. You think you won’t be captured, but you can be knocked out by a grenade, left for dead as the battlefield rapidly moves, and wake up — in enemy hands.
Today, I still love my country, but after military service, I hate the traitors ruining it!
This brave warrior –“no greater love” — jumped on a grenade for his buddy in Afghanistan, and somehow lived, losing one eye, and having dozens of operations. Yes, that is the Medal of Honor in blue under his neck, for absolutely making the decision to sacrifice yourself. There is no nobler deed.
Even the cynical David Letterman got emotional.
“According to the reports afterward, because I don’t remember anything, I jumped on the grenade.”
But it was all for the Jews.
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An interesting and surprisingly unbiased article on Erich Hartmann, the deadliest fighter pilot in history, with 352 kills:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/352-kills-story-nazi-germanys-most-deadly-fighter-ace-29377
Photo of Erich Hartmann:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7a/c6/f0/7ac6f0735aba5c796643875f7f697992.jpg
And a must read Hans Ulrich Rudels’s “Stuka Pilot”.
Good stuff, John.
Thank you.
I just added this:
My maternal grandfather, John Thomas Col(d)well, was from Goole, Yorkshire, England, and his ancestors served for generations with pride in the Coldstream Guards, an elite infantry unit that also guards Buckingham Palace, the home of the Queen.