Never Forget

Patriots' Day

Happy Patriots' Day!

On this 236th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, let us remember the patriotic fervor that drove our fledgling colonies to rise against tyranny -- to sacrifice their homes, their property and their lives -- so that we may form a more perfect Union.

May the light of liberty shine brightly throughout the world!

"A new hope for our children in the 21st century"

{Crossposted from ChicagoBoyz.net, which is hosting a "Reagan Centenary Roundtable" in honor of the 100th birthday of our 40th President}

Tomorrow afternoon (Monday, February 7th, 2011), the first Monday in February, President Obama will deliver his Fiscal Year 2012 Presidential Budget to the Congress.  This is the opening act of our annual budgetary tango, with copious debate over the coming months of the necessary trades between programs.

On March 23rd, 1983, a few weeks after President Reagan presented his Fiscal 1984 budget to Congress, he gave his famous "Star Wars Speech" to a national televised audience.  Although "Star Wars" was the derisive name opponents used to mock the fantastic nature of the President's vision, President Reagan's speech was singularly focused on restoring American military strength and credibility -- and to "... pave the way for arms control measures to eliminate the [nuclear] weapons themselves."

Ironically, unlike President Kennedy's 1962 speech at Rice University that was fully focused on the seemingly-impossible challenge of putting a man on the moon (and Rice defeating Texas in football), Reagan's "... call [to] the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents ... to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete" warranted only a couple of sentences in an otherwise lengthy speech.

Rather, this speech was part of “…a careful, long-term plan to make America strong again after too many years of neglect and mistakes,” and (when coupled with President Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando just two weeks prior) was a deliberate escalation of Cold War rhetoric.

President Reagan was rightfully concerned that the defense budget had been “trimmed to the limits of safety” by Congress.  This decay of U.S. armed forces led Reagan “…to improve the basic readiness and staying power of our conventional forces, so they could meet - and therefore help deter - a crisis.”  But his confidence in the logic of deterrence had limits.  The Star Wars Speech presented to the world Reagan's realization that deterrence based solely on commensurate offensive capabilities was fallacious.

“Over the course of these discussions, I have become more and more deeply convinced that the human spirit must be capable of rising above dealing with other nations and human beings by threatening their existence....  Wouldn't it be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability? I think we are - indeed, we must!”

The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO, precursor to today's Missile Defense Agency) was founded the following year, 1984.  Reagan realized the complexity of the task, noting in his speech that it “... may not be accomplished before the end of this century.”  Yet the U.S. Army PATRIOT terminal defense system performed admirably in early 1991 during DESERT STORM, and today's U.S. Navy Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) has been used to destroy a failing satellite (Operation BURNT FROST, February 2008) as well as form the future foundation of land-based European missile defense and our nation's "Phased Adaptive Approach".

The magnitude of the technical challenge caused many to blanche in 1983, and to ridicule the President.  Yet today's successes would never have been possible if President Reagan had not had the faith to "... [launch] an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history."

For that, we have "... a new hope for our children in the 21st century."

Christmas Eve at Nürnberg, 1945

My friend and editor Fred Zimmerman from Nimble Books offers this reflection on the "spirit of Christmas", from U.S. Supreme Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Chief Prosecutor at the Nürnberg Trials):

This is the first Christmas in many years which does not find the world engaged in a major war. Christmas should bring home to all peoples, regardless of race, creed or nationality, what it really means to the world that this year marks the conquest of the Nazi-Fascist-Japanese drive to dominate the world. We who are here in Nürnberg, far from home but close to the scenes of the war, have thrust upon us a new appreciation of the significance of Christmas.

Twenty centuries ago, there was laid in the manger at Bethlehem the Great Witness to the eternal truth that Might does not make Right. Christ taught that there is a right and a wrong in human conduct which in no way depends on physical strength. This belief has been summarized in the familiar sentence that “Thrice armed is he whose cause is Just.” The Nazi-Fascist-Japanese alliance tried to establish a regime based on exactly the opposite philosophy of life.

Just before the great war, Adolf Hitler had a meeting of the officers of his High Command. We have captured the minutes of that meeting and put them in evidence at Nürnberg. He said to his generals: "I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war, never mind whether it be true or not. The victor shall not be asked later on whether we tell the truth or not. In starting and making a war, not the right is what matters but victory – the strongest has the right."

Over and over again the Nazi leaders reiterated this foul philosophy. We may rejoice at this Christmas season that once again it has been demonstrated that cruelty, oppression and false dealing will disintegrate the strongest power and will at the same time arouse moral forces in opposition that will certainly, though perhaps slowly prevail. No more dramatic vindication of the truth that power does not make right has been seen by the world than in the last two years.

In the early years of the war, Germany had every physical superiority. She had unity, the Allies lacked cohesion; she had a plan—the Allies had only confusion; she had preparation, armament, air power—the Allies had neglected their military forces; she had victory—they had a long series of defeats that were so great as to be disasters. Two years ago it really looked possible that the peoples who believed in moral and spiritual forces would go down under the crushing weight of Nazi physical force.

Today we see those who relied on strength alone, who despised right and scoffed at wrong facing an accounting. We are seeing their acts held up for reexamination in the light of moral principles and legal precepts. Sir Hartley Shawcross, Attorney General of England, in his great opening address at the Nürnberg trials said:

"The British Empire has twice been victorious in wars which have been forced upon it within the space of one generation but it is precisely because we realize that victory is not enough; that might is not necessarily right; that lasting peace and the rule of International Law is not to be achieved by the strong arm alone, that the British Nation is taking part in this trial."

Like all human efforts, the attempt to measure the conduct of the defeated by moral standards is an imperfect one—I have no disposition to claim it faultless. But I do say that the utter and irreparable collapse of the doctrine that might makes right is the most significant feature of the Nürnberg trials. Whatever other shortcomings we representing the victors may have—and they are numerous—we do not adhere to the doctrine that because we have power we can do no wrong. If we did, there would be no trial. We are patiently—too patiently, many think—examining the acts of the Nazi leaders.

We are trying dispassionately—too dispassionately, many think—to test those acts by the principles which must prevail in a sound and peaceful international order, principles by which hereafter the conduct of the victors, no less than of the vanquished, will be tested by world opinion.

Once again, the world is proceeding on a basis that power and might are subject to moral responsibility. There may be—there are—many deviations from the principle and many failures to live up to the ideal. But at least the teaching of our times has returned to the Christian ideal that the strong, no less than the weak, must answer to the moral forces of the world and again demonstrate that right will generate the might to vindicate itself.

May you enjoy peace and joy this holiday season.

A Century of Naval Aviation

Exactly 100 years ago today, Eugene Ely made history.  By flying a Curtiss bi-plane off the deck of the cruiser USS BIRMINGHAM, off Old Point Comfort near today's N.A.S. Norfolk in southeast Virginia, he demonstrated that planes could indeed be flown from ships.

The five-degree inclination of the wooden ramp, and the forty-foot drop to the water, allowed Ely to get enough airspeed to remain aloft for 2-1/2 minutes before landing at nearby Willoughby Spit.  Within months, Naval Aviation was founded -- and less than ten years later, USS LANGLEY (the world's first aircraft carrier, built on the hull of USS JUNO) was built.

GO NAVY!

Armistice/Remembrance/Veterans Day

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in the year 1918, "The Great War" ended.

Of course, it couldn't have been known as "World War I" at the time -- because that would mean the insanity of wholesale slaughter and wanton destruction would happen again.  What a difference a generation makes....

92 years after the poppy has come to signify remembrance of those who fell in defense of the State, whether in Flanders Fields or France or the coral atolls of the Pacific or the rolling hills of Korea or the jungles of Vietnam or the deserts of Iraq or the river valleys of the Hindu Kush, today we are living off the interest earned by their blood.

It is a bittersweet blessing that we can live in such ignorance and apathy of those who serve today.  The strength of the American nation -- even in the midst of a global recession -- and the interconnectedness of the developed world means that we DON'T have to sacrifice like our parents and grandparents did when war consumed the nation.

Our blessing to is live as if nothing is happening.  We are free from want, from rationing, and from the personal sacrifice to ensure our servicemembers have the materiel they need to succeed.  And only those families who have an immediate relative serving in a combat zone truly grasp the heartbreak of "Deployment".

But this blessing is also a curse.  The nation that loses touch with its most dedicated citizens is a nation that does not deserve their service.

And yet they serve.

They serve so that we have the right to ignore them, to belittle them, to contradict them, to purchase "The Communist Manifesto" freely in bookstores, and to picket at their funerals in our feeble outrage at a nation's policies.

Theirs is a dignity few can grasp, and even fewer know.


They are who we honor today, but who deserve our honor EVERY day.

Afghanistan 2050: Kaleidoscope of History

(Cross-posted from ChicagoBoyz as part of the Afghanistan 2050 Roundtable)

Chotor asty, in the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. This letter is from Akram Khan, a slave of Allah. Peace be upon him who follows the right path. As we approach the 131st celebration of Afghan Independence Day, in this year 1472 AH, we must pause to celebrate the resilience of the Pashtunwali.

Blessings to Allah for this year’s bountiful poppy harvest – the richest Orūzgān has ever seen, rivaling Helmand’s harvest this year. With Chinese demand for opium ever increasing due to their new-found opulence, we are thankful that Allah has smiled upon our fields and our labors.

While chaos and economic collapse continues to engulf the Indian subcontinent (moreso from the Chinese damming of the headwaters of the Indus, Brahmaputra and Ganges rivers in their insatiable thirst for energy than from any direct external conflict), our lives west of the Hindu Kush remain stoic and tranquil.

It is ironic that the colonial powers of the west thought they could tame Afghanistan. The first memories of my youth were of my brave brothers and uncles taking arms against the Soviet tanks that sought to prop up the urban elites of Babrak Karmal and his fellow kleptocrats. And as a young man, I watched the ignorant Taliban Kandaharis try to impose their misguided interpretation of Shari’a on our peoples – only to be quickly ousted by the Americans and their corrupt puppet Hamid Karzai. And in my middle age I witnessed the ebb and flow of various outsiders – from Europeans to Pakistanis to Chinese – try to impose their centralized governances on us. At least until the development of sub-Saharan Africa gave them all a new sandbox to attempt to shape in their own image, leaving us to our own “archaic” ways….

Where they all were wrong is their failure to grasp the most basic tenets of tribalism. The western politicians universally declare their fealty to “family values”, yet they have no true conception of what that means. Despite the hardships of Afghanistan, we are free from want and have a simple, secure lifestyle. Our open, egalitarian and classless society is inherently cooperative – something we see far too little of in so-called “progressive” societies around the globe that depend upon (and unduly reward) the individual above the collective.

Though fatigued by decades of conflict, we welcome the recent tranquility afforded our peoples by the Great Powers’ distractions in Africa. Our celebration of Afghan independence is a celebration of our own modest freedoms – freedom to till the harsh rocky soil, freedom to support our clan with our own labors, freedom to remain apart from a world gone mad. And we humbly return to what we have always done: pray, eat, sleep and love.

In the name of Allah the most Sincere, may peace be upon you and your family.

Day of Trinity

Today is the 65th anniversary of the first man-made nuclear detonation. A prototype of the "Fat Man" Pu-239 implosion-type bomb, fueled by Plutonium enriched at the Hanford site's "B Reactor" in eastern Washington, was detonated in the New Mexico desert near Alamagordo. Hanford, site of today's Pacific Northwest National Lab, is the site of a scaled-up, 250 MWatt breeder reactor based on the Graphic Reactor developed by Enrico Fermi at X-10 (today's Oak Ridge National Lab) in Bethel Valley near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

This test was the final developmental milestone of the MANHATTAN PROJECT. Exactly three weeks later ENOLA GAY dropped the single "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima. 'Single' because the Y-12 site in Bear Creek Valley in Oak Ridge, had produced only enough Highly Enriched Uranium-235 for a single 'gun-type' (vice 'implosion-type') bomb with Cal physics professor E.O. Lawrence's "California University Cyclotrons" (or 'Calutrons').

Three days later, BOCK'S CAR dropped a second "Fat Man" bomb on Nagasaki. Within days Emperor Hirohito capitulated to the unconditional surrender of the Empire of Japan to the Allied Powers - and spared the world the millions of casualties from an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

My grandfather would have undoubtedly been pulled back into the Fleet Marine Force (despite the malaria he contracted on Guadalcanal), and I very likely would not be here today.

So regardless of your thoughts on the 'necessity' of a city attack vice a benign "demonstration" of the capability, it is worthwile to note that the motto of Oak Ridge, Tennessee (where I called home from 2006-2009) is "Born of War, Living for Peace, Growing through Science". And in Oak Ridge's A.K. Bissell Park at the city's center is a friendship bell from the city of Hiroshima.

Happy 40th, Internet

The Internet is 40 years old today.

The very first host-to-host packet-switched message ever sent over the fledgling "ARPANET", an information network developed by BBN Technologies under a contract awarded by the Pentagon's "Advanced Research Projects Agency" (today known as DARPA), was sent 40 years ago today.

At 10:30pm PDT on October 29th, 1969, a UCLA student using an SDS "Sigma 7" host computer sent the word "login" to an SDS 940 interface message processor (IMP) 300 miles north at the Stanfurd Research Institute. Though the system crashed after only the first two letters were transmitted ("lo"), the remote IMP login was accomplished an hour later.

The original 1822 protocol, which was designed for reliability and assurance (i.e., the host would be able to tell if a message was lost), was later replaced with the Network Control Program (NCP) that allowed simultaneous message sharing between different hosts. The modern Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was adopted by ARPANET in 1983.

ARPA, the world's 200 million plus blogs thank you.

20 Years Later

Twenty years ago today, I was a third-semester senior at the University of California at Berkeley. My favorite baseball team, the Oakland A's, were in the World Series facing the neighboring San Francisco Giants in the "Bay Bridge Series". Though the media moguls hated such a "local" World Series, I thought it was the best ever. That is, until Game Three....

During pre-game warmups, as I sat in my room across the Bay in Alameda, the intial jolts of the Loma Prieta earthquake began knocking books off of my shelves. ABC sportscaster Al Michaels turned to his right and said "We're having an earth...", immediately followed by static then a power outage. That fifteen seconds of violent shaking (7.1 surface wave magnitude) felt more like fifteen minutes.

Of the 57 people who lost their lives as a direct result of Loma Prieta, 42 of them were on the Cypress Section of Interstate-880 in northwest Oakland (the photo above). Perhaps the "Bay Bridge Series" had a positive effect, minimizing the amount of traffic that would normally be on this main traffic artery connecting the East Bay and Peninsula during rush hour (the quake occurred at 5:04pm local). That section of freeway would normally have hundreds of vehicles bumper-to-bumper this time of day.... It was also a route that I often took to Cal, having traversed the lower deck the morning prior.

Today, the Cypress is a ground-level, side-by-side freeway. Structural standards for elevated roads have strengthened. And the skill of the first responders in containing the fires that followed prevented a repeat of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (which claimed more than 3,000 lives). Oh, and the A's swept the Giants, outscoring them 32-14 in four games after a ten-day pause due to the earthquake.

Happy Air Force Birthday!

Happy Birthday, U.S. Air Force! For 62 years, the Air Force has merged technical excellence with mission focus -- ensuring that American power is without peer in the air, in space, and most recently in cyberspace.


KEEP AIMING HIGH!

Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Poland....

In a statement this morning, President Obama officially killed the Poland-based portion of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, and its accompanying phased-array radar in the Czech Republic. This system has been a point of contention ever since former President Bush inked the deal with the European nations who would benefit from the system's protection against Iranian missiles.

Though this system (called "European Capability") is being replaced by a "phased approach" that capitalizes on sea- and other land-based interceptors, you have to wonder about the timing of this announcement.....

Sept. 17, 1939 (70 years ago today) marked the Soviet invasion of Poland. Happy Anniversary, Poland....

(h/t Nathan Hodge at WIRED's Danger Room)

Moon + 40

40 years ago today, I was a toddler living in southwest Michigan with a second birthday coming up. My first recollection of our nation's space program was watching the APOLLO-SOYUZ linkup as an almost-seven-year-old waiting in a hospital lobby in Jacksonville, Florida for my 2nd major ear surgery.

The APOLLO 11 landing was the culmination of an ambitious vision laid out by President Kennedy some seven years prior -- a speech asking imponderable questions like "Why climb the highest mountain?" and "Why does Rice play Texas?"

While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin deserve all of the accolades of being the first humans to walk on another celestial body, my personal hero is Michael Collins: the pilot of the Command Module COLUMBIA and designer of the mission patch who could only watch from above as his two colleagues' names became forever etched in the nation's memory.

And why was he stuck in the Command Module? One reason: to perform unscheduled maintenance. That, and his personal disdain for geology.

Congratulations to the entire crew of APOLLO 11 for inspiring our world, and making the Universe seem just a little bit smaller!

Happy Independence Day!

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

General Orders, July 2nd 1776

"...The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army -- Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect -- We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions -- The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for LIBERTY on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."

General George Washington
General Orders Head Quarters, New York, July 2, 1776

(The sketch above is from July 9, 1776, when General Washington directed his officers to read the newly-signed Declaration of Independence to his troops -- assembled near modern day City Hall in New York, as they awaited the combined British forces.)

Happy Birthday, Carl!

229 years ago today, Carl Philipp Gottleib von Clausewitz was born in Burg bei Magdeburg in the Kingdom of Prussia. In addition to being a noted reformer in the Prussian Army during the Napoleonic Wars, he is also one of the most significant military theorists of our modern age. His magnum opus, On War, is required reading at nearly every intermediate service school in the world -- though his work is frequently misinterpreted, or only partially read. (Thankfully, the Chicago Boyz blog recently hosted a "roundtable" on Carl von's tome -- and Nimble Books will soon publish those proceedings in book form.)

Happy Birthday, Carl von!

Kamehameha Day

Happy Kamehameha Day! Kamehameha the Great, often called the Napoleon of the Pacific, unified the islands of Hawai'i shortly after a haole named Cook "discovered" this tropical paradise.

Kamehameha (born as Pai'ea on the leeward side of the Big Island) became the ali'i nui of all eight islands in the early 19th century, conquering all of the islands (except Kaua'i and Ni'ihau) by force -- including forcing many of Kalanikupule's (the ali'i of O'ahu) off the Pali cliffs. The more-distant islands of Kaua'i and Ni'ihau were won through negotiation rather than battle.

Today is a public holiday in the state of Hawai'i, with a floral parade from the 'Iolani Palace to the edge of Kapi'olani Park near Diamondhead, an evening draping ceremony with long strands of lei draped over the King's statue, and a Hoʻolauleʻa -- a super-sized lu'au.

Aloha nui loa, Kamehameha!

D-Day + 65 Years

The beginning of the end of World War II started 65 years ago. As President Obama said earlier today at OMAHA Beach on the Normandy shore, "At an hour of maximum danger, amid the bleakest of circumstances, men who thought themselves ordinary found it within themselves to do the extraordinary ..."

D-Day was the consequence of not only extraordinary acts by ordinary men, but also by the brilliant subterfuge of its planners. Some have called Fortitude South "the greatest deception of all time", allowing the Allied forces to secure a foothold on the Continent despite their numerical inferiority.

While Google chose to solely honor Tetris on their site today (an anniversary I have also acknowledged on this blog), it is far more important to respect the profound sacrifice of so many Allied forces who gave their "last full measure of devotion" in defeating the Axis.

Pikes Summit

We ascended the Pikes Peak Highway today, with all three kids in tow. Sophie was asleep as we reached the summit, so our photo by the elevation marker only shows her big brother and big sister.

The Pikes Peak Highway is a 19-mile road, mostly paved, but with few guard rails. This road, built in the 1880s as a carriage road to serve the U.S. Army Signal Corps weather station at the summit, was improved in 1915 at a cost of $500,000. The following year, 1916, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race was established -- the second oldest auto race in the U.S. (only the Indy 500 is older). The road was operated privately for 20 years, charging $2 per person, but never realized a profit due to the tremendous cost of snow removal.

Shelby's planned mode of ascent (and descent) the next time she visits the summit:


(She did not enjoy the drive as much as I did....)

From the summit, we had a compelling view of Garden of the Gods:


We did not see much wildlife, perhaps due to the dense snowpack still covering much of the summit. However, the Gatehouse signs said there had been a fox sighted between mile markers 10 and 13. Sure enough, just before mile marker 13 (and next to the parking lot for the Glen Cove Inn, where descending motorists have their brake temperature checked to ensure they can safely proceed), we saw the fox laying beside the road. His demeanor was more akin to a friendly dog than a fox.

Of course, no visit to the Pike National Forest is complete without a picnic by the shore of Crystal Creek Reservoir!

Zebulon Pike

Brig. Gen. Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Jr., was born near modern-day Trenton, New Jersey during the Revolutionary War. In 1805, as a 27-year-old Lieutenant, Pike was charged with mapping the upper Mississippi River while a more-famous expedition mapped the Missouri River for President Jefferson.

Though Pike incorrectly designated Leech Lake as the Mississippi's headwaters (some 20 miles to the east of Lake Itasca, the "veritas caput" -- or "true head"), upon his return he was immediately ordered to lead a southwestern expedition to find the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers.

It was on this expedition that the peak that bears his name in south-central Colorado was mapped. Pike never reached the 14,115' summit of "Pikes Peak" -- turning back atop Mount Rosa (the peak to the southeast of the higher summit) in waist-deep snow after having gone without food for two days.

Though captured by Spanish authorities during this expedition, his incarceration in the Mexican state of Chihuahua led to several findings: access to more maps of the southwest, and the revelation of Mexican discontent with Spanish rule.

Pike continued to serve in the U.S. Army. At the Battle of Tippecanoe he is listed as a Lt. Col. with the 4th Infantry Regiment, and during the War of 1812 he was Quartermaster-General and Inspector-General in New Orleans.

His final expedition was the successful attack on York, Ontario (contemporary Toronto) in April 1813. During surrender negotiations, the retreating British garrison detonated their ammunition depot without warning. Pike was struck and killed by the debris on this date, April 27th, 1813.

Zebulon Pike's account of his travels, published in 1810, became required reading for all explorers who followed in his footsteps. His insights into the politics and economics of Chihuahua led to the establishment of the Santa Fe Trail to promote trade, and ultimately to the Mexican independence movement of the 1810s and 1820s.