Taking Our Brother Home
May 10, 2008
Eagles!
Chris Hill, our National Director, has been coordinating this from the git-go, and I asked him to write up a synopsis of the mission and how it has developed. It is a fine example of what Eagles do, and I want to say, “Well done!” to Chris for his initiative and personal involvement in this event.
It was due solely to Chris’ persistence that the Maryland Transit Authority waived the tolls for the procession and for which GOE thanks the MTA. Again, good work, Chris.
Any Eagles and friends who desire to attend the interment are encouraged to do so.
Larry Bailey Read more
USCG GRADUATION Congratulations Class of 2008!
May 8, 2008
IVAW “Presents” to Congress??
May 7, 2008
An Artist Who Gets It
May 7, 2008
Recently, GOE’s Chairman, Captain Larry Bailey USN SEAL Ret, was in an airport when he happened upon a work of art made from clay consisting of desert boots, goggles and helmet arranged as if quickly removed by the soldier. We have all come to expect some anti-American message from such items. How wonderful then that this was not the case.
The artist, L. Heather McMahan, created the statue “Welcome Home” to honor the service of all those who have worn the uniform. Heather originally paid the airport to display the statue. That’s how much she wanted it known that there is support for our brave men and women in uniform. The statue will be donated to the 4th ID at Ft. Hood so that those who inspired it may see it, and consider it their own.
I have emailed back and forth with Heather, and have visited her site. The statue is nearly as powerful in that venue as the CO tells me it was in person. I suggest all of you visit her site at www.artforsoldiers.org and leave her a note of thanks. Bless you Heather for recognizing that all veterans want is for our country to love us as much as we love it. Manchu.
Operation Recruiter Appreciation Update
May 6, 2008
“The Sedition Report”
May 2, 2008
Dear Pro-Troop Supporters:
I have some great news to share with you!! Please also pass along this information to others who will appreciate the good news.
As you know there has sadly been an increasing campaign of violence against military recruiting centers across the nation - conducted by anti-military radicals (who are erroneously referred to as “peace activists” by a sympathetic media). We at Move America Forward researched the vast array of these incidents and compiled them together in “The Sedition Report” which we provided to members of Congress and law enforcement.
Today Move America Forward’s legal team received an official response from the U.S. Department of Justice criminal division:
“This is in response to your letter to the Criminal Division dated April 3, 2008. on behalf of your client, Move America Forward, Inc., recounting a number of incidences of vandalism and other activities at military recruiting stations.”
Much to our delight, the letter went on to say that they had agreed to direct our formal request for an investigation (and appropriate prosecutions based on the results of those investigations), “to Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters for review and appropriate action.”
We at Move America Forward will keep pressing forward on this issue. We will not allow our troops to come under attack here on home soil from those who express a seething white hatred towards our military men and women.
Over the past several weeks thousands of patriotic Americans provided the financial support that has paid for our legal team to press forward with these efforts. You and other patriots also paid for a television commercial that documented these attacks that has already aired across the nation.
Thank you all so much for your continued support of our troops and helping us at Move America Forward to make great progress in our pro-troop efforts.
Fondly,
Melanie Morgan
Chairman, Move America Forward
www.MoveAmericaForward.org
The Killing Fields
May 2, 2008
Democrats and the Killing Fields
By ARTHUR HERMAN
May 1, 2008; Page A17
Most people have never heard of Operation Frequent Wind, which ended on April 30, 1975, 33 years ago. But every American has seen pictures of it: the Marine helicopters evacuating the last U.S. personnel from the embassy in Saigon, hours before communist tanks rolled into the city. Thousands of desperate Vietnamese gathered at the embassy gate and begged to be taken with them. Others committed suicide.
Those scenes are a chilling reminder of what happens when a great power decides to cut and run. Two of the three presidential candidates are proposing to do just that in Iraq. We need to remember what happened the last time we gave up on an unpopular foreign policy, not only in humanitarian terms but in terms of American power and prestige.
Actually, the U.S. had won the war in Vietnam on the battlefield, just as the surge has done today in Iraq. Over Easter 1972, South Vietnamese forces, backed by U.S. airpower, crushed the last communist offensive, killing nearly 100,000 North Vietnamese troops.
The North was forced to sign peace accords in Paris recognizing the Republic of South Vietnam. The last 2,500 U.S. support troops went home. What they left was a fragile but sustainable peace, and an elected government in Saigon that was growing stronger every month.
But with 160,000 North Vietnamese soldiers still in South Vietnam, keeping the South free was going to require continued U.S. help, especially air support and military equipment if the North ever attacked again.
Democrats and American public opinion, however, had had enough. Much like Iraq today, the vast majority of South Vietnam had been pacified. Its government was taking on difficult but essential political changes, including land reform. The Democratic-controlled Congress, however, did not want to hear about success. They assumed failure in Vietnam would complete their rout of the hated Richard Nixon, who was already out of office thanks to Watergate, and position them for victory in the 1976 presidential election.
Meanwhile, the American public had been conditioned by the media to see Vietnam as a failed policy, and taught that America had gotten itself in the middle of a “civil war” which the Vietnamese had to sort out themselves. Once the last American troops left Vietnam, public opinion would never tolerate re-entry into a war widely seen as a blunder and endless quagmire.
In early 1975 the communists launched a massive attack. President Gerald Ford asked for $1 billion in supplemental funds to help the South Vietnamese, and Congress refused. They had already pulled the plug on the U.S.-supported government of Lon Nol in Cambodia. Ford had no choice but to order the evacuation of remaining U.S. personnel.
After nearly two decades of devastating war and 58,000 American combat deaths, the U.S. left Southeast Asia. As the last helicopter lifted off from Saigon, the New York Times’s Sydney Schanberg wrote an article with the title, “Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.” And the Times’s columnist Anthony Lewis asked, “what future could possibly be more terrible than the reality” of a war that had cost so much in lives and treasure?
With the North Vietnamese Communists and the Khmer Rouge taking over, the world was about to find out.
At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after “liberation” – the equivalent in terms of Vietnam’s population at the time, of killing three-quarters of a million people in today’s U.S. The new communist regime ordered somewhere between one- third to one-half of South Vietnam’s population to pass through its “re-education” camps, where perhaps as many as 250,000 died of disease, starvation, or were worked to death (the last inmates were not released until 1986).
That number does not include the thousands of “boat people” who tried to flee the totalitarian nightmare of communist Vietnam, and perished at sea.
Cambodia’s fate was even worse. At least one and a half million innocent Cambodians were butchered or starved to death in the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields and re-education camps, put to death by a fanatical regime that believed that anyone who wore eyeglasses must have “bourgeois intellectual tendencies” and be shot.
The scale of moral collapse and suffering went beyond Indochina. The pullout had a ripple effect on U.S. power and prestige, just as the proponents of the so-called “domino theory” had warned. American foreign policy, crippled by remorse and self-doubt, stood helplessly as others rushed into the power vacuum.
Marxist-Leninist regimes emerged not only in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but in Ethiopia and Guinea Bissau (1974), Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Angola (1975), Afghanistan (1978), and Grenada and Nicaragua (1979). Soviet troops were welcomed in Fidel Castro’s Cuba for the first time since the 1962 missile crisis. Cuban troops traveled freely to Africa to prop up Marxist regimes there.
In 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini was able to establish his brutal theocratic rule over Iran, confident that America, having learned “the lessons of Vietnam,” would never intervene.
The judgment of history, as Raymond Aron once remarked, is without pity. History will judge how America and its leaders handle global responsibility in Iraq and the Middle East in the next decade.
As Winston Churchill said of the appeasement of Hitler at Munich, in 1975 Americans were “weighed in the balance and found wanting.” We have a responsibility to the Iraqis – and to the memory of those we left behind – not to let that happen again.
Mr. Herman is the author, most recently, of “Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed An Empire and Forged Our Age,” just published by Bantam.
THE VALUE OF MILITARY ANALYSTS
May 2, 2008
From: jcash1
To:
Subject: Emailing: THE VALUE OF MILITARY ANALYSTS
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:34:20 -0600
My friends, the New York Times and Ike Skelton (D-Mo) have stepped over the line on this one. I refer to the irrational attack from the Times and supported on the floor of the House by Skelton on our retired Military Analysts. I know many of these men, and they are the most professional patriots in the country today.
Yes, there are a few Wesley Clarks out there, but an eel is slippery, and a few slip through.
Attached is my answer to this far-left attack, and several other retired military have written the Times. I ask that you forward this to as many as you can to include Congress and talk show hosts. The story from the Times has gotten legs, and it definitely needs to be rebutted.
Thank you,
Jim Cash
THE VALUE OF MILITARY ANALYSTS
The most patriotic group of individuals found in this country today has just been assaulted by the New York Times and Representative Ike Skelton (D-Mo). I refer to the recent article in the New York Times concerning Military Analysts attempting to convey what is going on around the world from a military point of view. These men have spent their lives being schooled and living these issues. They are an invaluable source of information to the American public. Modern day issues are so complex that it is impossible to define them in a two minute TV segment, and these analysts normally follow up with articles which give greater depth and understanding. Who in this country is more qualified? Everyone I know is grateful for their efforts to add perspective.
The Pentagon realized long ago that news networks valued input by retired military professionals, so information was provided to these individuals. This effort was never meant to sway their opinion, but to insure they had accurate and current information to convey to the public. How many of you have ever tried to sway the opinion of a retired military member who served 20 or 30 years defending this nation? Try it sometime. I think you might be surprised, and maybe even entertained.
I am personally a good example. Altogether, I served over 35 years combined duty in the Army National Guard, Army Reserve and on US Air Force active duty (29 years active duty). I learned early how lucky I was to be born in this country. I have never taken for granted the freedoms we have, nor the price we have paid for them.
When I retired from the US Air Force, I vowed to come back to Montana to fish, fly airplanes, ride motorcycles, and enjoy life as long as health permitted. I had no desire to become part of the Military Industrial Complex (whatever that is), nor to make money based on any ill-conceived plan that could remotely hurt this great nation in any way, as alluded to by master distorters from the New York Times.
I have never taken one penny for my writings, appearing on talk shows, speaking locally or otherwise. I have not been on an Air Force Base in over 10 years, and avoided the Pentagon like the plague, even while on active duty. Also, I initially vowed to remain very quiet, and worked hard not to influence local opinion. It is the American way to let the people decide on issues, based on their own merit.
About two years ago, this attitude changed. I began to see the local, Socialist-Leaning, Far-Left types in our beautiful valley begin to dominate our local newspaper. You know who they are. They write almost daily, and are basically country hating, military hating, Bush hating, haters. Many of you read my articles, and write telling me that you refuse to read their stuff as soon as you see their names.
I woke up one morning and decided that someone had to at least attempt to set the record straight. The far-left diatribes were hurting the country and our state, especially when the country is being threatened to the degree it is today. I wrote an article, and it received such a positive response it was overwhelming to me. The people wanted to hear the truth, so I wrote another. FOLKS, THE PENTAGON HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MY DECISION TO SUPPORT WHAT IS RIGHT WITH AMERICA!!!!! I take real offense to the far-left comment, “B/G Jim Cash, whose columns are loaded with dire statistics that only a fool would believe he carries around in his head.” What he means is that the Pentagon is feeding me the statistics, so that I might influence you.
This is criminal in my opinion. These statistics are available from a multitude of different sources, and I simply put them together in, hopefully, an easy to read format. In fact, I do carry most of them in my head, as I was personally influenced negatively every time I served under a Democratic President. In this short article, I cannot convey to you how difficult it was to serve under Jimmy Carter. The Clintons like to tell you how terrible it is that our young men and women are serving 15 month tours in Iraq, when Bill Clinton’s downsizing of our military is the direct cause of those long tours. Retired military, as well as active duty, attempted to deter that massive downsizing, but Clinton was Hell-Bent on capitalizing on the non-existent “Peace Dividend” after the collapse of the old Soviet Union.
My friends, someone has to get the truth out to the American people, and the only group I see doing that right now is our retired Military Analysts. All others are wrapped up in petty squabbling and trying to win elections. Now, the far-left has sunk to the level of attacking the most patriotic group in America, our retired military. That is unforgivable.
On a personal note, I know retired M/G Paul Vallely and LTG Tom McInerney very well, and I am proud to call them friends. I would put my life, and the life blood of this country, in their hands any time. Combined, these two patriots have devoted nearly 70 years to defending this nation. If money had been their aim, they could have easily gone into industry to become CEOs of major companies. To make an insane insinuation (as the Times did) that these two men, acting as puppets for the Pentagon, would distort what is happening during wartime is beneath contempt.
It is my considered opinion that the far-left has reached a new low. We have seen all the far-left radio and TV talk shows fail, or suffer low ratings that are leading to failure. This certainly includes the mainstream media. We have seen a few retired military members like Wesley Clark attempt to curry favor with the far left in an attempt to secure Cabinet level appointments should the Democrats win the Presidency this year. We have also seen the Democratic Party take control of our Congress and fail miserably.
On the other hand, we see the Conservative talk shows grow stronger, due in part to their use of military professionals committed to the welfare of this country. I would guess that well over 90% of retired military members are conservative in nature, and they are not reluctant to speak out. First, we recently saw the Left attempt to pass laws that would force radio talk show hosts to give equal time to the Left, as the left-leaning shows could not make it on their own. That effort failed. Now, the far-left, New York Times has convinced Missouri Democrat and House Armed Services Committee Chairman, Ike Skelton, to attempt to silence retired military members though congressional action.. It is as if he feels they are not worthy of the First Amendment’s right to free speech. Like most Democrats these days, he was foolish enough to bite on this nonsense.
My question to the nation is simply, HOW FAR WILL WE LET THESE FAR-LEFT LOONEY-TUNES go, before we vote them all out of office and stop buying their propaganda. I am in great hope that the good Americans of this country can see through the fog created by the far-left in an attempt to win elections, even though logic and truth are, and never have been, on their side.
Jim Cash
B/G, USAF, Retired (and proud of it)
Suzi Benjamin~The Truth
April 29, 2008
Eagles!
You’ve heard me blather about what one person can do; now see Bev Perlson’s latest confrontation with Suzi (Medea) Benjamin, one of the top dogs in Code Pink! Note the sign and the GOE flag! This shot was taken at last week’s GOE counter-protest against Code Pink in New Jersey.
Way to go, Bev!
Larry Bailey
GOE and the G.I. Film Festival
April 29, 2008
We who have served have all had to bear the resentment towards to Hollywood for the way they depict us. Lately, the American soldier is typically portrayed as a poor victim who had no other choice but to serve, or worse as a criminal malcontent. The actual honor and nobility of military service doesn’t seem to make it to major outlets, so the public is left with an unfair, negative or downright despicable image of us. Brandon Millet, whose wife is a West Point grad, saw this and decided to do something about it. He started the G.I. Film Fest to show movies that portray the American service member in a more positive, accurate light.
Hollywood only understands one thing: money. They will make movies that are closer to reality if they smell a profit. This is a way for us to directly send a message to Hollywood, and enjoy some good film fare. Brandon is offering a 20% discount to all Eagles, so go to the festival link and help Brandon to help us. www.gifilmfestival.com. A movie scene that has always stuck in my head has a line that sums it up for me, “All I’ve ever wanted is for my country to love me as much as I love it.” Brandon and the rest of the staff at the G.I. Film Festival get that, so thanks Brandon for loving us and making it known. Manchu.
Victory in New Jersey
April 28, 2008
In solidarity with our friends in Berkeley, on Sunday, April 27th, The Gathering of Eagles told Susie Benjamin and her friends from Code Pink that they were not welcome in New Jersey. What a great day for Eagles!
Susie slinked into sleepy little Northern New Jersey, certain she could defile our state without comment. Imagine the surprise when “Peacers” came down Route 23 and discovered it lined with American flags and patriots there standing up for our troops! The first sign that greeted them? “Code Pink…NOT WELCOME IN NEW JERSEY!” Read more
You asked for them: GOE bike flags
April 25, 2008
Ok folks, I will be placing an order for bike flags next week. These will be the same as the 3×5 flags, only bike sized (5×7) and made of extremely tough nylon with reinforced grommets for those of you who like to ride slightly over the speed limit. ( LOL) Please contact me at eaglesvt at gmail.com if you would like to pre-order one….or 12!
A Father Keeps the Faith
April 24, 2008
PFC Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Michigan and Spc. Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts both of the 10th Mountain Division have been listed as POW/MIA since their patrol was ambushed on 12 May, 2007. In Michigan, Byron’s stepdad has refused to accept anything but that Byron and Alex will one day come home. I have spoken to him on numerous occasions. He is a salt of the earth type. To honor and remember these men a Ride and Rally will be held 17 May, 2008. We can only keep the faith that we will, eventually, get to welcome these brave warriors home. Brothers Byron and Alex, you are not forgotten. Manchu.
Chris Hill
National Director of Operations
Gathering of Eagles Read more
2008 Operation Recruiter Appreciation underway!
April 24, 2008
Hello EAGLES! I have volunteered to act as the GOE point of contact for “Operation Recruiter Appreciation” (ORA) to be held on or about May 17th (Armed Forces Day). Our recruiters are our “First Line of Defense” and need to be recognized for their efforts. In the past year, our recruiters have been under attack by insurgents right here at home! As Eagles we need to show them that we know they are important and we appreciate them. Read more
Tullytown Memorial Day Parade Invite
April 23, 2008
Many of you will remember our very first successful action after GOE I. It took place in suburban Philadelphia, in the Borough of Tullytown. MSgt Joe Shellenberger, a member of City Council in Tullytown, had deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. As he was stationed on an airbase, he wanted to participate in Council business via teleconference. Despite it being expressly authorized by the state charter, the City Council President refused to allow a motion to even be brought. Well, we heard about a brother in arms needing assistance and showed up in force. Long story short, we lost the initial battle and could not get Joe his teleconference, but we did inform the borough’s residents of the miscarriage of justice. City Council elections swept out the offending parties and the bylaws were changed to expressly permit deployed service members their Constitutional rights. Read more
Rally in Honor of the Army’s 233rd Birthday
April 22, 2008
For those of you that are service challenged, that’s 14 June, 2008. In recognition of this momentous occasion we are taking the fight to the streets of West Chester, PA. One of the more virulent anti-American groups has set up shop on the steps of the Courthouse there. The birthplace of two-time Medal of Honor recipient, Smedley Butler USMC, has witnessed vile, spiteful attacks by peace protestors. In fact, one of the Vets for Peace (formerly the Vietnam Vets Against the War) assaulted a female because she had the temerity to film his anti-American antics for posterity’s sake. This, from a group that never fails to film everything, which they doctor to promote their own hateful bile. Some of you may remember that the leader of this peace movement made the most despicable comments, in both private and public venues, about veterans in general and us in particular. In case you have forgotten here’s a sampling of her words:
I saw old (my age) men who are still living the wet dreams of youth, decked out in gray beards on those wrinkled faces and leather and metal and waving Old Glory like swords, not like flags. Men who should know better, who should be at better places in their lives, men who should be making positive contributions to our young folks’ futures - but still searching to fulfill dreams that appear to be all they have left. Tragically, those old men’s wet dreams are now fulfilled only by sending off younger men to die. I am sad for them because they seem to have nothing better in their lives than feeding a hungry and hateful war machine, singing praises to tragedy and destruction, and feeding their young to the very jaws of hell.
Those grey-bearded men in their leather jackets and metal studs, with their phallic motorcycles with hideous roaring engines continue to send off young men to die like that, or to return, broken shells of themselves, with the rationalization that they have already “served their time, served their country,” so it’s OK to sacrifice their young to keep alive their never-ending wet dreams. It’s OK, they say, to send off their young to “die for their country” for they seem to have no idea (or simply can’t face the fact) that they are only pawns in a hideous game played by powerful entities that see them only as red meat, cannon fodder, targets, sinew and bones, body bags, graves, memories, economic factors of war production. But, of course, they’re all “for the troops,” and we aren’t, don’t you know?
But, as sad and pitiful as those men are, the death-cheering women are always the most disturbing, the scariest, their hardened and wrinkled faces showing hatred that mothers and daughters just shouldn’t show. I grew up with women like that, often wrinkled and wizzened by tobacco and alcohol and sun and poverty and despair in Appalachian coal country. They were my aunts and neighbors and cousins. Someone said to me, “Why do those women look so much more hateful even than the men? So much more disturbing than the men? So ugly with their hate?” It’s like they purposely put on makeup that makes them hateful and ugly instead of what I think (stereotyping, I know) most women want to be - soft and loving and kind. I answered, “Have you ever seen films of KKK women? Same impression - they appear to be so much more hideous because women just aren’t supposed to be that way.” They’re downright scary. Women are supposed to be motherly and loving and peaceful and all things nurturing and kind - not tools who gladly send off their young sons to die horrible deaths based on lies and deception. If women agree to this horror, what hope is there for the world? They feed their children, willingly, to an insatiable beast called war, to an insatiable beast that rapes them as they smile and takes everything they have, that robs them of their beauty and will send them to their graves in mass ignorance. On one level, I feel so very sorry for them. On another level, they are frightening as harbingers of the very worst mankind has to offer.
We will assemble at 1015hrs on the corner of High & Market Sts, West Chester, PA. On this date, the birthday of the world’s finest fighting force, we will assemble under Old Glory and remind them that without men and women such as us they would have no right to free speech. Of course, they use that right to disparage us, but so be it. Our friends at American Sheepdogs have been holding down this spot for almost a year now. Although almost always numerically out-numbered they persevere with patriotism and the strength of honor. It’s time to, once again, show the anti-American forces that we will not be silenced and we are not going away. Anywhere these anti-American forces gather we will counter them. Afterwards, we will hold court, directly across the street, at a local hall, where adult beverages and food will be provided. Leave the kids at home for this one folks, and remember, like they told me at Ft. Benning, GA all those years ago, “If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn’t prepare well enough.” Looking forward to standing tall, and looking good, with all of you again. Let’s Roll. Manchu.
Chris Hill
National Director
Gathering of Eagles
Dad calls from Iraq, son gets suspended
April 19, 2008
Eagles!
This is outrageous! Please e-mail or call these dunderheads in my home state of Texas!
Larry Bailey
http://www.parentdish.com/2008/04/16/dad-calls-from-iraq-son-gets-suspended/ Read more
Navy SEAL Michael A. Monsoor~Medal of Honor
April 19, 2008
During Petty Officer Mike Monsoor’s funeral here in San Diego, as Mike’s coffin was being moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft Rosecrans National Cemetery, SEALs were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers route forming a column of two’s with the coffin moving up the center.
As the Mike’s coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the wooden coffin; the slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it. Read more
Two Maupin captors in custody
April 18, 2008
By Howard Wilkinson - The Cincinnati Enquirer Posted : Wednesday Apr 16, 2008 16:15:02 EDT
Army officials have told the parents of Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin that some of the Iraqis believed to be responsible for their son’s capture four years ago are in custody.
“I know that there are at least two who are supposed to be put on trial, if they haven’t been already,’’ said Keith Maupin, father of the Union Township soldier whose remains were found March 20 in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, nearly four years after he was captured in a convoy attack near the Baghdad airport. Read more
Military Order of the Purple Heart
April 17, 2008
Eagles!
Henry Cook, National Commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart and a great friend of Eagles everywhere, has taken a fall on behalf of truth and honesty. Those self-serving people at the MOPH Foundation (not affiliated with the Order itself) have brought discredit to ALL veteran service organizations by their blatant mismanagement of the funds entrusted to them. The Foundation got an “F” in a recent evaluation of military support organizations.
Take a look at the ABC News piece here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter
Please go to the MOPH website and send Henry a big GOE “well-done!”
And if you feel led, go to the Foundation website and give them a big Eagle “Boo-Hiss!”
PHSF@purpleheartfoundation.org
Larry Bailey
