There Was Indeed A Hero On That Horrible Day

A survivor of the Holocaust who was 76 years old, aeronautics enginering professor Liviu Librescu died buying his students time to escape....


...Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the man attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.
"My father blocked

He died On Holocaust Memorial Day.

Hat tip: C0lleen Doran

Fair Winds and Following Seas

The last 2 Navy veterans of World War One have just died.

Loyd Brown, the last Navy veteran of World War one died Thursday in Maryland at the age of 105.
He had lied about his age (16) to enlist during WW1 and served as a gunner aboard the Battleship New Hampshire.

His death followed on the heels of the passing of the last of the "Yeomanettes".


Charlotte Winters, the last female Navy Veteran of World War One died on the 28th, also in Maryland. She was one of the very first group of women ever accepted into the Navy. She served in the Naval reserve as a yeoman until she retired in 1953. She was 109.

On Blackwater

Some years ago,I came in contact with a few of the employees of Blackwater, the controversial private security company about a hundred miles from here in NC. They did some training in association with my old unit and we got some LE equipment from them as well. They struck me as decent and hardworking soldiers. Unlike most security consultants this company requires its people be former US military (preferably special forces types), I have also heard (but never had it verified) that several employees return to Military service after a stint at Blackwater in order to convey lessons learned.

Blackwater has become quite the boogieman for the left as they are a synthesis of much of what they hate most, a meritocracy, gun users, people who turn a profit and macho. The infamous screw 'em post by Kos was in reference to a group of Blackwater employees who died fighting a delaying action against terrorists to give a civillian food convoy a chance to escape. The civillians did in fact escape, but the boys from Blackwater, hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded were overwhelmed brutally killed, burned and had their bodies hung from a bridge. By any rational measure those men died heroes, but to the left they are simply double plus ungood.

I bring up this old story because I blundered into this post by RJ Hillhouse via Armchair Generalist.

It's a nice piece concerning the recent deaths of yet more Blackwater employees. She references a piece that was the on front page our local paper the other day. The article contained this telling passage.

Blackwater has said in the past that while plenty of its own men have been killed, it has never lost anyone it was hired to guard.
Last week did not change that. The deaths brought Blackwater's toll to 30 dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one in the convoy was killed.

The increased use of contract labor to do military tasks is a cause for concern and we should be having more of a debate on it than we are. It may be that in nation-building excersizes they can have a very important place complementing our military doing police type things we don't want our military to make a habit of. This is a discussion we need to be having, but maligning good people for political expediency is just foul...especially when they died protecting others and so can't defend themselves.

Veterans Day

This sat in draft form 'till after midnight as I wracked my brain unsucsessfully to find the proper words.

Michelle Malkin has a very nice post up in which she tells the story of one of the Coast Guards greatest heroes. it is probably more apropriate for memorial day, though it IS a great post and I'm really without words tonight.

Coast Guard, Army Save Merchant Crew

Hat Tip: Murdoc


A Coast Guard and two Army National Guard helicopters have rescued the crew of the MV Cougar Ace a Ro-Ro ship 230 miles south of the Aleutians.

No word on what caused it but my completely uninformed guess would be a ballasting mishap. Merchant ships have ballast tanks to deal with asymmetrical cargo loads and other weights.
For environmental reasons...like zebra mussels....ships are required to change out ballast water again in the deep ocean to prevent critters being introduced in littoral areas. My guess would be that one set of tanks did not empty for some reason and the ship flipped beyond its ability recover before the crew could act. If the cars it was carrying shifted to one side as a result the ship would likely be unable to right itself, especially if the ballast intakes were no longer immersed.

This could be due to a breakdown or human error, both odd in a Singapore flagged/ Japanese owned ship. The seas in the photo don't seem rough. The 10 foot seas reported in the article are not especially dangerous, especially for a ship of that type.

Wierd....

This concludes my unliscenced foray into marine casualty investigation.

Last Hero of Pea Island Dies...

William Charles Bowser, the last of the heroes from the Pea Island Rescue Station has finally passed on.

The all black Pea Island Rescue Station was initially crewed by freedmen and earned a legendary reputation for courage and professionalism as they fought to save lives along the treacherous coast of North Carolinas Outer Banks. Their heroism did not end the discrimination they suffered , but they were much appreciated by those they saved and highly thought of on the Outer Banks.

No one should care about the color of the hand that pulls them from a cold and violent sea.

More here.


Update: Welcome Murdoc Online Readers!

Memorial Day

I'm looking out the window.
It is a beautiful day.
It is Memorial Day.

I am not eloquent enough to do justice to what this day means.
It does not mean "party".
It does not mean "sale".


It is a day to remember, reflect and honor the roughly 650,000 Americans have died in the many wars this country has fought since 1775.

Today is different from independence Day in that it is (in theory) not a celebration of what we've achieved, but a reflection on what we've lost.

I heard a radio announcer Friday remind people to thank a vet....
... That's Veterans Day.
We can't thank those we honor today.

This day is for Doug Munro, who led his wooden boats into the teeth of Hell to save 900 Marines who had been given up for dead, and who purchased their lives with his own.

This day is for the cooks, yeomen and quartermasters, who worked tirelessly and often thanklessly to keep their frontline brethren fed, paid and equipped...untill an enemy shell, a snipers bullet, a terrorists bomb or an enemy advance put their efforts to rest.

This day is for the crews of Torpedo Eight, who, kept their planes on a suicide course in a desperate attempt to stop a enemy that had never known defeat...who were all but one blasted to atoms before they got a shot off....who will never know that their sacrifice cleared the way for others to win an impossible victory.

This day is for the draftees on those transports that the U-boats found, and the crews of a hundred US ships cast terrified into the black, cruel ocean who's last conscious thought was of the sharks teeth ripping them asunder.

This day is for the patriots who received "Tarelton's Quarter", those who were beaten and bayoneted on the Bataan Death March.

This day is for those who got to the top of Suribachi, but never came down, this is for those first 5 minutes in Saving Private Ryan and for those who lived and died the real thing, with the smells and the noise and the terror that even Spielberg cannot capture.

This day is for those who died on beautiful Sunday morning in Hawaii, and those who died at 10:59 on the 11th of November 1918.

This day is for those who marched in formation across open fields towards muskets and cannons and fell, those who were overrun as they tried to get defective rifles to work and those whose last moments were spent shivering on a on a snow covered hillside in Korea.

This day is for those who died in vain, betrayed by those for whom such perfidy is still their proudest moment. For those who last moments were spent without those last few rounds, or died on a black Samutran night from shell and torpedo from an overwhelming force.... fighting for an ally who would capitulate within days.


This day is for those who died so their comrades in arms might live, those who stayed and fought fires and kept magazines from detonating, those who held the line and bought time and those who's last words were "Take her down!"

This is for those who died so that we and others might be free. This is when we remember those who are too often forgotten, and give thanks.

This is Memorial Day



UPDATE: EagleSpeak, Scott Ott and Baldilocks have further thoughts.

Merrian C. Cooper FILMFEST

After exams, I spent 2 days with friends in the DC area (as opposed to the DC Universe). The group does periodic filmfests of obscure movies on a theme and I've been pushing to do one on Cooper's films for a while.

Cooper is one of my heroes, up there With Ben Franklin, Capt.Healy, and George Wythe, and his movies were quite innovative and influential.

We started off with the little mini bio of Cooper on the King Kong disc. Learning aboutis life is like reading a Mary Sue story....except that it was all real, War hero, soldier of conscience fighting the murderous Bolsheviks in Poland post WW1, Navigator, adventurer, film director, explorer, aviation pioneer, Hollywood producer of some of the most innovative films of the '30s and 40's, visionary who brought a number of new technologies to the fore, war hero in WW2 fighting on the frontlines and in the air with the Flying Tigers, and the producer of what are in my humble opinion the best John Wayne movies EVER.

Jack Bauer and Chuck Norris just can't compete!! :)

Ahem....alas I can't do his story justice, so I'll post about the selection of films we watched.

GRASS (Silent 1925)
A semi-documentary (Cooper and Schodschack never claimed to be making actual documentaries)about the winter migration of a nomadic Persian tribe, the Bahkitari(sp?),who must migrate across the forbidding Zagros mountains annually to find grass for their flocks. This film is awesome in scope and has some extremely good cinematography, all the more impressive when you realize the film crew consisted of 3 amatures who were learning the camera as they filmed. Cooper, Schodeshack and Journalist adventurer, spy and aid-worker Margurite Harrison. A really good film that captures some of the subtitles and drama that a straight up ethnographer might miss. A sort of very good, silent, National Geographic episode.
5 bricks

CHANG (Silent 1927)
Drama about a Siamese (Thai) family trying to eek out a living in the unforgiving, tiger infested jungle of SE Asia. The young couples ingenuity courage and (even their occasional mistakes) are quite inspiring. This film was very enjoyable despite the gratuitous comic relief gibbon and the severe letdown when one learns that the mysterious monster CHANG is in fact...the Thai word for elephant...this is not spoilage...knowing this will save you dissapointment later :).
4 bricks

KING KONG(First fully sound synchronized talkie 1933)
The story of a film crew who discovers a monster being worshiped as a god on an island with the random encounter table from hell....Still effective despite a quantum leap in special effects. Amongst its best features are its breakneck pace and superb editing. It is a much tighter and well-paced story than the recent Jackson remake.
Interestingly, the disc included a remake of the legendary, infamous (and missing) spider scene and a 6 minute clip to give a feel for how the scene would have affected the flow of the story....Cooper was likely wise to excise it as it really did stop the flow of the film....just as its modern counterpart did in the more recent film...but I digress....
6 bricks

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME(B&W 1932)
Moments after carrying on a friendly forshadowing discussion with his uppercrust yachting companions, a world renowned hunter is washed ashore (alone) on a small tropical island that contains a creepy Russian expatriot, his castle, his hounds, 2 guests and a dark secret... Filmed concurrently with King Kong and using the Skull Island sets as well as KK stars Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong (who plays an utterly different type of charachter, quite well)the film shows none of its budget concious production and is effective as both a horror and an action flick.
5 bricks

SON OF KONG (B&W 1933)
In an attempt to avoid the myriad lawsuits resulting from the events in King Kong, and wracked with guilt over the death of so many of his men, Carl Denham takes off with Captain Englehorn from the first film and goes on a walk...er sailabout eventually ending up back at skull island this time on a treasure hunt, only to find Kongs albino progeney...
Begun as an epic sequel to King Kong, Studio executives rushed this film into theaters in the Christmas of '33 literally half finished (it is only just over an hour long) The effects scenes that are present are good but the film suffers a thrown together feel, and very few dinosaurs. Lots of interesting bits and pices of good ideas poke thru and a few desperate attempts at comedy relief add to the awkward feel.
It does have a kick ass performance from Helen Mack...who has really sexilly manic eyes.
The film is decent but disapointing.
3 bricks

SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON (color 1948 produced by Cooper directed by John Ford)
We finished with this very odd and enjoyable western that covers the last six days in the enlistment of a US Army Colonel (John Wayne) facing retirement.
In the shadow of Custers recent defeat the women at an Army outpost must be sent to civilization. Waynes charachter must deal a myriad of "issues" logistical, tactical, strategig, interpersonal, comedic, and female. A really human portrayal of the officer as he tries to solve completely divergent and contridictory sets of problems. Like a lot of the Cooper/Ford films the Indians, while menacing, are shown in a rather sympathetic light and as people. The film had a very interesting and flattering take on the women that traveled with the calvery (at least the Army wife) and stunning cinematography. The various threads of the strange and disjointed story come together rather nicely, and the film is extreemly well paced.
5 bricks

Really a good bunch of films,I had only seen Kong and SOK before this, and I'm very impressed.....I'm going to have to make it my buisness to see more of his movies this summer.

Sometimes it Really Does Come Down to One Man With a Wrench.....

....or one really tough woman with a boat.

The Times Picayune of Louisiana reports on the citations of some of the Coast Guards Heroes of the Katrina debacle.

Among them Petty Officer 1st class Rodney Gordan who, according to the article, single-handedly got the generators for the fuel pumps at Station Belle Chase running, without which the titanic recue effort would NEVER have happened.

Also among those honored was Petty Officer 1st class Jessica Guidroz who drove off sixty people attempting to loot the Coast Guard station and calming an irate crowd threatening 18 firefighters before proceding to conduct rescue operations with her boat!

A quibble with the article: There is no Coxwain rate... it is a qualification, (I assume she is a Botswains Mate).


As the A-listers say....read the whole thing there's lots more!

Update: PO Guidroz is a first class...corrected that:
More from the Coast Guards District 8 Website: Here

Deacons For Defense and Justice

The Cotillion has a post up on one of the lesser known but nevertheless vital component of the civil rights movement. Go read.

It's one of those swell stories that is both imensely inspiring and possibly eye opening. It is sure to piss off the PC crowd.

A triple whammy! :)

Saturnian Moons!

Rosa Parks has Died.....

One of the truly great Americans has passed on.

Proof positive that one individual can make a difference for the better.

While her passing is sad, her legacy is a really uplifting one.



Many people just don't realize HOW far we have come, thanks, in no small part to her.

Update: Far more eloquent people than me are linked to on this here.
(Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin)