News & Updates

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The Colonel’s Corner

~Comment by the Colonel~

“The President’s charge to me was to return DOD to its warfighting mission at its core: warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, accountability and readiness. The things at the bedrock of what we all understand our basic mission to be.”–Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at a town hall at the Pentagon.

This is exactly what our military needs for a focus. The only reason to have a military is to have a group that is good a killing people and breaking things. If we’re really good at that, then no one wants to mess with us…that’s called deterrence.

I did expect things to move fast under President Trump, but not as fast as they are moving; we have a long way to go to drain the swamp and get our government and nation back in line with our Constitution, but we sure are on the right track and moving well.

We need to keep our government’s new leaders in prayer; they each have one heck of a job ahead of them.

The Smiling Ranger – This book is a series of short, mostly funny, stories of my time in uniform (it’s for sale at FrontlinesOfFreedom.com): I was thinking about… my time in Vietnam. I had little experience with a .45 caliber automatic pistol before arriving in country as a second lieutenant, but I quickly found one and carried it along with my rifle. The pistol was WWII vintage and badly worn. It jammed so often I really didn’t consider it reliable. When I’d loan it to a trooper who was going into a tunnel, I warned him that often it was good for only one shot.

After my first Vietnam tour I was assigned to Fort Campbell, KY, where I assumed command of an airborne rifle company. My assigned weapon was, yes, a .45 pistol. It might have been the same one I’d left in Vietnam. It rattled when I fired it, the parts were so worn. Then the division was ordered to deploy to Vietnam, so we all had to qualify with our weapons. For the life of me, I just couldn’t hit all those bulls-eyes with my old rattley weapon. When qualifying with a rifle, the shooter shot at a silhouette, but with the pistol it was a bulls-eye target. After about a hundred tries I finally barely qualified. I deployed with my company to Vietnam—wearing that old pistol. That’s why I own only revolvers today. (I have since been converted and own a Glock and a Sig Sauer today, along with my revolvers.)

If you don’t already have one, order your copy of ‘The Smiling Ranger’ today or one for a friend.

~~~

*We should all be proud Americans; despite our current challenges and differences, we live in the best and freest nation in the world. Let’s end all the name calling and appreciate each other and our nation, even if we don’t all agree on everything. Good Americans come in many flavors.

Military History

On 15 Feb 1898, a massive explosion of unknown origin sank the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard.

One of the first American battleships, the Maine weighed more than 6,000 tons and was built at a cost of more than $2 million. Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after a rebellion against Spanish rule broke out in Havana in January.

An official Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March that the ship was blown up by a mine, without directly placing the blame on Spain. Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible and called for a declaration of war.

Subsequent diplomatic failures to resolve the Maine matter, coupled with US indignation over Spain’s brutal suppression of the Cuban rebellion and continued losses to American investment, led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898.

Within three months, the US had decisively defeated Spanish forces on land and sea, and in August an armistice halted the fighting. On December 12, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed between the US and Spain, officially ending the Spanish-American War and granting the US its first overseas empire with the ceding of such former Spanish possessions as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

In 1976, a team of American naval investigators concluded that the Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that ignited its ammunition stocks, not by a Spanish mine or act of sabotage.

On 19 Feb 1945, during WWII, Operation Detachment, the Marines’ invasion of Iwo Jima, was launched. Iwo Jima was a barren Pacific island guarded by Japanese artillery, but to American military minds, it was prime real estate on which to build airfields to launch bombing raids against Japan, only 660 miles away.

The Americans began applying pressure to the Japanese defense of the island in February 1944, when B-24 and B-25 bombers raided the island for 74 days. It was the longest pre-invasion bombardment of the war, necessary because of the extent to which the Japanese–21,000 strong–fortified the island, above and below ground, including a network of caves. Underwater demolition teams (“frogmen”) were dispatched by the Americans just before the actual invasion. When the Japanese fired on the frogmen, they gave away many of their “secret” gun positions.

The amphibious landings of Marines began the morning of February 19 as the secretary of the navy, James Forrestal, accompanied by journalists, surveyed the scene from a command ship offshore. As the Marines made their way onto the island, seven Japanese battalions opened fire on them. By evening, more than 550 Marines were dead and more than 1,800 were wounded. The capture of Mount Suribachi, the highest point of the island and bastion of the Japanese defense, took four more days and many more casualties. When the American flag was finally raised on Iwo Jima, the memorable image was captured in a famous photograph that later won the Pulitzer Prize.

On 20 Feb 1042, during WWII, Lt. Edward O’Hare took off from the aircraft carrier Lexington in a raid against the Japanese position at Rabaul-and minutes later became America’s first flying ace.

In mid-February 1942, the Lexington sailed into the Coral Sea. Rabaul, a town at the very tip of New Britain, one of the islands that comprised the Bismarck Archipelago, had been invaded in January by the Japanese and transformed into a stronghold–in fact, one huge airbase. The Japanese were now in prime striking position for the Solomon Islands, next on the agenda for expanding their ever-growing Pacific empire. The Lexington’s mission was to destabilize the Japanese position on Rabaul with a bombing raid.

Aboard the Lexington was Navy fighter pilot Lt. Edward O’Hare, attached to Fighting Squadron 3 when the US entered the war. As the Lexington left Bougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (and still free from Japanese control), for Rabaul, ship radar picked up Japanese bombers headed straight for the carrier. O’Hare and his team went into action, piloting F4F Wildcats. In a mere four minutes, O’Hare shot down five Japanese G4M1 Betty bombers–bringing a swift end to the Japanese attack and earning O’Hare the designation “ace” (given to any pilot who had five or more downed enemy planes to his credit).

Although the Lexington blew back the Japanese bombers, the element of surprise was gone, and the attempt to raid Rabaul was aborted for the time being. O’Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery–and excellent aim.

COMING UP ON FRONTLINES OF FREEDOM

On the weekend of Feb 22-23, Army vet John Hillen will discuss strategy. Then Janine from Sar El will discuss supporting Israel by going there. Diane Raver will present the movie of the month. And Liz Morris will discuss being a proud American.

And on the weekend of Mar 1-2, John Hughes, MD, West Point grad, will discuss the problems at West Point.

Then Gen John Teichert will discuss leadership, Marine vet Ryan Engle will discuss the recent National Veterans Homes conference, and Navy vet Theresa Robinson will introduce another female veteran.