Type in the question,  “how many Americans died in combat overseas,” in your favorite search engine, and chances are the answer you’ll get is around 440,000.  This includes all wars fought on foreign soil from the Mexican-American War to the present day War on Terrorism (aka Iraq and Afghanistan). It does not include thousands more [...]

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  In the forward  to Jay Riedel’s new book “Memories of a Fighter Pilot,” General Charles “Chuck” Horner, USAF (ret.) writes, “No fighter pilot is ordinary, but Jay’s story is extraordinary. “  Extraordinary?  With all due respect to the good general, I would say that Riedel’s story goes beyond extraordinary, by a large measure.  Consider [...]

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The BBC series Sherlock has hit the Philippines, and although I think the plots are stupid, the dialogue and characters are quirky enough to keep my interest. But as a doc, I got very annoyed with the Dr. Watson limp in story number one. Quick: What’s wrong with this picture? The answer is that he [...]

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An Unconquerable Soul Speaks Out From the Depths of Despair Pain and suffering has been the subject of poetry since the beginning of mankind.  In particular, those unjustly imprisoned and subjected to inhumane treatment often turned to poetry to ease their mental anguish and refocus their thinking from despair to hope of survival.  The author [...]

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Let me say this right at the beginning.  ”Hangar Flying” by General Merrill “Tony” McPeak is not a lofty lecture about his days as Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force; nor is it a tell all book about higher power military politics in the Pentagon.  Rather, the book’s title is truth in [...]

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Ask any Air Force fighter pilot who served during the Cold War and Vietnam era what aircraft they flew; and they will most likely name one or more from the following list: F-100, F-101, F-102, F-104, F-105, and F-106.  Taken together, these aircraft are often referred to as “The Century Series” which is the title [...]

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“Traumatic grief, with its unanswered questions, its numbing shock, its horror, its ability to sear disturbing images into our souls that cannot be erased by sleep or by time–this process follows the same general path both for persons and groups.” When 12:30 struck, none of us fourth graders knew that our young president was being [...]

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They met in Warsaw, almost by accident; quickly fell in love, and were married.  Klimek Mielczarek was raised in poverty and learned at an early age how to survive using his good looks, charm, and ready wit.  Teresa Zbijewska was an intelligent and beautiful young woman born into an aristocratic family, and raised on a [...]

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My husband as a young teenager joined his older brother’s guerilla group to help rid Luzon of the Japanese in 1945. Alas, the story of the terrible fight, first in the city of Manila, and later against the fleeing Japanese hiding in the jungles and mountains of Luzon, is too often forgotten, overshadowed by those [...]

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Well, this year’s Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally got some publicity today when Sarah Palin and family accompanied them as private citizens. As the mother of an Iraqi veteran, she is entitled to this. Most of the half million attending the rally seemed pleased. So of course most of the press coverage was about Andrea Mitchell [...]

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An excerpt from Teacher of the Year: The Mystery & Legacy of Edwin Barlow Edwin and rest of troop B were called before Captain Berlin. It took longer to muster than usual because Patton himself had ordered each man to wear their neck-down. The absurdity of wearing a tie in the heat of combat was [...]

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Teacher of the Year: The Mystery & Legacy of Edwin Barlow is unlike any memoir you will ever read, because unlike every other memoir, Edwin Barlow’s life was an impenetrable secret that took years to uncover. When Mr. Barlow died, there were no libraries to reveal his taste in literature, neither wife nor relatives to [...]

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There is a minor kerfuffle in the right wing blogs about Michael Bellesiles being caught publishing fiction as truth. The right wing has it in for Bellesiles, since he once faked data on gun ownership in early America, trying to prove no one owned guns then (and ergo the second amendment was meant to refer [...]

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Pacifism –noun 1. Opposition to war or violence of any kind. 2. Refusal to engage in military activity because of one’s principles or beliefs. 3. The principle or policy that all differences among nations should be adjusted without recourse to war. In my post yesterday I mentioned that a so-called conservative friend on my facebook [...]

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The Associated Press has released a photo of Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, which graphically portrays the Marine shortly after being hit by a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) during a firefight in the Helmland Province of Southern Afghanistan.  LCpl Bernard later died from the injuries suffered in the attack. The parents of LCpl Bernard were [...]

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I started working on an article earlier this morning about Representative Charles Rangel and his attempt to throw the race card into the healthcare reform debate.  In researching past quotes of Charles Rangel, I came across a quote of his which makes me want to immediately fly to New York or Washington DC, wherever this uneducated [...]

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The rhetoric on the US Health Care debate needs to calm down a bit on both sides. There is enough fear in the grassroots about the bill that plans to ram through a bill at this point will only result in a Republican sweep in 2010. Let’s cut through the rhetoric and check a few [...]

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Michael Jackson was a pop star icon who earned the title, ‘King of Pop.’  He was a talented singer and dancer who broke down barriers for the African-American community.  Unfortunately, he was also a tortured soul who suffered through two marriages and divorces, along with medical and substance abuse problems.  His lifestyle and behavior often [...]

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There is a big rush to pass a “Health Care Bill” in Congress. Why the big rush to pass one in the midst of an economic recession I’m not sure. The New York Times points out that it is a thoroughly partisan bill. And I’ve read that there has been a lot of discussion with [...]

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Who’s Your Daddy? People say you can’t judge a book by its cover.   Maybe so; but the minute I laid eyes on the cover of Hell Hawks: The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler’s Wehrmacht, I had to read the book.  Why?  Because I wanted to find out if these guys really [...]

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Imagine the scandal. A well known war leader’s body was taken from a cemetery on Federal land, and his skull used as an object of ridicule by the enemy. The family is requesting their return, but the bones are owned by a group that includes some of the most influential people in the land, so [...]

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You may be thinking that I am talking about the female servicemember, but I am actually talking about her counterpart, the military spouse (of which approximately 93 percent are still women).   According to the Rand Corporation, the research organization often used to conduct studies for the Department of Defense, although military spouses often have more [...]

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Back in World War I, according to historian Margaret Anderson, many of the so called “German atrocities” in Belgium was in response to snipers. The German soldiers responded to what they assumed was an uprising by civilians; but some episodes were friendly fire incidents, and others were from the rag tag Belgian Army, whose uniform [...]

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I rarely enjoy Clint Eastwood’s films (too violent and nihilistic for me). But my husband Lolo is a fan, and so I got a VCD of Eastwood’s latest film, Gran Torino, for him to watch. I had read that it was “What Dirty Harry Would Be Like As an Old Man”. But as we watched [...]

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