A Ring
May 24, 2002 12:55 p.m.
<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson052402.asp"; target="_blank">A Ring</a>
by Victor Davis Hanson
A Memorial Day tale about a few very good men.
[quote]Yesterday, our rural mail carrier delivered to our farm a ring in a small box - of worn metal, its band cut in half, with a strange signet inset of a Roman legionary. The story of its arrival is eerie, but also informative about a generation now all but gone - and so perhaps worth sharing on these Memorial Day holidays in our current struggle against enemies once again so adamant to destroy our freedom.
For the past year or so I have been writing a book, Ripples of Battle, about the literary, cultural, philosophical, and artistic consequences that for decades or even centuries can unexpectedly follow from battles. I had completed the first two sections devoted to Delium (424 B.C.), and Shiloh (1862), and this spring was just finishing the third and last battle - the nightmare that was Okinawa from April 1 to July 2, 1945. The sources for that engagement - both written histories and oral remembrances of suicide bombing, mass charges, and fighting in caves - only make the brutal statistics more horrifying: over 12,000 American dead, 35,000 more wounded, and over 300 ships damaged. Thirty-five percent of all American combatants who fought in and around Okinawa were casualties of some sort. The Japanese lost 100,000 killed and perhaps another 150,000 civilian Okinawans were casualties - mostly as a result of hand-to-hand fighting to take an island miniscule in comparison with the far better defended and as yet unconquered Japanese mainland.
My namesake, Victor Hanson - my father's first cousin who was raised as his brother when Victor's mother died in childbirth - was shot and killed as his company beat back the last charges of suicidal Japanese to recapture Sugar Loaf Hill on the evening of May 18, hours before those who were left of his 29th Marines were finally relieved and evacuated from the battle. The official history of American operations on Okinawa reads of the action in his immediate vicinity, "A platoon of Company F also tried to advance along the ridge toward the west, but the leader was killed and the platoon withdrew under heavy mortar fire." The authors then summarize the sacrifice, "On the next day, 19 May, the 4th Marines relieved the exhausted 29th Marines. During the 10-day period up to and including the capture of Sugar Loaf the 6th Marine Division had lost 2,662 killed or wounded; there were also 1,289 cases of combat fatigue. In the 22nd and 29th Marines three battalion commanders and eleven company commanders had been killed or wounded."
To read accounts of those savage uphill assaults - immortalized in classic memoirs like William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness and E. B. Sledge's With the Old Breed - against entrenched Japanese is to wonder not why Victor was killed on May 18, but how in God's name had he lived that long. After all, in just a few days, 3,000 Marines were killed or gravely wounded in and around Sugar Loaf Hill, about the same number as on Tarawa. His 29th Regiment suffered 82 percent casualties on Okinawa and for all practical purposes had ceased to exist...<hr></blockquote>
[ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: spaceman_spiff ]</p>
<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson052402.asp"; target="_blank">A Ring</a>
by Victor Davis Hanson
A Memorial Day tale about a few very good men.
[quote]Yesterday, our rural mail carrier delivered to our farm a ring in a small box - of worn metal, its band cut in half, with a strange signet inset of a Roman legionary. The story of its arrival is eerie, but also informative about a generation now all but gone - and so perhaps worth sharing on these Memorial Day holidays in our current struggle against enemies once again so adamant to destroy our freedom.
For the past year or so I have been writing a book, Ripples of Battle, about the literary, cultural, philosophical, and artistic consequences that for decades or even centuries can unexpectedly follow from battles. I had completed the first two sections devoted to Delium (424 B.C.), and Shiloh (1862), and this spring was just finishing the third and last battle - the nightmare that was Okinawa from April 1 to July 2, 1945. The sources for that engagement - both written histories and oral remembrances of suicide bombing, mass charges, and fighting in caves - only make the brutal statistics more horrifying: over 12,000 American dead, 35,000 more wounded, and over 300 ships damaged. Thirty-five percent of all American combatants who fought in and around Okinawa were casualties of some sort. The Japanese lost 100,000 killed and perhaps another 150,000 civilian Okinawans were casualties - mostly as a result of hand-to-hand fighting to take an island miniscule in comparison with the far better defended and as yet unconquered Japanese mainland.
My namesake, Victor Hanson - my father's first cousin who was raised as his brother when Victor's mother died in childbirth - was shot and killed as his company beat back the last charges of suicidal Japanese to recapture Sugar Loaf Hill on the evening of May 18, hours before those who were left of his 29th Marines were finally relieved and evacuated from the battle. The official history of American operations on Okinawa reads of the action in his immediate vicinity, "A platoon of Company F also tried to advance along the ridge toward the west, but the leader was killed and the platoon withdrew under heavy mortar fire." The authors then summarize the sacrifice, "On the next day, 19 May, the 4th Marines relieved the exhausted 29th Marines. During the 10-day period up to and including the capture of Sugar Loaf the 6th Marine Division had lost 2,662 killed or wounded; there were also 1,289 cases of combat fatigue. In the 22nd and 29th Marines three battalion commanders and eleven company commanders had been killed or wounded."
To read accounts of those savage uphill assaults - immortalized in classic memoirs like William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness and E. B. Sledge's With the Old Breed - against entrenched Japanese is to wonder not why Victor was killed on May 18, but how in God's name had he lived that long. After all, in just a few days, 3,000 Marines were killed or gravely wounded in and around Sugar Loaf Hill, about the same number as on Tarawa. His 29th Regiment suffered 82 percent casualties on Okinawa and for all practical purposes had ceased to exist...<hr></blockquote>
[ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: spaceman_spiff ]</p>
Comments
We need more info, though.
It looks like this is the opening statements of your book.
Where did the ring come from?
Note that for the first time an US president is not in US for the memorial day, however the cimetery of Coville is american, it was given by France to US as an eternal concession to thanks US for his contribution for their help.
In this day, all my feelings are going to these soldiers and to all the people which have permit to deliver France and Europe from the Nazies.
We don't have a memorial day in France, we have specialized memorial days for the end of WW1 and WW2. A unique day for all the death and wounded of any wars is a good idea, but you can't change the traditions so we will stay with our own memorials events.
[ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: powerdoc ]</p>
<strong>Note that for the first time an US president is not in US for the memorial day, however the cimetery of Coville is american, it was given by France to US as an eternal concession to thanks US for his contribution for their help. </strong><hr></blockquote>That's not true - Both Bush the First and Clinton have been in Europe for Memorial Day. For what it's worth.
[ 05-27-2002: Message edited by: powerdoc ]</p>
Still, I will salute and remember the ones who have sacrificed their lives. It will hopefully all end someday. Not in my time. But still, mankind doesn't have much time left I think.
<strong>Interesting.
We need more info, though.
It looks like this is the opening statements of your book.
Where did the ring come from?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Click on the link.
Here are some questions we need to ask ourself:
- Who is our enemy?
- What has our enemy done?
- What will our enemy do to us?
- What kind of ?divide and conquer? tactics our enemy will do to us?
- How do we fight againts our enemy?
And there are so many other questions we should ask ourself.
For the answers of those questions and more, please consult to the teachings of our own each believes.
You will be amazed on who's really our enemy, and how far our enemy has deceived us. Our enemy has hide itself from our view, attacking us both physically and mentally, making us fight against each other. We all came from the same originial father and originial mother, we shouldn't fight against ourself.
One particular note about war.
War is something that we must done, but... we must think to ourself, is our reason to do war right? And are we fighting the right enemy?
Please consult to the teachings of our own each believes.
<strong>It's hard to understand the "war" we are in today. ... Our enemies are fighting us with a religious cause (aren't we?). </strong><hr></blockquote>
Our government says we aren't fighting a religious war. God bless America. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
<strong>
Our government says we aren't fighting a religious war. God bless America. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
If we are 'at war' doesn't that make our infrastructure a legitimate target? As legitimate as the power stations in Iraq or TV studios of Eastern Europe for instance.
War is a bad term for what we are doing at the moment. I don't know what it is but it aint no war.
'Our' enemies are defined on the basis of information too sensitive to allow us to know, 'They ' are vague 'linked to' being a typical tag before naming one of the usual suspects.
Aren't we in the West 'Linked to' most of these groups too? We trained them, supplied their arms and much more besides.
And by the way digix, who are 'they' anyway?
<strong>How come this guy digix keeps posting teh same crap everywhere and nobody seems to even notice?
And by the way digix, who are 'they' anyway?</strong><hr></blockquote>
We try to simply ignore his paranoid ramblings. It keeps us sane.