The USS Enterprise

Back in the early ’60s, I was with the 1st Battalion 6th Marines and we were going from somewhere to somewhere on an AKA that docked alongside the USS Enterprise and to go ashore we had to take a gangplank from the AKA, whose name escapes my memory having been on so many of them (nor do I remember the port that we were docked at), to the flight deck of the Enterprise, and then use its gangplank to go ashore.

I do remember that we got rip-roaring drunk that night, but all made it back to ship before our Cinderella Liberty had expired.

I also remember putting to sea with the fleet on the USS Boxer because a hurricane was on its way. When they sounded general quarters I hid out on the fantail of the hanger’s deck so I could watch the fleet stretched out behind us the Enterprise was two ships back. we went through soum rough seas that day, the waves would pick the Boxer’s screws completely out of the water and while the were free of the wathe it engines would rev up sending vibrations through the shi[, and grown like hell when they went back into the water.

From where I sat on my perch on the fantail I could see the Enterprise with a broadside view as the fleet was making a great circle, and watch it shutter as its screws were lifted out and fell back into the sea. I do not remember where we were going, but it was near the time, just before or after, the Cuban Blockade was happening.

Semper Fi

Internationales Maritimes Museum HamburgtesSoorndphN4e0A0 21M3881g 6acrmgaa23:eb a0vh11t1cg9mm0g c5o  · She was the 8th vessel of the U.S. Navy with her name, the longest naval vessel ever built and the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of all times: the USS Enterprise (CVN-65). She was supposed to be the first of a class of 6 sisters, that was cancelled for financial reasons. Her construction took place at the Newport News Shipbuilding Norfolk shipyard between 1958 and 1960. She was then the largest warship ever built and she would keep that record until the mid 1970s. She was operated by a crew of 4600 and her full complement could go up to 5828. Her long career spanned between her commissioning in 1961 and she being retired in 2012, during that time she participated in almost every military conflict and crisis the USA was involved in. Between 2012 and April 2018, the complicated process of her deactivation took place. She was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that underwent this procedure and the deactivation of her eight nuclear reactors proved to be a great and expensive challenge. Also, the many voices that called for her to be transformed in a museum ship had to face the fact that the maintenance cost was considered way too high. She is now stored at Hampton Roads and awaits a concrete disposal plan.A fascinating fact about this incredible miniature in a scale of 1:1250 is that it was Bild from scratch using only cardboard as material by our late friend Heinz Peter Weiß. It is displayed on deck 9 of the museum together with many other of his cardboard masterpieces.

pre-Tribulation rapture

On this day after Thanksgiving Day, I have a question for all my Christian friends who believe that they will be raptured away before the Tribulation. Not all Christians, such as myself, believe that there will be a pre-Tribulation rapture rather all Christians will have to suffer through it with all the non-Christians.

My question is, do those of us who do not believe that we will be raptured, if we are wrong, be raptured up by those who do, or will our disbelief in the rapture negate our salvation?

The second part is if you are wrong and are not raptured up until after the Tribulation will you be able to maintain your faith in Jesus as all hell is breaking loose on earth? When does the Great Falling Away occur?

Just as it is by faith, not knowledge, that we believe in Jesus the same is true of the belief in a rapture, as there is no more knowledge of a rapture than there is of Jesus.

Semper Fi

Playing with wooden swords and sheals

Watching Prence Valiant again, Watching Valiant being tough to sword fight with wooded swords and shields reminded me of my childhood when my brother, Clyde Shelton, and my best friend, Clarence Taylor, and his brother Bo, used to make and fight with wooden swords and shield.

We weren’t satisfied leaving them just wood, so we drove 12-inch nails through the center of the shields with 4-inch nails all around the edges. To make the swords more deadly we cut up tin cans, flattened them out, and bent them around, and nailed them to the wood.

We built two forts near one another leaving a small tree in the center of each that we cut the top off leaving it about 5 feet tall to use as a catapult to throw stones around each other fort.

Clarence and I in one, with Clyde and Bo in the other. We would go to war every now and then trying like hell to kill one another. In all of that, we never got hurt enough to tell anyone.

common sense does not exist, it is a metaphor for what should be, not a description of what it is

To start with just because one’s intelligence, i.e., has not been tested and measured does not mean a person is not intelligent, it just means that they have not been tested. Getting an education can neither raise nor lower your intelligence; it can only give you an opportunity to excel to the limits of your ability in whatever field that you are studying.

Neither of my parents graduated high school, and I am the first in my family, my brother, is the second, to get a college degree; I now hold 3, two Bachelors of Science and an MBA. However, I started out as a high school dropout when I failed the 10th grade and joined the Marines. After I got discharged I held many jobs, worked at Fry Roofing making tar paper, ran a punch press, and helped make those large concrete beams they use to make bridges just to mention a few. Then I dropped out and became a hippy for several years living on the streets in Hawaii for two years panhandling for a living.

I got busted, went to jail when I was 30, took and passed my GED, and got a job as a welder, and while welders make good money, it is very dirty work, I would spend nearly an hour every day after work cleaning the dust out of my nose, and I could never have clean fingernails. I still had some eligibility on my GI Bill, so I looked for a way to make a cleaner living and decided to be an Electron Engineer. This led to my first B.S. Degree. And landed me my first clean job, as the whole time I was going to school full time I was working a split shift full time for Chicago Manufacturing as a welder, as a computer tech for General Electric working on the Whole Body CT systems. I went on working on Medical Diagnostic Equipment for the next 30 years earning another B.S., in Computer Systems, and an MBA with a concentration in Management. My GPA ranged from 3.65 for my first B.S. 3.90 for the second and a 4.0 for the MBA.

Now, as to why I am telling you all of this, to let you know that my experience with both the educated and the uneducated ranged far and wide. And that this thing that you are calling common sense does not exist, it is a metaphor of what should be, not a description of what it is as no one can describe or measure it. Memes like these ones are used to put down people who that the time and effort to get an education. And glorify the uneducated. Without our educated engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and chemists with PH.Ds we would be still lining in the 1700s.

https://brobible.com/culture/article/best-memes-common-sense/

“Woman King”, is the very best antiabortion movie ever made!

I watched “Woman King” the other day, and I truly enjoyed it. It is the very best antiabortion movie ever made!

Lots of beautiful and ugly women among the Agojie warrior women. Every one of them great dancer and athlete, performing the dances and battle scenes flawlessly. As protrade in the movie their warrior (boot camp?) school graduation trial was way worse than our Marine’s Crucible. Instead of having to crawl under razor wire with a machinegun shooting over their heads, they had to race through 100 or more feet of a bramble made of thorn trees limbs, after getting through that they had to climb a shear 30-40 foot wood log, no rope, and come down the other side. Once down they had to fight themselves through a series of much larger men.

Where does the antiabortion preaching come in? Nanisca, who was to become the Woman King, had flashbacks all through the movie of being raped, we learn, that although abortion was not an option she could not bear the thought of raising her rapist’s child, so she had her BFF find a home for the girl child. However, for whatever reason, she cut a gash in the baby’s upper bake and put a small shark’s tooth in it.

The girl, Izogie, grew up, and will not marry the men her ‘father’ was trying to get her married off to. This pissed him off, so he took her and gave her to the King. Cutting this story way short, she became one of the King’s Warriors, and just before the great battle with Oba Ade, her rapist, Nanisca found the tooth that she had put in Izogie’s back.

In one of the fights to deliver Oba Ade the heads of his messengers Izogie disobeyed Nanisca’s orders to leave and in so doing was able to save Nanisca’s life.

So, here is the unwanted baby from a rape coming into the life of the mother who did not want her and saving her life. What is the exception to abortions that are almost always acceptable? Rape and incest, right?

The baby regardless of how it was conceived is never worthy of death just because of who conceived it.

When I help built a Sailboat and spent the summer on it anchored off Marathon Key

While we did not build our 35-foot gaff-rigged sloop with a hinged mast from scratch as we started with a lifeboat’s hull from an ocean liner. We bought the hull at auction, I forget how much we, me and two of my friends, Buzzy Brown and Waine Thomas, paid for the hull, but it was a lot less than a new or used 35 sloop would have cost us. At the same auction, we bought a 65-foot boom and a 30-foot mast for the main boom and 10 foot one for the gaff that had come from a from scrapped sailboats.

We put the hull in dry dock, recocked it, put in a deck, as all we started with was a hull and no decking. Then we made a box mount for the mast about 10–15 feet back from the bow. cut a round hole in the center of the box which we had firmly attached to the hull. we then cut the mast into two pieces, the bottom piece about 9 feet long. But we did not cut it strat across, rather we cut halfway through in two places on opposite sides of the mast about 4 feet apart, and then cut down the center from one cut to the other cut. Before we did the cutting we drilled 4 2-inch holes in the mast, two on the top side and two on the bottom side, the holes started 6 inches above and below each side cut and were 6 inches apart. And right in the center of the cuts, we drilled another 2-inch hole. That held the center hinge pin which would never come to out., the other four were for locking bolts which we would remove to lower the mast, and reinsert when raising the mast back into its sailing position. The reason we wanted a hinged mast was that we were using the inland waters in the Florida Keas, and many of the bridges when you get further south are not drawbridges.

We bought a one lung gas engine for power and mounted it about the stern of the hull, cut a hole above the water line for the driveshaft we ran out the back to turn the screw. We attached a horn to the engine to blow to let drawbridge operators know we wanted passage.

To mount the mast we went under power to the bridge over US 1 and Buzz held it in position while Waine took it off the trailer we had used to carry it over with and with the help of two other friends, whose name I forget, lower the mast down to Buzz and I waiting on the boat below. We guided the mast into the hole in the mounting box, all the stay and turnbuckles were attached to the mast. All we had to do then was let the (now a boat) drift on its moring as we attached the stays to the hull and put tension on them.

We had two sets of jibs and mainsails made for the boat at a local sailmaker. The next day we went out on Biscayne Bay for our shakedown run, about an hour into the run we noticed that our deck boards were starting to float up off the deck, we pulled into the wind, dropped sails, and jumped overboard to see what was going on. a seam of caulking had come out from one of the bord cracks. We use our T-shirts to recaulk it with, and finished the trip, another 8 hours, without incident.

We spent that summer off Marathon Kea looking for artifacts from a Spanish Gallion that had sunk there back in the 1700s. We were using homemade airlift and hookah that we ran off the same compressor. The airlift we made from 6 inch PCP pile that we had cut off at a 45-degree angle. near the bottom, we cut a 1-inch hole and attached a 1 inch PCP pipe with a U joint. To that wee attached a garden hose that ran back up the compressor. The compressor would push air into the end of the 6 inch PCP pile and rush back to the surface carrying all the sand disturbed by the end of the pipe with it.

The hookah was constructed put of an SCUA breathing mask but attached to the compressor instead of a tank. We could spend hours and hours working the wreck without coming up to get a new tank. We would take turns working the wreck. Those on deck were to keep an eye on the gas-powered compressor and refill it as soon as it ran out of gas. One time when I was down working the wreck Wayne and Buzz decided to see how long it would take me to come up if they did not restart the compressor. In those days I could hold my breath just over 5 minutes, but that was when I was able to take a deep breath before I started holding it. Now, when you are breathing from a hookah you cannot take in any air faster than it will provide it. So when it stopped providing I stopped breathing, after about 2 minutes I start to wonder as that was about normal time for a restart. Then I took off my weight belt, about a hundred pounds needed to stay at the bottom, laid it across my breathing mask, and shot to the surface as fast as I could, they said through their laughter that I shot leg high out of the water. I got even, but I won’t go into that.

That summer we brought up two cannons, ten or more cannonballs, a whole lot of washers and spikes used to hold the ship together, but what paid for the trip was the bottle that we found.

The Constitution does not give the right for anyone to vote

Bernie Sanders, et al., saying “What our constitution says is that everybody can vote. So people in jail can vote.” do not have a clue as to what the Constitution says about voting.

The Constitution does not give the right for anyone to vote when it was written voters were required to be property owners. If a person did not own property, they could not vote.

This timeline of who can and cannot vote in America shows that voting is clearly a privilege granted by the government, not a Constitutional right civil or otherwise.

U.S. Voting Rights Timeline

1776 Only people who own land can vote
Declaration of Independence signed. Right to vote during the Colonial and Revolutionary periods is restricted to property owners—most of whom are white male Protestants over the age of 21.

1787 No federal voting standard—states decide who can vote

U.S. Constitution adopted. Because there is no agreement on a national standard for voting rights, states are given the power to regulate their own voting laws. In most cases, voting remains in the hands of white male landowners.

1789 George Washington elected president. Only 6% of the population can vote.

1790 Citizen=White

1790 Naturalization Law passed. It explicitly states that only “free white” immigrants can become naturalized citizens.

1848 Activists for ending slavery and women’s rights join together Women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, NY. Frederick Douglass, a newspaper editor, and former slave, attend the event and gives a speech supporting universal voting rights. His speech helps convince the convention to adopt a resolution calling for voting rights for women.

1848 Citizenship granted, but voting denied

The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War and guarantees U.S. citizenship to Mexicans living in the territories conquered by the U.S. However, English language requirements and violent intimidation limit access to voting rights.

1856 Vote expanded to all white men
North Carolina is the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement to
vote.

1866 Movements unite and divide

Two women’s rights activists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, form an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal voting rights. The organization later divides and regroups over disagreements in strategies to gain the vote for women and African Americans.

1868 Former slaves granted citizenship

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed. Citizenship is defined and granted to former slaves. Voters, however, are explicitly defined as male. Although the U.S. Voting Rights Timeline

Mobilize the Immigrant Vote 2004 amendment forbids states from denying any rights of citizenship, voting regulation is still left in the hands of the states.

1870 Vote cannot be denied because of race, explicitly – so other discriminatory tactics used

15th Amendment passed. It states that the right to vote cannot be denied by the federal or state governments based on race. However, soon after, some states begin to enact measures such as voting taxes and literacy tests that restrict the actual ability of African Americans to register to vote. Violence and other intimidation tactics are also used.

1872 Women try to vote

Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth, a former slave and advocate for justice and equality, appears at a polling booth in Grand Rapids, Michigan, demanding a ballot but she is turned away.

1876 Indigenous people cannot vote

The Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans are not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment and, thus, cannot vote.

1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act bars people of Chinese ancestry from naturalizing to become U.S. citizens.

1887 Assimilation=Right to Vote

Dawes Act passed. It grants citizenship to Native Americans who give up their tribal affiliations
1890 Wyoming admitted to statehood and becomes first state to legislate voting for women in its constitution.

1890 Indigenous people must apply for citizenship

The Indian Naturalization Act grants citizenship to Native Americans whose applications are approved—similar to the process of immigrant naturalization.1912-13 Women lead voting rights marches through New York and Washington, D.C.

1919 Military Service=Citizenship for Native Americans
Native Americans who served in the military during World War I are granted U.S.citizenship.

Mobilize the Immigrant Vote 2004 – Capacity Building Series

1920 Right to vote extended to women

19th Amendment passed, giving women the right to vote in both state and federal elections.

1922 Asian≠White≠Citizen

Supreme Court rules that people of Japanese heritage are ineligible to become naturalized citizens. In the next year, the Court finds that Asian Indians are also not eligible to naturalize.

1924 Again, citizenship granted but voting denied

The Indian Citizenship Act grants citizenship to Native Americans, but many states nonetheless make laws and policies which prohibit Native Americans from voting.

1925 Military Service=Citizenship for Filipinos
Congress bars Filipinos from U.S. citizenship unless they have served three years in the Navy.

1926 State violence used to prevent people from exercising their right to vote, while attempting to register to vote in Birmingham, Alabama, a group of African American women are beaten by election officials.

1947 Legal barriers to Native American voting removed

Miguel Trujillo, a Native American, and former Marine sues New Mexico for not allowing him to vote. He wins and New Mexico and Arizona are required to give the vote to all Native Americans.

1952 McCarran-Walter Act grants all people of Asian ancestry the right to become citizens.

1961 23rd amendment passed. It gives citizens of Washington, D.C. the right to vote for U.S. president. But to this day, the district’s residents—most of whom are
African American—still do not have voting representation in Congress.

1963-64 Voting rights as civil rights

Large-scale efforts in the South to register African Americans to vote are intensified. However, state officials refuse to allow African Americans to register by using voting taxes, literacy tests, and violent intimidation. Among the efforts launched is Freedom Summer, where close to a thousand civil rights workers of all races and backgrounds converge on the South to support voting rights.

1964 No special tax to vote

24th Amendment passed. It guarantees that the right to vote in federal elections will not be denied for failure to pay any tax.

1965 Grassroots movement forces change in the law:

Voting Rights Act passed. It forbids states from imposing discriminatory restrictions on who can vote, and provides mechanisms for the federal government to enforce its provisions. The legislation is passed largely under pressure from protests and marches earlier that year challenging Alabama officials who injured and killed people during African American voter registration efforts.

1966 After the legal change, the struggle continues for social change Civil rights activist James Meredith is wounded by a sniper during a solo “Walk Against Fear” voter registration march between Tennessee and Mississippi. The next day, nearly 4,000 African Americans register to vote. And other civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael continue the march while Meredith heals. Meredith rejoins March at its conclusion in Mississippi.

1971 Voting age lowered to 18

26th Amendment passed, granting voting rights to 18-year-olds. The amendment is largely a result of Vietnam War-protests demanding a lowering of the voting age on the premise that people who are old enough to fight are old enough to vote.

1975 Voting materials in various languages Amendments to the Voting Rights Act require that certain voting materials be printed in languages besides English so that people who do not read English can participate in the voting process.

1993 Making voter registration easier

National Voter Registration Act passed. Intends to increase the number of eligible citizens who register to vote by making registration available at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and public assistance and disabilities agencies.

2000 Residents of U.S. colonies are citizens, but cannot vote
A month prior to the presidential election, a federal court decides that Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico, though U.S. citizens, cannot vote for U.S. president. Residents of U.S. territories including Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin 
Mobilize the Immigrant Vote 2004 – Capacity Building Series Islands—nearly 4.1 million people total—cannot vote in presidential elections and do not have voting representation in the U.S Congress.

2001 Debate—Should voting rights be taken away from felons? For how long?

The National Commission on Federal Election Reform recommends that all states allow felons to regain their right to vote after completing their criminal sentences. Nearly 4 million US citizens cannot vote because of past felony convictions. In California, felons are prohibited from voting while they are in prison or on parole. But, in other states, especially in the South, a person with a felony conviction is forever prohibited from voting in that state. These laws are a legacy of post-Civil War attempts to prevent African Americans from voting. Ex-felons are largely poor and of color.

2002 Trying to solve election inconsistency with more federal voting standards

Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed in response to the disputed 2000 presidential election. Massive voting reform effort requires states to comply with the federal mandate for provisional ballots, disability access, centralized, computerized voting lists, electronic voting and requirement that first-time voters present identification before voting.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is gay, so what…

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is gay, so what, if you want him to be President vote for him, but do not let him distort what being a Christain means.

In a CNN town hall earlier this week, Buttigieg remarked, “God does not have a political party.” His CNN questioner, who let slip during her questioning that she was bisexual but also Christian, asked Buttigieg: “How will you challenge the right’s moral monopoly on Christianity to unite conservative, moderate and liberal Christians alike?”

And here’s what Buttigieg: “If can be challenging to be a person of faith, who is also a member of the LGBT community. And yet to me, the core of faith is regard for one another and part of how God’s love is experienced according to my faith and tradition, is in the way that we support one another and in particular, support the lest among us.”

What he is saying that you do not need Jesus to be saved, that his good works, “…in the way that we support one another and in particular, support the lest among us” is all it takes to be saved. that makes him his own savior with no need to accept that Jesus is the Way and the Light and the only path to salvation.

Yes, God loves us all, He loves all sinners, the murderer, thieves, adulterers, hypocrites, and those who have sex with people of their own sex. He loves even this poor wretched soul that I am, that has sinned time and time again. But God does not condone sin, He damns it to Hell. He does not keep a balance scale to judge you good act against your bad acts, and if the good outweighs the bad give you salvation. That is a beliefe explained in the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”:

“To reach the eternal paradise of the Field of Reeds, however, one had to pass through the trial by Osiris, Lord of the Underworld and just Judge of the Dead, in the Hall of Truth (also known as The Hall of Two Truths), and this trial involved the weighing of one’s heart against the feather of truth.”

It is not a Christain belief, Christain believes that God Abhors sin, and on by being washed in the Blood of the Lamb by accepting Jesus and His teaching can we be saved. John 14:4-6 “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Romans 6:13-15, Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not!…

During the Chosin Reservoir battle, why didn’t the Chinese obliterate the U.S. Marines and instead let them do a semi-orderly retreat?

Asked on Quora.

The Chinese did not allow the Marines’ an orderly retreat, they did everything in their power to annihilate them! Chinese sources say they had 450,000 casualties with 100,000 KIA while they fought UN forces in that war. But going back to the fight at the Chosin Reservoir.

“The engagement started when the American forces of the 1st Marine Division and the X Corps (who were pushing north in pursuit of the Chinese) saw themselves unexpectedly surrounded by an entire Chinese Army Group. Over the following two weeks, the Americans managed to break out of the Chinese encirclement and reach the coast where they were evacuated.” MacAuther was totally convinced that the Chinees would not enter the war and was also convinced that the War would be over by Christmas. He was wrong.

“On November 27th, the Chinese launched attacks against American forces moving through the road that lead to Koto-Ri. Caught by surprise, the American forces were surrounded and cut-off into several small pockets. The Marines desperately defended their positions against continual Chinese assaults but risking to be overrun, the Americans started retreating on December 6th, using air strikes to support their breakout from the Chinese blockade and escaping to the South. The objective of the retreat was the city of Hungnam where they arrived on December the 11th. Chosin Reservoir was a costly victory for the Chinese, costing them almost 50,000 casualties, while the Americans suffered 17,843 casualties.”

The battle was fought over some of the roughest terrain during some of the harshest winter weather conditions of the Korean War.[1]:24 The road was created by cutting through the hilly terrain of Korea, with steep climbs and drops. Dominant peaks, such as the Funchilin Pass and the Toktong Pass (40°23′38″N 127°09′40″E / 40.3938°N 127.161°E), overlook the entire length of the road. The road’s quality was poor, and in some places it was reduced to a one lane gravel trail.[1]:28–31 On 14 November 1950, a cold front from Siberia descended over the Chosin Reservoir, and the temperature plunged, according to estimates, to as low as −36 °F (−38 °C).[1]:xi The cold weather was accompanied by frozen ground, creating considerable danger of frostbite casualties, icy roads, and weapon malfunctions. Medical supplies froze; morphine syrettes had to be defrosted in a medic’s mouth before they could be injected; frozen blood plasma was useless on the battlefield. Even cutting off clothing to deal with a wound risked gangrene and frostbite. Batteries used for the Jeeps and radios did not function properly in the temperature and quickly ran down.[15] The lubrication in the guns gelled and rendered them useless in battle. Likewise, the springs on the firing pins would not strike hard enough to fire the round, or would jam.

Song Shilun (middle), commander of the People’s Volunteer Army 9th Army at Chosin Reservoir

“Despite the loss of territory, the U.S. forces remained more intact and less ravaged than their Chinese counterparts. 17 Americans from 3 military branches received Medals of Honor for their valor in the engagements. The UN forces who served that day live on forever in military history as the ‘Chosin Few’. Many of the casualties were later exchanged to receive burials and honors between the UN and Communists, in what would become known as ‘Operation Glory’. Many of the unidentified bodies were buried at Honolulu’s Punchbowl Crater in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.”

Outcome:

The bulk of the PVA Ninth Army crossed the North Korean border on 10 November and arrived, undetected, around Chosin on 17 November. Chinese reconnaissance revealed a number of weaknesses in the UN dispositions. The two American garrisons on either side of the reservoir were unable to support each other, and it was clear that the road junction south of the reservoir at Hagaru-ri, – although strategically important – was only lightly defended. The Chinese were aware that the road running south of the reservoir to Koto-ri and on to the port of Hungnam appeared to be the Americans’ only line of retreat. The Chinese plan was to neutralize the three positions around the reservoir and then, as the UN forces came in from the south to relieve them, they in turn would be encircled and destroyed. The only difficulty the Chinese had was determining the actual strength of the UN forces since time was short. They nevertheless felt confident that their 60,000 men could overwhelm the relatively small detachments confronting them. Moreover, by infiltrating and maximizing the element of surprise they would be able to defeat the Westerners while suffering relatively low casualties. What the Chinese commanders did not realize was that the US 1st Marine Division (reinforced by the British 41 Royal Marines Commando, and two American infantry battalions) had arrived at Yudam-ni, which meant that the total strength of UN forces was close to 27,000.

The Chinese began their attacks at night on 27 November. Ambushes were conducted against mobile units, while massive infantry assaults swept on to the defended garrisons around the reservoir. At Yudam-ni, the Marines were soon surrounded, and tried to make sense of the confused situation while fighting along a hastily formed perimeter. On the eastern side of the reservoir, Regiment Combat Team 31 found itself similarly isolated and under attack from two divisions, the 80th and 81st. Further south, US Marines at Koto-ri were being attacked by another division. Taken by surprise, each formation was initially fighting for its survival.

“Marine Sgt. Johnny Johnson marched into deadly combat the first day he landed in Korea and it didn’t stop until he was sent home. He fought from the tip of South Korea all the way to the China border. His battles marked the map of war like the tiny flecks of dirt and sand still stuck under his skin from a Chinese grenade.

He landed in 1950—the year of the worst winter in Korea in 100 years, when temperatures in the north plunged to 40 below zero, and tanks, rifles, jeeps and canned rations were frozen by the “Manchurian Wind Tunnel.” Johnson still buys his shoes extra-large and wears two pairs of socks, even in summer, because his bones cannot forget the bitter, grinding cold.

He was among 8,000 1st Division Marines who fought one of the most valiant, historic battles in U.S. military history at the Chosin Reservoir. They were outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese who came out of the mountains and “poured over the hills like water,” he says.

The Marines scraped and clawed out shallow foxholes, reinforced by stacks of enemy dead. Morphine Syrettes froze solid and had to be thawed in the mouths of medics as men suffered and bled to death. The Marines fought their way out, taking their wounded and dead draped on Jeeps like bucks in deer season.

“Retreat, hell,” said Marine Gen. Oliver P. Smith, “we’re just attacking in a different direction.”

The Chosin Reservoir Campaign of the Korean War is the stuff of legend in the Marine Corps. During the pivotal 1950 battle, 15,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines, alongside another 15,000 UN soldiers, fought through a force of 120,000 Chinese soldiers to reach the sea some 78 miles away.

Commencing on November 26, Smith’s men endured extreme cold and severe weather. The next day, the 5th and 7th Marines attacked from their positions near Yudam-ni, on the west bank of the reservoir, with some success against the PLA forces in the area. Over the next three days the 1st Marine Division successfully defended their positions at Yudam-ni and Hagaru-ri against Chinese human wave assaults. On November 29, Smith contacted Colonel “Chesty” Puller, commanding the 1st Marine Regiment, at Koto-ri and asked him to assemble a task force to re-open the road from there to Hagaru-ri.

By the end of the battle, U.S. Marines suffered 836 dead and around 10,000 wounded. The Army had 2,000 dead and 1,000 wounded. The Chinese had the most catastrophic losses. Intelligence reported the Chinese as saying American forces could beat any Chinese effort, no matter the size.

Six Chinese divisions were completely wiped out. Of the ten that attacked, only one would ever see action again. Though the exact numbers are not clear, historians estimate Chinese losses anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 killed. The numbers of Chinese wounded may never be known.

Does that sound like the Chinees were allowing the Marine’s semi-orderly retreat?

History and Tradition: Carlos Hathcock

This is a copy and past of an answer on Quora by Carlos Marcelo Shäferstein, M.A. Military Intelligence & Military History, and Wars, Argentine Army (2007) so you can forgive him for calling a cover a hat.

How effective were snipers during the Vietnam war?

Carlos Marcelo Shäferstein, M.A. Military Intelligence & Military History, and Wars, Argentine Army (2007)Answered Mar 2

Carlos Hathcock was a genuine Vietnam War hero and an undisputed legend in the U.S. Marine Corps for his exploits in southeast Asia.

With a record of 93 confirmed kills but an estimated body count of between 300 – 400 enemy soldiers, Hathcock terrorized the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong.

Because of these exploits, he was honored by having a rifle named after him – the Springfield Armory M25 White Feather, so called for the nickname that NVA men gave him because he always wore a white feather in his cap.

Just like World War One hero Alvin York, the Vietnam War soldier taught himself how to shoot as a child growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas. After Hathcock’s parents divorced he lived with his grandmother and began to hunt early, partly out of necessity to feed his family.

The soldier was introduced to a military mentality from an early age as he used his father’s Mauser that he had brought back with him after the first world war.

Hathcock dreamt of enlisting in the armed forces his whole life and when he was just 17 he enlisted in the Marines. By the age of 23, he would win the prestigious Wimbledon Cup shooting championship at Camp Perry in 1965.

The sniper initially started his deployment in Vietnam as a military policeman before carrying out feats of stamina, skill, and endurance that wouldn’t sound out of place in a historical fiction novel.

It was Captain Edward James Land that pushed for Marines to be placed into every platoon and Land recruited those who had set records in sharpshooting. Hathcock had done that when he won the Wimbledon Cup. He was recruited and the wheels of history set into motion.

During the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by a third person who had to be an officer. As a result, the sniper’s spotter wasn’t allowed to be this acting third party – and as a sniper often carried out work away from a third party this ‘confirmed’ number was often lower than in reality.

Carlos Hathcock at his Silver Star presentation

Hathcock was a master of using the innate weakness of man against them. It was for this reason that he used to strike at the beginning and the end of the day.

“In the morning, they’re going out after a good night’s rest, smoking, laughing,” Military and Veteran Benefits, News, Veteran Jobs reported that he said about his favorite times to strike. “When they come back in the evenings, they’re tired, lollygagging, not paying attention to detail.”

One of his most famous moments came when he was sent to take out a General in the NVA. It was astonishing work by Hathcock as he went four days and three nights without food or sleep in the pursuit of his man.

The sniper often volunteered for missions that he didn’t know anything about because of a natural belief, probably backed up by the stats, that he was better than the rest of his comrades.

Hathcock crawled inch by patient inch to get to a good position in order to hit the target – even ‘worming’ on his side in order to keep his trail thin and avoid being spotted by communist forces.

The sniper got 700 yards away and calmly slotted a bullet through the general’s heart. Hathcock was so good that it took him three days to get back to safety but he managed to do so without being detected once.

“Carlos became part of the environment,” explained Land. “He totally integrated himself into the environment. He had the patience, drive, and courage to do the job. He felt very strongly that he was saving Marine lives.”

Among his other famous kills was when the sniper took out an NVA platoon leader known only as Apache. She enjoyed torturing captured American soldiers and was hated by the Marine forces that operated in the area.

M-25 Rifle

One day Apache captured a private and sadistically tortured him within earshot of Hathcock’s own unit. She skinned the man. She cut off his eyelids, before taking his fingernails off and castrating him. Then she let him go.

As a result, Hathcock took his spotter and they trailed Apache and her platoon. Went she stepped off the trail to relieve herself, the sniper took his chance. He even put a second bullet in the hated torturess just for good measure.

Because of his skill and mounting body count, the NVA had put a $30,000 bounty on the head of Hathcock. The normal range for a bounty would be anything up to $2,000 – but Hathcock was special.

The NVA sent their best man, known as Cobra, after Hathcock and he began to pick off soft targets from the American’s unit in an attempt to draw him into the open.

“He was very cagey, very smart,” said Hathcock about Cobra. “He was close to being as good as I was… But no way, ain’t no way ain’t nobody that good.”

The American and Cobra circled each other – the NVA man even got a shot off which hit Hathcock’s partner’s canteen. Cobra ended up facing the sun, which would prove to be his downfall.

A ray of sun caught the lens of the Vietnamese man’s scope. There was a glint. Hathcock saw it and shot it. The bullet went straight through the scope without touching the sides and hit Cobra flush in the eye.

The only way this could have been possible is if Cobra was zeroing in on Hathcock and he fired first. One man had the quicker trigger finger, the other was dead.

Hathcock’s time in Nam was brought to a swift end when his vehicle hit an anti-tank mine and was blown up. In saving the lives of seven Marines who were inside the burning vehicle, Hathcock suffered burns to 40% of his body.

This ended his career behind a sniper, but the soldier trained the next generation after setting up the Marine Sniper School at Quantico. After being forced into retirement after his health worsened due to multiple sclerosis, Hathcock continued to provide training to police units and the military.

He sadly passed away in February 1999 in Virginia Beach after succumbing to multiple sclerosis. In the end, nature accomplished what the best snipers in the whole of Vietnam never could.

SOURCE & CREDITS:

A Vietnam War Sniper Crawled for 3 Days Across 2000m of Open Field, Killed NVA General With One Shot, Then Crawled Back