Memorializing

A friend of mine put up an interesting post a few hours ago about the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Although I'm not sure she meant to, she basically scolded us as a nation that has mostly "blithely" (her word) accepted the day as just another holiday, usually while we regale each other with "Have a Happy Memorial Day" as we go on vacations, open swimming pools for the summer, or celebrate the day off with barbecues and baseball games.

I, for one, stand guilty as charged.

Her post came into sharp focus when she reminded us of the cost behind this day by listing the number of deaths Americans have suffered in each of its wars: 625,000 in the Civil War; 116,000 in World War I; 405,000 in World War II; 36,000 in Korea; 58,000 in Vietnam. If you added all the wars Americans have fought and died in, the total would clear 1,300,000 in the past 160 years or so. Probably higher.

Not to be forgotten is the pain and grief felt by surviving family members.

So, thanks to my friend, I enter this weekend with a clearer perspective.

The first Memorial Day wasn't even a Memorial Day. It was called Decoration Day back in 1868 when it was first observed nationally and it was created by Commander in Chief John Logan of the Grand Army of the Potomac as a way to honor the Union war dead from the Civil War, which had ended three years prior.

The holiday became official in 1873 in New York, and by 1890, every Union state had adopted it as an official holiday. 

At almost the same time, there was a Confederate Memorial Day as well, which first occurred in 1874.

Eventually, as the practice of honoring deceased military members grew across the country, the name "Decoration Day" was replaced by "Memorial Day" after World War II. "Memorial Day" became the official name of the holiday by Federal law in 1967 (interestingly, the Vietnam era). The next year, Memorial Day was moved from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May to provide us a three-day weekend. That action may have been the beginning of the fading of our collective memory as to the true meaning of Memorial Day. Now we can go to the beach for an extra day and still get paid for it.

And there's one more thing to consider: Memorial Day is not only a time to honor our fallen heroes, but it's also a time to reflect on the principles of freedom and democracy they fought – and died – to protect.

For us.

 

 

 

Alito delete-o

Here's what caught my attention more than anything else after learning ultra-conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito was flying an upside-down American flag outside his house shortly after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in 2021:

 

At the Alito home...

He blamed the whole episode on his wife, Martha-Ann, denying (it seems that denial is what Republicans seem to do best these days) that he had any knowledge of the "Stop the Steal" symbolism at his home and what the inverted flag meant to Trump supporters (who were in denial of Joe Biden's election victory).

I mean, yeah, Alito has First Amendment rights along with the rest of us, but as a Supreme Court justice, he also has a code of ethics to follow (not to mention a U.S. code on the proper way to fly the American flag), which I think supercedes any freedom of speech issues. Freedom of speech, we know, is not absolute.

But apparently, throwing your wife under the Trump bus is an absolute. What a manly response by this coward.

Alito tried to deflect the issue, saying that his wife flew the upside-down flag in a dispute with a pro-Biden neighbor. So much for thick skin. If you're a Supreme Court justice, or the spouse of one, why respond in any way at all? You've become a hack and no longer a justice.

There is no justice here.

By making a political statement such as flying a "Stop the Steal" inverted flag, the Supreme Court suffers a blow to what is supposed to be its institutional reputation for staying above the political fray.

Not any longer. There is now a sense that justice is no longer blind and that it is driven by a (conservative) agenda. This is important, what with two Jan. 6 related cases coming before the Court before long, including a decision on presidential immunity.

This current Alito affair, coupled with Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginnie, actually appearing at Trump's Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse and then contacting Chief of Staff Mark Meadows via email about saving the country from Democrats is astounding.

And then to have the gall to celebrate vacations in their new RV purchased from wealthy conservative donors and who had cases appear before SCOTUS.

Clearly, both Thomas and Alito need to recuse themselves from anything dealing with Trump because of the obvious conflict of interests, not to mention the political overtones. There is no enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court. There is no accountability in the Supreme Court. This is a flaw in the design of our constitutional government that must be addressed immediately.

But, in an election year, don't hold your breath. For those of us appalled by this behavior, we are confronting insanity

B-29 mania

If the truth be told, I was never a B-29 guy.

As a World War II history buff, my heavy bomber of choice was always the iconic Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. I think a lot of my affection for that plane probably had to do with the media it received, both during the war and afterwards.

I check out the innards of a B-29.*

Old grainy combat film footage almost exclusively featured formations of B-17s. Then you had movies like Twelve O'Clock High (which also showed up in a television series back in the 1960s) and books about the Memphis Belle (the first 8th Air Force bomber recognized to complete 25 combat missions that could send the crew home from the war. Interestingly, a plane called Hell's Angels actually flew its 25th mission before the Belle by a day, but Hollywood director William Wyler happened to be on board the Belle at the time. So there.) B-17s were everywhere. I even built a Monogram model of the Memphis Belle when I was a kid. I never could keep the wings from sagging.

For a brief span, I came to admire the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, which had a greater range and could deliver a larger payload than the B-17. But the Liberator never really captured the public's imagination in the way the Fortress did. Maybe because the B-24 looked something like a pregnant whale while the Fortress had the sleek art deco silhouette of a ballet dancer.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a late-war entry that didn't see any combat in the European campaign, even though it was originally designed to fly above the German anti-aircraft fire.

But the B-29 was devastating in the war against Japan. It had a range upwards of 3,200 miles and a service ceiling of nearly 32,000 feet. It could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs at low altitude or 5,000 pounds of bombs at high altitude. And it appeared in the war in early 1945, about the same time that napalm was secretly being developed at Harvard.

 

The cockpit of a B-29.

Napalm had already been used in the firebombing of Dresden in Germany in 1945, but the paper-and-wood construction of Japanese homes made napalm the obvious weapon of choice here. In the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, the B-29 was the delivery system that resulted in 100,000 deaths and 16 square miles of Tokyo's destruction.

B-29s also dropped two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki, that did less damage than the firebombing raids did, but irrevocably altered the course of world history and world politics.

So when I found out that Doc, one of only two airworthy B-29s left in the world (the other being Fifi) was going to be in Statesville last week, I had to go see this piece of American history. I called two of my friends, Mark Loper and Jay Egelnick, and we made the journey to Statesville Regional Airport.

Doc was never in combat, coming too late off the Wichita assembly line to see action. But it did serve in radar calibration after the war with a squadron of other B-29s, known as the Seven Dwarfs. That's how Doc got its name.

It also worked towing targets for practice shooting and ultimately ended up in the Mojave Desert as a target itself for bomb training. It was rescued in 1987 and restoration began in 2013 with hundreds of volunteers working to make the plane airworthy again.

The B-29 Doc in Statesville.

Anyway, the B-29 is a technological marvel for its time. While it looks something like a silver cigar, it features pressurized cabins for the crew (which meant climate control) and analog computers to operate 10 defensive machine guns in turrets.

I was always fascinated with this idea of computerized gun turrets in World War II. The computer could calculate airspeed, lead time, gravity and weather conditions to make it one of the most efficient systems of the war. While computerless B-17's and B-24's shot down approximately two fighters for every B-17 lost (an atrocious rate), the B-29 had an amazing 11-to-1 kill ratio, virtually making it a fighter/bomber. And as then-test pilot Paul Tibbetts (who dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima) discovered, if you took the armor and guns out of the B-29, you markedly improved its flight performance. Consequently, the B-29 then had a smaller turning radius than a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter in mock combat situations.

Sitting in the cockpit of the B-17 Liberty Belle years ago.**

 Mark, Jay and myself spent about 15 minutes in the plane. You entered through the bomb bay (that was loaded with various sizes of dummy bombs. At least, I thought they were dummies), climbed a ladder, then approached the flight deck that gave you a view of the pilot and co-pilot's cabin and the bombardier's station before exiting through the front landing gear well. We probably would have liked to have stayed inside longer, but there was a line of about 100 people waiting to take their turn to tour the aircraft. There were several people on board to answer questions, but there was a hurry up factor as well.

This probably concludes my visit of three of the most iconic American bombers of World War II. I actually flew in the B-24 Witchcraft when it came to Lexington a number of years ago, and got to taxi down the runway in the B-17 Liberty Belle. We were supposed to go airborne in the B-17, but a tail wheel issue prevented us from taking off. No matter. I got to sit in the pilot's seat when it was stationary.

Standing with the B-24 Witchcraft.***

 And then I was able to tour both Fifi and Doc over the years. For a military history nut, it doesn't get much better than that.

*Really great photos by my friend Jay Egelnick. 

** Great photo by my friend Donnie Roberts.

*** Great photo by my wife Kim Wehrle.