Kill a Commie for Mommy: Hating the Enemy During the Cold War and Before

On the rifle range in Basic Training in 1972 our drill sergeant 

yelled, "Kill a Commie for Mommy." 

Wars we lose have a lot in common.  One thing that America's lost or losing wars have in common is very restrictive Rules of Engagement: ROE.  In World War II there were no rules of engagement: see the enemy, kill the enemy.

But in the late stages of the Vietnam War, and throughout the Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and other conflicts in the War on Terror, there are rules about who, what, when and where American soldiers can fire at the enemy.

My job in the Air Force was live-fire testing of missiles from the Sidewinder all the way to the Minuteman.  We made sure those missiles were ready to shoot down a MiG or obliterate a city.

In the Army, I trained my tank crew to make one-shot kills of Soviet tanks at up to a mile distance.  There was no ROE. If the Soviets crossed the border we were to kill them. They were the enemy, the identifiable, uniformed enemy who was going to kill us if we did not kill them.

When we had an enemy, we had a goal: Defeat the enemy.

I wrote on the New York Times "At War" blog about how having an enemy, or not, affects marching songs.  In the 1970s when we marched, we sang about killing Commies. They were the enemy.  The current marching songs have no enemy.  Current marching songs also have no sex. For those of us who marched in the 70s and before, the idea of marching songs scrubbed of sex is as strange as those without enemies.

All through my professional life, in or out of the military, my best work was when I had a goal--and a leader with a clear idea of what winning looked like.

The wars we won--World War II and the Cold War--had an enemy and a goal: Victory.

The current wars are a mess because the goal is murky.  When the American military goes to war, we should be fighting to win.

In War and in Life, Love and Loss are Never Far Apart

I wrote about this soldier ten years ago, September 2009, when I was deployed to Iraq for year with 28th Combat Aviation Brigade.  I re-read this post and decided it says something I never want to forget.  

The deepest love must face the possibility of loss. The alternative is to avoid love, which is the greatest loss of all:

One of the administrative sergeants I run into once in a while was a Marine for 10 years before joining the Army National Guard. He is aloof and old enough that no one bothers him very much. He mostly keeps to himself, but will occasionally burst into a lecture about safety, security, the political situation in Iraq or how this war should be fought. His outbursts, like the lid sliding off a boiling pot, show that the heat has been building for a long time and finally he explodes. An early commentator on the Iliad wrote about Achilles saying, "An angry man never thinks he has spoken enough" and this sergeant proves it.

Today I was waiting for some other soldiers and had some time to sit and listen to this sergeant talk about his last deployment. It turns out the reason he keeps his distance and thinks about security issues goes back to his deployment three years ago. He was also on a large base then, but worked with people who went on convoys. For the most part he did not eat dinner, but one of the guys on convoy was a particular friend, another ex-Marine, so he would always change his schedule and eat dinner when his buddy was on base.

One day the aloof sergeant got the word that his dinner buddy got killed in a mortar attack. As he described it they were great friends, "And I decided I was not going to let that happen again. I'll talk to people but I don't want to care that much have them taken away. I still think about all the plans he had for his family, to travel--all gone."

The alternative to love is self-protection, keeping others at a distance so they won't hurt you by leaving. It's a choice we all make to some degree, to risk love or draw back.

Chinook Landing on a Roof in Afghanistan Honored in Original Art

On 10 November 2003 the crew of Chinook helicopter 

Yankee 2-6 made this landing on a cliff in Afghanistan.

Artist Larry Selman immortalized the event in a limited-edition print.

When I deployed to Iraq in 2009 with an Army helicopter brigade, nearly all the soldiers in our unit and every other unit were younger than me—a generation younger than me. But not the pilots.  Some were young, but many more were in their 40s and 50s.  Larry Murphy, a Chinook helicopter pilot, was one of the very few soldiers older than I was.  I was 56. He was 58. 

On Wednesday, 5 September 2019, Larry was honored with the unveiling of a painting commemorating an amazing bit of flying he and his crew did in Afghanistan in 2003.  Larry was deployed with a company of Chinooks and supporting equipment to Afghanistan. The tour was supposed to be a year and was extended to 16 months. The Chinook company was made up of soldiers from the Pennsylvania and Connecticut Army National Guard did not leave Afghanistan till 2004. They were in support of several companies of soldiers from the 10^th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York.

On 10 November 2003, Larry and the crew of Chinook helicopter Yankee 2-6 received an additional mission to pickup prisoners while they were on a resupply mission. These missions are a routine part of combat operations in Afghanistan.  But this mission was different. The prisoners had to be picked up from the side of a steep mountain at an elevation of 8,500 feet above sea level.  There was no place to land an aircraft with a 52-foot-long fuselage that is almost 100 feet long from tip to tip of its massive twin rotors. 

The pickup point was a shack on the side of a cliff.  Larry and the crew landed rear-wheels-only on the roof of the shack with the tail ramp lowered.  With the back of the helicopter on the shack roof, Larry and the other pilot, Paul Barnes, could not see the shack or any other close-in visual markers. From the cockpit, the pilots could see down the cliff to the valley 2,500-feet below.  The flight engineer James Duggan, crew chief Brian Kilburn and door gunner Margaret Haydock guided the pilots from the side and rear of the aircraft.  

Although technically a landing in the sense that the rear wheels were on the ground, the pilots were carefully keeping the full weight of the 25,000-pound (empty) helicopter from resting on shack, and keeping the front of the helicopter stable and level while the prisoners were brought aboard.

As soon as the prisoners were on board, the big helicopter returned to base. 

Five years ago, I was in a Chinook helicopter on Fort Indiantown Gap that landed rear-wheels-only on a cliff.  Twenty soldiers in full battle gear ran off the ramp and set up a security perimeter.  As the soldiers left the aircraft with their gear and heavy weapons, the weight of the aircraft dropped by 6,000 pounds, but the pilots held the helicopter level and steady.  I was looking out the door gunner’s window near the front of the aircraft. I saw nothing but sky above and rock-strewn valley hundreds of feet below.  I had heard about the roof landing since I joined the unit in 2007. It is amazing to see. It is more amazing to feel.

Larry Murphy signing prints at the Aviation Armory on 

Fort Indiantown, Pennsylvania  

The print by artist Larry Selman is available on his website.

In the years since the landing, the photo (above) has become an iconic image for Army Aviation, so much so that people question if the landing really happened.

Snopes.com answered the question: True. From their site:

I’m sure all of you have seen many choppers make some daring moves, but this one is spectacular. Hope you enjoy it. This attached shot was taken by a trooper in Afghanistan. Pilot is Larry Murphy, PA National Guard. Larry is a Keystone Helicopter Corp. EMS Pilot employee called to active duty. I must state that this is a “unique” landing operation. I understand that this particular military operation was to round up suspects.

We have some super reservists and National Guard folks out there in addition to our volunteer troops. God bless them all.

Attacking NATO Allies is Stupid and Dangerous

The Malmedy Massacre, 17 December 1944

Seventy years of peace and prosperity after centuries of nearly continuous war is an amazing treasure that no one should take for granted. Yet here we are with a fool in the White House who loves dictators and hates the the Allies who have kept the peace in Europe since the end of World War II.

Yesterday, September 1, 2019, is the 80th Anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.

Beginning 9am yesterday, I watched the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Belgium at the Spa Circuit that is located in the southeast corner of this small country that has suffered so many invasions. The track is just four miles from Malmedy where Nazi troops massacred 84 American prisoners on 17 December 1944. Spa is 35 miles from Bastogne where American soldiers were surrounded and held out in the last major Nazi attack of World War II.

Belgium is at the center of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO, the treaty organization at the center of peace across Europe since the end of World War II in 1945.

As I watched the race, I was more aware than usual that a French driver in an Italian car is leading a British driver in a German car. Drivers from Germany, Finland, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Poland, Holland, Russia, Australia, Spain follow the leaders. The series is now owned by Americans, though there is currently no American driver.

The 21 races are held in 21 countries on five continents. Ten of the races are in NATO member countries. Part of the reason these races and every other world sport can exist is more than 70 years of peace under NATO.

NATO held the line against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. I served in both the Air Force and the Army off and on since 1972. The Cold War is the only clear victory in my years of service.

When I hear, see and read the President trashing NATO, I get ill. Europe has never been safer and more peaceful than the last seven decades and the foolish, shallow, friend of dictators in the White House is squandering this achievement.

Massive Fire Bombing of Stalingrad

On 23 August 1942, Nazis dropped thousands of bombs and thousands more incendiary bombs on Stalingrad at the opening of their attack.

The horror of fire bombing cities, slaughtering civilians in terrible infernos, was how the Nazi army began its attack on the city of Stalingrad.  The Luftwaffe flew 1,600 sorties on Sunday, 23 August 1942, dropping 1,000 tons of bombs and incendiary devices on the ill-fated city.

The dense black cloud from the fires rose more than two miles into the air above the ill-fated city. The fire could be seen to the horizon in every direction.

I just read a long account of the raid and its aftermath in the novel Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman.  A reporter and correspondent throughout the war, Grossman arrived in Stalingrad the day after the massive raid. He spoke to witnesses and saw the aftermath of the bombing.

I love the book and have written about it other parts of it here.  Stalingrad is Volume I of a two-part, 1,800 page novel about the central battle of the war in Russia. It is the War and Peace of the 20th Century.

I read Volume II Life and Fate three years ago. Volume I was not available in English until this year. For those interested in the war from the Soviet perspective, it's a great book.

Ironman 5th Anniversary

Today is five years since the longest exercise day in my life. On August 24, 2014, my wife and I started the Ironman event in Louisville, Kentucky at 7:20 a.m.  We jumped off a pier in a boat channel together, and I did not see her again until I finished at 11:54 p.m., an hour after she finished. 

The 2,600 entrants ran off three piers and started swimming. It took 40 minutes to get everyone in the water.  We were in about 1,300th place when we jumped off the pier together at the start of the 2.4-mile swim in the Ohio River.  At the end of her swim, Annalisa was in 1,000th place having passed 300 swimmers in the water. I finished in 2,595th place with a lifeguard kayak next to me. I lost 1,295 places in the water. 

When I started the 112-mile bike I was so far back I saw only three cyclists in the first 20 miles. Eventually I passed a thousand more racers on the bike, but a couple of hundred of them passed me during the marathon that ends the event and I finished nearly last among the 1,800 who finished the full 104.6-mile distance.

At 11:54 pm, I crossed the finish line.  I slowly walked and wobbled to the car. Annalisa and I drove to the hotel. We had leftover pasta from dinner the night before. Annalisa ate hers cold. I put mine in the microwave. I started to eat the pasta, but the effort of lifting the fork was too much. I went to bed. 

The next day we got up and drove back to Pennsylvania. 

It turns out that Ironman event was the last running race I will ever do. Five months ago I had my left knee replaced.  The surgeon said if I run it will be damaged, maybe need repair.  No more running. 

Annalisa leads a running group and could swim an Ironman distance tomorrow. She would have to train for the bike.  So she could do another Ironman. The whole thing was her idea. And we finished a year ahead of the initial plan.

Also, no more Tough Mudder competitions.  This post has reports of my Tough Mudder and Ironman events.

Can Faith Wield Power and Remain Faith?

Captain Jack Aubrey from the movie 

"Master and Commander: Far Side of the World" 

leading a boarding party.

Should Chaplains be part of the military? The question brings up the larger question of what place religion has in a state.

As commissioned officers, chaplains represent their faith, but they also represent a state claim to spiritual power, a power that the state wants on its side, on the state’s terms.

When I read Captain Aubrey’s musings on Chaplains in the Royal Navy (more below) in the “Master and Commander” books, I thought, ‘Yes! This is what bothers me about faith and power.’   

Specifically, I believe faith in the service of power is always evil.  Always.

But Aubrey does not think in universals, he simply does not like Chaplains on his ship. He believes they are bad luck. He sees the contradiction of having services on board the ship.  Aubrey drills and trains his gun crews to “smash enemy ships to splinters.” 

When necessary, Aubrey loads his guns with grape shot—a shotgun blast from a cannon with hundreds of pieces of metal and chain—and slaughters the enemy crew while they are on deck manning the guns and the rigging.  He has watched blood pour off the deck scuttles (drains) from the slaughter of a dozen cannons firing grape shot. 

When Aubrey leads his men on a boarding party, they carry pikes and axes and swords and pistols. They kill everyone in front of them as they swing from their ship to the enemy ship, firing, cutting and stabbing.

In a moment of reflection, Aubrey thinks about the deep contradiction when he has a Chaplain on board. On long voyages, a Chaplain will give weekly sermons, exhorting the men to love their neighbor, love their enemy, and any number of things that Captain Aubrey has trained out of his men.  They can’t really love their neighbor in the French frigate and pound his wooden ship to splinters with 24-pound cannonballs, then jump onto the enemy ship as they crash together and impale his neighbor on an 8-foot-long pike or split his skull with an axe. 

Which brings me back to this issue of faith and power.  In defending their own Holy Lands, a Muslim or a Jew split an enemy’s skull or run them through with a pike. Islam and Judaism have a territorial imperative.

But Christianity can never take power and be true to itself. Jesus had every opportunity for money, power and glory and pushed it away.  Based on the words of Jesus, no one could raise an army, conquer a foreign land, kill an enemy or run a government, which means having exclusive control of the means of violence.  The horrors of the Crusades, the conquest of the New World, African Slavery, the Hundred Years War, and every conflict waged with a Christian label is simply wrong.  There has never been a Christian nation based on the words of Jesus. It is always Moses, twisted into theological pretzel.

As an officer in what he considers a Christian nation, Captain Aubrey is fine with religion away from his ship and nods his hat to Christian morality as he sees it, but he is clear-eyed enough to know that his duty for that Christian nation is a flat contradiction of what a Chaplain tells his men. 

In another passage I quoted at length, Aubrey’s great friend Dr. Maturin muses on how power corrupts the men who pursue it. 

Jews ached for and prayed to return to Israel for two millennia until seventy years ago when a Jewish state came into being in 1948: including Jerusalem, the spiritual center of the Land of Israel and Judaism. Even before they had a state, Jews developed a pioneer army that became one of the toughest of all the armies on earth.  Protecting Israel means fighting when necessary.

Islam has holy sites and the promise of a Caliphate. The Koran describes the sites and the land. Conquest and holding an empire is consistent with Islam.

Buddhism, from what I have learned about it, has a very uneasy relationship with this world, power, territory and all that makes a state.  A Buddhist state seems to me to have the same inherent contradiction is a Christian state. Buddha, like Jesus, said nothing that could be construed as encouraging the taking and wielding of power.

Christianity goes completely wrong every time and in every way when it takes power.  The concept of a Christian nation is so foreign to the words of Jesus, that it seems to me as crazy as a Vegan hog butcher.  Every institution with a Christian label that takes power contradicts Jesus. Every one. And the hypocrisy is evident to those inside and outside the Church. Every Church that has become a state Church has thrown away the Gospel in pursuit of power.

Ever since I first believed, after being a vaguely agnostic nominally Jewish teenager, I have thought power was antithetical to faith. The Jewish state must protect itself so it can only exist by wielding power. But the dangers of the pursuit of power are just as real for those who rise through the ranks of the Israeli Army as any other Army.

There is no territorial imperative in Christianity.  There are no words of Jesus say take earthly power, hold earthly territory, and conquer in His name.  Nothing.

I truly believe that Christianity plus power equals evil.  Always.

White Evangelical America will collapse under the weight of its lust for power just as every nation that has conquered in the name of Jesus in the last 1,500 years. And every expression of Christianity that aligns with the pathetic pandering of the Evangelical majority will be tarred with the same brush as the Crusaders and post-Reformation wars of religion.

In the 1970s, I remember a prominent Baptist talking about sending missionaries to the “spiritual wasteland” of Europe.  Well there was a project that failed.  He confidently said secularism and 19^th Century philosophy had made Europe secular and resistant to faith. 

He never once mentioned that the churches in Germany expelled Jews who were confessing members in 1935, just two years after Hitler took power. Nearly all of those believers were killed in the Holocaust. Churches of every kind across Europe embraced or fell in line with Nazi rule. In his history of the Holocaust “Black Earth” Timothy Snyder said that churches across Europe utterly failed as protectors of the weak and persecuted.  And now the American Evangelical Church is following that well-worn path of pandering for power.  In his book “The Immoral Majority” Ben Howe says 68% of Evangelical Christians in America believe they have no responsibility for refugees. The people who are supposed to show God’s love to the world are the worst group in America for “caring for the least of these.”

Captain Aubrey is a man of action, not philosophy. Soon after his deep reflections on the paradox of power and faith, he joined the boarding party on a ship on which he was a passenger. With his injured right arm tied to his side, he swung a cutlass left handed and led a party of men jumping onto the enemy ship, fighting hand to hand. 

But the conflict in his mind will not leave my mind.  Real faith and pursuit of power will always be in conflict and deep contradiction.