The Blame Lies Not with Brave Men

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I posted the following on October 2, 2013. Reposting it in its entirety (though reformatted) for the Memorial Day weekend, 2019.

1944
Ever

Ernie Pyle was an American journalist and war correspondent. A quick perusal of Brave Men confirms that he wrote from the perspective of the common soldier.

A few snippets from Chapter 35, “A Last Word”:

This final chapter is being written in the latter part of August, 1944; it is being written under an apple tree in a lovely green orchard in the interior of France. It could well be that the European war will be over and done with by the time you read this book. Or it might not be. But the end is inevitable.

It will seem odd when, at some given hour, the shooting stops and everything suddenly changes again. … odd not to listen with animal-like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound; odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight that is compounded of fear and death and dirt and noise and anguish.

The end of war will be a gigantic relief, but it cannot be a matter of hilarity for most of us. Somehow it would seem sacrilegious to sing and dance when the great day comes– there are so many who can never sign and dance again.

[snip]

Thousands of our men will be returning to you after Europe. They have been gone a long time and they have seen and done and felt things you cannot know. They will have to be changed. They will have to learn how to adjust themselves to peace. Last night we had a violent electrical storm around our countryside. The storm was half over before we realized the the flashes and the crashings around us were not artillery but plain old-fashioned thunder and lightening. It will be odd to hear only thunder again. You must remember that such little things as that are in our souls, and it will take time.

[my emphasis]

Pyle himself was among the brave men who died during WWII. He was shot by a Japanese snipper and died instantly. He was one of few civilians to be awarded the Purple Heart. 

405,400 American men died during WWII. Let that sink in.

Many more brave men, of course returned home after Europe, the Pacific, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

To be sure, you’ve now read or heard about the manner in which a bunch of infirm old men were treated when they attempted to visit a war memorial yesterday. And of course you’re seeing the same old blame game play out this morning. 

To be candid, Mr. Big Food and I had fun watching this story unfold. Seriously? But the more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to laugh. We are supposed to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Where was just one brave soul willing to announce that he or she was not going to be putting a road block up at a war memorial?

So you know who I’m blaming for this shameful treatment of brave men? 

I’m blaming the cowardly men and women of the National Parks Service. Those men and women– in uniform no less!– who drove the trucks with the barricades stacked in the bed, who unfolded them and set them up. 

I’m blaming those cowardly men and women who just followed along, whose conscience didn’t compel them to say, “This is stupid. This is wrong. I will not participate.”

I am blaming those cowardly men and women who are not worthy of the sacrifices brave men make.

Cowards

The Shootout

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“Teen wounded in ordeal is back home.”

It was an “ambush and hours-long standoff with a heavily armed man.”

Some dumbass, no doubt aided along by alkeehol &/or drugs was beating on a woman late at night and she called 911. She apparently asked to meet with a deputy at the sheriff’s office. The information she gave him was sufficient for a warrant. Two deputies went to serve it. The newspaper story includes a lot of information about the trucks the two were driving and how since one was a personal vehicle, did not have bullet-proof stuff.

When the deputies got to the house, dumbass opened fire on them! Outgunned, and with one of the trucks destroyed, they retreated. Dumbass gets in his truck and drives to his woman’s relatives– shooting along the way. More 911 calls. Now it’s after 2am.

Everybody and his brother arrives on the scene. Sheriff estimates at least 25-30 people. The problem, of course, is that they are being shot at but cannot return fire because there are people in the house.

Dumbass apparently shoots the house up, too. Wounded teen. And he is seriously armed. About 5am he leaves the house and drives down the road. But because everybody and his brother is on the scene and in the vicinity, some set up a roadblock. There was a brief gun fight and he was apprehended.

They had an EMT vehicle just off site, the teen was taken to the hospital, and then to Jackson.

Two sheriff’s dep’t vehicles were permanently disabled, and two are out of commission. Neighboring law enforcement have provided loaners. By my count nine different agencies were involved.

The Board of Supervisors has officially commended the first two officers, and they got certificates of heroism from the sheriff’s office. Some other dude was thanked because he came in on his day off and worked without pay while the others were off investigating.

Also in this week’s little paper, nine pages of yearbook photos, student names, parent names, activities/honors, and future plans for all graduating seniors form our county’s two high schools.

“Who Loves a Garden”

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Who loves a garden
Finds within his soul
Life's whole;
He hears the anthem of the soil
While ingrates toil;
And sees beyond his little sphere
The waving fronds of heaven, clear.
-- Louise Seymour Jones

from The Best Loved Poems of the American People. Hazel Felleman, ed. Garden City Books, Garden City, New York. 1936.

“It coulda went bad real quick.”

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https://www.wtva.com/content/news/Driver-not-injured-after-Tupelo-traffic-accident–510217001.html

Sorry. Can’t get it to embed but it’s worth 1:13.

Bubba

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I understand that most of y’all don’t live in The South, and may not fully appreciate why– when the lights go out on a perfectly clear day such as this– I speculate that Bubba musta run up a pole.

Ta. Da.

photo courtesy of Amanda @wtva9news

Amanda reports that both drivers involved are okay (Bubba got cut off by another guy), and that there is “no threat to power at this moment” (8:57am). This time, maybe. But you just wait, Bubba’ll do it again, I promise.

That’s pretty impressive.

Wonder how the driver got out and shut the door? I’ll puzzle over this all day.

Still overgrown

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Bonnie & Clyde in their shack

Took the dogs to the Hidden Pasture today. Passed by Bonnie & Clyde’s on the way down.

Rocky & Missy in the Hidden Pasture
Bonnie & Clyde in the overgrown pasture, which despite their best efforts, remains overgrown

They’d come out for their morning stroll by the time we returned.

8:49. 79°. Going to be a hot one today. 

I’m half crazy

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all for the love of you!

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,
I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
It won’t be a stylish marriage,
I can’t afford a carriage,
But you’d look sweet upon the seat
Of a bicycle made for two.

Read more: Henry Dacre – Daisy, Daisy [bicycle Built For Two] Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Sheep Dog Trials

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SueK sends along a link to several videos of Sheep Dog Trials.

Sheep dog trials are contests between man/dog teams required to move a small group of sheep (usually 5 I think) around and through a specified course. The course usually consists of gates and barriers, and are set so that they aren’t straight, but the sheep have to be moved around them as well as through them. The handler directs the dog through whistle signals, and the dog moves the sheep around the course and back into the pen they start from. And they’re timed. They win by having the best time with no dings for mistakes.

SueK

Quite something. Many of the dogs’ behaviors remind me of our old pal, Bebe!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0QEmXJbJzSEbdXq41MEg4g

Not seeing it

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Radar Scope

I don’t think it’s going to rain here. The pressure is 1012hPa and rising. (48 hour low (1009) was yesterday at about 6pm.) We got 0.17″ rain over night. The wind speeds now are averaging 7mph with gusts up to 14. I’m not seeing how it gets here.

I can promise you that if we were going to have 1.22″ of rain dropped on us in an hour or so (NAM model), things would look a lot different than they do out there right now.

Note that the three other models are predicting about 1/4″ but different start times.

KNQA in Memphis is in ‘clear air mode’ so that’s gotta mean something, right?

Stick around. We’ll see what happens.

Wouldn’t mind 1/4″ of rain!

Forecasts @ Windy.com. Check it out over on the side bar. It’s interactive!

Book House

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via AoSHQ Sunday Morning Book Thread; Check out the photo of the mirrored library, as well.

There’s a 12 volume collection of books for children with My Book House as part of the title:


Olive Beaupré Miller, ed. The Book House for Children, Chicago. 1937. 

They are beautiful books.

Images from Archive.org where you can borrow the books for 14 days.

This is interesting– and disconcerting. Usually books of this age are fully searchable and one can click through every page. (Screen shots are how I get a lot of the images I post when I talk about a crappy old book.) But all of My Book House volumes have “Limited Book Preview.” One cannot get beyond the table on contents in any of them. I have no idea why.

But I can speculate.

“Different times,” said Mr. Big Food when I read that to him.

Preserving Western Culture– all of it— one crappy old book at a time.

Too Busy Planting

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Workshop Garden

24 peppers

18 tomatoes

7 eggplants

(Not to mention the 12 sweet potatoes I planted the other day.)

I hear Mr. Cotton Farmer down there with his tractor. Perfect timing!

Didn’t hear anyone shooting today. Guess we were all too busy planting.

Yesterday we journeyed to [shudder] The Burbs of Memphis

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I’m pleased to report that arrived back at Farther Along Farm without incident. Not that there weren’t plenty of incidents, but none kept us from arriving home safely.

We left in good time. Saw the big digger at the edge of the cotton field as soon as we turned onto the road. As we approached, we could see that we were not going to proceed forward. The big digger was digging a big hole right in the middle of the road on top of a culvert. Someone motioned us ahead, and we rolled down our windows. It was our County Supervisor and friend, Pat. He could have it passable in 10 minutes. No no. We’ll go the back way. And then of course the obligatory chat about the burn piles, the fixing of our road, the fact that AT&T’s phone cable was not buried deep enough and had been ripped out. (Upside: no robo calls!)

We backed up about 1/4 mile (good practice), turned around and had a discussion about which alternative route to take. I suggested the known route that would take five minutes longer than going the regular way. Mr. Big Food suggested something different that he thought would take us quite a bit further down the line. So we did it his way.

Just about the time we transitioned from pavement to gravel, he lost service. So– and on account of the fact that we had stupidly not put the topo map back in the truck– we were flying on memories of gravel roads where there is not a powerline in sight. At some point, we agreed that perhaps the known route would have been a better choice, but such is life.

Thirty-five (35) minutes, and several miles of scenic rural Mississippi gravel roads later, we wound up at a location about 10 minutes from the Farm.

We will not dwell on this.

The leg from that location to The Burbs was relatively uneventful other than to note the amazing amount of water around Coldwater, MS.

And then. The Burbs. We’re talking about Goodman Rd. in Southaven, Mississippi. Good Lord! How do you people live like this? Can this even be called “living?”

Settled on Waffle House for lunch. (That did not go well but it’s not a story I’m inclined to tell.) Then a quick maneuver across five lanes of traffic to get to the K-roger. Hum. The Kroger has no Gulf lump crab meat.

Tomorrow is the Preakness. Mr. Big Food looks forward every year to having classic Kentucky food on Derby Day, Maryland food on Preakness Day, and I don’t know what (Elmont, NY??) on Belmont Day. Come hell or high water he is making crab cakes today!

Just enough time to do one of the errands before the appointment. The nearest branch of our bank was conveniently only about one mile away, and on route to the appointment. Print my name on the check? How is it this Southaven branch has different rules than the Starkville branch? Whatev. Stupid.

Work our way up Goodman Road– at lunch hour! Strip mall. Strip mall. Stop & Rob. Strip mall. Liquor store. Mattress store. Stop & Rob… . How do you people live like this?

Arrive at destination. “Hum. Pretty empty. Maybe we’ll just sail on through and be outta here,” Mr. Big Food says. Walk up to door. See sign. “We’ve moved!” Look up location on phone. [INSERT MULTIPLE EXPLETIVES] I kid you not, next to the [EXPLETIVE] bank. So back down Goodman Rd. we go.

Drop Mr. Big Food off. Sit in parking lot searching for Gulf lump crab meat. Best I could come up with without going into actual [EXPLETIVE] Memphis– because if you think Southaven stinks, you should go to Memphis proper– was a meat market in Oxford that would special order it and it would be in Thursday. Thanks. So went to gas station to fill up then back to the office building that’s next to the bank.

That wasn’t too awfully bad. We’ve known this guy for a long time so we chatted about Romania and Northwestern University. Stopped at a different K-roger on the way out to buy not Gulf lump meat crab. Then the back way home– past the beer, bait & ammo joint that’s still there after all these years! Right over the county line it is!

Stopped at the Mom & Pop garden shop on Hwy. 8 to pick up a few more tomatoes and peppers. So all’s well that ends well!

But I ask again, how do you people live like this?

It is hard work trying to train those stupid sheep

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I did not ask to be a shepherd. And I think I’ve done a remarkable job as a Shepard. But damn. Those sheep are stupid.

They gobble feed from my hands. I can pet then. I tried this evening to rope Clyde in by pulling on his ears. He did not take kindly to my multiple attempts.

Stupid sheep.