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Post by buster on May 31, 2011 13:06:12 GMT 8
Ah, attack the character of the critic eh?
Play the ball, not the man.
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Post by buster on Apr 21, 2011 4:38:06 GMT 8
I have received the following "Reply to John R." from Bill Calhoun:
I believe John Russell makes a very good argument against losing our identity as the Rock Regiment.
Those from our Association who support the 173rd’s efforts to take over our beloved combat team are proposing that we become part of a larger organization giving them more size and power.
I do not buy the argument that this would be advantageous to us. They have already stated that their by-laws would be our by-laws. (Personally, I am a Colonel (grade 6, U.S. Army retired). I served with a wonderful group of men. Some did not come home. I still grieve for them. I do not want those who survive addressing me as “colonel”. They are my “brothers” and always will be. I call them Burl, Bill, Ed, and so on. They call me Bill.
We are no longer ranked, we are brothers of the first U.S. parachute regiment whether one was a private or commissioned officer we shared the same life of uncertainty. I will fight for retaining our identity as long as I live.
God Bless ‘em all’ Bill Calhoun
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Post by buster on Oct 17, 2010 7:47:44 GMT 8
Years ago, in our area, there were always stories about WWII surplus being buried in crates - Jeeps, Harley-Davidsons, spare GMC motors, etc. The stories normally used to start with deep pits being dug...things being driven into the pits etc.
This was a sort of culturally advanced "cargo-cult."
I learned somewhere that the SOP for digging pits in any event was that when a pit was dug by a dozer, it was never dug deeper than the top of the exhaust pipe on top of the dozer, otherwise the pit might fill with carbon monoxide. One can only imagine that some GI paid for that discovery with his life.
I did have a confirmed story about a GI in a rear echelon area being killed when he took a shortcut changing a tyre by splitting a jeep's combat rim without fully letting off the air pressure in the tube. The rim split (as it was intended to do) and hit him in the head. I can't imagine his folks back home being told anything beyond that he was killed in the course of performing his duties.
Irrelevant to the Mariveles tunnels, of course, but it does remind me always not to lose sight of the basic practical considerations.
148 ft as a height of the tunnel is ridiculous, but it might well be its height above sea level. I really don't know. 48 feet probably surely can't be the interior height of a tunnel either, because we are dealing with an emergency storage and air-raid shelter tunnel, not a V-2 factory or U-Boat dock. I can't see any purpose in a tunnel so tall, or practicality in building such. I would expect 14 ft to be more close to the mark, and even that would make it one heck of a big tunnel.
I'd expect a tunnel more in the style of Middleside than Malinta - and Middleside was originally intended to be a far larger tunnel system.
Were do I pay my two cents?
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Post by buster on Sept 29, 2010 21:49:44 GMT 8
Fots, your images consistently show your mastery of the medium - the greatest photos of Drum. I can't specify, damn, they are ALL good.
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Post by buster on Sept 27, 2010 18:42:13 GMT 8
Simple way to get to Wheeler and Cheney.
Get a drop off at the old flagpole. Head west past the officers Qtrs until you come to a fork in the road. Left is to Wheeler, right is to Cheney.
For Smith, first get towards the fork that is immediately adjacent to the magazine atop Hearn. Go right, away from Hearn. You will see a branch off and down to your left. Take it. (Right goes to Grubbs) Follow it abd keep an eagle eye about 50-100 yards on your left to a pathway. Follow it down to Smith. You will need a flashlight this way.
If you can't find the pathway on the left (difficult to locate if overgrown) , follow this road and it will eventually wind around and down and take you to Smith, and Smith Tunnel. At which time, you'll wish you'd have brought a flashlight.
You can leave up through the Smith magazine, if you happen to have been unable to find the path down to it.
LOL
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Post by buster on Sept 26, 2010 23:11:17 GMT 8
Well spotted Tomasctt! I should have added to your thread. I'll see if the thread can be transferred.
I am not so hard on Noy. I think he's dealing with a lot of very clever people who still have their hands in the public purse. They know that Caballo needs the work, but they cannot get any funds to do it. So they needed an excuse to make it publicly palatable, so they told Noy "it's for Corregidor." He maybe doesn't know any better, because he needs to rely on his advisers. The rogues are the people whose job it is to know better, yet who mis-inform their president, allow the media to be misinformed, and do not correct the error.
We'll know in the next few days if the articles continue to refer to Corregidor and do not mention Caballo.
My two bits is that if no one corrects the error about associating Corregidor with the ammunition dump, they have no respect for Corregidor, accuracy or the truth, and you can infer from that whatever you want.
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Post by buster on Sept 26, 2010 20:20:02 GMT 8
I see that Corregidor hit the news-wires and the Television tonight:
I refer to the ABS-CBN News report about the meeting between President Aquino of the Philippines, and President Obama. - “Both leaders talked about a US assistance in cleaning up an ammunition dump in Corregidor.”
Whether the departure from the truth is deliberate or stupid, I'll let you decide.
What followed the ABS-CBN news blurb on their website is a background, as to how Corregidor is a "key bastion" , “a memorial to the heroism of Filipino and American soldiers during World War II," erc., etc., and a tourist destination.
Yes, all the old "three hour tour" stuff.
So it is Corregidor, then, which is so stocked with unexploded munitions that Uncle Sam is needed to provide resources for its clean up?
Well, the media will have you believe it.
Rather than tell us the truth, are they hanging the label around Corregidor, to tug the heart strings?
The ignorant, and that is 99% of listeners/readers/viewers, were implanted with the idea that Corregidor still has a huge ammunition dump which needs US aid to help clean it up.
Gee, are Sun Cruises going to start offering “Ammunition Dump” Tours?
Not a single word, of course, about Caballo Island.
Presumably, the people really in the know ( by which phrase we can safely exclude much of the media) are aware that the issue is not a whit about Corregidor Island at all, but Caballo Island.
And that none of the "Corregidor" reasons are the slightest bit valid.
Is the US to be shaken-down to pick up the blame for years of US neglect in the way the US has stored ammunition on a sacred memorial, when we all know that not a single bit of this charge is true?
Of course, yes, that's the art of politics.
Hey, who cares if all the details are wrong, and the whole thing is misdirection just send the money fast and we'll worry about the details later.
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Post by buster on Sept 5, 2010 10:45:16 GMT 8
Was Bolling Smith being quite clever punning about what might turn out to be a telephone part "not ringing a bell"?
Can't help but smile as I admire the great detective work being done by you guys.
Westernaus may have nailed it. That's pretty authoritative.
Do we announce "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" yet?
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Post by buster on Sept 2, 2010 14:59:18 GMT 8
Thanks for the ID and the background of it. It certainly establishes the consciousness of the photograph, and changes its meaning forever.
It's like an early version of the Vietnamese propaganda photo of the Navy Pilot who managed, ever so subtly, to get his middle finger extended.
From some of the things that I was told first hand by a POW, the story you relate of the drowning of a guard in a latrine seems to be too kind a demise. It was probably the best they had on the moment.
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Post by buster on May 24, 2010 19:58:03 GMT 8
Sometimes there are places where "reductio ad absurdum" begins to approximate reality. Is Corregidor one of those places? A particularly popular fate amongst resorts is that public resources (eg history, an unspoiled natural environment) can be milked like a cash cow - indeed, like a neighbor's cow. Eventually, the resort so disturbs the ambiance and natural attraction of the host area, they feel the need to create artificial and unnatural attractions. Corporate games, zip lines, maybe. This destroys the essential original nature of the attraction they were marketing (ie milking.) The law of diminishing returns starts to kick in, and the reason people visit the attraction gradually declines, weighed down by the sheer insensitivity of the unnatural attractions and environmental degradation. In Corregidor's case, the more they get away from history, heritage and environment, the more they run the risk of destroying their core asset. Either a Resort gets back to understanding why it became an attraction in the first place, or it risks becoming a unattractive parody of its former self.
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