Secretary Hegseth's 'TedTalk'

Yesterday was a big day, there was news in the press that the Secretary of Defense War Pete Hegseth had called all US flag officers - Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, Generals & Admirals - to a meeting at Quantico which is a Marine Base in Virginia.

I'm sure his 45 minute speech to these Generals & Admirals was very jarring, but I wonder if it's appreciated that he's setting a new direction for the armed services. He's right about the military, they are in the business of life and death and anyone who's in the service needs to act accordingly. He definitely emphasize the importance of physical fitness of all servicemembers.

He also emphasizes the meritocracy and no more D.E.I. initiatives. Secretary of War Hegseth wants to insure that no one will get promoted based on their race and gender or some other characteristic. What matters most is how they perform in their roles.

If I wasn't already over the age limit I'd sign up right now just to see if I could make it with these new rigid standards.

Here's his speech. Reminds me of a TedTalk. [VIDEO]

A lot of people who analyzed Secretary Hegseth's speech sort of compared it to the opening scene of Patton with the flag in the background and Patton played by George C. Scott giving his own speech. That would be a very iconic scene that many evoked here.

Also note that Patton is one of the historic generals that the Secretary of War noted in his speech. Some military analysts have noted we no longer have that swashbuckling generals that get the job done these days. Patton was one, MacArthur, Grant, and there are others surely.

Anyone have any thoughts on this. Any currently service military personnel or even veterans have any thoughts on this?

 

Now we have a Dept. of War

 The President of the United States - one Donald J. Trump - had been talking about this at least since he became President last year. And just last week he made good on it with an executive order. However, to make this more official it still takes an act of Congress for him to officially change the official name of the Department of Defense.

I've screen-capped the Defense/War Department Website and Instragam just to let you know what I've found on those sites.

Mr. Beat: Iraq War explained

 

[VIDEO] Can you believe this happened over 20 years ago?

Mr. Beat let us know where he was when the war started. For me I was at home and heard thunder. I had to look out of the window, for some reason I thought it was a bomb. Another terrorist attack in my neighborhood although to be honest there are much more high profile targets than a Chicago neighborhood.

According to Mr. Beat this video was controversial. He was commenting about how YouTube age-restricted his video which curtailed his ability to make money on it primarily through ads. He's done well enough where his videos often had sponsors, however, this Iraq War video had no sponsor.

One take away from this episode, Americans were freaked out over what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. There was no real connection with Iraq before the 2003 war and Al-Qaeda the terrorist group - responsible for the Sept 11th terrorist attack - lead by Usama bin Laden. I do believe Saddam Hussein was an awful poker player and paid for his miscalculation. I believe he was a bad man and the world is a better place without him running Iraq.

Regardless, this was a bit of a blunder and since then America's politicians which includes the 45th POTUS Donald Trump (a Republican) have been reticient to involve American troops in escapades such as this. This war proved to be a similar situation to Vietnam and helped to erode the trust of American citizens in their government.

Mr. Beat: The Gulf War explained

 

[VIDEO] First and foremost, Happy New Year. I hadn't posted here since Christmas.

Mr. Beat discusses an event that was significant during my youth which we call the Gulf War. So he explains the events that led up to the Gulf War and likely the aftermath. It's amazing some of the details I forgot about after 30 or so years which is the war was kicked off by an invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

I wanted to say it almost mirrored the current invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces though that has a different result, there is significant resistance. And it seems the world was a lot more effective in condemning and organizing against this than it seems they are now.

And also this wasn't the last time the U.S. had to get involved with Iraq and Mr. Beat states it got overshadowed by other wars and this conflict was a relatively short war. It lasted from about August 1990 to February 1991. And often I remember the coverage primarily on CNN at the time, there was no FOX News back then.

Anyway let me not drone on and on, I hope you learn something new here.

Geography King: Ukraine overview

 

[VIDEO] The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been dominating the news as of late depending upon what network you're watching. FOX News, CNN, MSDNC....well whatever news network you're watching or even you see little things about this situation on your local news stations.

Kyle of Geography King shares with you a quick overview of the nation of Ukraine. The people, the culture, the economy, even the terrain. You may ask though not necessarily answered here is why is Russia invading, what do they want with Ukraine?

I hope you learn something new with this.

A former submarine commander rates 14 submarine scenes in movies

 

[VIDEO] Good morning, today is my birthday and I wanted to share this with you. I don't know if I'll add anything else to this blog today but this has been one of my personal interests back in the day.

It's cool to see former submarine commander L. David Marquet review 14 submarine movies in a video for Insider. I do consider myself a fan of the genre one of the first submarine movies I ever saw was The Hunt for Red October. If I had been very serious about military life it would've been the U.S. Navy and perhaps if I ever became an officer perhaps the goal could be a submarine commander.

Then again going underwater for months at a time is a bit of a scary endeavor. Going underwater is an inhospitable environment. A lot of things could go wrong as Skipper Marquet discusses anything from fire to nose-diving to the bottom of the ocean to a submarine that's taking on water. In a few of these movies or even a TV episode - The Simpsons where Homer serves aboard a submarine - something bad happens.

However, a lot of these are more entertaining that real. Skipper Marquet would know what's based in fact vs reality. It's very cool to see a man who's actually been in the hotseat of a submarine.

A few mentioned here as far as submarines Crimson Tide, Aquaman, and The World is Not Enough are movies I actually seen. All very good though the last one is a James Bond film and it's not my favorite one of the franchise.

I hope you enjoy! 

Happy Veteran's Day

 

[VIDEO] This is a special day which not only means a day off from school it means we get to honor our US military veterans. This day was actually started to commemorate the armistice which ended the first World War. The armistice went into effect on November 11, 1918.

However, for the purposes of this blog today we honor one of the many heroes of the second World War, the Black airmen who were part of the famed Air Force groups the Tuskegee Airmen (comprised of groups 332nd Expeditionary Operations & 447th Bombardment). On the History Channel many years ago there was a TV program named Dogfights which often illustrated the engagements of many military pilots. So this program did the episode you see above on the Tuskegee Airmen.

For the most part the primary mission of the Tuskegee Airmen was escorting bomber aircraft to their designated targets. Keep bombers from being blown out of the sky by enemy aircraft. And it's often been noted that they never lost a bomber in their many engagements during the war.

Enjoy

Mr. Beat explains 9/11

 

[VIDEO] Today is the 21st anniversary of this lethal terrorist attack on U.S. soil. I saw it unfold live on TV and was listen to the radio when another plane hit the World Trade Center in New York. I was going to school in downtown Chicago at the time, and was headed for class on that day. The reaction of my professor when in class on that day was seemingly stunned and I went home early that day.

Had a class in the evening that I opted to not attend was no longer in the mood for it. I couldn't exactly process what happened it was truly stunning to find out that the World Trade Center were destroyed and many more were stuck in those buildings when they collapsed. It was also stunning that one plane hit the Pentagon in Virginia and another plane crash in a farm field in Pennsylvania.

In this video which Mr. Beat premiered on Friday he discusses the many events and responses as a result of Sept. 11, 2001. The "War on Terror", the Afghanistan campaign, the Patriot Act, etc. The War on Terror is still ongoing and to inject some world affairs onto this blog.

Afghanistan has made the news a lot as of late when Biden withdrew from that trouble nation last month. Depending on what news sources you follow you hear that American's and various Afghan allies were left behind over there amidst the chaos of the American withdrawal and the insurgency of an insurgent group known as the Taliban.

In late 2001, President George W. Bush announced the start of military operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and in a short time perhaps a month or so American-led forces gained control of Afghan terrority. The Taliban never went away even as ultimately an American backed regime was put into place over Afghanistan. Of course there have been charges of corruption as far as this goes, and besides to install a regime doesn't always seem to go without a hitch.

Either way the Taliban never went away and had an ongoing insurgency against the American led forces there. And 20 years later they've regained control of the country as the President of the American backed regime left the nation. 20 years earlier the Taliban effectively had control over most of the Afghan nation fighting a civil war against the Northern Alliance who wanted to restore the original gov't.

The Taliban then as now seek to install a regime with a very strict adherence to Islamic law. Perhaps like their neighbors in Iran or even like Saudi Arabia. There are videos of Taliban authorities seemingly using whips against women in public.

And that's another thing the reason why we went to Afghanistan in the first place was because there was a connection with the group named Al-Qaida who were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.A. Have you had enough of the history lesson? 

I hope you watch the video above.

YouTuuba Florida Keys Bridge Odyssey Ft. Zachary Taylor

 

[VIDEO] For the next hour you will see YouTuuba visit an old military installation known as Ft. Zachary Taylor which was designed as a coastal artillery installation. Effectively defend the American homeland from an attack by sea. It has something of a history during the Civil War although it seemed to have seen no action and was closed halfway during the 20th century.

As you see early in the video YouTuuba encounters some wild chickens which were descended from those chickens which were originally used for food or cockfighting. Now residents of Key West aren't allowed to kill those chickens so they roam around at will.

I hope you find this hour long video interesting and when he shares his visit to Everglades Nat'l Park I would like to share that with you as well.

Operation: Help-A-Hero #Ward09

I'm sorry I didn't trot this out on Memorial Day which is one of those holidays that we celebrate the sacrifices of America's military personnel & veterans. If you have an item to donate to homeless - or transitioning from homeless - military veterans you can do so at any Aldermanic office, any Jewel-Osco store or select Chicago Park district locations. A complete list is available at www.cityofchicago.org/helpahero

If you've subscribed to either Ald. Sawyer's or Ald. Beale's e-mail distribution lists you will see variations of the flyer below. If you want more information call your respective Alderman. This flyer contains the contact information for Ald. Beale.

Refer to the flyer below to see what items to donate. This "operation" continues through the Fourth of July!

Happy Memorial Day

On this occassion we'll honor the Buffalo Soldiers who are members of the US Army's 9th & 10th Cavalries. This unit was active from roughly the end of the Civil War all the way through the second World War. They were given the names by the various Native American tribes of the west as a term of respect comparing their courage with the fighting spirit of the buffalo.

Some of this information and the above painting was retrieved from the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club of Delaware.

In honor of Veteran's Day

In honor of Veteran's Day I wanted to discuss the history of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. The 54th was one of many units of Black military forces that served during the American Civil Ward. Typically on days such as this I want to discuss the role of Blacks who served in the US military during the history of this nation.

The story of the 54th was told in the film Glory which starred Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman. This was a movie my 8th grade class watched in order to get us more in touch with Black history. Unfortunately aside from watching it in class and perhaps on TV at times over the years this film has been an afterthought.

Which is unfortunate especially since I could get in on such formats as VHS, DVD, and now I could download it via iTunes. It also opened my eyes to the role of Black troops during the Civil War one of the ending results was the ending of slavery in the United States. Black troops were certainly contributing to that cause.

Now that I think about it's time to own the 2012 film Lincoln. The first scene of the film involved President Abraham Lincoln speaking with Union soldiers especially a pair of Black Union soldiers who successfully recite the Gettysburg Address. The gist of the film involves the debate over the 13th amendment to the US Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States and certainly those Black soldiers contributed to the victory of Union forces in the Civil War.

May we honor all of our military veterans and their role in our history and honor their service to the United States of America!