Lars Man Standing, Final Score: Mark Steyn hits it out of the park and exposes the hypocrisy of the left on free speech.
Author Archives: Patrick Shrier
Surgery Update
OK, this a quick update because I can only type with my left hand. The surgery went well yesterday and now i am sitting around learning that i am definitely not left-handed. the drain gets removed today and i should find out how long until i can use both arms again. i will guess 2-3 weeks. i have some book reviews i will put up in the meantime but nothing substantive. i have big one about the Marian reforms of the roman army that will get [posted once i can really type again and get it finished.
Posting Hiatus
Status
I will have shoulder surgery today and will probably not be doing a lot of typing for at least the next two weeks when I will have to be in a sling. Unfortunately, it is my right shoulder getting operated on and I am right handed. I am very curious to see how well I operate a mouse left handed. I will still be checking and approving comments but there will not be any new posts until my shoulder heals up enough for me two type with two hands.
Periodic World Craziness Update # 4
The latest installment of updates on the wackiness of Iran and the wider Muslim World. I have also decided to change the title of this series and just make it a monthly installment, it will be an aggregation of what I consider the most relevant news pieces with my analysis and criticisms attached.
George Kerchner and the Lessons of Afghanistan: This is not strictly about Iran and their idiocy but a good point is made about the lack of strategic focus of US and Western War Planning over the past decade.
Obama Needs to Stay the Course in Afghanistan: This article contains perhaps the most asinine sentence I have read regarding the deaths of our soldiers in a long time, perhaps even since studying the Vietnam War in High school. It is: “A faster pullout would be an insult to the U.S. troops who died fighting terrorism.” So I am to believe that staying and seeing more soldiers killed is less of an insult to those who have already made the ultimate sacrifice fighting the futile war in Afghanistan, than leaving and letting the Afghans get back to killing each other instead of more Westerners. Is this guy serious? I also wonder if he has ever served in the military.
Islamists in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia not democratic: The title of this insightful peace says it all. It nails it that the various Islamist movements appearing in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring are democratic to the extent that it lets them take power. I fully expect to see Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, etc experience another round of One man, One vote, One time. I also expect to see folks in the west wringing their hands about and talking about what a tragedy it is while continuing to shovel money at them as the US recently did with aid to Egypt.
TV report shows air force gearing up for Iran attack, says moment of truth is near: I still think that an attack, if it happens, is several months off and reports like this are just saber rattling. It looks like the Israelis are not quite prepared to throw the gauntlet down and i agree with the analysis that says they are waiting to fond out the results of election sin the US before doing anything because it is certain that Obama will not have their back if they get into a hooting war with Iran or any of their other neighbors. I think that best case for Israel right now in the event of a war is that the US sits on the sidelines but I would guess that Obama would b knee-deep in try to preserve the peace that he has done so much to destabilize over the past three of waffling Middle East policy.
North Korea’s failure that provokes: In all the talk about the Middle East let us not forget that North Korea is still out there and doing crazy stuff as well. The worst part is that they are nuclear capable and in the middle of a succession. I don’t anticipate North Korea’s new leader to do anything stupid while he consolidates power but you never know. North Korea is an inherently unstable regime as far as the rest of the world is concerned. I also do’t think that many people either inside or outside the regime really understand the dynamics of how they think.
Europe now sees its financial crisis never really went away: We also should not forget the slow motion death of the Euro we have been watching for the past three years. It seems that the rich north is running out resources to prop up their profligate southern neighbors. I look for at a minimum Spain and Greece to exit the Euro this year and I actually have no clue what that means for the Euro as a whole except that that it is not a good thing. The continuing Euro crisis bears watching as well as it has the potential to have far-reaching consequences.
North Korea’s failure that provokes
Book Review: Military or civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War by Alison Morton
[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own]
I was contacted by Ms. Morton about reading and reviewing her book: Military or civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War and jumped at the opportunity as the subject matter of the book, German Woman serving with the Wehrmacht is one that has been virtually ignored in English scholarship as she rightly points out in her introduction and demonstrates by including the text of an email she received from the director of the Imperial War Museum in which he demonstrates total ignorance about any female auxiliaries used by the Germans in WWII. The timing of me learning of this book could not be more fortuitous as an article about this subject recently appeared in the Journal of Military History, which peaked my interest in the topic.1
The book is adapted from Ms. Morton’s MA Thesis and you can tell this while reading it. This gives it a somewhat dry tone but that does not really take away from the work’s readability. The book is not very long, I have the Kindle version and I would guess that it only runs to 100 or so pages printed out as a Trade Paperback. That being said, Ms. Morton covers the topic of German Auxiliaries in WWII in some depth. The book is organized into four thematic chapters that present a very holistic view of the participation and use of German women by the WWII Wehrmacht.
The book covers the recrutiment, organization, employment and postwar perceptions of these women and does so in a very interesting manner. This is an excellent look at an understudied aspect of German military policy in WWII. It cannot be argued that the German use of up to 500,000 women to free up men for Front-line service did not materially effect the length of the war at a minimum. 500,000 men is essentially the equivalent of another Field Army that women’s use as rear-area troops made available. As the author points out in her introduction; given the historical attention paid to US and British military women in WWII it is odd in the extreme that the German use of women has been ignored.
Overall, this is an excellent study of an ignored topic. It is also a topic that needs even more study so that a full appreciation of the effects of women’s service in the Wehrmacht can be appreciated. This book is a strong beginning for what can and should be a fruitful area of historical scholarship.
1. Karen Hagemann, “Mobilizing Women for War: The History, Historiography, and Memory of German Women’s War Service in the Two World Wars,” The Journal of Military History 75 #4 (October 2011): 1055-1093.
