The 9th Company – Film Review

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The 9th Company is the Russian Full Metal Jacket. It starts of in bootcamp and ends in an inhospitable landscape fighting guerillas in unconventional warfare. It is a fictional portrayal of The Battle for Hill 3234. That being said, the value of this film lies in what can be gleaned not from the similarities with the former film, but with the differences. First of all, we are introduced to Russian culture in the form of dedovshchina, a term which encapsulates the institutions of the former Soviet Union ( and which continue to this day). Russian hierarchies have their cultural inheritance in the gulag, and in The Bitch Wars. A brutal, … More after the Jump…

The Makin Raid of 1942 and the Recovery of the Marines Lost After the Battle

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In August 1942 the 2nd Marine “Raider” Battalion raided what was then called Makin Island in the Gilbert Archipelago of the South Pacific.  The present name of the island is Butaritari in the island nation of Kiribati.

In 1942 the island had a small, roughly 160 man garrison, and was the site of a Japanese Airfield.  The raid was conceived as a way for the Marines to gather intelligence on what and how many Japanese forces were stationed in the Gilbert Islands.  The plan was for 211 men from companies A and B of the 2nd Marine “Raider” Battalion led by LTC Evans Carlson to land on the island under cover of darkness, neutralize the small Japanese garrison and ransack the island for anything of intelligence value before destroying the facilities and leaving the island.  The Marines would land from two submarines the USS Nautilus and USS Argonaut using small rubber boats equipped with outboard motors.

View of Makin Island from the Periscope of the USS Nautilus Before the Raid
View of Makin Island from the Periscope of the USS Nautilus Before the Raid

More after the Jump…

Call for submissions

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I need your aviation stories. The anthology will be titled SkyWriting: Essays on the Art and Craft of Aviation. See my website for submission guidelines, and send your flying tales for inclusion. Proceeds benefit Angel Flight, the service that flies kids for medical treatment. Deadline for issue #1 is March 30th, so scribble your story, and send it along. Thank you.

Book Review: A Mad Catastrophe by Geoffrey Wawro

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[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] A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire by Dr. Geoffrey Wawro is the first book I have read about WWI that does not treat Austro-Hungary as an afterthought after the outbreak of the fighting in August 1914.  In fact, Austria-Hungary and the course of the fighting in Serbia and Galicia in the first year of the war is the central theme of the book.  Dr. Wawro applies his usual exhaustive research methods to exploring … More after the Jump…

Taliban Capture a War Dog

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The Taliban capture a British dog of war Just before Christmas last year the Taliban in Afghanistan apparently captured a British War Dag and true to form have posted a capture video of it. Now that is going too far.  I wonder if they are torturing the dog and trying to get information out of it.  It would not surprise me if they were.  The dog appears to be a Belgian Malinois, one of the favorite breeds for working dogs because they are smart, diligent, and not easily distracted from their tasks.  There is apparently some confusion as to whether it is a British or American dog. As the article … More after the Jump…

The Difference between Officers and NCO’s

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A Platoon Sergeant and his Platoon Leader are racking out in the field for
the night. The Platoon Sergeant looks up and says, “When you see all the
stars in the sky, what do you think, LT?”

The LT replies, “Well, I think of how insignificant we really are in the
universe; how small a piece of such a grand design. I can’t help but wonder
if what we do truly means anything or makes any difference. Why? What do
you think of, Sergeant?”

“I think somebody stole the freakin’ tent.”

Book Review: Westmoreland’s War – Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam by Gregory Daddis

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[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] Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam is one of those increasingly rare history books that seeks to explain the why of history instead of assigning blame for past events.  Specifically, this book looks at the situation in Vietnam prior to and during William Westmoreland’s tenure as Commander, Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV).  In the process, it illuminates how complex were the strategic and tactical problems faced by Ameria in Vietnam and how the situation was not amenable to a decentralized, mostly military … More after the Jump…

My First Book is Officially Released-22 January, 2014

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I just want to take the opportunity to announce that my first foray into publishing was released on Tuesday, 22 January, 2014.  It is a survival/forest quick reference book titled The Simple Survival Smart Book.  I started working on the idea several years ago and finally finished it recently while I was stuck in the house after surgery and had no other excuses for not working on it.  It is available on Amazon as both a paperback and Kindle version.  So everyone get on over there, buy it, an make me rich.  Don’t forget to write a customer review about how awesome it is while you are at it.

Book Review: Churchill’s Bomb by Graham Farmelo

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[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] Have you ever wondered why Winston Churchill does not get more opprobrium for failing to capitalize on the talent pool (particularly the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany) in Britain and doing more to support the development of the atomic bomb? Neither have I. Then I received this book for review. Churchill’s Bomb: How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race purports to explain why and how Winston Churchill failed to support nuclear research into a bomb despite being … More after the Jump…

WWII Animated Day-by-Day

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Below is an animated map of the progress of WWII day by day from 1 September, 1939 to October, 1945 when the last major units of the Japanese military surrendered.  It provides a fascinating view of the way in which the fortunes of the went back and forth.

Ooooops… All runways look alike

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Originally posted at The Sky Behind Me blog January 14th 2014.

 

Oooops… Recently (and once again) a commercial airliner landed at the wrong airport. Southwest flight #4013 from Chicago enroute to Branson Missouri landed at a nearby college airstrip instead. This is reminiscent of a cockpit mistake in a similar incident many years ago in Columbus Ohio, my home town. In that episode, a Trans World Airlines 707 landed at Ohio State University’s Don Scott Field, fifteen miles northwest of Port Columbus, the plane’s scheduled destination. Why does this continue to happen? What can prevent it? Here’s one reason it happens, and one way to lower the possibilities.

More after the Jump…

Book Review: Come and Take Them by Tom Kratman

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I will make no secret that I am a fan of Tom Kratman’s work and would be thrilled to see more authors of his caliber and outlook writing in Sci-Fi.   Come and Take Them is the next installment in the Carrera series and I have waited almost 2 1/2 years for it to come out.  I hope the wait for the next installment is not that long in coming.  I do have to admit that COL Kratman had another book from a different series come out in that time. At 512 pages of story it is a respectable sized book.  A few people on Amazon complained about the amount of space in the book devoted … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

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Earth Unaware is the first book of the Formic War trilogy, which is the prequel to the The Ender Quartet that first appeared in the 1980’s.  It essentially tells the story of how earth and humanity got into the position of developing Battle School and the fleets that Ender uses to wipe out the Formics in Ender’s Game. This book starts off with rather a whimper but quickly picks up speed and keeps you glues to the pages.  I got the distinct impression that my wife was annoyed because I would not put the book down in the evenings while I was reading it.  Anyone who has read the Ender Quartet will … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Hundred Days – The Campaign that Ended World War I by Nick Lloyd

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[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] Hundred Days: The Campaign That Ended World War I by Nick Lloyd is one of those rare books that should start a trend.  His topic is one that has been, if not ignored, then glossed over in virtually every history of World War I.  There have been literally hundreds of books written about the origins of World War I but the end of the war has been ignored.  In fact, most histories seem to end right about the time the Second Battle of … More after the Jump…

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