The following is from www.experiencefestival.com/
Political correctness - Examples of language modification
Political correctness - Gender-related
The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
"To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.
Political Correctness comes to America via a Marxist Organization: Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." After the Nazis came to power they moved their operations to America and set up shop at Columbia University. Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born. When a people become sensitive to the "needs" of others it makes it far easier to make people have a more socialistic political form of government.
I am still trying to rap my mind around the fact that President Obama feels it is more important for people to be required to have health insurance than a job or career.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognition's" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
What if a person goes through life as a Christian and converts to Islam and then takes up Jihad and kills Christians for his new God?
The old saying, “If you tell a lie enough times it becomes a truth”, goes along way to explain why things are societies attitudes have changed over the years. This is an example of people changing their lifestyle because they have not questioned new laws or socially accepted norms such as Global Warming and being Politically Correct.
When a person acts out of the perceived “norm” and people accept these actions in this time in history when they would not have 100 years ago is an example of what I call Camouflaged Change. Years past it would be unacceptable for men to wear shorts in public yet even in the middle of Winter men are seen wearing shorts. Several years ago the military instituted ,"Don't ask Don't tell policy concerning being a Gay or homosexual in the military. Over the years the fact a person is Gay no longer has the sting socially as it once did but the military policy still holds. At the same time a person can be any religion in the military even a Jihadist Islamic Terrorist and no one will demand these people be discharged from the military as they do with Homosexuals. The major difference here is that I have never heard of a homosexual gunning down unarmed people while screaming God is Great in Arabic. But then according to the president of Iran there is no such thing as a Gay Muslim.
Some people are saying about the Army Major who gunned down all those people at Fort Hood as being mentally unbalanced and he simply snapped. If this person who committed this Terrorist act at Fort Hood, Texas had strapped a bomb around his waste and blew himself up instead of using a gun who there still be people who would question his motives?
November 6, 2009, Anxiety
Fort Hood Exit Strategy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a Military Psychiatrist
Firing a gun at Fort Hood was an exit strategy.
With the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, the time has come to face up to two facts:
War is Hell-this we know.
War is not conducive to mental health.
This we don't want to realize.
And it may be that if a little war is bad for one's mental state, a whole lot of war is a whole lot worse.
Leaving aside the merits of any particular war, and more detailed information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, it's easy to imagine how any one of any background would feel terrified and entrapped under the following conditions: • Possessing first hand knowledge of the combat experience and the severe mental damage it inflicts upon deployed military
• Facing deployment, (and unlike other military heading into deployment), having prior knowledge of the hazard to one's mental health and psychological status
Related Articles
· What Can We Learn from the Killer at Fort Hood?
· Murder and Mayhem at Fort Hood: Post-traumatic Embitterment, Madness, or Political Terrorism?
· PTSD in the Military: An Interview of a Military Wife
· Massacre at Fort Hood
· The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil
It's safe to say that the majority of those facing deployment, have no real clue what they are in for. But Major Hasan undoubtedly did. Further he,
• Received his medical and psychiatric training as a military officer• Was therefore beholden to the military for the cost of that training• Had no way to leave the military
As heinous and reprehensible as were his actions, correctly or mistakenly, Hasan saw no way out of the military, no way out of his deployment. Firing a gun was his exit strategy.
I am sure that soon all the "bad apple" stories will briskly circulate. But before they do, let's ask: Isn't it possible that being a military psychiatrist could readily induce outsized cognitive dissonance in just about anyone?
Cold, calculating, numb, sedated, and murderous. Bonded first and foremost to comrades in arms. Is this a prescription for mental health, a solid marriage, successful parenting, or even a good night's sleep? Of course not. But these are the traits cultivated and inculcated in servicemen heading to battle.
Upon returning they can change into civilian clothes, but they can't so easily shed their traumatized neurology. For many, the military becomes a form of life long entrapment, a club that once joined, can't so easily be left behind, for economic, social, and psychological reasons.
By definition, a military psychiatrist is under military authority-- is that a conducive environment for building therapeutic trust?
A couple of months back, I attended a program lead by a military specialist in treating returning military suffering from psychological distress. First of all, it was evident that this specialist was himself traumatized. Empathy was for sissies. Maintaining the military code was more important than facing up to the pain. PTSD, he claimed, could be dealt with by a change of attitude.
"Just snap out of it," he told us he exhorted his clients.
This "expert" didn't want to call a spade a spade. He didn't want to call it post-traumatic stress. He wanted to call it "combat stress." That was more manly. In fact, the entire thrust of his therapeutic approach could be captured in a single sentence: "Figure out a treatment approach that conforms to military codes, and is palatable to higher ups, so that we don't have to admit the immense psychological damage."
I can't say for sure that this attitude is endemic to military psychiatry. I hope not, and would welcome hearing about places where good work is being done. I'm sure that there are numerous mental health professionals in the military who do a lot of good. I know that work with guided imagery has been proven successful with CDS available at www.healthjourneys.com
But the basic problem is that when you train people to be eternally hypervigilant, bond them as one in a killing group, put them through traumatizing experiences, and then upon their return signal that retaining the military code is more important than their personal mental health, then I can guarantee you several things:• They will know that they are not safe in receiving mental health treatments you offer• They won't easily find their way to helpful treatments for fear they violate their military code and bonds with their fellow officers• It will be harder for them to down-regulate their automated stress reactions and heal• They won't be safe for their families and loved ones people to be around • Ours will not be a safe world
So bravo, we went to war to create safety, and look what came back.
Until we can admit all of this, how can we help troubled people in the military? Or for that matter, find safety as civilians.
The good Major had never been in any combat and since he was an Army Major and a Psychiatrist it is doubtful he ever would. I have been in combat and am not afraid to talk about my experiences to anyone who would care to listen but most people who have never been in combat want to hear what it is like. At the same time I have never felt a need to pick up a weapon and gun down unarmed civilians but I am also not an ISLAMIC JEHADIST.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognition's" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
What if a person goes through life as a Christian and converts to Islam and then takes up Jihad and kills Christians for his new God?
The old saying, “If you tell a lie enough times it becomes a truth”, goes along way to explain why things are societies attitudes have changed over the years. This is an example of people changing their lifestyle because they have not questioned new laws or socially accepted norms such as Global Warming and being Politically Correct.
When a person acts out of the perceived “norm” and people accept these actions in this time in history when they would not have 100 years ago is an example of what I call Camouflaged Change. Years past it would be unacceptable for men to wear shorts in public yet even in the middle of Winter men are seen wearing shorts. Several years ago the military instituted ,"Don't ask Don't tell policy concerning being a Gay or homosexual in the military. Over the years the fact a person is Gay no longer has the sting socially as it once did but the military policy still holds. At the same time a person can be any religion in the military even a Jihadist Islamic Terrorist and no one will demand these people be discharged from the military as they do with Homosexuals. The major difference here is that I have never heard of a homosexual gunning down unarmed people while screaming God is Great in Arabic. But then according to the president of Iran there is no such thing as a Gay Muslim.
Some people are saying about the Army Major who gunned down all those people at Fort Hood as being mentally unbalanced and he simply snapped. If this person who committed this Terrorist act at Fort Hood, Texas had strapped a bomb around his waste and blew himself up instead of using a gun who there still be people who would question his motives?
November 6, 2009, Anxiety
Fort Hood Exit Strategy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a Military Psychiatrist
Firing a gun at Fort Hood was an exit strategy.
With the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, the time has come to face up to two facts:
War is Hell-this we know.
War is not conducive to mental health.
This we don't want to realize.
And it may be that if a little war is bad for one's mental state, a whole lot of war is a whole lot worse.
Leaving aside the merits of any particular war, and more detailed information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, it's easy to imagine how any one of any background would feel terrified and entrapped under the following conditions: • Possessing first hand knowledge of the combat experience and the severe mental damage it inflicts upon deployed military
• Facing deployment, (and unlike other military heading into deployment), having prior knowledge of the hazard to one's mental health and psychological status
Related Articles
· What Can We Learn from the Killer at Fort Hood?
· Murder and Mayhem at Fort Hood: Post-traumatic Embitterment, Madness, or Political Terrorism?
· PTSD in the Military: An Interview of a Military Wife
· Massacre at Fort Hood
· The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil
It's safe to say that the majority of those facing deployment, have no real clue what they are in for. But Major Hasan undoubtedly did. Further he,
• Received his medical and psychiatric training as a military officer• Was therefore beholden to the military for the cost of that training• Had no way to leave the military
As heinous and reprehensible as were his actions, correctly or mistakenly, Hasan saw no way out of the military, no way out of his deployment. Firing a gun was his exit strategy.
I am sure that soon all the "bad apple" stories will briskly circulate. But before they do, let's ask: Isn't it possible that being a military psychiatrist could readily induce outsized cognitive dissonance in just about anyone?
Cold, calculating, numb, sedated, and murderous. Bonded first and foremost to comrades in arms. Is this a prescription for mental health, a solid marriage, successful parenting, or even a good night's sleep? Of course not. But these are the traits cultivated and inculcated in servicemen heading to battle.
Upon returning they can change into civilian clothes, but they can't so easily shed their traumatized neurology. For many, the military becomes a form of life long entrapment, a club that once joined, can't so easily be left behind, for economic, social, and psychological reasons.
By definition, a military psychiatrist is under military authority-- is that a conducive environment for building therapeutic trust?
A couple of months back, I attended a program lead by a military specialist in treating returning military suffering from psychological distress. First of all, it was evident that this specialist was himself traumatized. Empathy was for sissies. Maintaining the military code was more important than facing up to the pain. PTSD, he claimed, could be dealt with by a change of attitude.
"Just snap out of it," he told us he exhorted his clients.
This "expert" didn't want to call a spade a spade. He didn't want to call it post-traumatic stress. He wanted to call it "combat stress." That was more manly. In fact, the entire thrust of his therapeutic approach could be captured in a single sentence: "Figure out a treatment approach that conforms to military codes, and is palatable to higher ups, so that we don't have to admit the immense psychological damage."
I can't say for sure that this attitude is endemic to military psychiatry. I hope not, and would welcome hearing about places where good work is being done. I'm sure that there are numerous mental health professionals in the military who do a lot of good. I know that work with guided imagery has been proven successful with CDS available at www.healthjourneys.com
But the basic problem is that when you train people to be eternally hypervigilant, bond them as one in a killing group, put them through traumatizing experiences, and then upon their return signal that retaining the military code is more important than their personal mental health, then I can guarantee you several things:• They will know that they are not safe in receiving mental health treatments you offer• They won't easily find their way to helpful treatments for fear they violate their military code and bonds with their fellow officers• It will be harder for them to down-regulate their automated stress reactions and heal• They won't be safe for their families and loved ones people to be around • Ours will not be a safe world
So bravo, we went to war to create safety, and look what came back.
Until we can admit all of this, how can we help troubled people in the military? Or for that matter, find safety as civilians.
The good Major had never been in any combat and since he was an Army Major and a Psychiatrist it is doubtful he ever would. I have been in combat and am not afraid to talk about my experiences to anyone who would care to listen but most people who have never been in combat want to hear what it is like. At the same time I have never felt a need to pick up a weapon and gun down unarmed civilians but I am also not an ISLAMIC JEHADIST.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
REWRITING HISTORY
To write this entry on the blog I actually did some research on Google for find some other look at how people have been rewriting history but could not find anything I could actually use.
The lords Prayer as said in a Protestant church is very different from the same prayer said in a Catholic Church and is never muttered at all in a Mormon Church.
To make old stories relevant to people today many old stories are being rewritten and that goes for history as well. The problems with rewriting history is two fold.
1. It can change the actual history making event to either a smaller role in history or it can glorify it.
2. It can have a domino affect in that it can affect how we view a certain group of people affected by the event.
Several years ago in Denver there was an annual parade for Columbus Day, it was a celebration for all Italian Americans because Christopher Columbus was an Italian. The following appears on www.dickshovel.com/colum.html
The following appeared When Taino Indians saved Christopher Columbus from certain death on the fateful morning of Oct. 12, 1492, a glorious opportunity presented itself.
The cultures Europe of and the Americas could have merged and the beauty of both races could have flourished.
Unfortunately, what occurred was neither beautiful nor heroic. Just as Columbus could not, and did not, "discover" a hemisphere that was already inhabited by nearly 100 million people, his arrival cannot, and will not, be recognized as a heroic and celebratory event by indigenous peoples.
Unlike the Western tradition, which presumes some absolute concept of objective truth, and consequently, one "factual" depiction of history, the indigenous view recognizes that there exist many truths in the world and many legitimate recollections of any given historical event, depending on one's perspective and experiences.
From an indigenous vantage point, Columbus' arrival was a disaster from the beginning. Although his own diaries indicated that he was greeted by the Taino Indians with the most generous hospitality he had ever known, he immediately began the enslavement and slaughter of the Indian peoples of the Caribbean islands. As the eminent Columbus biographer Samuel Eliot Morison admits in his book, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Columbus was personally responsible for enslavement and murder of indigenous peoples. He was personally responsible for the design and operation of the encomienda system that tied Indians as slaves to the lands stolen from them by the European invaders.
As detailed in the American Heritage Magazine (October,1976), Columbus personally oversaw the genocide of the Taino Indian nation of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Consequently, this murderer, despite his historical notoriety, deserves no recognition or accolades as a hero; he deserves no respect as a visionary; and he is not worthy of a state or national holiday in his honor.
Defenders of Columbus and his holiday argue that indigenous peoples unfairly judge Columbus, a 15th century actor, by the moral and legal standards of the late 20th century. Such a defense implies that no moral or legal constraints applied to individuals such as Columbus, or countries, in 1492. As Roger Williams details in his book, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, not only were there European moral and legal principles in 1492, but they largely favored the rights of indigenous peoples to be free from unjustified invasion and pillage by Europeans.
Unfortunately, the issue of Columbus and Columbus Day is not easily resolvable with a disposition of Columbus, the man. Columbus Day as a national, and international, phenomenon reflects a much larger dynamic that promotes myriad myths and historical lies that have been used through the ages to dehumanize Indians, justifying the theft of our lands, the attempted destruction of our nations, and the genocide against our people. Since the 15th Century, the myth of Columbus' discovery has been used in the development of laws and policies that reek of Orwell's doublespeak: theft equals the righteous spread of civilization, genocide is God's deliverance of the wilderness from the savages, and the destruction of Indian societies implies the superiority of European values and institutions over indigenous ones.
Columbus Day is a perpetuation of racist assumptions that the Western Hemisphere was a wasteland cluttered with savages awaiting the blessings of Western "civilization." Throughout the hemisphere, educational systems perpetuate these myths - suggesting that indigenous peoples have contributed nothing to the world, and, consequently, should be grateful for their colonization and their microwave ovens.
As Alfred Crosby, Kirkpatrick Sale, and Jack Weatherford have illustrated in their books, not only was the Western Hemisphere a virtual ecological and health paradise prior to 1492, but the Indians of the Americas have been responsible for such revolutionary global contributions as the model for U.S. constitutional government, agricultural advances that currently provide 60 percent of the world's daily diet, and hundreds of medical and medicinal techniques still in use today.
If you find it difficult to believe that Indians had developed highly complex and sophisticated societies, then you have been victimized by an educational and social system that has given you a retarded, distorted view of history. The operation of this view has also enabled every country in this hemisphere, including the U.S., to continue its destruction of Indian peoples. From the jungles of Brazil to the highlands of Guatemala, from the Chaco of Paraguay to the Supreme Court of the United States, Indian people remain in a perpetual state of danger from the systems that Christopher Columbus began in 1492.
Throughout the Americas, Indian people remain at the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator, we are under continuing physical attack, and are afforded the least access to economic, political, or legal redress. Despite these constant and unbridled assaults, we have resisted, we have survived, and we refuse to surrender any more of our homeland or to disappear into the romantic sunset.
To dignify Columbus and his legacy with parades, holidays and other celebrations is intolerable to us. As the original peoples of this land, we cannot, and will not, countenance social and political festivities that celebrate our genocide. We are embarking on a two- pronged campaign in the quincentenary year to confront the continuing racism against Indian people.
First, we are advocating that the divisive Columbus Day holiday should be replaced by a celebration that is much more inclusive and more accurately reflective of the cultural and racial richness of the Americas. Such a holiday will provide respect and acknowledgement to every group and individual of the importance and value of their heritage, and will allow a more honest and accurate portrayal of the evolution of the hemisphere. It will also provide an opportunity for greater understanding and respect as our societies move ahead into the next 500 years. Opponents to this suggestion react as though this proposal is an attack on ancient time-honored holiday, but Columbus Day has been a national holiday only since 1971 - and in 1991, hopefully, we can correct the errors of the past, moving forward in an atmosphere of mutual respect and inclusiveness.
Second, and related to the first, is the advancement of an active militant campaign to demand that federal, state, and local authorities begin the removal of anti-Indian icons throughout the country. Beginning with Columbus, we are insisting on the removal of statues, street names, public parks, and any other public object that seeks to celebrate or honor devastators of Indian peoples. We will take an active role of opposition to public displays, parades, and celebrations that champion Indian haters. We encourage others, in every community in the land, to educate themselves and to take responsibility for the removal of anti-Indian vestiges among them.
For people of goodwill, there is no better time for the re-examination of the past, and a rectification of the historical record for future generations, than the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival. There is no better place for this re-examination to begin than in Colorado, the birthplace of the Columbus Day holiday.
Russell Means and Glenn Morris wrote this position statement in 1991 on behalf of the American Indian Movement of Colorado,1574 South Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO
Consequently the Columbus Day parade has been canceled to appease the AIM. There is no record showing Italians did any thing to the American Indian and yet because the rewriting of history by Russel Means the Italians are blamed for the enslavement and murders of many Native Americans.
Any time a group of people want to make an impact they can simply do so by what I call camouflaged change. When a person rewrites a fairy tale to make it more politically correct it changes the perception of those who read the story. Sometimes changes made to one thing can have an affect on something else. If you are going to work and you are required to make a detour through a street you never saw before you may make this same trip later after the detour is gone because it is a more enjoyable ride than the old route. If someone makes a small change to a history book someone else may take what was written and use it as a reference for another book down the road. Thus we start a domino affect. Truth is actually the process of what we see. Two different people may have two separate believes because of the things they have seen and experienced. A little girl in Germany in 1938 may see a different world than another little girl all because of their religion. A white school boy in 1950 Arkansas would have a different view of the world than a little black school boy in the same town.
Reading Shakespeare or even Sherlock Holmes is difficult for modern day Americans because we do not talk the same way they did way back then. When a movie is made of World War II the way Germans and Japanese are portrayed depends on when the movie was made as well as by what country. A recent movie about the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler by German Army officers had everyone talking in a German accent except for Tom Cruise. An old PBS mini series called I Claudius had all the actors speaking with a British Accent and the joke at the time was that the one thing I learned about Rome from this mini series was that the Romans spoke with a British Accent.
How is it possible that the King James version of the Bible and the Catholic version are so different? As far as that goes why were certain books included in the Bible and other not included. When people rewrite history most of the time it is to support their specific agenda and when we read these history books we need to keep all this in mind. The problem here is the fact that elementary school kids do not have that luxury and over a period of time certain historical facts are deleted or changed very slowly from the history books.
I guess the best thing we can do is not believe everything we read and read several versions of the same thing to give us a better round impression of what we call history.
Most of the things I have learned in life about history comes not from my school years of dry history learning dates and names but historical fiction. But fiction is fiction but at the same time we can get a better grasp of how these historical times affected people. Keep in mind that history is not just names and dates but is sort of like a big line of dominoes and as the dominoes fall they knock down the next domino in line. The things that we take for granite now at one time did not exist. Every change that has happened in history affects the way we think and act today.
The lords Prayer as said in a Protestant church is very different from the same prayer said in a Catholic Church and is never muttered at all in a Mormon Church.
To make old stories relevant to people today many old stories are being rewritten and that goes for history as well. The problems with rewriting history is two fold.
1. It can change the actual history making event to either a smaller role in history or it can glorify it.
2. It can have a domino affect in that it can affect how we view a certain group of people affected by the event.
Several years ago in Denver there was an annual parade for Columbus Day, it was a celebration for all Italian Americans because Christopher Columbus was an Italian. The following appears on www.dickshovel.com/colum.html
The following appeared When Taino Indians saved Christopher Columbus from certain death on the fateful morning of Oct. 12, 1492, a glorious opportunity presented itself.
The cultures Europe of and the Americas could have merged and the beauty of both races could have flourished.
Unfortunately, what occurred was neither beautiful nor heroic. Just as Columbus could not, and did not, "discover" a hemisphere that was already inhabited by nearly 100 million people, his arrival cannot, and will not, be recognized as a heroic and celebratory event by indigenous peoples.
Unlike the Western tradition, which presumes some absolute concept of objective truth, and consequently, one "factual" depiction of history, the indigenous view recognizes that there exist many truths in the world and many legitimate recollections of any given historical event, depending on one's perspective and experiences.
From an indigenous vantage point, Columbus' arrival was a disaster from the beginning. Although his own diaries indicated that he was greeted by the Taino Indians with the most generous hospitality he had ever known, he immediately began the enslavement and slaughter of the Indian peoples of the Caribbean islands. As the eminent Columbus biographer Samuel Eliot Morison admits in his book, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Columbus was personally responsible for enslavement and murder of indigenous peoples. He was personally responsible for the design and operation of the encomienda system that tied Indians as slaves to the lands stolen from them by the European invaders.
As detailed in the American Heritage Magazine (October,1976), Columbus personally oversaw the genocide of the Taino Indian nation of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Consequently, this murderer, despite his historical notoriety, deserves no recognition or accolades as a hero; he deserves no respect as a visionary; and he is not worthy of a state or national holiday in his honor.
Defenders of Columbus and his holiday argue that indigenous peoples unfairly judge Columbus, a 15th century actor, by the moral and legal standards of the late 20th century. Such a defense implies that no moral or legal constraints applied to individuals such as Columbus, or countries, in 1492. As Roger Williams details in his book, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, not only were there European moral and legal principles in 1492, but they largely favored the rights of indigenous peoples to be free from unjustified invasion and pillage by Europeans.
Unfortunately, the issue of Columbus and Columbus Day is not easily resolvable with a disposition of Columbus, the man. Columbus Day as a national, and international, phenomenon reflects a much larger dynamic that promotes myriad myths and historical lies that have been used through the ages to dehumanize Indians, justifying the theft of our lands, the attempted destruction of our nations, and the genocide against our people. Since the 15th Century, the myth of Columbus' discovery has been used in the development of laws and policies that reek of Orwell's doublespeak: theft equals the righteous spread of civilization, genocide is God's deliverance of the wilderness from the savages, and the destruction of Indian societies implies the superiority of European values and institutions over indigenous ones.
Columbus Day is a perpetuation of racist assumptions that the Western Hemisphere was a wasteland cluttered with savages awaiting the blessings of Western "civilization." Throughout the hemisphere, educational systems perpetuate these myths - suggesting that indigenous peoples have contributed nothing to the world, and, consequently, should be grateful for their colonization and their microwave ovens.
As Alfred Crosby, Kirkpatrick Sale, and Jack Weatherford have illustrated in their books, not only was the Western Hemisphere a virtual ecological and health paradise prior to 1492, but the Indians of the Americas have been responsible for such revolutionary global contributions as the model for U.S. constitutional government, agricultural advances that currently provide 60 percent of the world's daily diet, and hundreds of medical and medicinal techniques still in use today.
If you find it difficult to believe that Indians had developed highly complex and sophisticated societies, then you have been victimized by an educational and social system that has given you a retarded, distorted view of history. The operation of this view has also enabled every country in this hemisphere, including the U.S., to continue its destruction of Indian peoples. From the jungles of Brazil to the highlands of Guatemala, from the Chaco of Paraguay to the Supreme Court of the United States, Indian people remain in a perpetual state of danger from the systems that Christopher Columbus began in 1492.
Throughout the Americas, Indian people remain at the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator, we are under continuing physical attack, and are afforded the least access to economic, political, or legal redress. Despite these constant and unbridled assaults, we have resisted, we have survived, and we refuse to surrender any more of our homeland or to disappear into the romantic sunset.
To dignify Columbus and his legacy with parades, holidays and other celebrations is intolerable to us. As the original peoples of this land, we cannot, and will not, countenance social and political festivities that celebrate our genocide. We are embarking on a two- pronged campaign in the quincentenary year to confront the continuing racism against Indian people.
First, we are advocating that the divisive Columbus Day holiday should be replaced by a celebration that is much more inclusive and more accurately reflective of the cultural and racial richness of the Americas. Such a holiday will provide respect and acknowledgement to every group and individual of the importance and value of their heritage, and will allow a more honest and accurate portrayal of the evolution of the hemisphere. It will also provide an opportunity for greater understanding and respect as our societies move ahead into the next 500 years. Opponents to this suggestion react as though this proposal is an attack on ancient time-honored holiday, but Columbus Day has been a national holiday only since 1971 - and in 1991, hopefully, we can correct the errors of the past, moving forward in an atmosphere of mutual respect and inclusiveness.
Second, and related to the first, is the advancement of an active militant campaign to demand that federal, state, and local authorities begin the removal of anti-Indian icons throughout the country. Beginning with Columbus, we are insisting on the removal of statues, street names, public parks, and any other public object that seeks to celebrate or honor devastators of Indian peoples. We will take an active role of opposition to public displays, parades, and celebrations that champion Indian haters. We encourage others, in every community in the land, to educate themselves and to take responsibility for the removal of anti-Indian vestiges among them.
For people of goodwill, there is no better time for the re-examination of the past, and a rectification of the historical record for future generations, than the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival. There is no better place for this re-examination to begin than in Colorado, the birthplace of the Columbus Day holiday.
Russell Means and Glenn Morris wrote this position statement in 1991 on behalf of the American Indian Movement of Colorado,1574 South Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO
Consequently the Columbus Day parade has been canceled to appease the AIM. There is no record showing Italians did any thing to the American Indian and yet because the rewriting of history by Russel Means the Italians are blamed for the enslavement and murders of many Native Americans.
Any time a group of people want to make an impact they can simply do so by what I call camouflaged change. When a person rewrites a fairy tale to make it more politically correct it changes the perception of those who read the story. Sometimes changes made to one thing can have an affect on something else. If you are going to work and you are required to make a detour through a street you never saw before you may make this same trip later after the detour is gone because it is a more enjoyable ride than the old route. If someone makes a small change to a history book someone else may take what was written and use it as a reference for another book down the road. Thus we start a domino affect. Truth is actually the process of what we see. Two different people may have two separate believes because of the things they have seen and experienced. A little girl in Germany in 1938 may see a different world than another little girl all because of their religion. A white school boy in 1950 Arkansas would have a different view of the world than a little black school boy in the same town.
Reading Shakespeare or even Sherlock Holmes is difficult for modern day Americans because we do not talk the same way they did way back then. When a movie is made of World War II the way Germans and Japanese are portrayed depends on when the movie was made as well as by what country. A recent movie about the attempt to kill Adolf Hitler by German Army officers had everyone talking in a German accent except for Tom Cruise. An old PBS mini series called I Claudius had all the actors speaking with a British Accent and the joke at the time was that the one thing I learned about Rome from this mini series was that the Romans spoke with a British Accent.
How is it possible that the King James version of the Bible and the Catholic version are so different? As far as that goes why were certain books included in the Bible and other not included. When people rewrite history most of the time it is to support their specific agenda and when we read these history books we need to keep all this in mind. The problem here is the fact that elementary school kids do not have that luxury and over a period of time certain historical facts are deleted or changed very slowly from the history books.
I guess the best thing we can do is not believe everything we read and read several versions of the same thing to give us a better round impression of what we call history.
Most of the things I have learned in life about history comes not from my school years of dry history learning dates and names but historical fiction. But fiction is fiction but at the same time we can get a better grasp of how these historical times affected people. Keep in mind that history is not just names and dates but is sort of like a big line of dominoes and as the dominoes fall they knock down the next domino in line. The things that we take for granite now at one time did not exist. Every change that has happened in history affects the way we think and act today.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Why have my class mates changed?
I will be getting back to Mattie and her diary shortly.
I used to be on FACE BOOK and found that many of my former class mates there as well. We had graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 1965, after which we all went our separate ways. During the past 44 years we have all changed by different events in our lives.
Keeping in mind that a Paradigm Shift happens to everyone hundreds of times each day, every time we make a choice of turning right or left. It takes us from where we may have ended up to where we eventually did end up. After walking in my shoes down this road I call my life, I look over at my former class mates who seem to be on another road and no matter how much I yell to them to get back on the correct highway they simply yell at me informing me that I am the one who took the wrong turn 20 or 30 years ago. The older we get the less we want to change our ways to match the ways of other people.
I was making my opinions be known on FACE BOOK and apparently most of my former class mates did not appreciate all the information I was providing them and words started to fly about me personally. I would say something and they would say,"Prove it and stop calling us Fascists and Marxists." So I started to flood my face book with videos and news items and such and still they said, "These are all lies prove it." I have found in my life that if a person is of the opinion that people need to be taken care of by the government, no matter what someone else says will change their mind.
There is an old saying, "You can not go back home again." Very true because the home as we remember, is there in you mind but may not be there in actuality. The way we see things today are not the same as we saw them when we were children.
Last night Ruth told me that her daughter, my step daughter, Becky, complained to her about me putting my opinions on face book and it hit me that what ever I was placing on my FACE BOOK was showing up on her FACE BOOK and her liberal friends down in Texas, would be able to see that she had some wacky old step father in Colorado. I guess it was probably pretty embarrassing for her to be associated with my anti big government views.
With all the problems we are going to encounter in the coming years, almost all will be introduced into our lives by the federal government. Non-funded mandates to states will cause financial hardships beyond what we can even imagine now. The fact that the Bush and Obama administrations have borrowed all that money from the Chinese, they will most assuredly want it be paid back with profit.
It seems like the Chinese are becoming more capitalistic at a time when the United States is becoming more and more Marxist Fascist. Is there anyway we can get back to the way we once were when people actually relied on themselves to solve their own problems.
When I was a child in the 1950's, we got our news mostly by news papers and that was once a day and now with the Internet cable television and radio news is now instant. During the Civil War it would take months for some of the war news to reach places like California and now members of the armed forces in a war zone can Email daily to loved ones. When I was a Marine in Viet Nam in 1966 I would sometimes resort to writing notes on a used C-ration box to let my mother know I was still alive, back then to make a telephone call from the war zone was unheard of. When I was in combat the only source of news we had was from the Stars and Stripes and AFR or Armed Forces Radio and it was all run by the military to fit their agenda. We knew very little of the protests in the streets or even what new rock songs were out. I often refer to 19666-1967 as my lost year because it was almost like we had been placed in a dark box for a year with no outside news. Today in Afghanistan the troops sleep between sheets and eat inside at tables and actually have somewhere to go to get out of the elements. Our wars today in Iraq and Afghanistan reminds me of cops on the beat, after their shift is over they go home to another world. But Viet Nam and Afghanistan are two different wars and even though they may say War is War, comparing these two wars is like comparing apples to basketballs.
There are two types of military veterans, those who remember what happened and are still open to talk about the most important events in their lives and those when asked about what they did in the war, will simply say, "You don't want to know about it."
Awhile back a former class mate of mine, who was a Navy Corpsman with the 3rd Marine Regiment in 1967, went back to Viet Nam on a tour of his old battle fields. I wonder if my son-in-law who is a Captain in the Air Force, will want to return to Afghanistan in another 40 years after spending the last year as an intelligence officer for the NATO forces in that war zone.
I used to be on FACE BOOK and found that many of my former class mates there as well. We had graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 1965, after which we all went our separate ways. During the past 44 years we have all changed by different events in our lives.
Keeping in mind that a Paradigm Shift happens to everyone hundreds of times each day, every time we make a choice of turning right or left. It takes us from where we may have ended up to where we eventually did end up. After walking in my shoes down this road I call my life, I look over at my former class mates who seem to be on another road and no matter how much I yell to them to get back on the correct highway they simply yell at me informing me that I am the one who took the wrong turn 20 or 30 years ago. The older we get the less we want to change our ways to match the ways of other people.
I was making my opinions be known on FACE BOOK and apparently most of my former class mates did not appreciate all the information I was providing them and words started to fly about me personally. I would say something and they would say,"Prove it and stop calling us Fascists and Marxists." So I started to flood my face book with videos and news items and such and still they said, "These are all lies prove it." I have found in my life that if a person is of the opinion that people need to be taken care of by the government, no matter what someone else says will change their mind.
There is an old saying, "You can not go back home again." Very true because the home as we remember, is there in you mind but may not be there in actuality. The way we see things today are not the same as we saw them when we were children.
Last night Ruth told me that her daughter, my step daughter, Becky, complained to her about me putting my opinions on face book and it hit me that what ever I was placing on my FACE BOOK was showing up on her FACE BOOK and her liberal friends down in Texas, would be able to see that she had some wacky old step father in Colorado. I guess it was probably pretty embarrassing for her to be associated with my anti big government views.
With all the problems we are going to encounter in the coming years, almost all will be introduced into our lives by the federal government. Non-funded mandates to states will cause financial hardships beyond what we can even imagine now. The fact that the Bush and Obama administrations have borrowed all that money from the Chinese, they will most assuredly want it be paid back with profit.
It seems like the Chinese are becoming more capitalistic at a time when the United States is becoming more and more Marxist Fascist. Is there anyway we can get back to the way we once were when people actually relied on themselves to solve their own problems.
When I was a child in the 1950's, we got our news mostly by news papers and that was once a day and now with the Internet cable television and radio news is now instant. During the Civil War it would take months for some of the war news to reach places like California and now members of the armed forces in a war zone can Email daily to loved ones. When I was a Marine in Viet Nam in 1966 I would sometimes resort to writing notes on a used C-ration box to let my mother know I was still alive, back then to make a telephone call from the war zone was unheard of. When I was in combat the only source of news we had was from the Stars and Stripes and AFR or Armed Forces Radio and it was all run by the military to fit their agenda. We knew very little of the protests in the streets or even what new rock songs were out. I often refer to 19666-1967 as my lost year because it was almost like we had been placed in a dark box for a year with no outside news. Today in Afghanistan the troops sleep between sheets and eat inside at tables and actually have somewhere to go to get out of the elements. Our wars today in Iraq and Afghanistan reminds me of cops on the beat, after their shift is over they go home to another world. But Viet Nam and Afghanistan are two different wars and even though they may say War is War, comparing these two wars is like comparing apples to basketballs.
There are two types of military veterans, those who remember what happened and are still open to talk about the most important events in their lives and those when asked about what they did in the war, will simply say, "You don't want to know about it."
Awhile back a former class mate of mine, who was a Navy Corpsman with the 3rd Marine Regiment in 1967, went back to Viet Nam on a tour of his old battle fields. I wonder if my son-in-law who is a Captain in the Air Force, will want to return to Afghanistan in another 40 years after spending the last year as an intelligence officer for the NATO forces in that war zone.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
George Adams Journal 19 March 2034
Sunday
19 March, 2034
Journal,
Mattie has been gone for a week now with no word where she ran off. I am George Adams, Mattie’s Father and the night before she climbed out her bedroom window and ran away, I took this journal that she had been writing in and I will be recording the events in our lives just as she had been doing before she went through her change.
Talking to other parents from Mattie’s school I have found that other children also ran away from home last Sunday. It is as though they had been programmed to do this at their school, during what they call the Quiet Meditation hour. None of the parents that I have spoken to can figure why the school would want to turn our children on us but it has happened and there really is nothing we can do at this time.
First off, let me tell you a little about Mattie’s family. As I said, my name is George Adams, I am 42 years old and my parents named me after George Bush SR. He was the President when my dad was in the Marines during the war against Iraq in Kuwait in 1990. My wife’s name is Debbie and she is also 42. We met in grade school and became high school sweet hearts. After high school in 2010, I joined the Marine Corps and she went off to College at CSU. One might say I was fulfilling a family tradition, just like my dad and grand father had done before me.
In 2011, they sent me over to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After a year in Afghanistan my unit was shipped off to Somalia. It seems that some pirates had captured the USS Stockdale, a guided missile destroyer off the coast of Somalia. That story was pretty amazing in its self, how a bunch of little speed boats could capture a United States Navy ship is beyond my comprehension. Obama had developed a theory that the pirates were not a real threat to the world’s economy and if ignored would not cause any real harm. The fact that their actions had nothing to do with any Jihad had a lot to do with this theory.
The really bad thing is that the pirates still have the USS Stockdale 21years later. The missiles were all sold off to other pirates who have used them to sink two Royal Navy ships on the East coast of Africa.
My unit set up a staging area in Kenya and used it to off- load supplies for the operation. The plan was for us to fly by Osprey from Kenya and attack of the pirate town of Xarardeere, about 12 miles from the east coast of Somalia. Several hijacked ships were anchored off shore, including the Stockdale. I was actually kind of surprised to find the ships were not in any harbor but along the Somali coast there are very few inlets to anchor a ship or boat.
Along with my unit, the 3rd Marine Regiment was a Brigade of Army Rangers. We boarded the Ospreys on April 22, 2012, at 0300 hours. Our mission was to rescue the crew member of the Stockdale and someone else was supposed to recapture the ship. Reports told us that the captive crew was being held in Xarardeere and we figured we would run into lots of resistance from the local bad guys. At the same time we also figured on some covering Naval gun fire and close air support from Navy and Marine fixed wing air craft as well Army and Marine helicopter gun ships.
It was still dark as the Marine Osprey V-22s dropped us into the landing zones about 20 clicks (13.4 miles) due west of Xarardeere. Even though I could see some lights from the town, there was no sound coming from any of the buildings. I was a radio operator for my platoon leader, Lt. Johnson, a tall Texan who was built like the football player he once was for the University of Texas. He was always talking about the Dallas Cowboys and could not wait to get home in October to go to one of their games. Running the twelve miles from the landing zone we finally came near some curved stone walls around some local homes and a building that was probably a barn or work shop.
Suddenly, a flare exploded over the top of us and it lit the whole area like it was day light. Explosions shook the ground and the pinging and popping of rifle and machine gun fire assaulted my ears and erupted all around us. We had been ambushed, they knew we were coming! Crouching next to the Lieutenant, a round pinged off the wall next to my helmet, sending pieces of stone into the side of my head. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and I could feel the sticky goo running down my neck as I fought to stay alert. With a shaky voice I called one of the Cobra helicopter gun ships overhead that we were under attack and told him to look for a red smoke that would indicate our position. As I was talking to the gunship, Sergeant Hernandez tossed a red smoke grenade in between us and the bad guys. Before he could get back behind cover a rocket slammed him in the head tearing it from his torso. Blood spurt form his open neck wound like a fountain of red. My stomach was starting to feel like someone was turning it in knot and I felt like I was going to throw up. One of the buildings at three o’clock started to burn with flames throwing weird shadows on the other buildings all around us. Someone in back of me screamed and Smith who was our Navy Corpsman ran past me to a fallen Marine. Jackson, who was our machine gunner, started laying down fire at the roof of the building in front of us and someone else started firering rifle grenades at the building. My heart must have been beating at 300 beats per minutes and I could feel each pump of blood leaving my heart. It was so damn hot and as I was crouched next to the stone wall gnats started buzzing around my head. I could hear the gun ships coming from our left, but could not see anything for all the smoke and blowing sand. The stench from the rifle fire and all the explosions was over powering and I could taste the bile coming up from my stomach. The pinging of passing rounds was like angry wasps flying around my head and a bright explosion in the next block sent more sand swirling down on us. Looking overhead I saw one lone red cloud in the predawn morning and it reminded me of the cartoon character Snoopy sitting on his dog house yelling, “Curse you Red Baron”. The Cobra gunship was firering it’s 50 caliber machine guns, sending bright red tracers flying into the buildings. Sitting down in back of a stone wall, I could see the outline of the landscape as the sun started to rise in the east. Looking at my watch, I saw we had been in this one location for one minute, yet it seemed like a life time. Off in the distance, a man could be heard calling the faithful to prayers. How strange I was thinking, they are actually going to church while people are dying here. The Lieutenant grabbed the radio hand set from me in slow motion and started yelling to the battalion commander that we were trapped and that we needed more men. All I could hear was the static from the hand set and in mid sentence he stopped screaming. There was an almost terrified blank look on the Lieutenant’s face and without a sound he fell over on his side. He had been shot in the head and there was blood oozing from his ears and mouth. I picked up the handset and told the battalion commander, Colonel Smith, that the lieutenant was dead. More men were being hit and I was now the senior member of my platoon and I was just a Corporal. Sergeant Hernandez was lying in a heap ten feet from me still holding his rifle but his head was some distance from his body and blood was still trickling out of the top of his uniform where his neck used to be. Someone to my left yelled something and then he stood up while holding his machine gun under his arm pit and started running at the building while firering the weapon. The Cobras were coming in for another pass and it seemed like all the Marines around me had jumped up and were running toward the building following the machine gunner. What were they thinking? Explosions rocked the ground and red hot metal projectiles were flying from the buildings like someone had lit off fire works from a Forth of July celebration. The noise was deafening, between the explosions, gun fire and men yelling all around me. I was caught up in all the craziness like I was in a dream and no one could touch me. I was invisible! Standing up, I felt the ping and snap of a round passing my head. The only thought I could think of was from an old movie called, Little Big Man, “Today is a good day to die.” Once in awhile I have reflected on that moment and still wonder what the hell was I thinking? I started running; it felt like my feet were not even touching the ground. Men were all around me now, some were lying on the ground coughing and crying and others were still running toward the buildings. I slipped on something looked down and saw it was blood from a wounded Marine; he was still holding the machine gun but was missing a leg and he was crying and asking for someone named Fligger. It was the same guy who had led the charge with the machine gun. I took a closer look at him and recognized him from boot camp. Pollock was his name and was a big black guy from Mississippi. In boot camp he had told me that after he got out of the Corps, he was,”Gonna open up one of those fish taco stands along a beach somewhere. He had dropped out of college to go off to fight for his country and now he was probably going to die for his country.
Someone yelled,”Doc!” just as a bullet hit Pollock in the chest. It went right through his flack jacket and just made a soft thud as it embedded itself into his heart. He arched his back and then slumped to the ground, his legs and arms lay limp at his side.
The smoke was so thick I had a hard time seeing any further than three feet but I could hear the sounds of men yelling is two languages and felt the flash of rounds passing my head rather than hearing them.
Feeling along the wall of the building, the air was so thick with sand and smoke I could hardly see anything until someone rushed me. He was just a 12 year old boy wearing a pair blood spattered shorts and no shirt. He had a crazed look of someone on some sort of drugs and was pointing a mean looking AK-47 rifle at me. Before he could fire the weapon, I raised my rifle and shot him in the leg and he went down screaming in pain.
Stepping over him I looked down and saw he was crying and the crazed look had been replaced by that of just another little boy crying for his long lost mother. There were so many orphans in Somalia back then that it was not really surprising that a mere child would cling to war as his new found family. Sometimes I wonder if that child ever found peace in his life.
Through the smoke, noise and explosions I made my way to the back of the building trying to keep from being seen by the enemy. Finally I came to the rear of the building and stepped into a sort of alley. To my left was what looked like a large warehouse. According to our intelligence this was where the crew members from the ship were being held. Soldiers and Marines were in fierce hand to hand combat all around me and it looked like snipers were on the roof shooting down at us from the roof of the warehouse. I still had the feeling that I was invisible and no one seemed to pay me any attention as I crossed the alley to the back door of the warehouse. An explosion hit the roof of the warehouse as a Cobra gun ship fired on the snipers. My world was full of pain and bright lights as the shock waves hit me like a sledge hammer hitting me in the chest. I was knocked off my feet but regained my balance and charged the door using the butt of my rifle as a battering ram.
Inside was pitch black but I could hear American voices crying in pain in the far corner of the large room I had entered. I flicked on my flash light and saw a large wall of steel bars cutting across half the space of the ware house and I went toward it. Finding the door to the steel wall, I shot the padlock off the bars and entered inside. Men were laying and sitting around the walls of their cage and barely looked up as I entered their world. I yelled at them to follow me but still they just looked at as if they thought I was their collective imagination playing tricks on them.
I knelt down to one of the men, an officer and shook his shoulder and screamed in his face to get his men and follow me if they wanted to live. He looked me in the eye and finally it sank in that I was a real person and he needed to get his men to follow me. Slowly he stood up pulling the person next to him along with him. Finally signs of joy started to dawn on their faces and the entire group of 380 men and officers jumped and rushed me to touch me and know I was a real American come to take them home.
The explosive sounds and sights of battle were still going on as we emerged from the warehouse. Slowly I opened the door and saw the path to escape was closed. How was I going to get 380 unarmed men out of their temporary prison to safety in Kenya?
19 March, 2034
Journal,
Mattie has been gone for a week now with no word where she ran off. I am George Adams, Mattie’s Father and the night before she climbed out her bedroom window and ran away, I took this journal that she had been writing in and I will be recording the events in our lives just as she had been doing before she went through her change.
Talking to other parents from Mattie’s school I have found that other children also ran away from home last Sunday. It is as though they had been programmed to do this at their school, during what they call the Quiet Meditation hour. None of the parents that I have spoken to can figure why the school would want to turn our children on us but it has happened and there really is nothing we can do at this time.
First off, let me tell you a little about Mattie’s family. As I said, my name is George Adams, I am 42 years old and my parents named me after George Bush SR. He was the President when my dad was in the Marines during the war against Iraq in Kuwait in 1990. My wife’s name is Debbie and she is also 42. We met in grade school and became high school sweet hearts. After high school in 2010, I joined the Marine Corps and she went off to College at CSU. One might say I was fulfilling a family tradition, just like my dad and grand father had done before me.
In 2011, they sent me over to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. After a year in Afghanistan my unit was shipped off to Somalia. It seems that some pirates had captured the USS Stockdale, a guided missile destroyer off the coast of Somalia. That story was pretty amazing in its self, how a bunch of little speed boats could capture a United States Navy ship is beyond my comprehension. Obama had developed a theory that the pirates were not a real threat to the world’s economy and if ignored would not cause any real harm. The fact that their actions had nothing to do with any Jihad had a lot to do with this theory.
The really bad thing is that the pirates still have the USS Stockdale 21years later. The missiles were all sold off to other pirates who have used them to sink two Royal Navy ships on the East coast of Africa.
My unit set up a staging area in Kenya and used it to off- load supplies for the operation. The plan was for us to fly by Osprey from Kenya and attack of the pirate town of Xarardeere, about 12 miles from the east coast of Somalia. Several hijacked ships were anchored off shore, including the Stockdale. I was actually kind of surprised to find the ships were not in any harbor but along the Somali coast there are very few inlets to anchor a ship or boat.
Along with my unit, the 3rd Marine Regiment was a Brigade of Army Rangers. We boarded the Ospreys on April 22, 2012, at 0300 hours. Our mission was to rescue the crew member of the Stockdale and someone else was supposed to recapture the ship. Reports told us that the captive crew was being held in Xarardeere and we figured we would run into lots of resistance from the local bad guys. At the same time we also figured on some covering Naval gun fire and close air support from Navy and Marine fixed wing air craft as well Army and Marine helicopter gun ships.
It was still dark as the Marine Osprey V-22s dropped us into the landing zones about 20 clicks (13.4 miles) due west of Xarardeere. Even though I could see some lights from the town, there was no sound coming from any of the buildings. I was a radio operator for my platoon leader, Lt. Johnson, a tall Texan who was built like the football player he once was for the University of Texas. He was always talking about the Dallas Cowboys and could not wait to get home in October to go to one of their games. Running the twelve miles from the landing zone we finally came near some curved stone walls around some local homes and a building that was probably a barn or work shop.
Suddenly, a flare exploded over the top of us and it lit the whole area like it was day light. Explosions shook the ground and the pinging and popping of rifle and machine gun fire assaulted my ears and erupted all around us. We had been ambushed, they knew we were coming! Crouching next to the Lieutenant, a round pinged off the wall next to my helmet, sending pieces of stone into the side of my head. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and I could feel the sticky goo running down my neck as I fought to stay alert. With a shaky voice I called one of the Cobra helicopter gun ships overhead that we were under attack and told him to look for a red smoke that would indicate our position. As I was talking to the gunship, Sergeant Hernandez tossed a red smoke grenade in between us and the bad guys. Before he could get back behind cover a rocket slammed him in the head tearing it from his torso. Blood spurt form his open neck wound like a fountain of red. My stomach was starting to feel like someone was turning it in knot and I felt like I was going to throw up. One of the buildings at three o’clock started to burn with flames throwing weird shadows on the other buildings all around us. Someone in back of me screamed and Smith who was our Navy Corpsman ran past me to a fallen Marine. Jackson, who was our machine gunner, started laying down fire at the roof of the building in front of us and someone else started firering rifle grenades at the building. My heart must have been beating at 300 beats per minutes and I could feel each pump of blood leaving my heart. It was so damn hot and as I was crouched next to the stone wall gnats started buzzing around my head. I could hear the gun ships coming from our left, but could not see anything for all the smoke and blowing sand. The stench from the rifle fire and all the explosions was over powering and I could taste the bile coming up from my stomach. The pinging of passing rounds was like angry wasps flying around my head and a bright explosion in the next block sent more sand swirling down on us. Looking overhead I saw one lone red cloud in the predawn morning and it reminded me of the cartoon character Snoopy sitting on his dog house yelling, “Curse you Red Baron”. The Cobra gunship was firering it’s 50 caliber machine guns, sending bright red tracers flying into the buildings. Sitting down in back of a stone wall, I could see the outline of the landscape as the sun started to rise in the east. Looking at my watch, I saw we had been in this one location for one minute, yet it seemed like a life time. Off in the distance, a man could be heard calling the faithful to prayers. How strange I was thinking, they are actually going to church while people are dying here. The Lieutenant grabbed the radio hand set from me in slow motion and started yelling to the battalion commander that we were trapped and that we needed more men. All I could hear was the static from the hand set and in mid sentence he stopped screaming. There was an almost terrified blank look on the Lieutenant’s face and without a sound he fell over on his side. He had been shot in the head and there was blood oozing from his ears and mouth. I picked up the handset and told the battalion commander, Colonel Smith, that the lieutenant was dead. More men were being hit and I was now the senior member of my platoon and I was just a Corporal. Sergeant Hernandez was lying in a heap ten feet from me still holding his rifle but his head was some distance from his body and blood was still trickling out of the top of his uniform where his neck used to be. Someone to my left yelled something and then he stood up while holding his machine gun under his arm pit and started running at the building while firering the weapon. The Cobras were coming in for another pass and it seemed like all the Marines around me had jumped up and were running toward the building following the machine gunner. What were they thinking? Explosions rocked the ground and red hot metal projectiles were flying from the buildings like someone had lit off fire works from a Forth of July celebration. The noise was deafening, between the explosions, gun fire and men yelling all around me. I was caught up in all the craziness like I was in a dream and no one could touch me. I was invisible! Standing up, I felt the ping and snap of a round passing my head. The only thought I could think of was from an old movie called, Little Big Man, “Today is a good day to die.” Once in awhile I have reflected on that moment and still wonder what the hell was I thinking? I started running; it felt like my feet were not even touching the ground. Men were all around me now, some were lying on the ground coughing and crying and others were still running toward the buildings. I slipped on something looked down and saw it was blood from a wounded Marine; he was still holding the machine gun but was missing a leg and he was crying and asking for someone named Fligger. It was the same guy who had led the charge with the machine gun. I took a closer look at him and recognized him from boot camp. Pollock was his name and was a big black guy from Mississippi. In boot camp he had told me that after he got out of the Corps, he was,”Gonna open up one of those fish taco stands along a beach somewhere. He had dropped out of college to go off to fight for his country and now he was probably going to die for his country.
Someone yelled,”Doc!” just as a bullet hit Pollock in the chest. It went right through his flack jacket and just made a soft thud as it embedded itself into his heart. He arched his back and then slumped to the ground, his legs and arms lay limp at his side.
The smoke was so thick I had a hard time seeing any further than three feet but I could hear the sounds of men yelling is two languages and felt the flash of rounds passing my head rather than hearing them.
Feeling along the wall of the building, the air was so thick with sand and smoke I could hardly see anything until someone rushed me. He was just a 12 year old boy wearing a pair blood spattered shorts and no shirt. He had a crazed look of someone on some sort of drugs and was pointing a mean looking AK-47 rifle at me. Before he could fire the weapon, I raised my rifle and shot him in the leg and he went down screaming in pain.
Stepping over him I looked down and saw he was crying and the crazed look had been replaced by that of just another little boy crying for his long lost mother. There were so many orphans in Somalia back then that it was not really surprising that a mere child would cling to war as his new found family. Sometimes I wonder if that child ever found peace in his life.
Through the smoke, noise and explosions I made my way to the back of the building trying to keep from being seen by the enemy. Finally I came to the rear of the building and stepped into a sort of alley. To my left was what looked like a large warehouse. According to our intelligence this was where the crew members from the ship were being held. Soldiers and Marines were in fierce hand to hand combat all around me and it looked like snipers were on the roof shooting down at us from the roof of the warehouse. I still had the feeling that I was invisible and no one seemed to pay me any attention as I crossed the alley to the back door of the warehouse. An explosion hit the roof of the warehouse as a Cobra gun ship fired on the snipers. My world was full of pain and bright lights as the shock waves hit me like a sledge hammer hitting me in the chest. I was knocked off my feet but regained my balance and charged the door using the butt of my rifle as a battering ram.
Inside was pitch black but I could hear American voices crying in pain in the far corner of the large room I had entered. I flicked on my flash light and saw a large wall of steel bars cutting across half the space of the ware house and I went toward it. Finding the door to the steel wall, I shot the padlock off the bars and entered inside. Men were laying and sitting around the walls of their cage and barely looked up as I entered their world. I yelled at them to follow me but still they just looked at as if they thought I was their collective imagination playing tricks on them.
I knelt down to one of the men, an officer and shook his shoulder and screamed in his face to get his men and follow me if they wanted to live. He looked me in the eye and finally it sank in that I was a real person and he needed to get his men to follow me. Slowly he stood up pulling the person next to him along with him. Finally signs of joy started to dawn on their faces and the entire group of 380 men and officers jumped and rushed me to touch me and know I was a real American come to take them home.
The explosive sounds and sights of battle were still going on as we emerged from the warehouse. Slowly I opened the door and saw the path to escape was closed. How was I going to get 380 unarmed men out of their temporary prison to safety in Kenya?
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