Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

 This picture shows a Union prison camp in upstate New York with Confederate prisoners lined up. The overcrowded Elmira camp, or (Hellmira) as the Rebels called it, held more than 12,000 prisoners during the war; 25 percent died (2,963) primarily from malnutrition, poor sanitation, and exposure to harsh winters.” This is only one of many Union POW camps in the North. Unless you are a serious student of the Civil War most people have not heard of these camps and the horrible conditions. Most people have heard about the the notorious Confederate camp at Andersonville where over 13.000 Union soldiers died from disease, starvation and cruelty. At least the South had some excuse because they were unable to care adequately for their own soldiers much less prisoners. The North had no excuse for their neglect and mistreatment of Southern prisoners. These prisoners died in the midst of plenty.

The ruins of Dresden War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want. I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. William Tecumseh Sherman   I begin this article with three quotes from W.T.Sherman to illustrate the fact that war is truly hell and there was no war in history more hellish than World War II. To America's credit we sacrificed many American lives in daylight bombing of Germany with a strategy of pinpoint bombing using the Norden bombsight. We sent in bombers unescorted by fighters until the P-51 came on line late in the war. This resulted in heavy American losses. Our goal was a dual one of taking out strategic German War industries lik

 Just after Christmas I was privileged to see Unbroken and Sunday night I saw American Sniper. Both movies are about bonafide Americans heroes. I haven't been affected by a movie in a long time quite like American Sniper. The end of the movie was overwhelming to me when it showed Kyle's funeral with the thousands of people lining the sidewalks and overpasses waving American flags. I nearly lost my composure at that point and could have easily blubbered like a little child. The audience just seemed to sit there in stunned silence when the movie was over. Maybe they were all like me, just trying to get themselves together. I am super proud that America can still produce a person like Chris Kyle.        

Jesse Jackson with Martin Luther King on April 3, 1968 Al Sharpton with Tawana Brawley   I can't think of two charlatans of any race in American history that have been more validated by the white liberal and government establishment than Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Their whole history has been based on corruption, fraud, racism and negativism. I can't think of anything positive that they have ever done. They both have the title of Reverend but to my knowledge have never pastored a church. The white press and liberal politicians have designated them as black leaders and to my knowledge the black community has never acknowledged them as their leaders.  It it this validation by the liberal establishment burdened with white guilt that gives them power that they are not entitled to. It has given them the power to shakedown and bully American corporations by threatening boycotts. Both men have become multi-millionaires by this method. By comparison Martin Luther King n

AMENDMENT 1 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  Recently a small town in North Carolina, was bullied into removing a military memorial to soldiers killed in Afghanistan because it depicted a kneeling soldier praying before a cross. A well established group called The Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit against the town of King North Carolina to remove the statue. After years of fighting this group in court and spending fifty million in legal fees the town leaders decided that they could no longer afford to spend anymore of the taxpayers money. They agreed to a two million dollar settlement of which only one million is covered by insurance. Most Americans do not realize the tremendous power given to the attorneys representing groups such as the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the A.C.L.U. This power was an unintended con

  I can't think of a war more brutal than World War Two. The Germans in many ways were as brutal as the Japanese. The only difference was that the Germans treated Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Slavic and Russian people worse than they treated captured British and American POW's. This was because the Germans considered the British of purer Aryan stock. Also Americans, with the exception of blacks and Jews were considered  higher racial stock. As a result British and American POW's  generally received the best treatment as German POW's. The Japanese on the other hand viewed the Americans as an inferior race and culture. The Germans captured 93,941 Americans during the war but only 1,121 or 1.1% died in captivity. The Japanese on the other hand captured 36,260 American's and 13,851 or 38.2% died in captivity.   The Japanese were and still are one of the most racist people in the world. They not only saw the white European and Americans as an i

Nancy Hart capturing six British soldiers in her home   Nancy Ann Morgan Hart was born in western North Carolina in 1735. Shortly after she was born her family moved to northeastern Georgia. She was married at a young age to Benjamin Hart who was a descendant of future Tennessean and Senator from Missouri named Thomas Hart Benton. Nancy's first cousin was Revolutionary War General Daniel Morgan. As an adult woman, by her own admission, she was homely. Nancy was severely scarred by smallpox and cross-eyed. However she was a hardy frontier woman standing six foot tall, which was not only tall for a man but extremely tall for a woman then. She was an excellent shot, feisty and hot headed. My kind of woman.   When the Revolutionary War came to her neck of the woods Nancy was an ardent Whig and patriot. The indians had a name for her, "Wahatche" or "War Woman". She wanted to rid British sympathizers and Tories from the region. Hart would disguise herself as a

    Most seventeen year old girls in America, unless they live in the hood, dodging drive-by shootings, have the usual mundane things on their mind. Things like high school, the prom, shopping, social media and hanging out with friends. Masha Bruskina was a seventeen year old Jewish girl in October 1941 who was fighting as a partisan in the Minsk resistance against occupying German forces. She worked as a volunteer hospital nurse to care for wounded members of the Red Army. Masha helped them escape by smuggling clothes and false identity papers into the hospital. A patient ratted her out to the Germans and she was arrested. She wrote the following letter to her mother on October 20, 1941.   I am tormented by the thought that I have caused you great worry. Don't worry. Nothing bad has happened to me. I swear to you that you will have no further unpleasantness because of me. If you can, please send me my dress, my green blouse, and white socks. I want to be dressed decently when I

Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe   On December 16th 1944 the Germans launched a last ditch offensive in the Ardennes Belgium that came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitlers goal was to capture the Belgian port of Antwerp and to drive a wedge between the British and American forces. The main thing that hindered the German's success was the American resistance at St. Vith on the northern shoulder of the bulge and Bastogne on the southern shoulder. Bastogne was strategic because it was a vital crossroad that had to be held. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Bastogne with orders to hold the town at all costs. The 101st had the right stuff. When told they were surrounded, one soldier replied "Those poor bastards". The following is an account of the response of General Anthony McAuliffe to a German surrender demand by Lt. General Harry Kinnard.   We got into Bastogne late on the night of 18 December, 1944. We were not well equipped, having just gotten

Louis Zamperini and his wife   On the Tuesday after Christmas I finally got to see the movie Unbroken about the legitimate American hero Louis Zamperini. If you have any doubt that the left has nothing but contempt for America and it's traditional values, then I suggest you read Dr. Sari Edelstein's movie review of Unbroken. Dr. Edelstein is a professor at the University of Massachusetts / Boston. Her areas of expertise are 19th Century American Literature and Culture; Women Writers; History of Journalism; Age Studies; Print Culture Studies; Feminist and get this, Queer Theory. Surprisingly whenever I would recommend the movie to people they would tell me that the movie has gotten bad reviews and they weren't planning to see it. Like The Passion of the Christ, I believe the bad reviews are coming because of the subject matter of the movie rather than any artistic shortcomings. In my opinion Passion of the Christ should have received Oscar's. So should Unbroken.

Karl Marx    Fortunately the economy is finally picking up steam. We are experiencing a growth rate of about 5%, which is pretty good. Of course more people have dropped out of the work force and are on food stamps that at any time in history. Normally I am of the opinion that presidents receive too much credit when the economy is good and too much blame when it is bad. There are exceptions to that rule. The Kennedy's tax cuts of the early 1960's spurred economic growth for the rest of the 1960's and into the early 1970's. Reagan's tax cuts, management of the money supply, and deregulation was responsible for the longest sustained period of economic growth in American history from the early 1980's until the beginning of George W. Bush's first term.as president. Bush forty-three's tax cuts spurred economic growth until the housing bubble burst in 2008. I have a layman's understanding of how the economy works and I am also a student of history.