Just going to take a deep breath and jump here. These are pretty much new books, mostly from Amazon, so I’m going to spare you photos and just insert affiliate links. If you buy anything, I get a small kickback.
Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category
Random gun book crankery, plus Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional Characters.
Friday, October 25th, 2024My latest batch of million dollar ideas.
Monday, March 18th, 20241. I figure this one will hold up until the estate of Frank Herbert sues me. But then again, with a sufficiently good lawyer, I’m sure we can argue a parody exemption on this one:
Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fremen.
So far, I’ve got three. I’m thinking of recruiting a collaborator to help me flesh out the book a little.
- Walk without rhythm, to avoid attracting the worm.
- Never turn your back to the opposition.
- Don’t get high on your own (spice) supply.
(Yes, I did see “Dune Part 2” yesterday. Why do you ask?)
2. This one may be more of a $100,000 idea than a million dollar one, as there may be geographic limitations:
Vicious Australian Animal as a Service. (VAAaaS).
For s small fee to cover animal wrangling, packaging, shipping, and our profit, we’ll send a vicious Australian animal to your “favorite” person in the world. Message optional. We’ll maintain anonymity, and you can pay in cryptocurrency.
Let’s face it. Wouldn’t you love to send that “special person” who’s been acting like a rude (word that rhymes with “glass bowl”) a box jellyfish? Or a Sydney funnel-web spider? It sends a pretty clear message, and seems to me to be much more effective than a box of fecal matter.
There may be some issues with shipping marine life, like the box jellyfish or blue-ringed octopus, but spiders should be relatively easy. It would just be a small matter of finding animal wranglers and appropriate packaging. And lawyers.
We’d probably operate on a sliding scale, based on the size of the animal. Spiders and snakes should be small and easy to ship, while koalas and drop bears would be more expensive, as they would require special handling and packaging.
(I do have some morals. For that reason, VAAaaS will not ship Tasmanian devils, as they are endangered.)
Obit watch: December 16, 2022.
Friday, December 16th, 2022Today’s obit watch is dedicated to my beloved and indulgent sister-in-law.
Frances Hesselbein has passed away. She was 107.
Ms. Hesselbein served as the chief executive of the Girl Scouts from 1976 to 1990.
“She was incredibly focused on the Girl Scouts’ mission,” Marshall Goldsmith, a prominent leadership coach and a friend of Ms. Hesselbein’s, said in a phone interview. “She came up with a model called ‘Tradition With a Future.’ The Girl Scouts weren’t moving into the new world at all. She brought inclusivity and diversity, but she never put down or insulted the past.”
Helping girls reach their greatest potential remained the organization’s mission under Ms. Hesselbein (pronounced HESS-el-bine), but she also saw that the Girl Scouts needed a makeover. What had once thrived with a largely white, middle-class membership had faded with the social and political convulsions of the 1960s and the blossoming of feminism as more women went to work.
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The overhaul worked. Membership rose to 2.3 million in 1990, according to Businessweek. Recruitment efforts increased minority membership to 15.5 percent. Ms. Hesselbein launched a project to help scouts learn about as many as 95 career opportunities, and started programs in telecommunications and marine biology that were designed to be done at home or at troop meetings.
“The era before Frances we call ‘the Betty Crocker Era,’ where the girls turned to conforming to what was appropriate for girls to do, and so they earned cooking badges,” Tamara Woodbury, the former chief executive of the Girl Scouts—Arizona Cactus-Pine Council, said in a phone interview. Ms. Woodbury, who met Ms. Hesselbein when she was a teenage Girl Scout, added, “She wanted the Girl Scouts to be a place where girls could push outside the boundaries and not conform to social norms.”
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She married John Hesselbein in the late 1930s, and they opened a commercial photography studio in Johnstown that also made educational and promotional films. In 1950, when their son, John, was 8, Ms. Hesselbein was pressed by a neighbor to replace the departing leader of a local Girl Scout troop.
“I explained that I didn’t know anything about little girls,” she said in an oral history project at Indiana University in 2011. “I had a little boy.”
She agreed to fill in for six weeks, but stayed for eight years.
“It was the greatest leadership training I ever had,” she added. “You can’t work with a group of 30 little girls, 10 years old, and talk about the values and have them respond, and not live them.”
Obit watch: May 14, 2022.
Saturday, May 14th, 2022Sergeant Major John Canley (USMC – ret.)
Sergeant Major Canley received the Medal of Honor for actions during the Battle of Hue City. His citation:
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Sergeant Major Canley originally received the Navy Cross, but that was upgraded in 2018 to the Medal of Honor.
Robert C. McFarlane, former national security advisor for Ronald Reagan.
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And its fallout left Mr. McFarlane so ridden with guilt that he attempted suicide in his home in February 1987. While his wife, Jonda, a high school English teacher, was upstairs grading papers, he took an overdose of Valium and got into bed alongside her. When he couldn’t be roused in the morning, he was taken to a hospital and revived. He subsequently underwent many weeks of psychiatric therapy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital.
It was a stunning act in official Washington. Many considered it an unconcealed howl of pain by someone from whom they would have least expected it — one of the capital’s most self-contained of public and powerful men.
Killing himself, Mr. McFarlane believed at the time, was “the honorable thing to do,” he said in an interview for this obituary in January 2016 at his home in the Watergate complex in Washington.
“I so let down the country,” he said.
He earlier had tried to explain his actions by citing the ancient Japanese tradition of the honorable suicide. But he came to realize, he said in the interview, that those ways had no resonance in modern American culture and that most people could not understand such behavior.
Henry Scott Stokes, journalist and biographer of Yukio Mishima.
Val Broeksmit. No, you haven’t heard of him, but this is one of the oddest obits I’ve read recently.
Mr. Broeksmit was an “itinerant musician”. His stepfather worked for Deutsche Bank, but committed suicide. After his stepfather’s death, Mr. Broeksmit somehow obtained his passwords and supposedly used them to download a bunch of “whistleblower” documents revealing misconduct by Deutsche Bank.
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He also somehow got involved in the Sony hack. Mr. Broeksmit was 46.
Noted.
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022I don’t like linking to ESPN.
Duke sucks.
This is one heck of a piece of writing.
(And I’m sorry, Coach K, but I’ll still be pulling for Gonzaga this year.)
Rules of the Gunfight.
Tuesday, January 11th, 2022I did some training this past weekend at the KR Training facility. (KR Training, official firearms trainer of Whipped Cream Difficulties.)
Before I talk about this, I feel like I need to address an elephant in the room. It seems like there are two schools of thought in the gun blogging community:
- “Why aren’t you running out every weekend and traveling 500 miles, and then 500 more, to attend tactical operator fantasy camp where you learn how to operate tactically in operations using tactics? Aren’t you serious about this stuff? Don’t you have a job that lets you travel and pay thousands of dollars multiple times a month to take training courses?”
- “Fark you, I don’t have the time or the money to travel every weekend and play pretend ninja with my gun writer buddies. I have a job that doesn’t involve shooting guns or people, a family to take care of, and I don’t get free training classes because I’m a gunwriter.”
I hate to be lukewarm, but I totally get both sides of this issue. Training is good. Training is fun. I should do more of it. But I don’t have time or money to train every weekend, so I pick my opportunities carefully.
I’m lucky in that KR Training’s facilities are just a little over an hour away from my house (an hour and a half if I stop at Buc-ee’s on the way). I’m also lucky in that KR Training concentrates almost entirely on practical training for private citizens. (I do not get free training from KR Training, even though they are the official trainer of WCD. I would not accept free training if it was offered: I insist on paying real American money for their services. They do not accept Bitcoin or Dogecoin yet, as far as I know.)
In this case, KR Training was offering two classes from John Hearne. Yes, they were a little expensive. But I decided to treat this as a personal indulgence. I’ve heard Karl talk about Mr. Hearne’s presentations at the Rangemaster conferences, and figured this was worth taking a flyer on.
(These two classes were the second and third I have taken in roughly a month, so you can throw stones at me now. However, the first class was Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED certification: also through KR Training because that was convenient, but you can pretty much do that anywhere these days. And you should, in my ever so humble opinion.)
tl,dr: If John Hearne is teaching near you, go if you can. He’s worth it.
I’m putting in a jump here because this is going to run long. I can feel it.
Obit watch: December 29, 2021.
Wednesday, December 29th, 2021Comment I made to Lawrence last night: “Sure,” the NYT reporter said, “I’ll cover the obituary desk between Christmas and New Year’s. Nothing ever happens between Christmas and New Year’s.”
I’m being kind of short with these first two because everyone is on them like a fat man on an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.
John Madden. ESPN. LAT.
“Rabelaisian emissary”. Gotta give that guy credit.
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I wouldn’t say I was ever a big Madden fan. I had nothing against him, it was more a matter of me not being a big football fan in general. But that seems like a good general leadership principle: be yourself, and treat your people like intelligent human beings.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Madden was offered the “Ernie Pantusso” role on “Cheers”, but turned it down.
Harry M. Reid. Las Vegas Review Journal.
Jeff Dickerson, ESPN reporter covering the Chicago Bears. He was only 44.
I wanted to note this, even though he wasn’t as famous as the other guys. The ESPN obit makes Mr. Dickerson sound like a really good guy who was taken too soon:
Even after being placed in hospice last week, he told colleagues he was there merely to humor his doctors. No one around him heard a word of self-pity, and he disarmed those who expressed concern by asking them about their own lives.
“JD always wants to know how you’re doing,” Waddle said. “I’d ask him how he’s doing and his first response is, ‘How are you doing? How are [Waddle’s daughters]?’ The dignity with which he has carried himself through some of the most difficult times any human being would be asked to go through, what his wife went through and the dignity and strength and grace that he showed at her side throughout all of this … I don’t know anybody I’ve met in my 54 years in life who has handled adversity over the last decade with more grace and strength and dignity than Jeff Dickerson. I know a lot of people go through [stuff]. I do. I’m sympathetic to all of it. But what Jeff Dickerson has had to go through the last decade is cruel.
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“He always carried a care for the subject that he was going to write about,” said Gould, who co-hosted an ESPN 1000 radio show with Dickerson during a portion of his Bears career. “As a player you can appreciate that the wisdom he put on paper was as neutral and correct as it ever was going to be. It was always going to be your words. It was always going to be what the story was. It was never going to be someone filling in the blanks …
“Players definitely noticed. He always wrote a true story. He always wrote what was happening at the moment. He didn’t try to back the bus up over somebody. He tried to get it exactly how the story was. … I think you saw a lot of guys give him a lot of credit because they knew he would write it right.”
Tweet of the day.
Tuesday, December 14th, 2021— Ƒʉͫcͧкͭιͪηͣ 𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚙𝚊 👴 (@th3v0t4ry) December 14, 2021
There’s a backstory to that tweet.
Matthias said he was struck by how well Cashe knew his soldiers — their strengths, weaknesses, and whatever challenges they were facing — and how much he cared for them. He “talked about them like they were his children,” he said. Dodge who was a squad leader under Cashe, recalled once having marital problems while he was deployed to Iraq. While they had some — very rare and brief — down time, Dodge said Cashe “called my wife from Iraq and talked to her at length.” He then came and told Dodge to call her as well.
“‘I know you’re having problems, and I want you to have your head clear while you’re out here doing stuff,’” Dodge recalled Cashe telling him. “At the time I was kind of angry because I was tired, I just wanted to sleep. But he had taken his time when he could have been sleeping … to try to take care of me. And that’s something I’ll never forget.”
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Father Emil Joseph Kapaun.
Thursday, November 11th, 2021Father Kapaun was born April 20, 1916 (!!!!) near Pilsen, Kansas. He graduated high school in 1930, completed his seminary education (Conception Seminary College and Kenrick Theological Seminary) in 1940 and was ordained as a priest that year.
I’m not sure what happened between 1940 and 1943, but in January of 1943, he was appointed auxiliary chaplain at the Herington Army Airfield. He was named priest there in December of 1943.
In August of 1944, he went into the US Army Chaplain School, and graduated in October. From April of 1945 to May of 1946 he served in the Burma Theater of operations.
He mustered out in July of 1946 and used the GI Bill to earn a MA degree in education. In September of 1948, he rejoined the Army as a chaplain at Fort Bliss.
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Father Kapaun quickly became known for his willingness to risk his own life in order to save his men. He sometimes used the hood of his jeep as an altar on which to celebrate Mass and hear confession. [King]
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When Father Kapaun’s commanders ordered evacuation, he chose to stay.
By all accounts, Father Kapaun refused to save his own skin, dodged bullets, and gave the last rites to as many dying soldiers as he could reach. He carried one man, whose leg had been shattered by shrapnel, in his arms to safety.
During the forced eighty-mile march to a prison camp in the freezing cold, Father Kapuan shored up flagging spirits and encouraged his men to help those too wounded to walk. [King]
Father Kapuan spent seven months as a POW.
Nearly half the prisoners died that first winter, from cold, starvation, lice infestations. Given such conditions, Father Kapaun decided to pray to Saint Dismas, the good thief, and then would sneak extra rations for his men. He offered freezing prisoners his own clothes, bathed their wounds, exhorted them to keep going.
The guards ridiculed his faith. At night he slipped into huts to lead prisoners in prayer and administer the sacraments. “Just for a moment,” one said, “he could turn a mud hut into a cathedral.” [King]
Unfortunately, his own health failed. He came down with dysentery and pneumonia. He had a blood clot in one leg, and was malnourished. He led a forbidden Easter service on March 25, 1951 (“holding up a small crucifix he had fashioned from sticks”) but got progressively sicker.
It is said that the “hospital” was really a “death house” and that the guards did not give him food or water.
He had also been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (for the rescue of those 40 men during the Battle of Unsan) but on April 11, 2013, that was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. His citation:
Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun, while assigned to Headquarters Company, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism, patriotism, and selfless service between Nov. 1-2, 1950. During the Battle of Unsan, Kapaun was serving with the 3rd Battalion of the 8th Cavalry Regiment. As Chinese Communist forces encircled the battalion, Kapaun moved fearlessly from foxhole to foxhole under direct enemy fire in order to provide comfort and reassurance to the outnumbered Soldiers. He repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to recover wounded men, dragging them to safety. When he couldn’t drag them, he dug shallow trenches to shield them from enemy fire. As Chinese forces closed in, Kapaun rejected several chances to escape, instead volunteering to stay behind and care for the wounded. He was taken as a prisoner of war by Chinese forces on Nov. 2, 1950.
After he was captured, Kapaun and other prisoners were marched for several days northward toward prisoner-of-war camps. During the march Kapaun led by example in caring for injured Soldiers, refusing to take a break from carrying the stretchers of the wounded while encouraging others to do their part.
Once inside the dismal prison camps, Kapaun risked his life by sneaking around the camp after dark, foraging for food, caring for the sick, and encouraging his fellow Soldiers to sustain their faith and their humanity. On at least one occasion, he was brutally punished for his disobedience, being forced to sit outside in subzero weather without any garments. When the Chinese instituted a mandatory re-education program, Kapaun patiently and politely rejected every theory put forth by the instructors. Later, Kapaun openly flouted his captors by conducting a sunrise service on Easter morning, 1951.
When Kapaun began to suffer from the physical toll of his captivity, the Chinese transferred him to a filthy, unheated hospital where he died alone. As he was being carried to the hospital, he asked God’s forgiveness for his captors, and made his fellow prisoners promise to keep their faith. Chaplain Kapaun died in captivity on May 23, 1951.
Chaplain Emil J. Kapaun repeatedly risked his own life to save the lives of hundreds of fellow Americans. His extraordinary courage, faith and leadership inspired thousands of prisoners to survive hellish conditions, resist enemy indoctrination, and retain their faith in God and country. His actions reflect the utmost credit upon him, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the United States Army.
Father Kapaun’s remains were among a group of unidentified bodies that were returned to the US after the Korean Armistice Agreement. They were originally buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, but as part of the ongoing efforts to identify unknown soldiers from the Korean War, they were disinterred. His remains were identified in March of this year, and on September 25, they were returned to his family. They are currently interred at Wichita’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
Pope John Paul II named Father Kapaun a Servant of God in 1993. From what I can tell, the case for Father Kapaun’s sainthood is currently under consideration by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. There are several miracles attributed to him that are currently under investigation, and I can see a very strong case that he was a martyr.
Sources:
King, Heather. “‘Credible Witnesses: Servant of God Emil Kapaun.’” Magnificat, Nov. 2021.
“Medal of Honor Recipient Chaplain (Capt.) Emil J. Kapaun | the United States Army.” Www.army.mil, www.army.mil/medalofhonor/kapaun/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2021.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Emil Kapaun.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 May 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Kapaun. Accessed 20 June 2019.
Obit watch: November 8, 2021.
Monday, November 8th, 2021Camille Saviola, actress.
Onstage, she was best known for originating the role of Mama Maddelena, a spa manager, in the original production of “Nine,” the Arthur Kopit-Maury Yeston musical about a film director having a midlife crisis, which opened on Broadway in May 1982 and ran for almost two years. She was featured in a comic number, “The Germans at the Spa.”
But she wasn’t limited to comedy. In 2005, for instance, she starred in a production of “Mother Courage and Her Children,” Bertolt Brecht’s famed antiwar play, in Pasadena, Calif.
She also did some TV and movie work, including multiple appearances on a spinoff of a minor SF TV show from the 1960s.
JoAnna Cameron. Lots of TV work as well, including “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”, “Columbo”, and most famously, “Isis” on the Saturday morning series.
Aaron Feuerstein. Some of you may remember him from 1995, when he was in the news.
Mr. Feuerstein owned Malden Mills, which made Polartec fabric.
Then, on the night of Dec. 11, 1995, a boiler in one of the factory’s five hulking plants exploded. The shock wave knocked out the state-of-the-art sprinkler system Mr. Feuerstein had just installed, and 45-mile-an-hour winds blew the ensuing fire to three other buildings. The blaze burned for 16 hours, injuring more than 30 workers.
Three days later, most of the plant’s 1,400 workers lined up to receive their paychecks, figuring it might be their last from Malden Mills. Mr. Feuerstein joined them. He handed out holiday bonuses and then announced an even greater gift: He would immediately reopen as much of the plant as he could, replace the buildings he had lost and continue to pay the idled workers for a month — a promise he later extended twice.
Working nonstop, he and his workers got the surviving building, the finishing plant, back in operation just one week later. Mr. Feuerstein bought an empty factory nearby to hold new equipment. By the first weeks of January, hundreds of his employees were back at work. And just 20 months later he opened a gleaming new $130 million complex.
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Cahiers du Cinéma: on war movies.
Friday, May 28th, 2021The Art of Manliness posted a list of “The 10 Best War Movies of All-Time”.
Aesop over at the Raconteur Report posted a response.
Borepatch posted a response to Aesop’s response.
My turn. Readers should be aware up front that I have never served with any branch of any military anywhere in the world: my opinions about war movies basically come down to “Did I enjoy it? Did I think it was a good story, well told?” Not necessarily “Were they using a period correct AR platform? Were the missile launch scenes accurate?”
If you think I’m ignorant and want to skip to the next entry, go right ahead. Something else will be coming along soon.
With my lack of qualifications out of the way, my takes on the list. The Art of Manliness first:
- “Saving Private Ryan”: I’ll get this out of the way up front. Never seen it. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing it, but I feel like it was one of those movies that was so overhyped at the time, it triggered my rejection gland. (See also: “E.T.”)
- “The Great Escape”: Also have not seen it. Do have the DVD, it is on our list, and I do want to watch it soon.
- “Das Boot”. Saw the director’s cut in a theater with Lawrence, loved it.
- “Glory”: Never seen it. Unlike Lawrence, I am not a big Civil War buff, so this movie has little appeal for me.
- “Apocalypse Now”: I liked it, but I need to watch it again. Is it a good war movie? I don’t know: Aesop and others don’t seem to think so. Is it a good movie? I thought so.
- “The Thin Red Line”: Have not seen it. Primarily because I have some friends who went to see it in a theater and walked out.
- “Patton”: one of my favorite movies of all time.
- “1917”: Didn’t get around to seeing it in theaters, would not mind seeing it. But putting a movie from 2019 on the best list? Really? Could we get some historical distance here? Perhaps a five or ten year gap before we start calling movies “best”? (Also, I have seen “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “They Shall Not Grow Old”, both of which are excellent films. Frankly, I am shocked that neither Borepatch or Aesop mentioned the latter.)
- “The Longest Day”: saw large parts of it on TV when I was younger, would not mind seeing the whole thing again. But it strikes me as one of those relics of the old Hollywood system where everybody is in it, and it may be just a little overstuffed.
- “The Bridge on the River Kwai”: haven’t seen it, believe it or not. Very much want to, and it is on the list.
Aesop’s list:
- “Zulu”: Heck to the yes!
- “The Great Escape”: See above.
- “Patton”: See above.
- “Lawrence of Arabia”: also heck to the yes!
- “Blackhawk Down”: Saw that in a theater with Lawrence as well. Am a huge fan of the book. Another damn fine movie.
- “Hamburger Hill”: have not seen it, would be interested in seeing it.
- “Das Boot”: see above.
- “Gettysburg”: have not seen it, see my comments above on “Glory”.
- “Braveheart”: have not seen it. I believe it is on our list as an Oscar winner.
- “A Bridge Too Far”: watched it recently with Lawrence and the gang. It’s…okay. But to my taste, it was way too long.
Borepatch:
- “Glory”: see above.
- “Stripes”: it has been a long damn time since I’ve seen that, and I need to watch it again. I do agree with Borepatch’s comments that comedy doesn’t get any respect.
- “Band of Brothers”: haven’t seen anything but clips on YouTube, but those make me want to watch the series. Once Lawrence and I get some of our other TV series out of the way, that may be next on the list.
- “Hogan’s Heroes”: also been a long damn time since I’ve seen an episode of that, even though it is on MeTV.
Things that I’m surprised are missing from all three lists:
- “12 O’Clock High”. The movie, though what I have seen of the TV series is also good. But I think “12 O’Clock High”, like “Patton”, would go on my top ten list.
- “The Hunt For Red October”: yes, I think this qualifies as a war film.
- “They Shall Not Grow Old”: see above.
- “All Quiet on the Western Front”: see above.
- “300”: I’m more just surprised that nobody mentioned it, rather than being willing to argue that it’s actually great. (I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure I would call it “great”.) I’d be happy to have a discussion with Aesop and Borepatch about this one.
- “Paths of Glory”: you didn’t like “Full Metal Jacket”? How about this one? (I think “FMJ” is about half of a good movie.)
- “Kelly’s Heroes”: I think I didn’t see “Great Escape” because this one was the one that was all over late-night TV when I was growing up. I have fond memories of it, but need to re-watch it.
- “The Wind and the Lion”: I think it counts.
- “Run Slient, Run Deep”
- “The Alamo”: the good one, with John Wayne.
- “Mister Roberts”: speaking of comedy not getting any respect…also, I think there’s a good leadership lesson in this one. (Don’t be like James Cagney.)
“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 419
Monday, May 24th, 2021Military History Monday!
This is also the last entry in MilHisMon. Sort of. It’s complicated.
Somewhere in my collection of books on leadership, I have a thin little pamphlet that I picked up at the National Museum of the Pacific War: “Arleigh Burke on Leadership”.
Who was Arleigh Burke, other than being a guy who has a whole class of destroyers named after him?
“Saluting Admiral Arleigh Burke”, circa about 1961 (around the time he retired, after three terms as Chief of Naval Operations).
Bonus #1: This might be the last chance I get to do one of these. Plus: CanCon!
“Canadair CF-104 Starfighter”.
Bonus #2: And as long as I’m taking last chances…”Secrets of the F-14 Tomcat: Inflight Refueling” from Ward Carroll.
As a side note, which I learned from Mr. Carroll this past weekend, did not know previously, and don’t really have a good place to stick it: one of Donald Trump’s final pardons was granted to Randall “Duke” Cunningham.
Bonus #3: A documentary about “Operation Blowdown”.
“Operation Blowdown”? Yes: back in 1963, the Australian military decided to simulate a nuclear blast in a rain forest, just to see what conditions would be like afterwards. Because, you know, why the heck not?
A device containing was detonated to partially simulate a ten kiloton air burst in the Iron Range jungle. The explosives were sourced from obsolete artillery shells and placed in a tower 42 metres (138 ft) above ground level and 21 metres (69 ft) above the rainforest canopy. After the explosion, troops were moved through the area (which was now covered in up to a metre of leaf litter), to test their ability to transit across the debris. In addition, obsolete vehicles and equipment left near the centre of the explosion were destroyed.