“Women are not the weak, frail little flowers that they are advertised. There has never been anything invented yet, including war, that a man would enter into, that a woman wouldn’t, too.” –Will Rogers

Long before great women such as Alice Paul and Lucy Burns fought for the right for women to vote, women were fighting in wars. The fight wasn’t about equal rights or even voting rights, it was about protecting our children and homes. The fight was about defending our country.

There were many women that made a difference in the revolutionary war. From nursing our soldiers to spying on the English, women left their mark and even fought beside men. It wasn’t easy. Females were not allowed on the front line. So a disguise was required.

There are many stories of women dressing as men and joining the regiments, none as famous as Deborah Samson from Massachusetts. In 1778 Deborah disguised herself as a young man, named Robert Shirtliffe and presented herself to the American Army and served undetected for a year and a half. Deborah was wounded twice before she was discharged.

This trend continued into the Civil War. Francis Day briefly served as Sgt. Frank Mayne. In the spring of 1863 Sgt. Mayne was grievously wounded and her identity was revealed. She died from her wounds.

One of the more touching stories was of a woman known only as Emily. At the age of 19 Emily ran away from home and joined the drum corps of a Michigan Regiment. The regiment was sent to Tennessee and during the struggle for Chatanooga, Emily was shot in the side. Her wound was fatal and her sex was disclosed. As Emily lay dying she dictated a telegram to her father in Brooklyn.

“Forgive your dying daughter. I have but a few moments to live. My native soil drinks my blood. I expected to deliver my country but the fates would not have it so. I am content to die. Pray forgive me.” — Emily

In World War I over 30,000 women served in the Army, Navy, Navy Nurse Corps, the Marines, and the Coast Guard. At least 359 servicewomen died and none of these women yet had the right to vote.

During World War II the first class of Woman Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) graduated on December 17, 1943. The women had to pay their own way through the training program in Texas. A total of 1074 women graduated the program over the next few years and all at their own expense. These women flew over 60 million miles in operations. Thirty-eight WASP died in training or in the line of duty. A total of 543 World War II servicewomen gave their lives.

Over 265,000 women served in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. Approximately 10,000 served in uniform “in country” during the conflict. All were volunteers as women were not subject to the draft. Eight women’s names appear at the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. Lieutenant Colonel Annie Graham is one of those names. Lieutenant Colonel Graham was a veteran of World War II and The Korean War.

Eleanor Ardel Vietti, a civilian surgeon and missionary was captured by Vietcong forces in Ban Me Thuot on May 30, 1962. Her remains have never been found. Eleanor is still listed as missing in action. Betty Ann Olsen was captured in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. She died and was buried along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Her body was never recovered.

More than sixty civilian women gave their lives during the Vietnam War. Due to the type of gorilla warfare tactics prevalent in the war, women were not just on the front lines they were often times surrounded by the enemy.

Operation Desert Shield and Storm saw the largest deployment of military women in U.S. history. Over 40,000 women were called to duty in Iraq. Sixteen women died and two were captured as prisoners of war.

Updated since my speech in 2007

Currently in Afghanistan and Iraq over 130 U.S. military servicewomen have given their lives for our country. Women make up 16% of our U.S. armed forces. Like Vietnam, there are no definitive front lines and women are in the middle of the conflicts even if delivering supplies. These women have one thing in common with their fellow male counterparts; they carry weapons and know how to use them.

This year six female police officers have given their lives in the line of duty. The first Law Enforcement death of the year was Deputy Sheriff Suzanne Hopper. Deputy Hopper was 40-years-old and had served twelve years with her department. There are currently over 110,000 female Police Officers serving in the U.S. and over 9,700 women Firefighters.

While researching my Independence Day speech I searched for quotes to exemplify the role of women in service to our country. I found very few though two struck me as needing to be mentioned.

“To tell a woman everything she may not do is to tell her what she can do.” –Spanish Proverb

“War is not women’s history.” –Virginia Woolf

I leave you with my rebuttal to this last quote.

“Where ever there is war, there are women. We mend the wounded, mourn the dead and tend the home fires of both the winners and the losers. Even when we are a part of the fight we are all but forgotten. War is women’s history. Women are just the part not told.” –Suzie Ivy

The suit filed by Mr. McCain’s campaign against elections officials states Mr. McCain could lose votes from military members overseas who support the Vietnam War hero.

“There are many military service members and overseas voters who support Senator John McCain for president in the upcoming election and whose right to vote will be denied without relief from this court,” stated the complaint, also filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

The complaint states some Virginia localities did not send absentee ballots to overseas voters at least 45 days before the election, as recommended in 2004 by a congressionally created commission.

Wow. That is just a tad problematic, don’t you think? It is 2008 – surely 4 years is sufficient lead time to make sure that everything is squared away in order to fulfill this recommendation. Just sayin’.

This lawsuit was sparked by one case – see? Making your voice heard DOES matter! Hopefully, anyway. THe article continues:

The complaint cites the specific case of a Marine stationed in Iraq who did not receive his absentee ballot from Arlington County until Oct. 29. It asks that the court order absentee ballots for federal offices sent by Nov. 4 from qualified voters and received by Nov. 14 in the state to be counted.

“The McCain-Palin campaign believes without exception that the servicemen and women on the front line protecting our freedoms deserve every opportunity to make sure their vote counts,” McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

It was not clear last night when the suit would be heard in court.

“Of course we want to make sure that all the absentee ballots that are coming in from overseas are counted,” Miss Skinner said. “We’ll comply with whatever order the judge gives on that.”

I dunno – I don’t think 10 days is all that long to wait, all things considered, do you? Whether one agrees with the Iraq War (I don’t), the reality is that these people are putting their lives on the line, their lives at home on hold, making sacrifices the enormity of which many of us cannot fathom, including, sadly, the ultimate sacrifice for some. I think the least we can do is allow them to VOTE. THis goes for ALL of our military serving abroad, whether it be Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Germany – wherever it is, our citizens deserve to execute their right in a democracy to cast their vote. Anything less is unacceptable, especially when they are in harm’s way. And especially when people like these two get to vote unimpeded:

Isn’t it weird seeing people go up and hug them? Like they are just anybody else in the neighborhood, not two unrepentant domestic terrorists who want to teach their children?? I wonder – was it from them that Obama learned to be a con man? Ahem.

So, yeah – I don’t think 10 days is too much to ask to allow late absentee ballots from our military, through no fault of their own, to come back in, do you?

Sung to the tune of “The Way We Were”.

************************************

If the MSM had any difficulty, or even cared about, finding unrepentant domestic terrorist and Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers, or his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, during a week this past September, it was perhaps because they didn’t know where to look — or, most likely, weren’t looking.

The radical couple had made a little offshore visit to that four-letter island off Florida’s coast in the company of this lady, Chicago composer, flutist, and performance artist — and longtime Kenwood resident, a.k.a. Obama neighbor, and supporter — Janice Misurell-Mitchell, Co-Artistic Director of CUBE Contemporary Chamber Ensemble in Chicago since 1989, and wife of University of Chicago English and Art History professor W.J.T. Mitchell, also an Obama supporter.

How do we know? Well, thanks to sharp-eyed RBO reader jr, we have the Winter 2008 CUBE Ensemble newsletter that says so.

So, how did the Ayers-Dohrn “political activists” manage to travel to Cuba? Looks like they may have qualified as “full-time professionals“:

Full-time professionals whose travel transactions are directly related to professional research in their professional areas, provided that their research:

(1) is of a noncommercial academic nature, (2) comprises a full work schedule in Cuba, and (3) has a substantial likelihood of public dissemination.

Full-time professionals whose travel transactions are directly related to attendance at professional meetings or conferences in Cuba organized by an international professional organization, institution, or association that regularly sponsors such meetings or conferences in other countries. The organization, institution, or association sponsoring the meeting or conference may not be headquartered in the United States unless it is specifically licensed to sponsor the meeting. The purpose of the meeting or conference cannot be the promotion of tourism in Cuba or other commercial activities involving Cuba, or to foster production of any biotechnological products.

Venceremos Brigade-Weatherman

This must have been a highly nostalgic walk down the international revolutionary “memory lane” for Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

The following, which comes from an August 1976 redacted FBI report, provides a clear background. When, in July 1969, Vietnamese representatives met with “leading Weatherpeople” (including Dohrn) in Havana, Cuba,

… the influence of Vietnamese representatives on the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) leadership became sharply pronounced. At the same time, the example of the Cuban revolution became the guide for the emerging American student revolutionary. With an increasing number of trips to Havana where the youthful revolutionary could learn at first hand how to create revolution, the influence of Cuba on the developing WUO was enormous.

The WUO obtained their revolutionary methodology from the Cubans and Vietnamese and, importantly, put into practice what they had learned from them. [...]

So, when Huynh Van Ba, representative of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam (PRG), instructed WUO to “look for the person who fights hardest against cops…Don’t look for the one who says the best thing. Look for the one who fights,” the campus base was forgotten and the WUO began to recruit the greasers and assorted oddments who had displayed their hatred of authority in direct combat with police.”

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Obama’s willingness to flip-flop has earned him the moniker Backtrack Obama. He betrayed progressives by voting for the FISA legislation; he promised to expand Bush’s faith-based initiatives; he equivocated on choice by saying that “mental distress” should not be a factor in abortion.

Obama’s newest flip flop was not over a matter of public policy important to progressives, but rather the United State’s historic role in confronting evil. During the debate at Saddleback, Rick Warren asked, “Does evil exist and, if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?”

OBAMA: Evil does exist. I mean, I think we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil sadly on the streets of our cities. We see evil in parents who viciously abuse their children. And I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely. And one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. But we can be soldiers in that process. And we can confront it when we see it.

Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil. Because, you know, a lot of evil’s been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.

Think about Obama’s words. He’s talking about the United States. Consider the image below. It’s G.I.s examining a train car at Dachau. During the last century, the United States ended the bloody morass of World War I, freed Europe from genocidal Nazism and freed the Pacific Rim from the horrors of Imperial Japan. We held off Soviet expansionism and our policies eventually freed hundreds of millions who lived under the iron fist of communism.

Our country has undoubtedly made grievous errors confronting evil. We’ve entered conflicts, like Vietnam, where we had only a cursory understanding of the nationalistic feelings of the population. But to accuse the United States of being evil when we confronted communist expansionism in Korea or Vietnam or dictators elsewhere, like Iraq — regardless of how unwise the war policies may have been — is an inaccurate and shameful explanation of our history. It is the typical far-left canard which describes bad policies as having evil intentions.

The men responsible for our entry into Vietnam — Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson — were idealists who were responding to the pressures of their era. They collectively made many mistakes, but they were not evil men. Similarly, the men who had to deal with Saddam Hussein — Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II — were all criticized for their actions or inactions but all of them, I believe, wanted to make the best decisions for the security of their country. So while mistakes were made, colossal mistakes, it was not on par with the evil we confronted, as Obama suggests.

When Warren asked the same question of McCain, he responded:

MCCAIN: Defeat it.

(APPLAUSE) A couple points. One, if I’m president of the United States, my friends, if I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I will get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice. I will do that and I know how to do it. I will get that guy. No one, no one should be allowed to take thousands of innocent American lives.

This one question put into stark relief each man’s attitude towards the United States. McCain is a man who personally sacrificed in a war which lasted far too long, but he does not ascribe evil to his own country. He knows evil exists and he is ready to confront it. McCain is an old-fashioned patriot, and Obama believes in the moral relativists values of the extreme left. In Obama’s flip flop, the good guys become the bad guys. No wonder he felt at home at Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Church.

Today I know “how” people voted for Richard Nixon in a historic landslide. Nobody really thought he was so great. The problem was they refused to vote for McGovern.

Really, as I look back in retrospect, George McGovern was a gentleman. Next to Barack Obama he was brilliant and honest. He had the experience and the service to his country to add to his resume. He actually had a real resume. His resume made Barack Obama look like a Playground Director. And he was a pleasant enough guy as well. He didn’t offend women at all either.

George’s problem wasn’t George. His problem was his followers. We were angsty. We wanted “change”. We wanted somebody who inspired us. What kid doesn’t? George was it for us. Pass the bong!

George was also rather academic. That meant smart! They called him an “egghead”. That was the equivalent word at the time for “elitist” and “snob”. George didn’t relate much to “regular folks”. He was….well….at a higher level. We young people understood what that meant. Our parents did too. They just didn’t attach the same meaning to it. Sound familiar?

George was beloved by all the kids.

He was beloved by all the college professors, especially the professors who taught Socialism and Communism.

The hippies loved George. He was like one of them only older.

George knew all the cool mannerisms and buzz words. And he knew our music. He turned us on.

The old SDS people loved George.

The anti-war people loved George.

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn for sure loved George!

The American Communist Party loved George.

The American Socialist party loved George.

George was the quintessential fringe candidate.

I remember discussing how cool and Far Out George was and how odious Dick was with my parents and they gave me that “Are you crazy??!” look. I didn’t get it. McGovern was going to pull our troops out and end that stupid war. My parents wanted that war to end as much as anybody. We had relatives and friends who died there for Chrissakes. McGovern was anti-war. Nixon was not. Nixon was nothing more than the establishment. The same old boring crap! Yet my parents were going to vote for Nixon! What the hell was that all about?

What had happened to my parents? I thought they were smarter than that! Was it like some pod thing? As my generation went, I had parents I could talk to. I mean, they were pretty cool. They kept me under check and acted like real parents, but other than that annoying problem, it wasn’t as if I had to hide things from them. Except the bong of course. The truth is, these were not completely Uncool or dumb parents. Yet, here they were planning on voting for Nixon! I could see they didn’t like Nixon, so why the hell were they going to vote for him??!!!

I’m telling you, I was just so freaked over my parents’ opinion of George McGovern that I seriously thought I should leave home while I still knew everything. I mean it was clear to me that these people who spawned me had morphed into completely stupid excuses for adults. Same with my grandparents. They were all voting for Nixon. My grandfather, the card-carrying Carpenter’s Union guy! They were losing it! How could Democrats abandon their party when they had the best damned candidate ever???At this point, I was so angry at my parents that I barely tolerated allowing them to feed me, heat the house, pay the mortgage, take me on cool vacations and buy me lots of stuff.

I didn’t “get it” then, but I get it today.

The fact of the matter is, George McGovern’s followers offended and terrorized the American Electorate more than the war did!

George McGovern received 38% of the votes that year, a huge bashing. Today we would call it “Handing your ass to you on a plate“. And there we were, stuck with Dick Nixon again.

What was it about George’s followers that made Americans trip over themselves to go to the polls and vote against him? How did adult America perceive them?:

They were mean. They were nasty. They never shaved. They burned flags and bras and shit. They rioted over simply everything. They had rock concerts that destroyed entire cities. They demonstrated and held up traffic. They were all dependent on their parents and had a lot of free time to be pushy and arrogant. They were often on TV doing something that reviled the rest of America. They took drugs. They had sex all the time. There were socialists and communists and radicals of dubious intent hanging around with or worshipping George. Some of them did dangerous things like blow up buildings and crap. Now who could I possibly be referring to?

The amazing thing is, they didn’t even have the internet in those days, where McGovern followers could terrorize, insult and thwart Nixon supporters. Technology was scant by comparison to today, yet McGovern’s followers were very well “known” to the electorate. Of course, in those days, reporters actually reported the news instead of creating it. There were no Keith Olbermanns or Chris Matthews-type people stirring the pot and working diligently to make things come out the way they wanted them to be. There were no nasty bitter old men like Jack Cafferty to sneer and snort and peddle his own opinions as if they were fact. News wasn’t blocked out because it didn’t “suit” the political ideology of the networks. If it happened, it was reported, even if the reporter didn’t like it. And boy-oh-boy, did those noisy rallies of screaming angsty kids put people off.

So, in 1972, people sat around their TVs and watched the bad behavior of McGovern’s followers. They chanted for George. They hooted. They yelled. They rallied in huge crowds. They chanted some more. Everybody around him looked about 12 years old to most of America. Some of them showed up at the Democratic Convention as Delegates, displacing elected officials that Americans knew and loved. 19 year-olds were making history, so they thought. Some of them hadn’t even grown beards yet in the eyes of their ATMs known as “parents”. They wouldn’t even take out the garbage and here they were as Delegates at a convention, trying to tell everybody who should be president.

Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and their Declaration of A State of War were well established household Nightmare names by that time, and the words used to describe them weren’t pretty. Their most recent Pentagon bombing was fresh in everyone’s mind. America had watched their crap on TV over and over again, and most parents silently thanked God they didn’t produce sociopaths like those two. To America, these were two insane maniacs blowing up the country and Declaring War on simply everybody.

In 1972, People also still remembered 1968 and the violence associated with that year. That was the year Richard Nixon won his first term thanks to the behavior of Young Democrats and the infamous unruly convention. Two great men were assassinated that year, and the result was yet more violence. It was not a pretty time and voters weren’t going to give these fringe crackpots anymore shots at crashing and burning down America and promoting socialism. It was as simple as that. When I think of Recreate 68, I think, Thank You! You are helping to defeat today’s George McGovern, Barack Obama. Please keep doing what you are doing!

The electorate chose Nixon because they felt America was safer with smarmy Him in charge. If nothing else, he would reign in the angsty young I-Know-Everything “new voter registrants,” also known as “dependents” — and hopefully keep them from destroying the entire country’s infrastructure. And there were a lot of new young voter registrants in 1972. This was the first year 18-20 year-olds were allowed to vote, so the number was massive. Remember, these were the Baby Boomers — The largest block of young voters in the history of America. This voting block was far larger than the youth voting block of today. Yet……..George McGovern got 38% of the vote that year.

Nobody helped George McGovern lose that ’72 election more than his young followers did. They were a Gift to Richard Nixon.

Today, those Baby Boomers are still a huge voting block. Except now they are grown up and they know shit from shinola.

I rest my case.

I didn’t and don’t want my words to cheapen their heroism. In 1998, Sen. Max Cleland said the three represented “true examples of American patriotism at its finest.”

It was in Vietnam, March 16, 1968, in a helicopter piloted by then US Army Warrant Officer that was manned by door gunners Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta.

Both gunners were Spc’s and Andreotta also served as crew chief. They flew over a tiny village called My Lai.

Earlier that morning, Thompson’s chopper had come upon Viet Cong suspects, captured them and took them back to the base to be interrogated. Prior to departing with the prisoners, he also noted several wounded Vietnamese villagers. After marking their location, he delivered the prisoners and then came back to be of help. When they returned they were no longer alive. While still hovering, the warrant officer saw a Vietnamese woman who had been wounded but had survived, a few hundred yards away. He then he saw her killed by a US officer, Capt. Ernest Medina, who was the commander of Company C. (Medina would later claim he thought she had a grenade.) Thompson and crew then spotted the infamous ditch and what was apparently some survivors among the Vietnamese.

“It looks to me like there’s an awful lot of unnecessary killing going on down there. Something ain’t right about this. There’s bodies everywhere. There’s a ditch full of bodies that we saw. There’s something wrong here.”
Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson’s radio message.

Thompson landed his chopper, thinking they may be able to provide some assistance to the wounded Vietnamese civilians. A sergeant on the ground told Thompson that the only help they needed was to kill them. It was then that a young second lieutenant, leader of the First Platoon, Company C, named William Calley approached Thompson and a conversation ensued. Calley, as a commisioned officer outranked Thompson.

Thompson: What’s going on here, lieutenant?
Calley: This is my business.
Thompson: What is this? Who are these people?
Calley: Just following orders.
Thompson: Orders? Whose orders?
Calley: Just following…
Thompson: But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.
Calley: Look Thompson, this is my show. I’m in charge here. It ain’t your concern.
Thompson: Yeah, great job.
Calley: You better get back in that chopper and mind your own business.
Thompson: You ain’t heard the last of this!

Thompson and his crew departed in the helicopter. Glenn Andreotta saw that those in the ditch were now being executed by Sgt. Mitchell, the same sergeant Thompson had spoken with on the ground.

“[Thompson] put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital…flew back [to headquarters], standing in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding on the table saying, ‘Notice, notice, notice’…then had the courage to testify time after time after time.”
Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt

While hovering, Andreotta  spotted more villagers who had fled into a bunker, Thompson landed the helicopter again, this time directly between the soldiers and the villagers. He told his crew to train their M-60′s on the US soldiers should they fire on the civilians or him. They then rescued the Vietnamese and evacuated them,  with the help of another gunship. After Thompson arrived at base, his report stopped further killing by Capt. Medina’s Company C.

It wasn’t until almost two years later that My Lai came to the attention of the American public. Spc. Andreotta was killed in action three weeks after My Lai. After being shot down numerous times, Thompson was severely wounded with a broken back when crash landing after his helicopter was hit. He was sent to Japan to recuperate. Lawrence Colburn and Hugh Thompson would both testify at the courts martial and remained close friends until  Thompson’s death from cancer, January 6, 2006.

The only conviction in the courts martial of the 26 men charged was Lt. Calley, who was sentenced to life for premeditated murder. He was placed under house arrest for three years and received a reduction in his sentence three days after his conviction by President Richard Nixon.

Thirty years to the day after the My Lai massacre, Thompson, Colburn and Andreotta   received the Soldier’s Medal from the US Army. Sadly, Glenn Andreotta’s medal was awarded posthumously. (The Soldier’s Medal is the highest award for bravery not involving conflict with the enemy.)

Note: Many of those in Charlie Company refused to participate in the killings, some throwing down their weapons. They were in the field for a year, under conditions that I can never fully imagine, losing their friends and brothers in arms.

As Lawrence Colburn said, “And God bless the men on the ground. We would have given our lives on any day, any moment for them. Glenn did three weeks later; he was shot in the head on a mission.
 
But just like in public life, you got a percentage of wackos. (At My Lai) their leaders didn’t stop them. We’re talking about 30 guys led by Commanders Lt. Stephen Brooks, Lt. William Calley and Capt. Medina. It was extremely poor leadership. Instead of nipping it in the bud, they escalated it.”

 The ‘”little boy” from the ditch that Colburn rescued is now a man. Do Hoa, remembers everything.

“It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did,” Army Maj. Gen. Michael Ackerman said at the 1998 ceremony. The three “set the standard for all soldiers to follow.”

The atrocities committed at My Lai are a shameful stain upon our history – but may we never judge the vast majority of those who served honorably with the disgraceful actions of a few.  And may we always honor these brave men – Hugh Thompson, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn.