Donald R. McClarey
More Movies For a Memorial Day Weekend
Last year I gave my top ten picks for movies for Memorial Day weekend. Go here to read that post. Here are more films, in no particular order as to merit, to help remember those who went into harm’s way for us:
10. The Gallant Hours (1960)-James Cagney as Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, video clip at the beginning of this post, the film highlighting Halsey’s brilliant leadership in the fierce naval battles that raged around Guadalcanal in 1942. The importance of Guadalcanal was put succinctly by Halsey: “Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure. After Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours”.
9. John Paul Jones (1959)- Robert Stack, just before he rose to fame in the Untouchables, is grand in the role of the archetypal American sea hero. Bette Davis is absolutely unforgettable as Catherine the Great. The climactic sea battle with the Serapis is well done, especially for those pre-CGI days. The only problem with the film is that many of the details are wrong. This is forgivable to a certain extent since scholarship on Jones was badly skewed by Augustus Buell in a two volume “scholarly biography” which appeared in 1900. Buell was a charlatan who made up many incidents about Jones and then invented sources to support his fabrications. Buell was not completely exposed until Samuel Eliot Morison, Harvard professor of history, and an Admiral in the Navy, wrote his definitive biography of Jones. Here is a list of the fabrications of Buell compiled by Morison. Morison’s book appeared after the movie, which is to be regretted.
8. The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)-This film earned John Wayne his first Oscar nomination as best actor. (Broderick Crawford would win for his stunning performance in All The King’s Men.) Wayne was initially reluctant to take the role, partly because he had not fought in World War II, and partly because he saw script problems and didn’t like the character of Sergeant Stryker as initially written in the screen play. (There is evidence that Wayne, 34 at the time of Pearl Harbor, and with 3 kids, did attempt to volunteer in 1943 for the Marine Corps with assignment to John Ford’s OSS Field Photographic Unit, but was turned down.)
Wayne was convinced to take the role because the film had the enthusiastic backing of the Marine Corps, which viewed it as a fitting tribute to the Marines who fought in the Pacific, and to help combat a move in Congress to abolish the Corps. Marine Commandant Clifton B. Cates went to see Wayne to request that he take the role and Wayne immediately agreed. (Thus began a long association of John Wayne with the Marine Corps, including Wayne narrating a tribute to Marine Lieutenant General Chesty Puller.)
Appearing in the film were several Marine veterans of the Pacific, including Colonel David Shoup, who earned a Medal of Honor for his heroism at Tarawa, and who would later serve as a Commandant of the Corps, and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Crow who led a Marine battalion at Tarawa. The Marine Corp hymn is sung in the film after the death of Wayne’s character, one of ten films in which a Wayne character died, and as the raising of the flag is recreated.
Taking part in the flag raising were Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes and John Bradley, the three survivors of the six flag raisers who survived the battle. (The three men who raised the flag and subsequently died in the battle were Franklin Sousely, Harlon Block and Michael Strank.) (First Lieutenant Harold Schrier, who led the flag raising party that raised the first, smaller, flag on Mount Suribachi, and who was awarded a Navy Cross and a Silver Star for his heroism on Iwo Jima, also appeared in the film.) The flag on top of Mount Suribachi could be seen across the island, and was greeted with cheers by the Marines and blaring horns by the ships of the Navy. A mass was said on Mount Suribachi at the time of the flag raising and I have written about that here. Go here to see the ending of the Sands of Iwo Jima and listen to the Marines’ Hymn.
7. The Horse Soldiers (1959)-In 1959 John Ford and John Wayne, in the last of their “cavalry collaborations”, made The Horse Soldiers, a film based on Harold Sinclair’s novel of the same name published in 1956, which is a wonderful fictionalized account of Grierson’s Raid.
Perhaps the most daring and successful Union cavaly raid of the war, Colonel Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher and band leader from Jacksonville, Illinois, who, after being bitten by a horse at a young age, hated horses, led from April 17-May 2, 1863 1700 Illinois and Iowa troopers through 600 miles of Confederate territory from southern Tennessee to the Union held Baton Rouge in Louisiana. Grierson and his men ripped up railroads, burned Confederate supplies and tied down many times their number of Confederate troops and succeeded in giving Grant a valuable diversion as he began his movement against Vicksburg. The film is a fine remembrance of the courage of the soldiers North and South who fought in our war without an enemy.
6. Red Tails (2012)- This film was released on Blueray this week, and I have been viewing it and enjoying it immensely.
Blacks have served in all of America’s wars, in spite of the racial hatred that was often directed against them during their service. In World War II the military was still segregated, and opposition to blacks serving as pilots was intense. However, the Army Air Corps could not ignore that blacks had passed the tests to qualify as aviation cadets. Trained at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama, the 99th Pursuit squadron was activated in 1941 and sent overseas to North Africa in April 1943.
The 99th served in the Sicilian Campaign and in Italy. In the Spring of 1944 it was joined by the 100th, 301st and 302nd pursuit squadrons and formed the all black 332nd fighter group. The 332nd flew as escorts for bombers flying bombing raids into Czechoslavakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Germany. The 332nd became known as the Red Tails, or Red Tail Angels, for the red paint on the tails of their planes, and for the skill with which they guarded the bombers they escorted. The men of the 332nd in their time in combat destroyed 261 enemy planes, damaged another 148, and flew a total of 15,533 combat sorties. They suffered 66 pilots killed. 95 Distinguished Flying Crosses for heroism were earned by the pilots, along with other awards for valor, and the 332nd received three President Unit Citations. A bomber group, the 477th Medium Bomber Group, consisting of the 616th, 617th, 618th and 619th bomber squadrons, was formed from Tuskegee Airmen, but the War ended before the unit was deployed overseas.
Red Tails, is a long overdue salute to these men who had to fight not only the enemy but the racial prejudice of many of their fellow Americans. They were a credit to their nation and to their race, the human race.
Pro-Aborts at Record Low
Pro-lifers at my alma mater, the University of Illinois, explain why they are pro-life in the above video. They are on the cutting edge of a cultural shift on abortion that is magnificent to behold. The Gallup poll on abortion released today illustrates this.
The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as “pro-choice” is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves “pro-life,” one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009. Continue reading
The Old Issue and Our Issue
The eleventh in my ongoing series examining the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. The other posts in the series may be read here, here , here , here, here , here, here, here, here and here. Kipling had a deep love of English history and a deep love of English freedom, and he well understood the turbulent conflicts over a millennium that had created that freedom. He was also keenly aware of developments in his own time, the rise of socialism first among them, that threatened the freedom he cherished. Published on September 29, 1899 at the outset of the Boer War, the poem the Old Issue is an interesting meditation on freedom and how it could be lost. Ostensibly a criticism by Kipling of the tyranny of the Boers over English settlers, the poem goes far deeper than that, and to me has a very contemporary feel:
“Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets
“Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed, “It is the King–the King we schooled aforetime!” (Trumpets in the marshes–in the eyot at Runnymede!)
“Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets, “Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall,
“It is the King!”–inexorable Trumpets– (Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)
“He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre,” warn the Trumpets, “He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will. “Hard die the Kings–ah, hard–dooms hard!” declare the Trumpets, (Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!)
Ancient and Unteachable, abide–abide the Trumpets! Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets– Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!
All we have of freedom, all we use or know– This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw– Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law–
Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing, Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.
Till our fathers ‘stablished, after bloody years, How our King is one with us, first among his peers.
So they bought us freedom–not at little cost– Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost.
Over all things certain, this is sure indeed, Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.
Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure, Whining “He is weak and far;” crying “Time shall cure.”
(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins, Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)
Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace, Suffer not the old King here or overseas.
They that beg us barter–wait his yielding mood– Pledge the years we hold in trust–pawn our brother’s blood–
Howso’ great their clamour, whatso’er their claim, Suffer not the old King under any name!
He shall mark our goings, question whence we came, Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.
Here is naught unproven–here is naught to learn, It is written what shall fall if the King return.
He shall take a tribute; toll of all our ware; He shall change our gold for arms–arms we may not bear.
He shall break his Judges if they cross his word; He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.
He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring Watchers ‘neath our windows, lest we mock the King–
Hate and all divisions; hosts of hurrying spies; Money poured in secret; carrion breeding flies.
Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay, These shall deal our Justice: sell–deny–delay.
We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse, For the Land we look to–for the Tongue we use.
We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet, while his hired captains jeer us in the street.
Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun, Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.
Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled, Laying on a new land evil of the old–
Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain– All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.
Here is naught at venture, random or untrue– Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew.
Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid: Step for step and word for word–so the old Kings did!
Step by step and word by word: who is ruled may read. Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed–
All the right they promise–all the wrong they bring. Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King! Continue reading
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter the Movie!
Born in a valley in Ken-tuck-ee
Greenest state in the Land of the Free
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree
Kilt him a vamp when he was only three.
A-bie, A-bie Lincoln, King of the vamp free frontier!
After the book Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, one had to know the movie was inevitable! It is being released on June 22. Historically, Lincoln was portrayed as a vampire in some cartoons by critics during the Civil War, but I do not believe that he was ever accused of killing one! Here is a video that was done to promote the book when it was first published:
See You In Court Mr. Obama
By this time I rather suspect that at least some of his campaign strategists, if not President Obama, are beginning to wonder if it was such a bright idea to pick a fight with the Catholic Church in an election year. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air gives us the details on 43 lawsuits filed simultaneously around the country today attacking the HHS mandate as blatantly unconstitutional:
Today’s Roman Catholic calendar lists May 21st as the feast day of St. Christopher Magallanes, a martyr killed for celebrating Mass during the Cristero War in Mexico. Perhaps Catholics today may want to recall St. Thomas More — the patron saint of lawyers, who was executed for refusing to agree to a mandate that gave Henry VIII the prerogative of defining religious expression in England. Dozens of Catholic institutions filed lawsuits today against the Department of Health and Human Services over its mandate and its narrow definition of religious practice:
Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, claiming their “fundamental rights hang in the balance.”
The plaintiffs include a host of schools and organizations, including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of New York. The lawsuits, though related, were filed individually.
The schools are objecting to the requirement from the federal health care overhaul that employers provide access to contraceptive care. The Obama administration several months back softened its position on the mandate, but some religious organizations complained the administration did not go far enough to ensure the rule would not compel them to violate their religious beliefs.
Kathryn Jean Lopez posts a brief statement from Timothy Cardinal Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and one of the chief critics of the HHS mandate:
We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there’s still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It’s also a great show of the diversity of the Church’s ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate – ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all. Continue reading
Georgetown: the Anti-Catholic Catholic University
William Peter Blatty, well-known novelist, author of the Exorcist, a Georgetown graduate, class of 1950, is spearheading an effort to force Georgetown to reform, or to cease to call itself Catholic. Here is his letter:
Dear Friends,
I invite you today to join me in The Father King Society to Make Georgetown Honest, Catholic, and Better by signing on to a very special effort here. I ask you also to curtail your donations to Georgetown University for one year.
The late Jesuit Father Thomas M. King was a good friend. I had the privilege of lecturing his theology class, which started the rumor that he had inspired my priestly character in The Exorcist. Father King inspired many other things; and our effort now.
On May 5, 2012, in a speech to American bishops, Pope Benedict XVI called on America’s Catholic universities to reaffirm their Catholic identity. The Pope noted the failure of many Catholic universities to comply with Blessed John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae. The Pope said that preservation of a university’s Catholic identity “entails much more than the teaching of religion or the mere presence of a chaplaincy on campus.”
For 21 years now. Georgetown University has refused to comply with Ex corde Ecclesiaie (“From The Heart of the Church”), and, therefore, with canon law. And, it seems as if every month GU gives another scandal to the faithful! The most recent is Georgetown’s obtuse invitation to Secretary Sebelius to be a commencement speaker.
Each of these scandals is proof of Georgetown’s non-compliance with Ex corde Ecclesiae and canon law. They are each inconsistent with a Catholic identity, and we all know it. A university in solidarity with the Church would not do these prideful things that do so much harm to our communion. (You can pen a heartfelt letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington and the Holy Father offering your own experience here.)
In the months to come, The Father King Society will ask Georgetown and the Church for explanations and decisions. In 1991, in an effort led by courageous Georgetown students, my dearly missed classmate, GU Law Center Prof. Richard Alan Gordon, took the awesome step of submitting a canon law petition asking the Church to remove Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic. Then Dean of Students John J. DeGioia had authorized the funding of a pro-abortion student advocacy group. A contemporaneous secret memorandum from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities to the presidents of all Jesuit institutions showed us that Dr. DeGioia’s decision was part of a larger scheme: GU was to be the dissident leader for others to follow. Dean Gordon’s effort was provocative and drastic, but within months of the filing, Rome required Georgetown to reverse itself, and Georgetown did.
Father Tom King was actively involved and submitted an essay to be used in support of the canon law action. (We post it here.) Soon after the 1991 “GU Choice” funding, a meeting took place on campus that collected the students, teachers, alumni and parents who had reacted to the University’s scandal in diverse ways. Fr. King listened intently, and then the mild-speaking priest told us of a call the night before from his brother, also a priest. His brother had said, “Tom, you have to choose sometimes — either you fish or cut bait.” Father King told us that he had decided to fish. And now, at long last, so have I. I ask you to join us!
For almost two decades, The Cardinal Newman Society has pursued with true inspiration and devotion its unique ministry to strengthen Catholic higher education in America. CNS has agreed to help us. Likewise, the St. Joseph’s Foundation, a Texas charity that focuses on canon law, has been a source of valuable information. We appreciate the help of both apostolates.
We may choose to file a canon action again, one much larger in scale and seeking alternative forms of relief that will include, among others, that Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit be revoked or suspended for a time. We will ask for lesser relief as well. Of course, what we truly seek is for Georgetown to have the vision and courage to be Catholic but clearly the slow pastoral approach has not worked. I invite you to sign the “Mandate of Procurator” on this website so that I, and other alumni, parents, teachers and students, may represent you in this special and historic Church petition. Continue reading
Pope Leo The Great on the Ascension
I. The Ascension completes our faith in Him, who was God as well as man
The mystery of our salvation, dearly-beloved, which the Creator of the universe valued at the price of His blood, has now been carried out under conditions of humiliation from the day of His bodily birth to the end of His Passion. And although even in “the form of a slave” many signs of Divinity have beamed out, yet the events of all that period served particularly to show the reality of His assumed Manhood. But after the Passion, when the chains of death were broken, which had exposed its own strength by attacking Him, Who was ignorant of sin, weakness was turned into power, mortality into eternity, contumely into glory, which the Lord Jesus Christ showed by many clear proofs in the sight of many, until He carried even into heaven the triumphant victory which He had won over the dead. As therefore at the Eastern commemoration, the Lord’s Resurrection was the cause of our rejoicing; so the subject of our present gladness is His Ascension, as we commemorate and duly venerate that day on which the Nature of our humility in Christ was raised above all the host of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father. On which Providential order of events we are founded and built up, that God’s Grace might become more wondrous, when, notwithstanding the removal from men’s sight of what was rightly felt to command their awe, faith did not fail, hope did not waver, love did not grow cold. For it is the strength of great minds and the light of firmly-faithful souls, unhesitatingly to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight, and there to fix one’s affections whither you cannot direct your gaze. And whence should this Godliness spring up in our hearts, or how should a man be justified by faith, if our salvation rested on those things only which lie beneath our eyes? Hence our Lord said to him who seemed to doubt of Christ’s Resurrection, until he had tested by sight and touch the traces of His Passion in His very Flesh, “because you have seen Me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed John 20:29 .” Continue reading
O Say Can You See?
Something for the weekend. The Star Spangled Banner. Often assailed by critics as unsingable, too war-like and on other grounds, I love it and I am proud that it is our National Anthem. It is an interesting song for a national anthem in that the first stanza, the one we all attempt to sing, has an important question at the end of it: Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That particular question has to be asked by each generation of Americans, ours no less than the generations who came before us.
Here is a superb video giving the historical back ground behind the writing of The Star Spangled Banner:
Sad Joe
Rumors have been afloat lately that Obama is set to dump Biden. Judging from the frenzied, one might say hysterical, tone of Biden in the speech earlier this week featured in the video clip above, one might well believe that Biden is looking at the political hook coming toward him. This might explain why Biden forced Obama’s hand on gay marriage by coming out in favor of it before Obama did. Rule one of being Veep is never upstaging the POTUS. Presumably Biden believes that if he is beloved of the base of the Democrat party, Obama will not dump him. Alas, strategizing, indeed thinking of any sort, has never been Biden’s strong suit.
Unfortunately Biden matters not one whit to the Democrat base, and by acting out he merely convinces Obama that perhaps it is time that Joe meet the acquaintance of the many individuals and groups that Obama has thrown under the bus in his political career.
This is all so unfair. Joe Biden, as beloved national clown, has been one of the few success stories of this administration. Imagine how much grimmer the past four years would have been without the comic stylings of Jollie Joe. Poltical pratfalls and endless gaffes, a tireless willingness to play the complete buffoon, nothing has been beneath Biden in his endless task to lighten the mood of the nation. I therefore announce the formation of the Biden Forever Superpac. We will do everything in our power to keep Joe on the ticket. Save Joe! I pray that we prevail, but if we fail, we will always have YouTube to remember Joe by! Continue reading
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