F.D.R. as Commander in Chief

 

       In the summer and fall of 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted wars in both Europe and Asia. In Europe, a remilitarized Nazi Germany dominated most of the continent and threatened to complete its domination with the capture of Moscow and by bludgeoning England into submission. In Asia, Japan was not only continuing its conquest of China, it had moved into French Indo-China. There was little Roosevelt could do directly to halt either war. The ability of a president to make policy decisions is limited by the extent to which he can convince the American public to support him. Since American public opinion at that time would not support a declaration of war in either Europe or Asia, all Roosevelt could do was support England with liberalized trade, and impose economic sanctions on the Japanese. If those sanctions failed, however, more direct military action might prove necessary. Roosevelt hoped the sanctions would prove so burdensome to the Japanese that they would lead to renewed talks about a peaceful solution, but at the same time, he also understood America must be prepared to accept war if Japan so chose.

In September of 1940, Roosevelt stated the American policy toward the growing conflict in Europe and the Pacific, “I stand…as President of all the people, on the platform… ‘We will not participate in foreign wars, and we will not send our army, naval or air forces to fight in foreign lands outside of the Americas, except in case of attack’.” Sixteen days later, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, creating an alliance and the birth of the Axis Powers in the upcoming Second World War. There was now a dual threat in both the European and Pacific Theaters which posed an even greater threat to the United States. Roosevelt wrote to Ambassador to Japan Joseph C. Grew, in response to the Tripartite Pact that the United States is “engaged in the task of defending our way of life” and “Our strategy of self-defense must be a global strategy which takes account of every front.” In the aftermath of this alliance, it became ever clear the policy of appeasement had failed in Europe and was not working in Asia. Regarding the Pacific Theatre, the Empire of Japan secured Manchuria in 1931, invaded further into China in 1937, later becoming known as the Second Sino-Japanese War, and occupied French Indo-China in 1940. From this point forward, tensions between the United States and Imperial Japan became increasingly dire. Correspondence between the two nations shows, on both sides, that an understanding and agreement needed to be made in order to prevent an open conflict. In response to the Tripartite Pact, Roosevelt ended the exportation of all scrap iron and steel to Japan.

Pre WWII Japanese propaganda "Japan Has Woken Up"

        To understand the policies of the Japanese Empire, one must understand how their culture had a profound impact. Japan, at this time, was a proud and traditional country, and when Japan transformed from a feudal society believing in isolationism to an industrial war-machine bound on expansion, there was much strife and disagreement among the population. According to historian Stephen Pelz, “During the feudal period, an inferior had been able to make a public protest only on pain of death; therefore, when conditions became intolerable, the loyal samurai would commit suicide, thereby hoping to induce his master to self-reflection.” This perverse traditional style carried over into the transformation of Japan and quickly became a method to showcase the disapproval of their leaders. This “suicide for a cause”, along with political assassinations, were the methods of choice used to succeed in their ultimate goal of having the army and the navy take control of the government and away from the politicians. These demonstrations of disapproval were predominately conducted by young members of the military to instill fear in the Japanese high command. Fear of assassinations caused the “influential group around the Emperor…to keep their lord safe by appeasing the military.” This split the nation into two factions: the treaty faction, who favored diplomacy, and the military faction which sought confrontation.

       The military faction eventually accomplished its goal of controlling both the army and the navy through intimidation, and as a result, began Japanese expansion by invading Manchuria in the fall of 1931. However, the treaty faction still controlled the Foreign Office which determined diplomatic dealings with other countries such as the United States. The Japanese Ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura, was a member of this treaty faction,

and as a result, was never in the full loop of the decisions being made back in Japan. Thus, while President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull heard one thing from Nomura, they were seeing different results from Japan. This military faction used this to their advantage. While Nomura fed Roosevelt and Hull with promises of peace and justified occupation, the army and navy continued their military conquest of the South-Western Pacific.

Kichisaburo Nomura

Cordell Hull

 On July 24, 1941, the same day the Japanese invaded and occupied French Indo-China, Acting United States Secretary of State Sumner Welles met with Japanese Ambassador Nomura. Nomura told him that the military occupation of French Indo-China was, “to assure to Japan an uninterrupted source of supply of rice, and other food stuffs” and “the need for military security.” On the very same day, at the 41st Liaison Conference, Minister Soemu Toyoda, who supported the military faction, declared, “I would like to get the United States to understand that the present occupation of French Indo-China is not a military occupation, but something that is based on the Empire’s need and was arranged after agreement with the French.” This “agreement with the French” however, was with the French Vichy Government which had just been installed as a puppet head of state following the German occupation of France in the summer of 1940. The Japanese presented similar justifications for the occupation of Manchuria. Their real ambition was to acquire natural resources - especially coal and iron ore.

In defense of their occupation of French Indo-China, Ambassador Nomura argued the Japanese could not withdraw without “losing face”. The Japanese belief of “face” coincided with a person’s reputation and honor, and how they were perceived by others. To leave French Indo-China directly after occupying would bring shame and embarrassment to the government. President Roosevelt questioned Nomura asking if Japan occupied French Indo-China “due to German pressure upon Japan?” This was a very formidable argument for Roosevelt to present, for he believed Japan felt threatened by how much progress Germany was making in Europe.

The basis for Roosevelt’s idea dates back to when, in the early 1930’s, Hitler began exercising German dominance in Europe and by 1941, had already occupied the Rhineland, annexed Austria, taken Czechoslovakia, conquered Poland and France, invaded Russia and was knocking on Moscow’s door. Hitler had taken Germany from the depths of depression and turned her into a world power in a fraction of the time it took Japan since she emerged as a world power at the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. Roosevelt thought wrong. The military faction, who by this time was in control of the government, actually admired how well Germany made progress in Europe and sought to bring a parallel in the Pacific.

Due to European Colonialism, many of the countries in Europe owned territory in the Pacific. As Germany steamrolled through Europe, it left many targets available for the Japanese to move in and conquer virtually unopposed, territories such as French Indo-China, the Netherlands East Indies, and British Malaya. President Roosevelt, however, did not understand why military force needed to be used. This same military force was responsible for the genocide in the Rape of Nanjing which became part of a campaign the Japanese called the China Incident. The fact that the Japanese called it the China Incident shows their intention to appear to the world as a peace seeking nation, and not the imperialistic nation for which it really was. The Japanese began to murder on a mass scale. In two months during the Rape of Nanjing, “Japanese soldiers raped seven thousand women, murdered hundreds of thousands of unarmed soldiers and civilians, and burned one-third of the homes in Nanjing. Four hundred thousand Chinese lost their lives as Japanese soldiers used them for bayonet practice and machine-gunned them into open pits.”

Henry L. Stimson

In the very same month, the Japanese were also responsible for the sinking of the U.S.S. Panay. The Panay was an American gunboat on a river near the town of Nanjing that was attacked by Japanese bombers even though she was clearly marked with three separate American flags. This incident was resolved by “the acceptance of an indemnity of $2,214,007.36.” A critic of Roosevelt’s policies toward Japan, historian Charles C. Tansill claims, “The whole matter had been handled with admirable restraint by the officials of both countries. It is greatly to be regretted that this pacific spirit soon faded away.” Tansill believes Roosevelt and his cabinet intentionally forced Japan into a situation where they felt compelled to attack in order to bring about the United States entry into World War II. Tansill quotes Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who wrote in his Diary on November 25, 1941, “The question is how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves.”

It became clearer that Japanese intentions during the China Incident were not just for resources, but there was little to nothing Roosevelt could do to intervene. The United States, at that time, was still in the midst of recovery from the Great Depression, and public opinion, which desired to stay out of a foreign war, would not tolerate any intervention.

The day after the Japanese invaded French Indo-China, Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States, essentially ending most trade between the two nations. Since the United States supplied much of the raw materials needed by the Japanese war-machine, Roosevelt severely limited the Empire’s ability to expand. His hope was that Japan would stop its expansionist program and resume a free and openly based form of trade in the Pacific. In correspondence between the American Ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew, and the President, Grew warned Roosevelt of the impact an oil embargo would have. It would cause Japan to invade the Dutch East Indies to which the President replied, “Then we could easily intercept her fleet.” This response from Roosevelt makes historian Tansill believe, “he was thinking in terms of war with Japan.” However, this conversation between Roosevelt and Grew took place in September of 1939, long before the Japanese invaded French Indo-China, economic sanctions were used, and a diplomatic solution still seemed attainable.

Excluded from these sanctions was the much needed resource of oil. Before the Japanese invaded French Indo-China, Roosevelt was in a particular bind. He did not want to stop the exportation of oil to Japan, and even acknowledged that discontinuing the exportation of oil to the Japanese would force them to move into the Netherlands East Indies to fulfill their determination to become economically self-sufficient. In a meeting with Nomura, President Roosevelt explained the reasons for the exclusion of oil. It was because the United States recognized, “that if these oil supplies had been shut off or restricted the Japanese Government and people would have been furnished with an incentive,” to invade the Netherlands East Indies and, “assure themselves of a greater oil supply than that which, under present conditions, they were able to obtain.” This exclusion of oil was then an effort to continue diplomatic relations with the Japanese in hopes of a peaceful solution.

The later addition of oil to the sanctions came about because Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson assumed that the decision to include oil among the embargo items had already been made. He therefore publicly announced the freezing of assets was an “embargo” against the Japanese Empire. But, according to historian Herbert Feis, “he did not explain how far short of one it would be.” The public greeted this statement with approval thinking Roosevelt had cut all ties of trade with the Japanese. The British and the Dutch followed shortly after with their own embargoes on Japan and, within a matter of days, Japan lost 90 percent of its oil imports. Though Roosevelt did not want this policy carried forward, he did not speak out and bring clarity to Acheson’s assumptions. There are two primary reasons for this. The first was that the overall reaction from the general public to this announcement was positive. Moreover, if he reversed what had been done, Roosevelt and his cabinet would appear as if they had surrendered to Japanese aggression. He now had public approval to go forward with a policy that was more vocal because it was backed by the people of the United States. By this point, Roosevelt knew the Japanese war-machine’s true intentions. Careful reading of the multiple proposals for peace by the United States after the Japanese invaded French Indo-China, suggested an ultimatum was set in which the Japanese must stop their expansionism or the United States would intervene to protect American interests in the Pacific. Such a policy as this was one the Japanese would not accept. Historian Jonathan Utley claims this embargo, “placed a time limit on peace in the Pacific.”

Both Roosevelt and Welles acknowledged and sympathized with Japan’s quest for natural resources, but resented the manner in which they did it by military force. In explaining the American policy to Japanese Minister, Mr. Kaname Wakasugi, in a meeting August 4, 1941, Welles told Wakasugi that the policy of the United States had been made perfectly clear in letters “exchanged between the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, to public statements made by the Secretary of State and by the President and other officials.” He declared that Japan’s policy was deemed, “intolerable by the United States,” and if Japan’s military conquest continued it would, “inevitably result in armed hostilities in the Pacific.” Less than two weeks later, Roosevelt explained to Ambassador Nomura that if Japan expanded any further into the Pacific “by force or threat of force,” the government of the United States would, “take immediately any and all steps which it may deem necessary toward safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the United States and American nationals and toward insuring the safety and security of the United States.”

Joseph C. Grew

Joseph C. Grew, was the best kept secret of American policy in dealing with Japan prior to the outbreak of war. Assuming his ambassadorial duties to Japan in 1932, Grew saw first-hand the actions, policies, and intentions of the Japanese Empire. He foresaw the growing threat of the Japanese and warned Roosevelt and his staff of the impending conflict that would stem as a result thereof. He wrote Roosevelt a year in advance of the attack at Pearl Harbor that, “we are bound to have a showdown someday” with Japan and he questioned whether or not it was in America’s best interest to have this showdown, “sooner or to have it later,” Grew claimed Japan had become one of the “predatory nations…which aims to wreck about everything that the United States stands for.” He also believed the economic sanctions on Japan would, “seriously handicap Japan in the long run,” but that these sanctions only reinforced Japan’s idea of making herself economically self-sufficient. Taking all these factors into consideration, Grew believed the problem with Japan should be dealt with immediately because, “the principal point at issue…is not whether we must call a halt to the Japanese program, but when.”

 

Grew’s insight was extremely valuable to President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull, for Grew was the eyes and ears of the United States. In a telegram to Hull, dated January 27, 1941, Grew wrote, “the Japanese military forces planned, in the event of trouble with the United States, to attempt a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor using all of their military facilities.” Grew learned of this from a colleague, who deemed it was important enough to tell him after hearing it from multiple sources of information. Only two months later he wrote to Hull that over the weekend in the main streets of Osaka, “anti-American, British, and Chinese posters have been observed,” and they contained “crude caricatures of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Chiang Kai-Shek being struck by a hammer and the caption in translation, ‘Strike the enemies of the Imperial nation’.” Grew’s point to Roosevelt and Hull was that if either the United States or the Empire of Japan continued their course of action, it will become inevitable in some point of time that a military conflict will arise. Grew then revealed the propaganda being used by the military faction in a telegram to the Secretary of State. “Japanese press continues to emphasize economic encirclement by American and British in form of freezing orders and export bans and Japan’s preparedness against all eventualities.” The Japanese Empire believed the American policy in regards to their expansion was to contain, and control their empire, through coercion, by the use of sanctions - which was not entirely false. By this point, Roosevelt was using these sanctions to put pressure on the Japanese Empire in hopes of a peaceful settlement.

Correspondence from Grew to Hull in the latter months of 1941 described how the embargo on Japan and the freezing of assets have taken its toll on the Japanese economy. Grew reported an “increasing seriousness” in the economic situation, and that multiple reports pointed towards a “progressive decline” in the industrial production on goods due to the “scarcity” of supplies and a skilled labor force. Grew then labeled the international financial position as, “embarrassing.”

 

Operation MAGIC

As November drew to a close, tensions between the two nations grew. Conspiracy theorists argue that, by this time, the United States had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code through a program called MAGIC; an allied cryptanalysis program used to decipher Japanese code, and had known of the impending Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. This is the backbone of the “Back Door” argument on how Roosevelt let the Japanese attack the United States at Pearl Harbor. Historian Mark A. Stoler argues, “American cryptographers had indeed broken the Japanese code, but it was their diplomatic code, not any army or navy code. Consequently, Roosevelt and his advisors knew from MAGIC that a Japanese attack was imminent if agreement was not reached by November 29.” This agreement was of a diplomatic nature and therefore, alerted the United States of an attack, but, “they did not know where that attack would take place or what the overall Japanese war plan was... and Japanese troop ships had been spotted heading south.” This led Roosevelt to believe the Japanese planned to attack either the Dutch East Indies or the Philippines, well away from Pearl Harbor.

 

One viable option for Roosevelt in response to these rapid troop movements, was to challenge the Japanese command and call for an immediate stop to it, but instead, on November 27, he issued a “war warning” to the American commanders in the Pacific. If Roosevelt had contacted the Japanese command and demanded them to cease all troop movements, it would have alerted the Japanese to the American penetration of their diplomatic code. Grew issued Hull another warning in mid-November, emphasizing a “need for guarding against sudden military or naval actions by Japan,” and that the Japanese would, “exploit all available tactical advantages, including those of initiative and surprise.” However, Grew made clear that the United States should not give prior warning because the “control in Japan over military information” is “extremely effective.” This suggests that Grew may have believed that lives lost in a surprise Japanese attack would be outweighed by the overall benefits of knowing the Japanese diplomatic code.

The letters and correspondence from Roosevelt, Welles, and Hull all suggest that when in communication with the Japanese heads of state, the intention was to find a peaceful diplomatic solution. It was the Japanese policy of ‘Expansion by Force’ that brought about the attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. There is no evidence to support the claim that Roosevelt purposely tightened the screws so hard on Japan economically, that it forced them to attack. All of Roosevelt’s policies were conducted in response to Japanese aggression in the Pacific. Yes, Roosevelt could have publicly announced that oil would not be a part of the sanctions against Japan, reversing Acheson’s announcement, but with public opinion turning to an anti-Japanese mood after the invasion of French Indo-China, Roosevelt used this to his advantage. It was clear to him, by that point, the intentions of the Japanese and their need to expand.

With the military actions of the Japanese, the failure of diplomatic negotiations, and the oft-repeated warnings from Grew, it was only a matter of time before the Japanese attacked, and forced the United States into the bloody conflict of World War II. Roosevelt and his cabinet presented a very clear stance in their disdain for Japanese aggression and pursuance of peaceful negotiations. The sanctions Roosevelt employed had a drastic effect on the Japanese economy, but the Japanese did not respond in the way Roosevelt would have hoped. Instead, the Japanese invariably continued their expansion into the South-Western Pacific. They showed a total disregard to the peoples of that region, and eventually attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, bringing about the American entry into World War II.

 

Why Some Civil War Soldiers Glowed in the Dark

 .....Some of the Shiloh soldiers sat in the mud for two rainy days and nights waiting for the medics to get around to them. As dusk fell the first night, some of them noticed something very strange: their wounds were glowing, casting a faint light into the darkness of the battlefield. Even stranger, when the troops were eventually moved to field hospitals, those whose wounds glowed had a better survival rate and had their wounds heal more quickly and cleanly than their unilluminated brothers in-arms.The seemingly protective effect of the mysterious light earned it the nickname “Angel’s Glow.”

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This Day In History - January 28, 1986 - The Challenger Disaster

DESERT STORM-THE NIGHT OF THE TOMAHAWK

DESERT STORM-THE NIGHT OF THE TOMAHAWK

The First Night 16/17 January, 1991

On the afternoon of 16 January, 1991, I was sitting at my General Quarter’s (GQ) Station, “Sky 4”, which was a 5 inch gun mount director station, aboard the USS Wisconsin (BB-64), located somewhere in the Persian Gulf. As the Marine Detachment Executive Officer, manning the 5 inch Gun Mount Director Officer’s Station was one of my collateral duties. My primary responsibility was to command the ship’s Marine Detachment (MARDET) Guard Force. The MARDET consisted of over 60 Marines who conducted a myriad of tasks to include guarding ”special weapons”, providing the Security Alert Force, Back-Up Alert Force, manning a 5 inch Gun Mount, and operating 4 - .50 caliber machine guns located around the main deck of the ship. My immediate boss was a Marine Captain who commanded the entire detachment and also manned “Sky 3”.

By way of background the USS Wisconsin was a World War II, Iowa class battleship. At 887 feet long and weighing in at over 57,000 tons it is one of the most powerful ships ever constructed. In its modern day configuration it is armed with 9-16 inch guns, 12-5 inch guns, 4-20mm Phalanx Close-in Weapons Systems (CWIS), 16 Harpoon ship-to-ship missiles and 32 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM). The ship was originally commissioned on 16 April, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She participated in some of the most fierce battles and campaigns of World War II to include the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and even bombarded the mainland of Japan on more than one occasion. In 1951, during the Korean War, she would once again be called into action and deliver naval gunfire support for our troops. Wisconsin earned five battle stars for her World War II service and one for Korea. After service in 3 wars and multiple campaigns over a 50 year span she is one of the most highly decorated ships in the history of the United States Navy.

In November of 1957 Wisconsin was decommissioned and mothballed. She remained in mothballs until she was modernized during the 1980’s. President Ronald Reagan began an effort to expand the Navy to 600 ships. He never reached that goal, but he was successful in re-commissioning and modernizing all 4 Iowa Class battleships.

Over the last six months I'd spent a lot of time in my GQ station. It was a painful sweat box of a place; a saddle bicycle seat that had no back support, in a completely armored turret, with only a plexiglas bubble to look out of. In the searing heat of the Persian Gulf it could become a very miserable place to live. Inhabiting and enduring this armored sweat box, with me, were three superb sailors who manned and operated the tracking radar attached to the top of the station. Our ship had departed Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 August, 1990, originally scheduled to do a normal Mediterranean (Med) Cruise. However, after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, our ship left port and steamed immediately into the Persian Gulf. From August until January the routine aboard the ship involved countless gunnery drills, training events, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) exercises, general quarter’s drills, underway replenishment and refueling operations. 

As I sat in my GQ Station on 16 January, I watched as a helicopter landed on the deck.  It was one the standard “milk-runs” by a Navy squadron known throughout the gulf as the “Desert Ducks’. One of my unofficial jobs, while I sat in my station, was to count the number of mailbags that came off the helicopter. You could determine how high or low the morale on the ship was going to be over the next day by the number of mailbags that came off the helo. Long before the advent of email this was the only way to maintain contact with home. Mail usually took about 3 weeks to reach us in the middle of the Persian Gulf.  I also noticed some “pool” reporters get off the helicopter, and I observed some departing sailors, who were transferring off the ship, climb aboard the helicopter. Before long the helicopter lifted off the deck and within moments, before the helo was even out of sight, the Captain of the ship came across the loudspeaker. He announced to us that later that evening we would go to GQ and the war with Iraq would finally begin. After having spent over six months in the Persian Gulf most of us had come to the stark realization that the only way we would ever go home was after we had ejected Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi Army from Kuwait. This was welcome news to us, we were eager for battle. After all the countless drills and training we had undergone over the last 6 months, we knew we were ready.

Just before 0100, on the 17 January (1700 EST 16 Jan), the ship sounded GQ. I couldn’t sleep and was already manning my GQ Station by the time the GQ Alarm was sounded and the crew was ordered to “man battle stations”! As I peered out from my perch in Sky 4 (which was approximately 50 feet or more above the sea) I noted that there was an inky darkness about this moonless and cloudless night. The weather was calm and the water was smooth as glass. The ship operated at blacked-out conditions, at night, so it was hard to see anything except the glow of some of the instrumentation in the gun director’s station. 

Finally, at 0141, the USS Paul F Foster lunched the first Tomahawk against Iraq. I watched from my front row seat as many ships, all around us, fired their Tomahawk missiles.  It was a rather spectacular sight to behold. It’s seared into my memory and I immediately knew that this would be an historic night. I also remember thinking, as I watched the fiery tails of the Tomahawks arch into the sky, that it reminded me of the famous line from our national anthem - “the rockets’ red glare”.

Almost a half hour passed since the first missile was launched and Wisconsin had yet to shoot. None of us had actually seen a Tomahawk missile fired. At last, the loud ringing sound of the alarm told us that a missile was about to be fired.  A Tomahawk, from the armored box launchers located amidships, blasted out of its box with a loud roar and a bright ball of flame. It reminded me of a large telephone pole, with a rocket attached, as it streaked effortlessly into the sky. One could clearly see the rocket engine burning into the night and its eerie reflection upon the mirror like water as it flew towards its objective. Once the rocket booster burnt out the ship was once again shrouded in darkness. I looked up into the night sky and I saw hundreds of our aircraft with their navigation lights still on, circling overhead waiting for the Tomahawks to go in and destroy early warning sites, key command-and-control centers and electrical power stations. It was all very surrealistic.

While this was going on the sailors on my crew in Sky 4 had the radio tuned to the British Broadcasting Channel. It was the only channel we could pick up in our isolated part of the Persian Gulf. We listened as a reporter discussed last minute peace negotiations were ongoing. I remember thinking - “Too late for that!” Later that morning we would hear President Bush announce the beginning of hostilities and his famous quote, “that Kuwait would once again be free.”

We continued to fire Tomahawks. There was an armored box launcher immediately next to our GQ Station, the alarm sounded again, and we could see the launcher rising up to fire the next Tomahawk. As that Tomahawk roared out of its launcher we could look directly up its tailpipe. The violent boom of the rocket engine shook our mount and the fiery blast from the ignition blinded us while the smoke of its rocket propellant filled our GQ Station with an acidic smoke. We choked and gagged for a while and wondered if we should have put our gas masks on.

We stayed at GQ most of that night and waited to see if there would be any response by the Iraqi Army or Air Force. There was none. We would continue to fire Tomahawks over the next few days. In later weeks we would sail up off the coast of Kuwait and blast the Iraqi Army with our 16 inch guns.

Little did I know then that 17 January, 1991, would only be the opening shots in a war that would last over 20 years and consist of unintended multiple phases.  As Winston Churchill once said, during World War II, “This is not the end; this is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is the end of the beginning.”  The same could be said for Desert Storm. It became the first campaign in the long war with Iraq. The second campaign would begin almost immediately after Desert Storm, the quasi-war with Iraq, as we maintained a “no fly zone” over most of the country. The third campaign of this war would be Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2003. The fourth phase (the bloodiest and most difficult phase of the war) was the guerilla war by insurgents and the allied “surge” to ensure victory. Presently, we are in the fifth, and hopefully, final phase of the war- the withdrawal from Iraq.

 It remains to be seen how all this will turn out. Did we withdraw too soon? Will Iraq remain a stable country? Will it collapse into anarchy and civil war? That's a question that deserves debate. But now is the time to honor those Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who, over the last 20 years, sacrificed so much so that millions of people in Kuwait and Iraq can have the chance to live in a free and democratic society.

Andrew Jackson’s Big Block of Cheese

Andrew Jackson’s Big Block of Cheese by Ethan Trex

There’s a great scene in The West Wing’s episode “The Crackpots and These Women” in which White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) tries to invigorate his exasperated team with a story about how Andrew Jackson kept a two-ton block of cheese in the foyer of the White House. According to Leo’s story, Jackson left the cheese there as a populist symbol; anyone who was hungry could pop in to the White House for a quick bite to eat.

While the notion of Jackson operating a free federal snack bar is appealing, the story told by Leo isn’t totally accurate. However, it’s not all that far from the truth. Andrew Jackson did own a monstrous block of cheese.

This is its story. How did Andrew Jackson end up owning a big block of cheese?

The people loved Jackson. Jackson loved cheese. What better way to celebrate Jacksonian democracy than by sending Old Hickory himself an enormous wheel of cheese? Dairy farmer Colonel Thomas S. Meacham of Sandy Creek, NY, hit on this notion in 1835, and he had the know-how to craft a titanic cheddar. The fruit of Meacham’s labor was a wheel that was four feet in diameter and two feet thick, weighed nearly 1400 pounds, and was wrapped in a giant belt that bore patriotic inscriptions like, “The Union, it must be Preserved.”

This cheese was actually the crown jewel of a larger collection of ten cheeses that appeared at an 1835 patriotic celebration in Oswego, NY. After the locals all got a good look at the cheese and felt themselves well up with national pride, the wheel was loaded onto a schooner and set sail for its new home on Pennsylvania Avenue. Meacham sent off two other 750-pound wheels in the same shipment, one to Vice President Martin Van Buren and one to New York Governor William L. Marcy.

At some point, we’ve all received a thoughtful, touching, impractical gift and wondered, “What the hell am I going to do with this?” Jackson apparently had the same reaction when the cheese finally arrived at the White House. According to 19th-century biographer James Parton’s Life of Andrew Jackson, the old general gave giant chunks of the cheese to his friends, but he was still left with an absurdly outsized block. Jackson could conquer the Bank of the United States, but he was helpless against such a massive wheel of cheese.

By 1837 Jackson’s second term was winding down, and he wasn’t about to haul a two-year-old mountain of cheese with him when he left office. So he decided to make the famed fromage a featured player at his last public reception at the White House. It was an astute move; there’s nothing people love more than free food. The reception’s 10,000 visitors attacked the wheel of cheese with such fervor that the entire thing was gone within two hours.

The reception took care of the cheese-disposal problem, but the cheddar certainly wasn’t forgotten. There are certain downsides to sending a big honking block of cheese to a warm climate like Washington and having it sit around for a couple of years. Namely, the cheese starts to get a bit fragrant, and a block that massive can give off some serious cheese-stink. Washingtonians could allegedly smell the cheese, which one dubbed “an evil-smelling horror,” for several blocks around the White House before the big party.

Of course, if a cheese has sat in a room long enough, its aroma can permeate into the fixtures. Jackson’s successor, Van Buren, apparently found this out the hard way. The Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 13 from 1912 reprinted a letter written by former Senator John Davis’ wife, Eliza, in 1838. Mrs. Davis wrote: The White House has been put in order by its present occupant, and is vastly improved – (Van Buren) says he had a hard task to get rid of the smell of cheese, and in the room where it was cut, he had to air the carpet for many days; to take away the curtains and to paint and white-wash before he could get the victory over it. He has another cheese like that which General Jackson had cut, and says he knows not what to do with it. What a foolish thing for a man to have made such a present to him or anyone else.

While Jackson’s reception cleared the White House of one smelly wheel of cheese, there’s some evidence to suggest that he left at least one other hulking block around as a housewarming gift for Van Buren. According to Gilson Willets’ 1908 book The Inside History of the White House, Van Buren eventually held a charity auction in 1839 to get rid of the last remnants of Jackson’s old dairy holdings, a 700-pound wheel of cheddar that also came from Meacham’s New York farm.

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New Year's — History.com

New Year's — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts

Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia. Today, most New Year’s festivities begin on December 31 (New Year’s Eve), the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1 (New Year’s Day). Common traditions include attending parties, eating special New Year’s foods, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.

Early New Year's Celebrations

The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the start of a new year. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival called Akitu (derived from the Sumerian word for barley, which was cut in the spring) that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days. In addition to the new year, Atiku celebrated the mythical victory of the Babylonian sky god Marduk over the evil sea goddess Tiamat and served an important political purpose: It was during this time that a new king was crowned or that the current ruler’s divine mandate was symbolically renewed.
Throughout antiquity, civilizations around the world developed increasingly sophisticated calendars, typically pinning the first day of the year to an agricultural or astronomical event. In Egypt, for instance, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, which coincided with the rising of the star Sirius. The first day of the Chinese new year, meanwhile, occurred with the second new moon after the winter solstice.

January 1 Becomes New Year's Day

The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each new year beginning at the vernal equinox; according to tradition, it was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the eighth century B.C. A later king, Numa Pompilius, is credited with adding the months of Januarius and Februarius. Over the centuries, the calendar fell out of sync with the sun, and in 46 B.C. the emperor Julius Caesar decided to solve the problem by consulting with the most prominent astronomers and mathematicians of his time. He introduced the Julian calendar, which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most countries around the world use today.

As part of his reform, Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. Romans celebrated by offering sacrifices to Janus, exchanging gifts with one another, decorating their homes with laurel branches and attending raucous parties. In medieval Europe, Christian leaders temporarily replaced January 1 as the first of the year with days carrying more religious significance, such as December 25 (the anniversary of Jesus’ birth) and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation); Pope Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day in 1582.

New Year's Traditions

In many countries, New Year’s celebrations begin on the evening of December 31—New Year’s Eve—and continue into the early hours of January 1. Revelers often enjoy meals and snacks thought to bestow good luck for the coming year. In Spain and several other Spanish-speaking countries, people bolt down a dozen grapes-symbolizing their hopes for the months ahead-right before midnight. In many parts of the world, traditional New Year’s dishes feature legumes, which are thought to resemble coins and herald future financial success; examples include lentils in Italy and black-eyed peas in the southern United States. Because pigs represent progress and prosperity in some cultures, pork appears on the New Year’s Eve table in Cuba, Austria, Hungary, Portugal and other countries. Ring-shaped cakes and pastries, a sign that the year has come full circle, round out the feast in the Netherlands, Mexico, Greece and elsewhere. In Sweden and Norway, meanwhile, rice pudding with an almond hidden inside is served on New Year’s Eve; it is said that whoever finds the nut can expect 12 months of good fortune.

Other customs that are common worldwide include watching fireworks and singing songs to welcome the new year, including the ever-popular "Auld Lang Syne" in many English-speaking countries. The practice of making resolutions for the new year is thought to have first caught on among the ancient Babylonians, who made promises in order to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot. (They would reportedly vow to pay off debts and return borrowed farm equipment.)

In the United States, the most iconic New Year’s tradition is the dropping of a giant ball in New York City's Times Square at the stroke of midnight. Millions of people around the world watch the event, which has taken place almost every year since 1907. Over time, the ball itself has ballooned from a 700-pound iron-and-wood orb to a brightly patterned sphere 12 feet in diameter and weighing in at nearly 12,000 pounds. Various towns and cities across America have developed their own versions of the Times Square ritual, organizing public drops of items ranging from pickles (Dillsburg, Pennsylvania) to possums (Tallapoosa, Georgia) at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Source: History.com

The Last King of New Jersey: The Suburban Life of Napoleon’s Brother

 

As Napoleon Bonaparte expanded his new French Empire and conquered much of Western Europe, he doled out the spoils of war to his friends and family, whether they wanted it or not. Napoleon’s older brother Joseph, described by historians as “idealist, mild mannered, and lacking in vigor,” had wanted to be a writer, but was instead pressured into following his father into a law career. His brother had other plans for him, and installed him first on the throne of Naples and later, Spain.

King Joseph took both positions reluctantly, and didn’t fill either very well. Almost as soon as he was crowned in Spain, a popular revolt against French rule began. Joseph suffered a string of defeats as he and French forces engaged what was left of the Spanish regular army, and he asked his brother if he could abdicate and return to Naples. Napoleon wouldn’t have it, and left Joseph to keep a tenuous grasp on his army (the generals under his command insisted on checking with Napoleon before carrying out any of Joseph’s orders) and kingdom. Unable to beat back the rebels and their English allies, Joseph abdicated his throne in 1813, having ruled for just over five years.

Born to Run

After Napoleon’s defeat and forced exile, the Bonaparte name wasn’t winning Joseph any friends in Europe, so he fled to the United States under an assumed and with the crown jewels of Spain stashed in his suitcase.
He initially settled in New York City, then moved to Philadelphia, where his house at 260 South 9th Street became the center of activity for America’s French expatriate community. He eventually moved to a large estate in Bordentown, New Jersey, twenty-five miles northeast of Philadelphia along the Delaware River. It was called Point Breeze. There, Joseph Bonaparte, former King of Naples and Spain, brother of Napoleon I, Emperor of France, took the title of Comte de Survilliers (though his American neighbors and friends still called him Mr. Bonaparte and referred to his home as “Bonaparte’s Park”) and went into quiet, suburban exile.

Mansion on the Hill

Bonaparte may have been dethroned, but he was still royalty. He built up the estate to reflect his social standing.
He constructed a vast mansion for himself, with a large wine cellar, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, elaborate crystal chandeliers, marble fireplaces and grand staircases. His library held the largest collection of books in the country at the time (eight thousand volumes versus the sixty-five hundred volumes of the Library of Congress).
The land surrounding the mansion was elaborately landscaped and featured ten miles of carriage paths, rare trees and plants, gazebos, gardens, fountains and an artificial lake stocked with imported European swans.




Bonaparte’s home became a social hub for both his New Jersey neighbors, who liked to spend quiet afternoons browsing his library, and American and European elites. Among the distinguished guests who came through Point Breeze were John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Stephen Girard, a French banker from Philadelphia who was then the richest man in the U.S.
Since Bonaparte’s wife did not accompany him to America (he did not see her for 25 years after he left), another frequent guest at the house was his mistress, Annette Savage. Bonaparte had met Annette, the 18-year-old, French-speaking daughter of distinguished Virginia merchants, while he was shopping for suspenders at her mother’s shop in Philadelphia. During their time together, Bonaparte and Annette would have two daughters, Caroline Charlotte and Pauline Josephe Anne.

Fire

In January 1820, Bonaparte’s mansion caught fire and burned to the ground. His neighbors rushed to the house and managed to save most of the silver and his priceless art collection. Contemporary newspaper reports called the blaze accidental, but according to the gossip around town, a local woman, an immigrant from Russia, set the fire as revenge for Napoleon’s invasion of her homeland.
Bonaparte was touched by his neighbors’ assistance, and expressed those feelings in a letter he wrote to one of the town’s magistrates:

All the furniture, statues, pictures, money, plate gold, jewels, linen, books, and in short, everything that was not consumed, has been most scrupulously delivered into the hands of the people of my house. In the night of the fire, and during the next day, there were brought to me, by laboring men, drawers, in which I have found the proper quantity of pieces of money, and medals of gold, and valuable jewels, which might have been taken with impunity.
This event has proved to me how much the inhabitants of Bordentown appreciate the interest I have always felt for them; and shows that men in general are good, when they have not been perverted in their youth by a bad education. … Americans are, without contradiction, the most happy people I have known; still more happy if they understand well their own happiness.
I pray you not to doubt of my sincere regard.
—Joseph, Count de Survilliers
[As reprinted in Bonaparte's Park and the Murats, by Evan Morrison Woodward (1879)]

Bonaparte rebuilt his mansion and remained in New Jersey. He took ill and returned to Europe in 1839. When he died in 1844, Point Breeze passed to his grandson, who sold it and most of its contents at auction three years later. Some of the furnishings and paintings are now in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

A Night With the Jersey Devil

During his years at Point Breeze, Bonaparte believed he had a run-in with one of the Garden State’s most infamous residents—the Jersey Devil.
According to the folklore of Jersey’s Pine Barrens region, the Devil was born around 1735. Mother Leeds was in labor with her thirteenth child when the burden of the dozen she already had finally made her snap. “Let it be the Devil,” she cried as she pushed the baby out. The healthy baby boy in the midwife’s arms suddenly changed before the women’s eyes, growing wings, hooves, fur and a tail. The beastly baby screeched and flew out the window, making its home in the Barrens and haunting and harassing the people who lived there.


As Bonaparte recounted the story, he was hunting alone in the woods near his estate when he saw some peculiar tracks on the ground. They looked like they belonged to a horse or a donkey, but one that was walking only on its hind legs. He followed the tracks until they ended abruptly, as if the animal had jumped into the air and flown off. He stopped and stared at them.

A strange hissing noise came from behind him. He whirled around and came face to face with an animal he had never seen before. It had a long neck, wings, legs like a crane with horse’s hooves at the end, stumpy arms with paws and a face like a horse or a camel. He froze, and for a minute neither he nor the creature moved or even breathed. Then, the Devil hissed again and flew away.

Bonaparte later told his friends what happened, and they filled him in on the local legend. Until he returned to Europe, Bonaparte is said to have kept a sharp eye out for the Devil whenever he was in the woods, hoping to kill it and take the body as a trophy.

Last to Die

The Bonapartes had another American connection. Napoleon’s younger brother, Jérôme, visited the United States in 1803 and fell in love with Elisabeth Patterson, the daughter of a wealthy Baltimore merchant. They married that same year, but Napoleon did not approve and ordered his brother back to France. Jérôme went home, annulled his marriage, remarried, and became King of Westphalia. But not before consummating his marriage to Elisabeth. She was already pregnant when Jérôme left the U.S. and gave birth to another American Bonaparte.
The stateside branch of the family tree produced some notable members—including Charles Patterson Bonaparte, Secretary of the Navy under Theodore Roosevelt—but petered out a few decades ago. Jerome-Napoleon Patterson Bonaparte, great-grandnephew of Napoleon I, was walking his dog in Central Park in 1943, when he tripped over the leash, cracked his skull open on the ground and died.

Source http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/88502#ixzz1htkGtHK3