Al's
Most Recent
Quote
of the day:
After
the 1st
and 5th
Marines among others had successfully fought for and taken control of
the island of Guadalcanal in WWII, news reporters came ashore to get
interviews and take pictures. The battle for Guadalcanal was one of
most bloody and savage battles ever documented. The American combat
troops had been in a constant battle for two months. A news reporter
saw a ragged Marine with a two month growth of beard and smelling
like a garbage dump and went over and asked him if he knew where the
headquarters of the 1st
Marines was. The Marine just looked at him and said “Mister,
there ain’t no more 1st
Marines.”
It
is Veterans Day. This originally was a memorial to the end of WWI
and the millions, that's right, millions of soldiers who died.
In
the Battle of the Marne in 1914 alone lasting a week in September
there was 1 million soldiers for the Allies and 1.5 million German
soldiers engaged. There was about 150,000 casualties. In the Battle
of Verdun lasting a little over 9 months there was about 1.1 million
Allied soldiers and 1.2 million Germans engaged. There was over
500,000 casualties. When an armistice was signed in November of 1918
people called this the war to end all wars...they were wrong. See
the history section for more.
The
act of honoring our veterans cannot be amplified enough.
We
all know what happened at the University of Missouri. It reminds me
of an office management course I once took. Lets assume this is the
situation:
You
are the manager of an office with 12 women, one male bookkeeper named
Joe Lamb and yourself. The women work with very complex equipment
that takes 6 months of training to get them up to full speed. One
night Joe Lamb is arrested for attempted rape but is released for
lack of evidence. One of the women passes you a note saying they
want Joe Lamb fired because they all are afraid. And if you don't
they will all quit and go to work for your competition across town.
What is the appropriate response?
The
correct response is at the end of this writing.
This
Date in History November 11
1918
On the 11th
hour of the 11th
day of the 11th
month an armistice was signed in a rail car near Compeigne, France
ending four years of one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of
warfare called World War I. This war began in 1914 with the
assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the apparent heir to the
Austria-Hungary Empire. The Archduke was inspecting his uncle’s
troops in Sarajevo, Bosnia when he and his wife were gunned down by a
Bosnian Serb nationalist. There had been bad blood between
Austria-Hungary and Serbia in the past and Austria-Hungary chose this
opportunity to settle the issue once and for all. After
Austria-Hungary had received assurances that Kaiser Wilhelm of
Germany would support Austria-Hungary if they declared war on Serbia
and Russia intervened, they declared war on Serbia and began shelling
the capitol of Belgrade. Russia was an ally of Serbia and began
mobilization to support Serbia and Germany began mobilization in
support of Austria-Hungary. Well, the rest of Europe began taking
sides and it eventually ended up being Europe (France, Belgium,
England and eventually the US) against Germany combined with
Austria-Hungary. The war cost the lives of over 9 million and 26
million wounded. Finally the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 was signed
which officially ended the conflict. The Treaty was so harsh to the
German people that many German civilians died of starvation and
disease afterward. All this did was to anger the German people and
they almost immediately began seeking revenge. And sure enough, a
German madman named Adolph Hitler said the right words In the early
1930’s and instilled a pride back into the German people and he
also engineered the re-birth of the German military expertise and
equipment in spite of the Treaty of Versailles and in 1938, they
launched the most effective and deadly assemblage of military might
the world had ever seen. But this time, they had control of the air
over Europe, something never seen in WWI, WWII was underway.
1933
On November 11 a sustained wind out of the west arrived in the
farmlands of South Dakota. This was the beginning of one of the
largest dust storms in American history. The Great Plains of
American had been suffering from 6 year long drought that added to
the misery of the Great Depression. This particular dust storm
arising out of what was called the “Dust Bowl” lifted tons and
tons of topsoil and took much of it as far east as Albany, New York.
There were many factors that brought this misery to the fore. There
was the drought of course plus the farmers plowing up nearly all of
the prairie grasses and then planting a less hearty plant such as
wheat or barley. They also had no clue as to contour plowing and
other modern techniques. There was a story about a representative of
the US Department of Agriculture that giving a seminar to the farmers
in the Dust Bowl on how to farm more productively when one older
farmer rose up and said “Sonny, You can’t tell me about how to
farm. I have worn out three farms already.”
The correct response
to the Joe Lamb question:
You fire Joe Lamb.
First of all you cannot take it personally as a challenge to your
authority, your first thought should be what is best for the company.
If they did quit it would take 6 months of lost revenue to train
another staff. If that happened the home office would fire you.
Repeat...you cannot take it as a personal challenge to your
authority, you must stay focused on keeping the office
productive...if your ego gets in the way then it is you that must go.
This relates to the
University of Missouri the same way. Nearly every University relies
on the football revenues to fund the other sports like golf, tennis,
soccer, etc. If the football program collapses, so would the rest of
the sports. Questions:
What is best for the
University of Missouri as a whole?
Are the students
are justified in their protests?
What is the solution..and it ain't kicking all the protesters out of school?
These questions, among
others, must be answered to end the turmoil.
Thanks for
listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment