Friday

                         Musings and History

Quote of the day:

“Your best friend...or your worst enemy is a United States Marine”

General “Mad Dog” Mattis, USMC

Trivia question of the day:

What professional baseball player has the best lifetime batting average? Answer at the end of the blog.

Here is another event that tells me I am here for a reason:

I was stationed at Elmendorf AFB near Anchorage, Alaska. As I have said before Alaska is hunter/fisherman's paradise. It was June during the spawning run of the sockeye salmon and I decided to go fishing. I borrowed my roomie's car and went down the Kenai peninsula to a well known parking spot that was the beginning of a well marked trail that lead to the Kenai river near Kenai Lake. It was about a 2 mile hike. I was armed with a casting rod, a couple of lures and a .357 magnum S & W revolver. It never occurred to me that every carnivore within 100 miles was headed to that river also including black bears, brown bears, grizzly bears, wolverines, etc. Not only that, the female bears were not long out of their dens with their cubs. I had been hiking for quite a distance and the cover was very heavy on both sides of the trail which was about 6 feet wide at and over 6 feet tall at that point. I heard something very loud and very close to my left that went “WOOOF” and then there was the sound of something very big crashing through the undergrowth. I pulled my revolver and waited but nothing came out into the open. I continued a few more steps and there in the trail was a pile of bear dung still steaming. If that bear had wanted to kill me it would have been easy because the cover was so heavy that I would not have seen it before it was too late but that bear chose to run the other way. Yes indeed, I am here for a reason. BTW, I caught 3 sockeye.

I was transferred to Eielson AFB south of Fairbanks, Alaska. Eielson was a multi-purpose facility. There was a SAC (Strategic Air Command) recon unit and a ADC (Air Defense Command) unit flying all-weather interceptors. The SAC recon unit had RB-47s, RB-66s, RB-57s and KC-135s. The ADC unit had F-102's. Because of the recon unit the security was very tight. I was working in the control tower and got a call from an aircraft asking for landing instruction...and casually mentioned that he had flamed out. As I remember it, his call sign was “Dutch 19”. I did not have advance information about this flight meaning if he landed it would be a breach of security. I called the OD (officer of the day) and told him about it and he asked the call sign and I told him. He said to go ahead and let him land...he had forgotten to tell us about it. So I gave Dutch 19 landing instructions. 30 minutes later he landed...it was a U-2. There is no telling at what altitude he was when he flamed out to stay aloft for 30 minutes. I had never seen one before only pictures but I understood how this plane could stay aloft for so long with no power...It had very long wings like a sailplane. Not only that, after it landed two men ran along beside the aircraft, leveled the wings and installed a small dolly under both wings indicating how balanced it was. The U-2 only had landing gear in the center of the fuselage. I found out later that this plane had departed Del Rio, Texas. It was a hell of an aircraft designed and built by the Lockheed “Skunk Works” led by Kelly Johnson. The U-2 became outdated when the Skunk Works came up with the SR-71 Blackbird. Recon aircraft became outdated when satellites were invented that can read an automobile license tag from orbit.

             This Date in History   March 15

1783 Previously the United States Congress had received word that a group of officers in the Continental Army had planned a secret meeting in the Newburgh, New York area to plan a revolt or mutiny, if you will, because Congress had failed to pay them and provide them with a clothing and food allowance that had been previously promised. On this date, George Washington showed up at the meeting of the officers. As you might suspect, you could hear a pin drop when Washington walked up to the rostrum. He read them the riot act and called the meeting illegal and unmilitary. He then pulled out a letter that Congress had sent him about the meeting. With his hands slightly shaking he reached in his coat pocket and retrieved a pair of spectacles and before he put them on he said “I am shaking because I have grown old in the service of my country, and now it appears that I will go blind.” After this there was not a dry eye in the house because they realized what a tremendous contribution this great man had made for his country. They felt very small for what they were contemplating. The officers withdrew any threat to Congress and rededicated themselves to the service of their country. We all need to contemplate this.

44BC On this date, the Ides of March, Julius Caesar is murdered in the Roman Senate by 60 Senators. Leading the attack was Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, better known as Brutus and Cassius. After Caesar was struck in the neck with a sword, the rest of the Senators fell upon him and made a contribution with a stab of their own. Because of the contribution that Caesar had made to Rome with his organizational skills and military expertise, he was named dictator for life. The Roman senate realized that this much power is too much for one man and they all agreed that they had to cap Caesar. It is legend that his last words were “et tu Brute” meaning “You to Brutus?” Brutus and Caesar had been life long friends and Caesar could not believe that Brutus would be part of this conspiracy. We never know who our friends and enemies are.

1831 On this date Edward R. Perry is born in Richmond, Massachusetts and is educated at Lee Academy and at Yale. In 1852 he moved to Georgia to teach school and study law. After a trip to Alabama he decided to settle in Pensacola, Florida to practice law. At the outbreak of the Civil War he offered his services to the Confederacy and became a member of the Pensacola Rifle Rangers. This unit was absorbed into the 2^nd Florida Regiment which played and important role in several battles later on. His unit was involved in the Peninsular Campaign and especially the Battle of the Seven Days. The commander of his unit was killed at the Battle of Williamsburg and Perry assumed command and was promoted to Brigadier General and was given command of two other regiments. A few months later his unit was involved in the Battle of Antietam and suffered heavy losses. He came down with typhoid fever and missed Gettysburg where his unit suffered heavy losses once again. He was able to rejoin his unit just in time for the Battle of the Wilderness where he was seriously wounded. This wound forced him to surrender command of his unit and he spent the rest of the war recruiting in Alabama. He served as Governor of Florida from 1884 to 1888. With his health failing he moved to a drier climate in Kerrville, Texas in 1889 where he died from a stroke in October of that year. He is buried in the cemetery of Saint John’s Church in Pensacola. The city of Perry, Florida is named in his honor.

1935 US televangelist Jimmy Swaggart. He said “The media is run by Satan, I wonder how many Christians are aware of that”. When it comes to being a sincere preacher, Jimmy is a good singer/piano player.

1892 English writer Dame Rebecca West. She said “The hatred of doing housework is the natural progression of civilization.” Methinks the good Dame Becky and I are related.

The answer to the trivia question

The professional baseball player with the highest lifetime batting average was Ty Cobb with a .365 lifetime batting average.

              Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow