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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 1^st Marines was. The Marine just looked at him and said “Mister, there ain’t no more 1^st 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 and taught later. 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 rendering.

                This Date in History  November 11

1918 On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th 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 you 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 help fund the other sports like golf, tennis, soccer, etc. If the football program collapses, the rest of the sports would suffer.

Questions from a while back:

What is best for the University of Missouri as a whole?

Are the students justified in their protests?

What is the solution...and it ain't immediately 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