Passing away peacefully of old age and infirmity

 On page 728 of his THE SECOND WORLD WARS, Victor Davis Hanson wrote, “The Axis Bit Three – Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini – all died violently as a result of their defeat.  Allied leaders passed away peaceful of old age and infirmity.”

As much as I admire Hanson, I’m inclined to quibble with this statement.  

Over the years I’ve read several books about World War II.  I might be said to have grown up alongside it.  I was born October 12, 1934 and recall waiting outside our house for my mother to take us to Sunday School at church when my father stepped out on the porch and announced, “The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor.”  

My imagination was captured and I followed the war in our local Wilmington Press Telegram.  The war was over in 1945, but in 1950 the Korean War was in full swing, and I was resolved to get into that one.  I was a great admirer of the Marine Corps and read several books about it from the local library.  Still being a kid, I wanted to make sure I made it through bootcamp, so I maintained a heavy workout program and entered boot camp in July 1952 shortly after graduation from High School.

I was in Korea for the last two Korean War battle seasons, but then the truce was signed, to my great disappointment.  I was a sergeant by the time my enlistment was up and was offered an increase to Staff Sergeant if I would reenlist, but I wasn’t impressed with the Peace-time Marines, especially at 29 Palms and so decided to go to college on the G.I. Bill instead.  I majored in English, and wouldn’t have thought there was a need for such a skill in Aerospace, but engineers were notorious bad writers, and the Air Force officially complained during the Skybolt Program, so I was welcomed aboard that program in Santa Monica in 1959 and continued working for them as they morphed into McDonnell Douglas and eventually submerged in to Boeing.  I retired after 39 years with them in 1999 and have engaged in a variety of activities during retirement including a number of study projects, World War II being one of them.  I had read about the major battles from time to time, but being an admirer of Hanson finally got around to his summing up – in various ways.  No doubt the fact that I am now 91 affected my impression of the Hanson passage I quoted.  I suspect my initial interpretation was not one he intended.

I thought of a male lion in the African jungle too old and infirm to go ahunting with the rest of the pride.  A pack of hyenas gather around and start eating him as he feebly attempts to fend them off.  

Which is not unlike my current experience, doctors gathered around as I feebly fail to fend them off as they strive to medicate me to death.  

I can usually figure out what Hanson means but from my current perspective, dying in battle seems preferable to the “old age and infirmity” Hanson prefers.  

Oddly, my children favor Hanson’s view on this matter.

 

On underestimating America

I’m about 10% through Weinberg’s A World At Arms.  He discusses, as everyone seems to, how leaders in Germany and Japan underestimated the military potential of America.  Americans were doing that as well, and undoubtedly still do – at least according to a brief review I read in the November/December 2018 issue of Foreign Affairs: 

Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the Word’s Sole Superpower by Michael Beckley, Cornell University Press:

“. . . He does not dispute that the United States has its problems or that misguided leaders often squander its advantages.  But he points out the United States’ deep geographic, demographic, and institutional reserves give the country unique resilience.  The United States is the only great power without regional rivals.  Its companies and universities dominate the world.  And most important, Beckley argues that it has by far the best fundamentals for future economic growth, thanks to its abundant natural resources, favorable demographics, secure property rights, and lasting political institutions.  China’s growth prospects, in contrast, are ‘dismal.’. . .”

I recall being impacted by three “America’s in decline.  We are being surpassed by nation X” 

1.      The USSR.  When I went to work at Douglas Aircraft company in 1959, Engineers were sincerely debating the “better red than dead” controversy.  The majority, if I remember correctly, were leaning toward “better red.”

2.     The Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia is buying up our nation. As rich as they are we shall soon all be working for them.

3.     The Japanese.  Their work ethic is much better than ours.  We went through a number of mandatory courses learning the superior ways of the Japanese so we could better compete against Boeing and the Europeans.

4.     And now the Chinese . . . yawn.

I was watching a Youtube interview of Victor Davis Hanson in regard to his The Second World Wars, How the first global conflict was fought and won (published in 2017).  Hanson is apparently somewhat worried about North Korea having the capability of bombing our West Coast.  He worried that North Korean leaders probably didn’t understand that we don’t do “tit for tat.”  “If North Korea bombs Spokane,” be began, shaking his head.  “They might think we will bomb just Pyongyang in return, but it won’t be just Pyongyang . . .” He wore a worried expression.  The audience got the impression (or at least this viewer did) that if North Korea bombed Spokane,  North Korea would cease to exist. 

Further on the Cheju-do compound break-in

[I was asked to describe the Cheju compound break-in in more detail]

It turned out that the fellow who broke into our compound was an off-duty ROK (Republic of Korea soldier).  Apparently he had broken in to steal patches for his rifle.  I only knew this after the fact.  After I captured him, I took him to our senior sergeant, Staff Sergeant Cook, a salty fellow who had been a member of Carlson’s raiders in WWII.  He began beating this fellow with his fists.  I tried to get him to stop, telling him that was enough.  He told me that if I interfered, I was next.  I was only a PFC at the time, maybe a corporal, and was 18 or 19 years old.  This was 1953. I don’t know how old Cook was, but he ran that little compound on Cheju-do. 

After he was done he told someone (not me) to drive the ROK soldier to the ROK compound and release him.  The other ROKs, ROKs who might also have been stealing from us, would see the beating this fellow had taken and leave us alone.  The ROK wanted to take his rifle along, but Cook wouldn’t let him.  I can’t remember how the rifle was returned.  Perhaps Cook had a ROK officer or NCO retrieve it.

Our base commander wanted to give me a commendation for capturing the ROK, but Cook talked him out of it.  Maybe thefts had been recurring frequently and Cook didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that no previous perpetrators had been captured.  Cook never explained himself.

I’ve thought from time to time about what my life would have been like had I shot the ROK I captured.  I think perhaps that everyone has something like Post Traumatic Stress going on in regard to past events.  I have remembered arguments  assaulting me from time to time.  If I’d killed the ROK, I suspect I would have been assaulted by something much worse -- especially after learning that he wasn't an enemy soldier and merely a poor ROK soldier looking for patches.  

Further on post-traumatic stress:  While no one would call it that, probably, when I married Karen I was still a Marine in most of my thinking and that went on for several years.  My kids would tell you about my getting them up in the morning before school and have them do close order drill with brooms and mops.  I had them drink Tigers Milk and cod-liver oil and do exercises.  Of course I couldn’t get Karen to do any of that. 

[In response to someone who said she would shoot an intruder in the leg rather than try to kill him]   As to shooting an intruder in the leg, that would be a very doubtful accomplishment.  There have been numbers of reports and analyses of police shootouts with criminals.  Huge numbers of bullets get fired and almost no one gets hit.  You can’t anticipate how much your hand and the rest of you will shake under those circumstances.  You would stand a better chance of hitting the intruder in the leg if you aimed for center-mass where your pistol instructor is asking you to aim.  You will almost certainly miss the leg if you aim for it.  Susan had the same thing in mind.  I gave her a gun that she kept in her night-stand, but I doubt that she would ever have gone for it unless there was an impossible situation where an intruder was making a lot of noise and slowly banging his way up the stairs; which wasn’t anything that was ever going to happen.  I didn’t worry about trouble, because even if I am hard of hearing my dogs aren’t; so I would have had plenty of warning.  I was a Marine Corps Rifle Instructor after I got back from Korea and suspect I would be able to hit an intruder, if I had to.  I only left Susan at home while I went hiking in the early morning and did our shopping, usually, on my way back from the hike.  By 11:00 or so we were back home.  Mornings from dawn to 11:00 aren’t prime home invasion times.  I did lock her door before I left on a hike and made sure her phone was by her bed. 

Susan for the last ten years of her life, walked stooped much of the time.  She never liked to ask me to help her even when she needed help; so I know she wasn’t walking stooped as a plea for sympathy.  I got her some little two-pound dumbbells to use in bed, but I don’t think she used them unless I walked in and asked her if she did.  Then she would use them for a minute or two.  When we were going someplace and she would be stooped, I would say in Marine Corps fashion, “stomach in, chest out,” and she (who lived on a Marine Corps base for several months with her first husband) would do that for a few steps, but would soon go back to walking stooped.  She could walk a little straighter when she held onto my arm. 

Working out, and experiences in Korea

I’d gotten into a rut in regard to the intellectual activity, and since I hate to misuse time, I decided to work out intensely until the intellectual capability improved. . .

But not just that, I wanted to make sure I was able to take care of my dogs as long as they lasted.  If after I did my best to get in much better shape I was still in doubtful condition, I would opt for the plan I once discussed, i.e., keeping only one dog, Jessica, and go tottering about the neighborhood streets rather than hike down at the river.  If I stay in good shape after losing Ben and Duffy, maybe I’ll get another Ridgeback male.

But not just that.  I’ve always believed that exercise is more important than diet – if not to extend life, at least to improve it.  I read the other day that the last veteran who had experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor had died at age 106.  The report said that he was following the exercise program that had been prescribed for him (implying that was the reason he had lived so long), but had contracted pneumonia and died as a result of that.    I suppose I could do that – be the last surviving veteran who had experienced the Korean War who then died of pneumonia at age 106.  I’ve had occasional bronchial problems which I suppose could morph into pneumonia if I live that long.  It is strange to think that 106 is only 22 years away. 

And also I noticed that I wasn’t nearly as strong as I used to be and the prospect of dealing with rowdy Squatters  with my current strength seemed unwise.  So an intense workout program lasting several months, if not years, should increase my strength adequately.  I don’t mind carrying a gun, but I would rather not use it.  

Back in 1953 a Korean broke into our base on Cheju Island while I was walking post.  I saw him go into our power-plant building; so I went in, pointed my shotgun at him and ordered him out.  He came out but then took off running.  I did the Marine Corps thing: “halt, halt, or I’ll shoot.”  He didn’t stop, so I fired a shot over his head.  He ran faster.  I was supposed to shoot him, but instead I ran after him, caught him by the collar as he tried to climb the fence, threw him down onto the ground, pointed the shotgun at his head and said “halt” again.  That time he gave up.  Several of my blood-thirstier fellow Marines chided me for not shooting this Korean.  “We missed out on combat over here, but you had a chance to shoot someone and you blew it.”  Not all Marines, I discovered, were the heroic idealists I learned about while watching John Wayne movies before enlisting.  ;-)

I would certainly rather take the same approach again, if I had the strength, rather than having to draw my little Walther or my USMC K-Bar, but if I am carrying a weapon and accompanied by Ben, the chance of that sort of encounter seems remote.