The 2019 Christmas Letter

The year just past was one of researching, writing, traveling, reading, the occasional event, and sometimes nothing at all. It was filled with family, friends, and fun. The latter being activities that have in common that they're done for my own enjoyment and little else. You know, what the wealthy and me – retired guy over seventy – can get away with. The kids not so much, they've been doing important stuff. You know, the things you actually get paid to do. Here's a review.

In January I traveled to Minnesota for Christmas with Heather and Hailey, including the opportunity to be in the gallery for Heather's En Banc oral argument before the Minnesota Supreme Court. It was the start of a year of travel – more than I had intended. In March the racing buddies of the last century had a Florida reunion at Super Sebring, the weekend including the 67th 12 Hours of Sebring, and a ten-hour World Endurance Championship race. Later in the year we lost one of our group – we're that age when we can't afford to miss such opportunities.

With other Veterans of D Company 1/12th Cavalry, I visited the National Archives in April – my 5th trip – continuing to “build out” Delta's history. August was anther family trip to Minnesota, a Heather-sponsored “family vacay,” that included 42nd Street at the Ordway and a Twins game. Later that month Linda and I drove to Colorado Springs for the 74th Annual Reunion of the 101st Airborne Division Association. On the way we stayed with niece Ann and family in Albuquerque; coming back we explored Taos. October was a reunion (our 4th) of D Company 1/12th Cavalry for whom I am the tresurer and edit a quarterly newsletter, at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Heather, Courtney, Ashley and families were here in Arizona for Christmas. Linda and I ended this busy year in Henderson, Nevada at my sister Barb's Annual "New York New Year" party (appropriate to the age of the revelers, over at 9 PM local time), and (her) Birthday Party. We stayed a day into the New Year to see "Mystere" at Treasure Island.

Heather served her 5th year as a Minnesota Assistant Attorney General.

Significant Other Matt Schmit is a high school principal. Hailey's in first grade, as is Matt's daughter Siri. In fact, they share a birthday! Partners in crime. Big Sister Olivia is 13, a basketball player, and more.

In June Courtney moved on from Fort Bragg to take command of the garrison at Carlisle Barracks/Army War College in Pennsylvania. Dave relinquished command of his Patriot battalion to start Army War College in the same place. Courtney's 

 first book will be published by Fordham University Press in March. Both are being considered for promotion to colonel (O6) this year. Olivia is a busy 10-year-old once again in a new school.

Ashley changed jobs within the Human

Services Department of the State of Illinois, now teaching policy and procedure within the department. Caroline was promoted to Creative Director and Digital Manager at the University of Illinois, Chicago College of Business Administration.

We're all thankful for another wonderful year and wish all of you the best in the year ahead.

Presidential History for Our Times

The other day, I had an exchange with a life-long democrat, a

senior citizen in “middle America.” In the course of it, he wrote, “As for me, I don't like President Trump because he's a bullying, whoring, lying, bigoted a**hole who got out of the military with the rich-kid equivalent of running off to Canada.” Later, he wrote, “If you want “deep political analysis” look somewhere else.

Neither response was particularly surprising; they were what I have come to expect, not just from “ordinary Democrats,” but, sadly, from members of that party in Congress. However, it did get me thinking about US Presidents and who might be the "champions" at that list of Trump's alleged (they are seldom supported by facts) transgressions. But ignore that. I'm not going to get into a back-and-forth about the reliability – or not – of sources of those judgments, or their accuracy.

I'll take those judgments as they are. Besides being a bit of a “history geek,” I am old enough to remember a few previous Presidents and their reputations. “Top Ten” and “GOAT” lists are popular these days, so, considering all his predecessors, does Donald Trump compete with the absolute best at bullying, whoring, lying, bigotry, and (artfully) avoiding the draft? Not even close. Here are the Champions:

Bullying - Andrew Jackson defined himself not by enacting

legislation but by thwarting it. A charismatic figure, Jackson was combative, quick-tempered, and thin-skinned. To his friends he was generous, considerate, and loyal; to his enemies, mean-spirited and spiteful. “When Andrew Jackson hated,” a Jacksonian scholar wrote, “it often became a grand passion. He could hate with a Biblical fury and would resort to petty and vindictive acts to nurture his hatred and keep it bright and strong and ferocious.” He once fired his entire cabinet except one because they would not invite another cabinet member’s wife to parties. He at times exploded with anger, but it seemed he launched into tirades quite purposefully to intimidate his opposition. In 1834 he was censured in the Senate for assuming "authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."

Whoring - Really no contest on this one: John Kennedy “If I

don’t have a lay for three days I get a headache.” - JFK to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

Notable dalliances: Marilyn Monroe, Judith Exner, Inga Arvad, Anita Ekberg, Ellen Rometsch, Gene Tierney, Mimi Alford, Marlene Dietrich, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Priscilla Wear, and Jill Cowen.

Honorable Mention goes to Thomas Jefferson, who started his sexual dalliance with Sally Hemings when she was 14 (he was 44).

Lying - A tough one, since the very act of running for office

apparently requires a certain amount of deception ("Medicare for all" is a pretty good example). Kennedy is in the running here, too, with the "missile gap," again, a lie while running for office. There have been lies while in office, like Clinton, "I did not have sex with that woman...", Nixon denying White House involvement in Watergate, Kennedy again, covering up his Addison's disease and his numerous affairs. But the winner has to be Lyndon Johnson's "“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” At the very same time and with Johnson’s approval, the Pentagon was drawing up plans to send the first wave of more than 100,000 American servicemen to Vietnam. Johnson’s macho determination not to “lose” Vietnam led him to keep increasing the number of American troops until they reached over 500,000.

Bigoted - I'm not usually one to apply current ideas of

morality to previous centuries and generations, but this one is historically laughable. Starting with George Washington, 12 US Presidents owned slaves, 10 while in office. The Huffington Post created a list of the 11 "most racists presidents" (before Trump was elected, or being the Huff Post, it would undoubtedly have included him). Though they put Andrew Johnson 1st for pretty much overturning the result of the Civil War and the emancipation policies of Abraham Lincoln, I'll go for their number 5. Thomas Jefferson, owner of over 600 slaves in his lifetime, became the preeminent American authority on Black inferiority. Among his racist statements, he wrote, “The blacks...are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind,” in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1787).

Draft-dodging "a**hole" – Recently, Clinton and Bush 43 

avoided the Vietnam war (at least 43 served in the Air Force Reserve), but here is the current champion: Just a few months before Donald Trump received his now-infamous diagnosis of “bone spurs in the heels,” former high school football star Joe Biden got the same 1-Y draft deferment for “asthma as a teenager.” It was one of five deferments Biden received that allowed him to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War.

The Cousins Narrative - Adventures in Bad Sports Journalism

Peeling back the "Cousins Narrative." It's every day, every talking head "Cousins can't win a big game, can't win Monday night, blah, blah." Ok, the superficial stats say so. But consider. Do we really expect this Vikings team - with or wihout Cousins - to win in the Superdome this weekend? Of course we don't. So why will a loss "prove" this lazy narrative? I'm pretty sure that no quarterback in Vikings history would be favored to win this matchup.

Let's get past the lazy narrative and look a little deeper. It's been said that football is the ultimate "team game." So what do Counsin's teams look like. In 2013 and 2014, Cousins started a total of just 11 games (of 32) for the Redskins, who were 3-13 and 4-12, respectively, in those years. Is there any reasonable expectation that any quarterback would have won a game against any team with a winning record in either of those years?

The first year in which Cousins started regularly for the Redskins was 2015, and "he" lost his first-ever (and only) playoff game that year to the Green Bay Packers, 35-18. Cousins was sacked 6 times while throwing for 329 yards and 2 touchdowns. Did "he" lose that game, or were the 9-7 Redskins just overmatched by the 10-6 Packers?

The Redskins were 8-7-1 in 2016, third in the NFC East,and 7-9 in 2017, again, 3rd in the East behind the Cowboys and Giants. If those teams were to win ANY games against teams with winning records those games would certainly be considered upsets.

A closer look at 2017 is interesting, since the Skins played "primetime" games 5 times winning twice, a Sunday night home game against the Raiders, and a Thankgiving night game hosting the Giants. They lost Monday night games to the Superbowl-winning Eagles, and on the road to the 10-6 playoff-bound Kansas City Chiefs, and then a Thursday night game to the Cowboys.

2018 was Cousin's first Vikings season. Those "primetime/big game losses" included Sunday night games to the 13-3 Saints, and to the 12-4 Bears. A win in primetime over the Packers at home was followed by a road loss to the 10-6 Seahawks.

So here we are. According to the stupid, lazy sports talking heads those losses are "Cousins losses." And this weekend's game in the Superdome will be "proof" once again that "he can't win a big game."
In fact, if Cousins (the Vikings) were to win this one it will be one of the great upsets of at least this season. It's likely that the 13-3 Saints will beat the 10-6 Vikings in the New Orleans Superdome. 

Which will prove just one thing: the Saints, a better football team than the Vikings, can win a playoff game in their own building...and absolutely nothing else.

UNIQUELY OKINAWAN - Determining Identity During US Wartime Occupation

Uniquely Okinawan explores how American soldiers, sailors, and Marines considered race, ethnicity, and identity in the planning and execution of the wartime occupation of Okinawa, during and immediately after the Battle of Okinawa, 1945-1946.

Author Courtney A. Short holds a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and specializes in Military, American, and Japanese History, as well as Race and Identity Studies. Lieutenant Colonel Short, US Army, presently serves as Garrison Commander,US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Reviews
This well-researched and organized work addresses how the US armed forces engaged the fraught question of how the Okinawa population would react to the April 1945 US invasion. This is far more than an admirable study of an interesting episode in the Pacific War. It abounds in lessons in planning and then handling encounters with diverse civilian populations caught on a battlefield with US forces. (Richard B. Frank, leading authority on the Asia-Pacific War, and author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire)

In a meticulously researched study including oral history accounts from both US and Okinawan sources, Short composes a compelling narrative to explore constructions of race and identity amidst the wartime and postwar encounters between the American military and Okinawans. Informed by the historian's personal experience of serving in the US armed forces on Okinawa, the author's archival evidence engages with layers of individual stories of a twice colonized people. Short argues that Okinawan culture permitted the people to reclaim an identity distancing themselves from a defeated imperial Japan, while also negotiating an uneasy relationship with their new American occupiers that continues to evolve. (Annika A. Culver, is Associate Professor of East Asian History, Florida State University, where she specializes in Japan and Northeast Asia-related topics. She is the author of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-Garde Propaganda in Manchukuo)

Available for Pre-Order now from Barnes&Noble, Amazon, and Fordham University Press (Publisher).