American Realestate 2016

Nov 8, 2016

He was a soldier

Old Iron Jaw

He was a soldier, written about in the book "We Were Soldiers Once…And Young", and portrayed in the movie  "We were soldiers". He was awarded 28 different personal, unit, campaign and service awards and decorations (40 total) in almost 33 years of military service, spanning World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

He parachuted into 4 major battles as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, with which he made combat jumps at Sicily, Salerno, Normandy (D-Day) and the Netherlands (Operation Market Garden). He went on to make one more combat jump in Korea with the 187th Airborne Infantry Regiment.

He was awarded multiple decorations and wore Master Parachutist wings with a gold star signifying those five combat jumps.

He is most famous for his actions as Sergeant Major of the US Army’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, at the Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam, 1965. Lieutenant General Hal Moore, who, as a lieutenant colonel, was his battalion commander during the Battle of Ia Drang, and praised him as an outstanding NCO and leader.

The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between regulars of the United States Army and regulars of the People’s Army of Vietnam of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The two-part battle took place between November 14 and November 18, 1965, at two landing zones (LZs) in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam near the Ia Drang river.

The initial North Vietnamese assault against the landing 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry at LZ X-Ray was repulsed after two days and nights of heavy fighting on November 14–16, with the Americans inflicting heavy losses on North Vietnamese regulars and Viet Cong guerrillas.

In a follow-up surprise attack on November 17, the North Vietnamese overran the marching column of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (1st Battalion’s sister unit) near LZ Albany in the most successful ambush against U.S. forces of the war. Both sides suffered heavy casualties; the U.S. had nearly 250 soldiers killed but claimed to have counted about 1,000 North Vietnamese bodies on the battlefield and estimated that more were killed by air strikes and artillery.

After his retirement, he worked 15 more years for the army as a civilian in administration at Martin Army Community Hospital and at various medical clinics around Fort Benning (Fort Benning, Georgia), retiring again in 1990.

Sergeant Major Basil L. Plumley – Veteran of 3 Wars died, on October 10, 2012.

Career soldiers have always impressed me not because they were soldiers but because they willingly spent their entire life in harms way. Any moment could see them being shipped off to resolve the latest political blunder or "enemy" action.

As a former commercial diver I was often underwater doing what most people would normally do on land. The diving suit was simply a tool of the trade, my "taxi" to the submerged world in which I worked. For Sergeant Major Plumley, for police officers and other career soldiers, guns are simply one of the tools of their trade but in no sense of the words could career soldiers or police officers be considered as having guns for brains or guns on the brain.

In Vietnam

 



Honor

 

Is this a staged photograph?

 

Maybe it is, maybe its not. Does it really matter? This simple yet powerful image so simply illustrates the difference between good and evil. It so simply states the difference between cowardice and bravery. It so simply states the difference between everything that is wrong with this world and everything that this world should be.

 

It is not uncommon to read of, or hear about yet another cleric or religious fanatic or terrorist state  riling against the west and its' way of life. It is not uncommon for these same people to hold up western society as a reason to justify their particular brand of hatred and brutality saying they denounce western civilization as evil.

 

Perhaps it is easy to paint someone with guns who stands between you and your ideological goal as being the bad person, the evil western society that is out to get you. Unfortunately for those people, their own actions dictate otherwise.

 

When your ideology takes away peoples rights to life, their rights to their own freedom, their rights to live without fear of persecution, then your ideals are wrong. That may be a "western" value I am placing on an "eastern" fanatic, but when you rely on butchery to attain your goal, perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with your goal.

 

My vote will always go those who shield the victims. My vote will always go to those who stand up for the weak, fight for the weak and protect them from harm.

 

Is this image staged? It doesn't matter. It symbolizes all that is good about mankind.

 

I had a dream

 

He started WWIII

 

War Games

 

Logic ?

Gertrude Bell

 

                                                      (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926)

Although the world is tearing itself apart with people claiming to be this, that, or another thing, Gertrude Bell was the real thing. When guns were blazing all about during WWI she and her companions were knowingly, or perhaps unknowingly creating our modern stage of conflict.

Gertrude Bell, lady of the desert, a strong will that shaped the modern history of the desert people.
Intelligent, a maker of kingdoms, all without guns. Brains for guns, and still remembered by those who use guns for brains.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE was an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia.

Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.

She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, utilizing her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She has been described as "one of the few representatives of His Majesty's Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection".