DOMA: The Supreme Court Goes Too Far Yet Again

A common complaint among conservatives attends to the improper role of the judiciary in modern American political life: the activism that sees judges rushing in where politicians fear to tread.  The hard questions, the hard decisions that actual statesmen (as opposed to mere politicians) would be expected to make are shunned – too controversial, potentially too costly in the next election, a threat to the projected life-long vocation of a career politician dedicated wholly to preparation, running, and consolidation of a permanent campaign.  Better to let the Executive rule by regulations, his power suffused through the myriad apparatchiki in bureaucratic succession.

But worse yet, encourage the judges to over-reach and hand down not judgments but fiats, deciding not according to the laws of the legislature but by the lights of what they deem to be right and just.  It is not the opinion of some benevolent despots robed in black but the Constitution that must steer their decisions.  This was a favorite topic of Thomas Jefferson, who said, among his many quotes on the subject, "It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions.  It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy."

Yet time has seen this republic march progressively (yes, pun intended) toward just such a situation, and a major indicator of the ability of the judiciary to create law, in the same manner as Roe vs Wade, was seen yesterday in the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as a result of the decision handed down with United States vs Windsor.

First, I am fully in favor of the traditional definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, though not perhaps for the reasons that you would suspect – a subject for a later posting.  But here I am writing about how the Supreme Court in the opinion of Justice Kennedy has abrogated to itself an excuse to step in to express a judgment in an area that was not the purpose of the case.

Justice Antonin Scalia

But let me defer, as I often like to do on this subject, to the always erudite and compelling reasoning of Justice Scalia writing, in addition to Chief Justice Roberts, in the dissent, and a particularly scathing one at that (starting at p35).

This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law.  Today's opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former.  We have no power to decide this case.  And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation.  The Court's errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America. 

The Court is eager – hungry – to tell everyone of its view of the legal question at the heart of this case.  Standing in the way is an obstacle, a technicality of little interest to anyone but the people of We the People, who created it as a barrier against judges' intrusion into their lives.  They gave judges, in Article III, only the "judicial Power," a power to decide not abstract questions but real, concrete "Cases" and "Controversies."  Yet the plaintiff and the Government agree entirely on what should happen in this lawsuit.  They agree that the court below got it right: and they agreed in the court below that the court below that one got it right as well.  What, then, are we doing here? ... 

Some might conclude that this loaf could have used a while longer in the oven.  But that would be wrong; it is already overcooked.  The most expert care in preparation cannot redeem a bad recipe.  The sum of all the Court's nonspecific hand-waving is that this law is invalid (maybe on equal-protection grounds, maybe on substantive-due-process grounds, and perhaps with some amorphous federalism component playing a role) because it is motivated by a "'bare ... desire to harm'" couples in same-sex marriages. ... 

To be sure (as the majority points out), the legislation is called the Defense of Marriage Act.  But to defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. ... 

It takes real cheek for today's majority to assure us, as it is going out the door, that a constitutional requirement to give formal recognition to same-sex marriage is not at issue here – when what has preceded that assurance is a lecture on how superior the majority's moral judgment  in favor of same-sex marriage is to the Congress's hateful moral judgment against it.  I promise you this: The only thing that will "confine" the Court's holding is its sense of what it can get away with.

The great jurist and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with the original quote that "Great cases like hard cases make bad law."  But let us not stop there; he continued, "For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment."  His opinion can otherwise be summed up with the story of his departure one evening from the residence of a friend, with whom he had enjoyed a delightful dinner and engaging conversation.  As his carriage pulled away from the entrance, his friend, seized by a feeling of enthusiasm perhaps fueled by the after-dinner brandy, called out to him to "Go forth and do great things!"  Holmes stopped the carriage and leaned out to reply, "No.  I go forth to follow the law."

Congress Proposes Standard Camouflage Uniforms For US Military

Two members of the House Armed Services Committee have proposed an amendment to the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would require all the services within the Defense Department to produce standardized camouflage field uniforms by 2018.  Representatives Bill Enyart and Tammy Duckworth (both D-Illinois) introduced the measure as an attempt to cut defense spending, particularly in light of the new RIF (Reduction In Force) and their hope to cut back slightly on the hemorrhage of some 100,000 Soldiers and Marines (and several thousand from the Air Force and Navy) as part of the Sequester.  Both Enyart and Duckworth are veterans, with Enyart rising through alternate time in the Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Illinois Air National Guard to become the Illinois Adjutant Major General, and Duckworth is a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both legs in action.

Enyart is quoted as saying, "Congress needs to exercise its oversight to make sure we don't do silly things."  Left unexplained is how Congress itself is going to correct the myriad silly things that it does.

Army, Navy, and Marine camouflage uniforms (MSG Hayes, USA)

The US armed forces have branched out into a veritable kaleidoscope of camouflage uniforms since the beginning of the Global War on Terror or whatever the current term du jour may be.  (Or according to Obama, whether we are even at war at all.  Tolkien said, "It takes but one to make war, not two, and those who do not take up swords can still die upon them."  This is a sentiment not lost upon the tens of millions of jihadis still highly dedicated to the Cause.)

I spent some detail in one of my more popular posts about the development of American camouflage, but an update to the subject is deserved with this news, particularly in light of some of the unresearched suppositions floating about since the announcement.  Refer to that article should you have any questions about this post, as well as some information contained in a post on foreign camouflage.

The Marines started the service-specific ball rolling soon after 9/11 with their introduction of MARPAT, a pixilated woodland and desert style based on the revolutionary Canadian CADPAT, and no, the Marines did not "steal" the design as has been noted elsewhere – they cooperated quite closely with the Canadians to develop the design.  The Marines wanted a more effective camouflage and useful uniform design, which this certainly was, and didn't want to wait on the hidebound DoD bureaucracy to get around to doing it for them.  After all, there was a war on.

A Marine DI (Desert MARPAT) makes a suggestion to a Recruit (Woodland) (BI)

It has also been written that the Marines incorporated small Eagle, Globe & Anchor logos every few feet apart in order to prevent the other services from using it (a trademark stamp, as it were).  The Commandant responsible for the introduction of MARPAT, General James Jones, did allow that it benefited the Marines for the enemy to know who they were up against.  The Marine Corps developed a well honed reputation over the last couple of centuries and General Jones sought to capitilize on that to the benefit of the mission and the Marines.  But the main reason for the Marine trademark was to prevent confusion with counterfeited copies, for the uniform involved more than just the color design – it was the special inks, the high quality cloth that would accept the ink, the machines that could process both, and the infra-red shielding capability, among other concerns.  (The current Commandant, General James Amos, has stated that he wants to retain a distinct Marine field or combat uniform.)

The Army at the time was in the process of developing its own design but the project was hijacked in an attempt to have a quick design that would compete with the Marines.  While the design of the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) was an improvement (other than the poor quality of the cloth), the camouflage selected, the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP) has been a dismal failure.  The Army admitted as much in 2009 after a barrage of complaints from the field and added prodding by Rep John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania), who was then the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on Defense (and who was thereby an example of the Stopped Clock principle of occasionally doing something right).  The Army had to admit that all the research it had performed on a better camouflage (resulting in a Desert Brush design) was scrapped for no apparent reason in favor of the UCP which had no field testing whatsoever.  By the next year, the Army had introduced a variant with the wonkish title of Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern (OCP) for the continuing operations in Afghanistan.  This is produced by Crye Precision and used some of the research of the Natick Labs, and is popularly known as MultiCam.  The design was a finalist in the previous competition that was forestalled by the sudden selection of UCP.

Incandescently ineffective - UCP (NBC)

With the Army then branching off with UCP, if the other services did not want to pick up the support costs of the previous field uniform system, they needed to develop their own patterns.

The Air Force then jumped in with its Tiger-stripe variation that used the same poor choice of colors as the UCP, and called the Airman Battle Uniform (ABU).  The only real purpose was as a feel-good measure for the Air Force in its quest to have its airman feel like warriors.  (This is not simply an editorial comment; it has been the stated goal of the Air Force for several decades.  See the article referenced above.)  Wearing of the ABU in a combat zone is now forbidden in favor of a design that actually works.  Unfortunately, for the sake of uniformity and cost savings, the Air Force began wearing the Army UCP, but has now fortunately switched to MultiCam.

The Navy then added to a further fragmentation with its introduction of the Navy Working Uniform (NWU), in a blue and grey pixilated pattern that did nothing to hide anyone, except in the unfortunate case of someone falling overboard.  The real and woefully unexplained reason behind such a strange selection was that it is a work uniform – it says so right in the title – and the pattern was chosen for its ability to hide or adapt to oil and paint stains that are part of everyday shipboard life, thus extending the usefulness and wear of the uniform.  Despite the coloration, the design has been rather popular and utilitarian (other than its loose fit tends to catch on the many metal protubrances found aboard ship), but a major criticism of the NWU is that it is the latest version of a shipboard uniform that is still not flame retardant.  The Navy was committed to such a safety measure for shipboard use after the famous collision between the USS John F Kennedy and the USS Belknap in 1975.

All in the Navy

The Navy has land combatant elements though, which certainly include the SEALs and other supporting personnel.  With the Marine pattern 'copyrighted', the Navy developed its own desert and woodland variations called Area of Responsibility (AOR) 1 and 2 that are very close to the Marine MARPAT patterns, begging the question as to why the differences.  Why indeed – thus the move to come up with one system.  There has been an effort to keep this effective field camouflage system as sort of a fraternity pin aspect for the SEALs alone, with supporting sailors wearing the older DCU, and the ostensible reason being the initially low numbers of the uniforms coming on line.

Master CPO of the Navy wearing AOR 2, addressing sailors underway

Thus, considering that some units hither and yon still wear the old BDU (Woodland) and DCU (Desert) uniforms, that adds up to ten different camouflage patterns in use at one time, all in varying degrees of effectiveness (or not): one for the Army, one for the Air Force, two for the Marines, three for the Navy, and one for the actual combat area of Afghanistan.

It is not envisioned that only one pattern will prevail – it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt even to Army bean counters that there is no such thing as a universal design pattern, a point made, incidentally, after the 'universal' chocolate-chip desert pattern, supposedly good for all deserts, was rapidly replaced by the coffee-stain pattern at the end of the First Gulf War, but often it takes learning the same lesson several times over for a bureaucrat to understand it.  The new camouflage system will likely take into account at least the usual woodland and desert variations, as well as the rarely mentioned winter variations (they're out there, packed away in case we have to re-take the Aleutians again).  In theory, this new system would have to accommodate itself to the four basic climes of jungle (liberal: rain forest), woodland, desert, and mountain/alpine, with gear and a load-bearing system that could work across that spectrum. 

Personally, I feel that the occasional mention of urban camouflage is of very limited utility, not only as an effective camouflage but also considering the third world nature of the 'urban' environments we have seen lately.  Not even police departments, which operate almost exclusively in large urban areas, have developed a common sense of what would constitute such a pattern.

Remember that the real money issue will not be the uniforms so much as it is the associated field gear, which has to stretch across the spectrum of camouflage patterns for reasons of budget and logistics.  Switching uniforms near the tarmac for an early morning call to arms is a blink of an eye compared to trying to switch out your full kit.

Should the new plan be implemented, this will be the first time since the coffee-stain pattern prevailed that we will have a standard uniform in the field.  (I found myself among the British for a few days during the First Gulf War.  It took them a while – we were all very busy at the time – to understand that I wasn't in the Army, until they carefully read the tape above my left breast pocket.  Other examples abound in my career.)  Other than the mild embarrassment of etiquette in mistaking one's service affiliation on the battlefield, there is everything to be said for a standard uniform and pattern based on combat effectiveness as opposed to service pride or, worse yet, budget considerations.

During Viet Nam, we all had the same 'Battle Fatigues (or Utilities)', but the Marines had their Eagle, Globe & Anchor with bold USMC on the left pocket; the Army had their patches.  The style of the uniforms was the least of our worries.

On the other hand, the Marines have certainly earned the privilege of capitalizing on their professionally ruthless reputation with their mission to "locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver."  Focused as we have been on psychological operations in this Global War, it behooves us to consider the effect that it has on the enemy of knowing that they are about to try to engage one of the most effective combat forces in history.  Prior to World War II, Marines had the metal insignia of the Corps affixed to their doughboy-style helmets, and during the war in the Pacific they would occasionally have some distinguishing items such as the 'leopard spot' camouflage.  During Korea, the Marines retained the puttees strapped to their boots from the previous war, another item that made them stand out, resulting in the Chinese nom de guerre of 'yellow legs'.  (Aside: during my career I also served briefly with the Turks, who in the Korean War had the Turkish Brigade alongside 7th Marines during the devastating and Anabasis-like Battle of Chosin Reservoir.  I heard from my Marine training and the camaraderie of the Turkish Naval Infantry of how the Turks would do us the unbidden favor of patrolling our lines at night searching for Chinese infiltrators, approaching our positions from the rear armed with knives.  Marines in fighting holes were occasionally startled to feel a hand around their collar searching for the American-unique dog tag chain, or a hand brushing across their ankle seeking the puttees.)  Despite standardization then, it is still a benefit in some circumstances to have a distinguishing characteristic, and the Enyart-Duckworth bill allows for exceptions for special operations, though here we would be hung up on that definition as it applies to the Marine Corps.

Cost savings could easily be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars over time, except for the costs of switching over to an entirely new system throughout the entire DoD and the associated cost of disposing – somehow – of such a tremendous backlog of uniforms.  What is worrisome is that the same attitude that brought us the lamentable combat uniforms we now have (other than the Marines) is that it will involve the same sort of people who brought us the problem in the first place.  It would be like the old story of the Ladies Auxiliary whose annual treasurer's report had the bake sale losing $100, the quilting bee contest losing $200, and the book sale losing $250, with the conclusion that they would do the bake sale again since that was the most successful.

The Army was already in the process of choosing an official replacement for the UCP for use world-wide.  The deadline has been set for 14 June (the Army birthday) and it is not yet known how and to what extent this amendment for all the armed forces (if it passes) will affect that process.

US soldier in MultiCam (OCP)

MultiCam has proven very popular in Afghanistan with the US forces and has been adopted by the British (called Multi-Terrain Pattern or MTP), Australians, New Zealanders, Danish, Dutch, and Poles (some in slight variations) for use there, as well.  Some countries are picking it up for use by their special operations troops (e.g., Argentina, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Sweden) and others for their entire military, such as Chile and Georgia, as well as Pakistan (which could present a particular potential problem – just something to ponder, shall we say).  Russia is also using it with one of its many special units, but then the Russians seem to be using all variations of camouflage known to man simultaneously, spread throughout their wide variety of such special units.

British Royal Marine in MultiCam (MTP)

MultiCam has been successful in Afghanistan, and its design renders it useful in a wider number of areas than other types heretofore fielded, I strongly suspect, yet it is still not the universal answer.  Considering its growing popularity with a number of countries, its usefulness would be attenuated by the confusion of the same pattern spread among potential adversaries.  Thus while MultiCam would be a leading contender for a standard US field uniform, it is probably not a shoo-in or even a likely competitor.  Add to that the fact that it uses seven colors, and now it falls into the "too expensive" category that budgeteers will be screaming about.  After the substantial Army UCP embarrassment that took a Congressional inquiry to uncover, there could very well be an effort made to get it right this time, but we are still subject to all the current federal procurement and contracting nonsense that will likely include an environmentally sensitive approach, and the example of contractors naming their wives as CEOs and other Elizabeth Warren 'Fauxcahontas' set-aside angles.

While this sounds like a good idea, the Devil is always lurking in the details and it stands a chance of being as screwed up as anything that Robert McNamara could imagine.

*****
Update: While we're on the subject of field uniforms, here is a change that is certainly for the better.

D-Day Remembered

I posted this near the beginning of my web log experience, and this basic re-print is just as germane today.

Scott Johnson at Power Line commemorates this 69th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy, the largest amphibious attack in history by far, and has resurrected two great articles.  The first, ‘Too Much, Too Late’, is by Professor David Gelertner of Yale, originally published in the Wall Street Journal in 2004.  Prof Gelertner takes on the phrase ‘the greatest generation’ by the sanctimonious pandering of the “cultural establishment ... especially intense among members of the 1960s generation who once chose to treat all present and former veterans like dirt.”  He continues by saying that if we cared about the topic of World War II, our children should be taught at least four topics:

The major battles of the war – When I was a child in the 1960s, names like Corregidor and Iwo Jima were still sacred, and pronounced everywhere with respect. ... Today the Battle of Midway has become niche-market nostalgia material, and most children (and many adults) have never heard of it.  Thus we honor "the greatest generation."

The bestiality of the Japanese – If we forget this we dishonor the thousands who were tortured and murdered, and put ourselves in danger of believing the soul-corroding lie that all cultures are equally bad or good.  Some Americans nowadays seem to think America's behavior during the war was worse than Japan's – we did intern many loyal Americans of Japanese descent.  That was unforgivable – and unspeakably trivial compared to Japan's unique achievement, mass murder one atrocity at a time. ... In the Japanese-occupied Philippines alone, at least 131,028 civilians and Allied prisoners of war were murdered.  The Japanese committed crimes against Allied POWs and Asians that would be hard still, today, for a respectable newspaper even to describe....

The attitude of American intellectuals – such as “Our entry into the war, under the slogan of 'Stop Hitler!' would actually result in the immediate introduction of totalitarianism over here. ... The American masses can best help [the German people] by fighting at home to keep their own liberties." ... Why rake up these Profiles in Disgrace?  Because in the Iraq War era they have a painfully familiar ring.

The veterans’ neglected voice – World War II produced an extraordinary literature of first-person soldier narratives – most of them out of print or unknown. ... The Library of America includes two volumes on "Reporting World War II," but where are the soldiers' memoirs versus the reporters'?

Next is ‘First Wave at Omaha Beach’ by S L A Marshall, one of the best-known (and official) historians of World War II and Korea, published in The Atlantic in November 1960.  He begins by explaining how “the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.”  This has occurred, in his opinion, by the fact that the initial reports from which the standard account had been built were based on the immediate statements of the survivors.  But Marshall returned to the enormous amount of detail accumulated during the field research afterward in order to make some sort of sense of the overall magnitude of the assault (though he modestly neglects to mention that he was in charge of that research and that it began with the landing of his team while the battle was still being fought).

He draws you into the story by building on the fact that Omaha Beach (one of five assault beaches, in addition to the paratroop landing zones inland) covered a two-division front landing (enormous, to the uninitiated) but only six rifle companies were relatively effective as units during the initial assault, since the others (some three times that number) had been "shattered and foundered before they could start to fight."  He goes on to explain, from his faded notes, what can best be discerned about the fate of the first wave of the assault comprising Able and Baker Companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division.

Normally, I would say ‘read the whole thing’.  Rather, I implore you to read it all, and I wish that if any one article on the topic could be thrust upon our atrophied and effete public education system, it should be this.  Trying to excerpt some lines or paragraphs to give one the gist of the  assault would be woefully inadequate.

These articles should not be lost, and my thanks go to Scott Johnson for providing them.

W H Auden’s ‘Epitaph for an Unknown Soldier’ sums it all up succinctly:

To save your world you asked this man to die:
Would this man, could he see you now, ask “Why?”

The Onion Tackles Obama Press Coverage, 'Killing Spree'

The Onion has been a satirical 'news' service since about the late 1980s, and in the true sense of satire it has provided some truly trenchant wit and irony in examining the vice and folly of political life in America.  With the steadily mounting number and severity of scandals of the current administration, and the American public increasingly annoyed with pundits who will stare directly in the camera and challenge our intelligence and credulity, The Onion now ponders the response of the Press and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) in the hypothetical case of Obama murdering a local couple, in "Media Having Trouble Finding Right Angle On Obama's Double-Homicide", all delivered in the style of the reportage of the two Chechnyan jihadis in our midst who bombed the Boston Marathon.

(Faithful readers will know that I have a penchant for gallows humor, and this effort sates my appetite at least for the afternoon.)

I am sure that agents of the Secret Service, the FBI, and the IRS are already looking into the story with such tangy examples as: 

WASHINGTON – More than a week after President Barack Obama's cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime. 

"I know there's a story in there somewhere," said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama's home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8.  "Right now though, it's probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in.  After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation."  Added Meacham, "It's not so cut and dried." … 

"What exactly is the news hook here?" asked Rick Kaplan, executive producer of the CBS Evening News.  "Is this an upbeat human-interest story about a 'day in the life' of a bloodthirsty president who likes to kill people?  Or is it more of an examination of how Obama's unusual upbringing in Hawaii helped to shape the way he would one day viciously butcher two helpless citizens in their own home?" … 

"There's been some debate around the office about whether we should report on this at all," Washington Post senior reporter Bill Tracy said while on assignment at a local dog show.  "It's enough of a tragedy without the press jumping in and pointing fingers or, worse, exploiting the violence." … 

The article is accompanied by a photograph of a typical press bull pen (are we still allowed to use that term?) with the caption: 

Associated Press reporters investigate any possible gym training regimens the president might have used to get into peak physical condition for the murders.

Heh.

Of course, be sure the read the whole thing, by all means.

*****
Update: This is satire, of course, but then how do you explain the actual quote in the same vein from Charles Pierce of the Boston Globe in 2004: "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old.  Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age."

Mount Everest Anniversary: Hillary, Mallory and Further Thoughts

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first summiting of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.  At the time, this stupendous feat ranked with Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic, but whereas Lindbergh's daring can be purchased for the mere price of ponying up sufficient coin for a nice seat on Icelandair, so now the ascent of the greatest mountain on the planet can be purchased for some telling stamina, the time of some guides, and about $65,000.

But for the British expedition of 1953, this was then an unspoiled wilderness in the starkest of terms.  The British were surprised at the success of the Swiss in reconnoitering the mountain in 1952, with members climbing to 28,199 feet of the 29,035-foot mountain, and knew that they would have to make a serious attempt to summit it before the upcoming French and Swiss attempts.  The Alpine Club and the Royal Geographic Society chose Colonel John Hunt over Eric Shipton, a controversial choice at the time, to lead their next and ninth expedition. 

Colonel John Hunt, CBE, DSO (these prior to the assault on Everest, from action in Italy and Greece during World War II) was already a noted mountaineer from his upbringing in India and experience with the Indian Army under the British, as he had led several mountain ascents into the Himalayas, an experience which found him in command of the Commando Mountain and Snow Warfare School at the beginning of the war. 

He chose a team noted for their mountaineering experience as well as their temperament, and successfully guided the enormous logistical feat of staging tons of gear and supplies in successive altitudes up the mountain.  Hunt's first choice to attempt the summit, Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans, made it within about 350 feet of the summit but were beaten back by exhaustion and oxygen problems on the 26th, and Hunt chose Hillary and Norgay, a veteran of the Swiss expedition the year before, for the final attempt a few days later when the weather was more cooperative. 

Edmund Hillary was a native of Auckland and like his father, an ANZAC veteran of the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I, was a beekeeper by profession but an avid mountaineer in his own right.  Experience in World War II as a navigator in the RNZAF broke him out of his Kiwi world.  He was part of Himalayan expeditions in 1951 and 1952 and helped chart routes by way of Nepal, since the previous Tibetan routes were closed after Communist China forcibly absorbed Tibet in 1950. 

Hillary and Norgay made it to what they discovered to be the last obstacle, a 40-foot rock face now called the Hillary Step.  Hillary wedged himself between the rock and an ice overhang to surmount it, and after "a few more whacks of the ice axe in the firm snow", Hillary and Norgay stood atop the world's highest point, some two-thirds of the way up through the atmosphere, and gazed down on the largest vista ever seen by earth-bound man, a hundred miles to the horizon, and remarked on the curvature of the Earth while standing at the cruising altitude of a modern airliner.

Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir John Hunt, and Tenzing Norgay

This was a tremendous news flash at the time, but Hillary was insistent that the credit go to the entire team and he was equally insistent that both he and Norgay summited at the same time to ensure that his friend receive equal credit.  (Some years later, Norgay graciously declared that in fact it was Hillary who was the first to the top.)  The two remained only for some fifteen minutes, quick enough for each to leave a crucifix and some cookies and chocolate for the gods of the mountains, and to snap a photo of Norgay and shots of the surrounding territory below them to establish that they had indeed made the top.  (Apparently Norgay was unfamiliar with how to work the camera and Hillary did not feel that there was enough time to instruct him, so there is no photo of Hillary on the summit.)

Tenzing Norgay on top of the world, 1953

Whether or not the team was the first to summit has been a controversial question for some time, as there is the story of the 1924 British expedition that made the attempt from the north side.  George Mallory and his partner Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine were sighted briefly as they were some 800 feet from the summit, before they disappeared.  (It was Mallory who is credited with the snappish reply to the inane question of a reporter who enquired about the appeal of climbing the mountain: "Because it's there.")  There are two features on that side, the First Step (relatively easy to scale) and the Second Step (far more time consuming) which figure into the story, as the last sighting had the two of them crossing over the Second Step in a matter of five minutes.  Some analyses believe that this was an error and the sighting was likely that Mallory and Irvine were scaling the First Step instead.  They were also late on their schedule for what are still unknown reasons.

The 1924 Expedition, with Mallory (hatless) and Irvine to his left

Chinese mountaineers later gave testimony, on separate occasions, to the presence of their bodies at separate locations at about the 27,000 foot level.  In 1960, Xu Jing spotted a body (a "foreign mountaineer", which at the time could have only been Mallory or Irvine) in a location that could correspond to a later (1995) spotting by a Sherpa named Chhiring.  In both cases, the climbers were somewhat in extremis and the details are confusing, but both could have spotted Irvine's body, which has yet to be discovered again.  The body of Mallory, however, was glimpsed by a Wang Hung Bao in a 1975 expedition and reported to a teammate as an "English dead", just hours before Wang was swept to his death in an avalanche.  That teammate passed the information to an American inquiry in 1979.

Eric Simonson led an expedition in 1999 to discover their remains and succeeded in locating, almost by chance in that enormous expanse, the body of Mallory, which by then had bleached and frozen into a state of organic white alabaster.  He had suffered broken ribs, a broken right leg, and a serious blow to his head above the right eye before his descent was stopped by a outcrop of stone.  He would have died within minutes in the snow squall which had overtaken them. 

One prize that the Simonson Expedition was seeking was a camera that the two missing explorers were known to have had with them (perhaps two) that could have evidence of a summit, but it was not with Mallory's body.  Kodak insists that, if handled very carefully, the camera can still yield some photographic evidence after all this time if it is subjected to modern techniques that they have at their disposal.  (I personally have to question the possible photographic quality after its presence for some 90 years at an altitude that is exposed to serious cosmic radiation, but that is for the scientists.)  The Holy Grail of a future expedition to locate the remains of Irvine would be the possibility of retrieving the camera fairly intact. 

Sir Edmund, ever the gentleman, addressed the controversy by stating, "Well, I may not have been the first to climb to the summit, but I was the first to do so and return."  This echoes the sentiment of Mallory's own son John, who was three years of age when his father disappeared on the north slope: "To me, the only way you achieve a summit is to come back alive.  The job is only half done if you don't get down again."

The question remains about whether Mallory and Irvine died on their way to the top, or on the way down after their success.  It has been generally believed that they were unsuccessful – historian and mountaineer Tom Holzel stated his theory that Mallory, utilizing Irvine's extra oxygen, made a solo attempt after Irvine elected to remain at the Second Step, but after the collection of further evidence, Holzel has reversed himself.  (Holzel continues in his efforts to launch another expedition to locate Irvine's remains, and believes that he has found the location by high-definition aerial photography.)  Study of the attempt has also led to a better understanding of the role of barometric pressure at that altitude, beyond the more obvious weather considerations, and its unseen physiological effects which can tack on several hundred feet of artificial altitude by a slight variation in pressure. 

These stories are compelling, but nevertheless, two other thoughts come to mind when the subject of Everest pops up.  In 2003, the 50th anniversary, Hillary (who passed away in 2008) marked the occasion to lament, in no uncertain terms, what the area had become.  "I'm not very happy about the future of Everest.  Yesterday there were 1,000 there [at the main base camp] and some 500 tents.  There was a booze place for drinks.  Sitting around the base camp and knocking back cans of beer – I do not particularly view that as mountaineering. … They act as if they are the lords of the area. They don't consider the welfare of the local people. … Having people pay $65,000 and then be led up the mountain by a couple of guides, I personally think, is far less attractive.  It isn't really mountaineering at all."  Bravo.

The other item is the remark from Hillary Clinton, quoted in 1995 (and by her husband Bill in his book in 2004), that her mother was inspired by Sir Edmund's ascent and named her after him as a means to pass on to her daughter the inspiration of achieving great things as a woman.  Mrs Clinton mentioned this to Sir Edmund in person when she met him quite by chance in 1995 in Katmandu.  It is said that Sir Edmund tactfully pointed out (well, as tactfully as he was capable, surely) that the only written reference that her mother would have seen when Mrs Clinton was born in 1947 would have been his name in an Auckland phone book under the heading of 'beekeeper'.  Sir Edmund's ascent of Everest didn't occur until she was six years old.  This is another classic example of the Clintons as wholly political creatures who don't have the wherewithal to do a simple check of the facts, and whose glib need to popularize themselves yields to never letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Mountains have always had an enormous appeal to me, partly I suspect because I have spent so much of my adult life in sand, either on beaches or in deserts.  Now the closest mountain of real note is Mount Rainier and I have never had the satisfaction of being exhausted from exploring where I wanted, limited by practicalities of others.  My appetite was whetted years ago by occasional opportunities with the military, in various places stateside and later in the Alps and Dolomites.  It was always just enough to impress upon me the wonderful sense of the solitude of just a happy few in an immense expanse of rock and snow, with a sky a deeper blue filled with a keener light, surmounting a kaleidoscope of monochrome rocky grays and ice white.  Mother Nature there reveals her true self as a harsh mistress, ready to quickly snuff out the life of the unwary or careless in order to demonstrate our insignificant place on the planet.  But the thrill of knowing the truth of the matter still draws me.

Memorial Day, 2013

I have posted twice before on the commemoration of Memorial Day, and I encourage you to read them, both here for 2011 and here for 2012, not just for my meager words but mostly for the references to those more eloquent than I am.

For those who must rush off to attend to the day's observances, allow this brief distillation of my thoughts to tide you over until such time that you can give your attention to the remembrances cited above:

Memorial Day is to commemorate those who have given their lives in the ultimate sacrifice for their country and comrades, in battle or as a result of it, and in observance of those families who mourn their loss more deeply than anyone, for to them every day is a memorial day.  I have lost friends and good acquaintances – 'absent companions' – but more importantly a brother in the cause of the defense of our nation.

A greeting of "Happy Memorial Day" is a sentiment misplaced.  There are people who will reflexively say "Thank you for your service," yet while I appreciate the thought, for myself but mainly for the many members of my family who have served and continue to serve, that kindness is reserved for Veterans Day in November.  Note that I allowed for the "observances" above, not for festivities.  While it is fine to relax and clear one's mind from those "thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to", it is for the purpose of giving thanks to those who have suffered all the very real variations of slings and arrows in their modern and more lethal form, those who took up arms against our national sea of troubles, to oppose them, to end them.

Yet we should go beyond our mourning of those we have lost, and their future generations.  It is now the political outlook to which our culture has been bent, that we remember only their loss.  Thus the criticism of such places as the Vietnam War Memorial, a "black gash" that is dug into the ground and lists the names of the dead on an extended black slab, designed and selected by people who had little or no experience or knowledge of that or any other conflict.  The Wall reflects only that they died, not what they did.  It is the lists of those killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan that were so prominently displayed and reported (though not in this administration), or like the letters "from the front" that were read weekly on a Portland radio station, edited to present only fear and despair, read to the accompaniment of a dirge.

We must reflect not so much on the keen loss but also on what we have gained by their sacrifice, for while there shall always be wars and rumors of wars, we should always be mindful of the great cost borne by those who stand ready to do violence on the behalf of those sleeping peacefully in their beds, to paraphrase George Orwell.  General George S Patton put it well and succinctly: "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.  Rather we should thank God that such men lived."

And suffer one last apropos quote, from John Stuart Mill: 

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety; is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. 

American Military Cemetary, Normandy

Let us remember and celebrate those men – and women – who have helped ensure our freedom here at home, and the freedom of so many countries overseas.  The only territory we have ever fought for since our Civil War has been for fields of crosses, row on row, that adorn the countryside of nations we have fought to liberate.

*****
Update:  Memorial Day, 2014.

IRS Fast-Tracks Questionable Foundation of Obama's Brother (Update: Details of IRS Abuse)

There has been a lot of action lately on the various scandals du jour involving the Obama administration.  The latest shoe to drop shows what I expected from the administration targeting AP correspondents: that the administration did not limit itself just to the AP, but have been targeting Fox News as well.  I wouldn't be surprised if the target list expands still further.

 Jay Carney at press briefing.  The sign says it all.

The main movement of the administration is to ensure that everything stays right where it is.  After all, stonewalling has worked just fine in the cases of Fast & Furious and taxpayer-funded scams for green cronies like Solyndra, so that remains the reaction of choice.  As for their critics, the administration plays by the Alinsky playbook, most commonly the idea to "pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it".  (Many people believe that this is the whole Alinsky strategy.  Actually, it is only one rule of twelve.)  Dan Pfeiffer makes the rounds to say that the question of the legality (much less the constitutionality) of the IRS over-reach is "irrelevant", and the accusations about Benghazi "offensive".  (Imagine how offended are the families of the victims.)

The IRS case involves high-level agency managers (again, you know that it couldn't have been a couple of low-level flunkies) targeting conservative  groups yet showing  favoritism toward liberal ones.  (Look for the name of Cindy Thomas to start showing up as we climb the chain of command.)  You likely will not be surprised (I wasn't) to learn that veterans are in their cross-hairs too.  A very illustrative example, which hasn't yet received the publicity that one would expect, involves the Barack H Obama Foundation (name ring a bell?).

This 'foundation' drew the suspicion of the National Legal and Policy Center, which first noticed that it was "promoting itself as a charity and seeking donations that it said would be tax-deductable, but it lacked the required tax-exempt status."  Once caught, the foundation quickly applied for the status and was approved within 34 days, far shorter that the average five or six months, and certainly shorter than the many months – or years – of investigations for conservative organizations, asking (as one example) for lists of donors, transcripts of speeches, copies of all newsletters, and how they prayed, among the 55 exhaustive questions required of them.

Not only did the foundation, named after the father of the President, receive an unusually rapid turn-around, its new status was backdated to December 2009, which covers the time period of the complaint of the NLPC, despite the fact that the foundation never requested it.

The purported foundation has Abon'go Malik Obama as its director.  Abon'go is a half-brother to Barack Obama by the senior Obama's first wife.  Barack's interlocutors have remained mum on the embarrassing connection, and apparently hope that it receives as little attention as the news concerning the President's aunt Zeituni and (separate) uncle Onyango, both of whom reside in the US illegally and have remained fraudulently, though both cases are now "under review".  Charles Dickens said "It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations", and the administration's actions (or lack thereof) give the impression that these are simply distant relations with whom the President has lost touch long ago.

In the case of Abon'go, though, the two of them were close enough that Abon'go served as best man at the marriage of Barack and Michelle.  For that matter, Barack served in the same capacity for Abon'go, though it is not clear which of the twelve wives of Abon'go this applies to.

 Abon'go and Barack, wedding picture

The foundation states that it has built a madrassa in Kenya (though that has recently been deleted from its internet site) but otherwise uses airy phrases about improving the "food, water, and shelter" in order to "elevate the human condition" and "dignity" in his local area.  No specifics are given.

This so-called charity lists two addresses, one of which turns out to be a post office box at a UPS location in Alexandria, Virginia.  The physical address in the IRS filing is occupied by a drug and alcohol recovery service, and has been for "a couple of years" according to its receptionist, which extends back to the date listed on the IRS filing of May 2011.  Nobody at that recovery service has ever heard of the Barack H Obama Foundation.

This is just one of the elements of the IRS investigation into its abuse of conservative groups, including handing over tax documents on the groups to "liberal news organizations".  Lois Lerner, the IRS official who rapidly signed off on the foundation's application and who is neither "good at math" nor answering questions from the press, is under increasingly scalding water of her own, so much so that the Washington Post Fact Checker stamped her with the Four Pinocchio grade of untruthfulness, though its headline says that she deserves a "bushel" of them.  Taking her cue, Lerner has now invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination for her scheduled testimony before Congress.  This should prove to be about as productive as the testimony of the two previous IRS commissioners.

 IRS Commissioner Steve Miller in House testimony (Do I look like I care?)

Have we finally arrived at the time where even the MSM is past the tipping point and actually begins to criticize Obama?  Diehards are still demanding that this series of offenses not be compared to Watergate, but that crisis took some time to get going too.

*****
Update:  Cleta Mitchell of Foley & Lardner LLP provides a memorandum of precise detail about the abuses of the IRS to date.  If you have any interest in this topic at all, this is a must read.  If you don't care, then you need to.  (H/T to J Christian Adams of PJ Media.)

And why would the IRS do such a thing?  Bryan Preston provides the answer, and:

The IRS was aware of the abuse at the top levels by May 2012.  Just six months before the election.  America learned during testimony in Congress today that not only was the IRS aware of the abuse, it had investigated it.  Having investigated it, the agency then covered it up and told Congress nothing about it.  The IRS maintained the charade just long enough for Barack Obama to be re-elected.  Now, the IRS orchestrated breaking the scandal open more than a year before the next mid-term, an election in which Barack Obama hoped to flip the House to Democrat control and consolidate his power for the remaining two years of his presidency.