Nazi Helmet Primed for Paint

The more I read and learn about the Nazis, the more I dislike them.  But they did wear some really cool helmets.

My helmet, purchased from Europe, has now been stripped of paint and rust, and today I primed it with Rust-Oleum Rust Transformer.  This stuff is supposed to neutralize any remaining rust by chemically changing it to something inert, over which you can safely apply paint.

I found a place where I could spray paint the helmet -- no, not the kitchen table, the backyard garden!  I put it on a flat, aluminum paint pan and started spraying.  Of course, my first efforts created drips, so I had to use steel wool to wear those drips away, then respray.  If you aren't used to spray painting, you must learn patience, one thin coat at a time, to avoid drips.  After drying, I lightly rubbed with fine grade steel wool to smooth the surface.

Tomorrow it will be time to apply the olive green paint (some call it field gray).  The primer coat gave me some valuable practice today.  Once I finish that, I can apply military decals and the inner liner and chin strap.  When Halloween arrives, I can wear the helmet and go to the party as a Democrat.  Har har!

Screw the "Palestinian" Scum: Three Murdered Israeli Teenagers

Three Israeli teenagers who were hitchhiking in Israel a couple of weeks ago were abducted and murdered.  Their bodies were found yesterday, buried in a field in the West Bank.  The boys were 19, 16 and 16, and one was an American citizen.

I have no doubt that the three were murdered by ardent Muslims practicing their religion -- a religion that I hate with all my heart, namely, Islam.  Islam is a "religion" that practices human sacrifice, though they don't call it that.  They sacrifice innocents to their monster god, Allah.

All US aid to "Palestine" should be ended immediately.  However, with the Party of Treason occupying the White House, that isn't going to happen.

Here's hoping that Israeli retaliation will be both swift and terrible...terrible, that is, for the "Palestinians."

Fred Reed on the Origin of Life and the Implausibility of Evolution

Fred Reed, of "Fred on Everything," is a thinker and writer, someone who dares to think independently of prevailing fashions and theories, and challenge them.  A lot of his columns are just fun, like ones on "Bar Girls."  Others inspire deeper thought.  His ruminations on the origin of life and the plausibility of evolution are among his best.

Fred is not chained to any religious doctrine on the great questions of "Where did we come from?  Why are we here?  Where are we going?"  However, he has decided that the theory of evolution is intuitively implausible, that the highly complex life forms on this planet could not be some kind of weird accident, and that something is going on that we can't explain.  "I don't know what," says Fred.  (Mark Twain didn't know either, and opined that the universe was some kind of experiment.)

Fred says that there are two kinds of minds in the debate:

This agglomeration of everything under one theoretical roof appeals powerfully to minds that need an overarching explanation of everything. The great intellectual divide perhaps is not between those who believe one thing and those who believe another, but between those who need to believe something—I am tempted to say believe almost anything—and those who are comfortable with uncertainty and even the unknowable.

Fred includes the ardent evolutionist, along with the ardently religious, among the former (i.e. those that need an explanation of everything.)

After years of studying and believing in the theory of evolution, I began to see holes in it, and eventually had to reject it as implausible.  So what did create this multitude of life forms?  Like Fred, I believe that something is going on, but I don't know what.

What I do know, or at least am pretty sure about, is that human beings don't have the gray matter to figure it out.  Some things are beyond human understanding, and will remain that way.

Here are some of Fred's columns on the matter, that will make you think:

438 - Darwin

484 - Darwin, Sort Of

580 - Darwin's Fly  (Best one, IMHO)

582 - No More Evolution

Nazi Helmet Restoration Progress: the Stripped Helmet

I have spent several days this week stripping my German M40 of paint and rust.  The pre-restoration helmet is here.  The stripped helmet is at the left.  (The M40 designation refers to the year the model was created.  World War I helmets included the M16 and M18, and more modern helmets were the M35, M40 and M42.  The differences in the last three models are subtle.)

I notice that the rust remover dissolves the rust, but leaves behind a dark mark where the rust used to be. This can be ground off, but I have neither the time nor patience to do that, and, it isn't necessary.

Next step:  priming the helmet.  I am going to use a Rust-Oleum product that supposedly turns rust into something else that can be painted over.  If any small amounts of rust remain, the Rust-Oleum should kill it and prevent more rust from forming.  I'll give it two coats.

The question is, where can I spray paint my helmet with the primer and later the paint?  I suppose the kitchen table is out of the question.

I have a nice work bench in my garage.  Unfortunately, it is covered with storage boxes.  Maybe I can remove them temporarily.  I have to paint the helmet when my wife is gone for the day, probably on a shopping trip to San Jose.  Otherwise, I will have to paint it under an extreme barrage of nagging, warnings of doom and destruction, and loud verbal expressions of angst, fear, horror and disaster.

Watch This and Join PETA Today! How Animals Eat Their Food (Video)

Is Saber Point becoming too obliquely theoretical, reserved only for the deeply wise and serious? Perhaps so. Still, we feel that the following zoological presentation will make your Sunday more worthwhile. Note taking is recommended.

 

A Follow Up on Claims Made by Pro-Hitler Film

The film I reviewed in my prior post (Adolf Hitler:  the Greatest Story Never Told) made some very controversial claims.  Here's a brief follow-up on two of those claims.

Update:  I added a piece about the Allied treatment of the Russian Cossacks, who fought Stalin with Germany.

The film alleges that Russian Cossacks, who fought with German troops, were lied to and tricked or forced into being repatriated to Russia, where they were executed.
This Wikipedia article establishes the truth of this claim.  However, the Cossacks were not fascists, they were anti-communists, tired of the harsh conditions of living under Stalin's communism.  Because of an agreement at Yalta before the end of the war, the allies turned the Cossacks over to Stalin to meet their fate.  This clearly stinks in the history books.

Eisenhower Deliberately Starved German POWs?
One of the claims was that General Dwight D. Eisenhower deliberately allowed nearly a million German POWs to die from starvation and exposure.  This claim was first made by a Canadian author, James Bacque, in his book Other Losses (1989).

I haven't ready an books on the subject, but I very much doubt that this is true, based on my intuition alone. Stephen E. Ambrose refuted Bacque in a New York Times article in 1991, and later wrote a book about it. Other authors have written books to rebut Bacque, and a raging debate continues via books and articles.  German POWs did die in POW camps just after the war, due to a massive influx of German soldiers surrendering to the Allies in order to avoid becoming prisoners of Russia (who used POWs for slave labor and worked and starved the great majority of them to death).  The POW camps right after the war were thus overcrowded and food scarce (despite Bacque's claims to the contrary).  However, any deaths resulting therefrom were not intentional.  The U.S. Provost Marshall put the number of deaths at 15,285, a far cry from the 900,000 claimed by Bacque.  Nevertheless, this debate will go on indefinitely.

There Is No Evidence That The Holocaust Ever Happened?
This claim is the easiest to refute.  There were actually records and documentation of the mass murder of Jews by gassing them, and numerous witnesses to the atrocity, many of whom testified at the Nuremberg trials of German officers for war crimes.  An excellent discussion and refutation of Holocaust Denial can be found at the Jewish Virtual Library at this link.

Zyklon-B Was Used to Disinfect Clothes, Bodies and Buildings of the Typhus Germ.  This argument is used by Holocaust deniers to explain away the cyanide based poison, Zyklon-B, which was used to kill several million Jews.  In fact, Zyklon-B cannot kill anaerobic bacteria such as the Typhus bacterium, and would be useless against the disease.  It can only kill aerobic (oxygen breathing) organisms, like people.

Who Produced the Film "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told"?
I do not know who produced this film, but it seems to bear the ideologies of the Institute For Historical Review (IHR).  Wikipedia describes IHR as follows:

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), founded in 1978, is an organization whose primary purpose is to disseminate views denying key facts of Nazism and the genocide of Jews and other victims. It is considered by many scholars as the world's leading Holocaust denial organization. 

All of this reading and research leads from one thing to another.  I reject Holocaust denial as a credible position on history, based on the documented facts.  However, one thing I do not understand is why Jews were so hated in Europe in the 1930s?  This hatred seems to be re-emerging in the here and now.  This bears some serious study, but where do I start?

Pro-Hitler Propaganda? See the film "Adolph Hitler: the Greatest Story NEVER Told"

Adolph Hitler

I get on these kicks.  My latest is World War II.  I watched the whole series "The Unknown War," on Hulu Plus, made in the 1970's for television, and narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It contains a lot of interesting facts about the war in the east, but is way too complimentary to Stalin and the Soviet Union for my tastes.  The major fact I took away from the series was that the Russian soldiers, partisans and civilians fought heroically against the Nazis with seeming indifference to their own lives.  They were virtually unstoppable.  Hitler didn't win a single major battle -- or if he did, the Russians soon came back and retook what was lost, like they did at Sebastopol.  The Russians liberated their homeland with incredible effort and sacrifice -- that I do not doubt.  They even kept going and liberated several other east European countries as well.  Unfortunately, when the war was over, they didn't leave.  One totalitarian power was substituted for the other.  Burt Lancaster seemed not to notice.

After that I came across another film with an incredible title:  "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told."  It is a Nazi apologia, and almost six hours long.  You can watch it for free on the internet here.  I'm sure you have the time and will get right on it.

Now I believe in watching such documentaries with an open mind, but not a gullible one.  I decided to sit through the whole thing to see what I might learn.  I did indeed find it interesting.  I learned something about why those Russian fighters were so adamant about winning.  There were NKVD squads in back of the line of infantry, and anyone who retreated would be shot.  Furthermore, anyone who surrendered was automatically considered a traitor, and either shot or sent to a forced labor camp.  The film discussed one Russian nurse who was captured by the Nazis, and when the Russian troops liberated her prison camp, they arrested her.  For surrendering, she was given six years in the gulag and exiled to Siberia for life.  

This pro-Hitler film made a good case for Hitler in the early part of his career.  The World War I Treaty of Versailles was grossly unfair to Germany, saddling them with total blame for the war, onerous reparations and stripping away part of German territory and ceding it to other countries.  Sudentland was one, incorporated into Czechoslovakia in 1919.   Likewise, the Polish Corridor, the port city of Danzig, had been given to Poland, separating Germany geographically from its province of East Prussia.  Hitler, as well as the majority of Germans, hated the Treaty of Versailles and felt they had been royally screwed.  (I agree with their position.)  The Treaty resulted in high unemployment, raging inflation and poverty for millions of Germans.  An unjust peace bore the seeds of a new war to come.

Hitler wanted to unite all Germanic peoples under the protection of Germany, and he wanted German territory returned.  He invaded Czechoslovakia to take back the Sudentland, peacefully annexed German-speaking Austria (and most Austrians approved).  The allied powers fumed a bit but did nothing.  Finally, there was the Polish Corridor and Danzig, and the Poles were mistreating the Germans living there.  He invaded Poland to get back these territories and to protect Germans there, and frankly, I can see his point.  However, this automatically resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany.  Germany offered to negotiate, but Churchill would have none of it. [Update:  I have subsequently learned that Hitler was concerned with more than the Polish Corridor and Danzig.  His SS troops committed atrocities against Polish civilians and murdered a lot of Jews.]

The film describes some bad behavior on the part of the Allies, alleging that German POWs were deliberately starved by Eisenhower, who refused to feed them, killing many thousands of men.  I find this hard to believe, and will need to read some corroborating accounts before I do.  Ike never struck me as one to commit war crimes. [UPDATE:  I have looked into this claim and have decided it isn't true.  See my follow up post here.]

The film claims that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was actually a preemptive strike, that Stalin had been moving west, gobbling up small countries, and that he planned to invade Europe.  Hitler beat him to the punch.  True story?  It is indeed plausible, considering the expansionist nature of Stalinism, and several other authorities tend to corroborate this claim.  What Burt Lancaster didn't mention, quite a few Russians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Communism, and many joined the Nazis to fight Stalin.  The Cossacks were one such group.  Now another case of the Allies acting badly: after the German defeat, the Cossacks surrendered too.  British troops lied, telling the Cossacks they were to be moved to the west by train, away from Russia.  After boarding the trains, the Cossacks were then sent east, back to Russia, where they were all executed.  They would never have boarded the trains had they known the truth.  The Allies were therefore complicit in mass murder.  

The hardest part of this film to swallow is the story of the Jewish concentration camps.  It claims there were no death camps, no Holocaust, and presents testimony of one or two Jewish survivors to that effect.  It also presents the research of a Jewish scholar who studied the Holocaust, and claims he can find no reliable evidence that it happened - no written orders, no buildings that could have served as gas chambers.  Okay, we are entering the Holocaust Denial Zone, and my antennae shot up.  

So how did all those millions of Jews die?  What caused those huge piles of dead bodies at Auschwitz and Dachau?  They died of Typhus (yeah, right). There was a lot of that going around, I guess, but the German guards were strangely immune.  Zyklon-B, the chemical allegedly used to gas Jews to death, was really only a disinfectant, for sanitizing buildings and clothes against the Typhus epidemic.  [Update: This claim is refuted by the fact that Zyklon-B has no effect on an anaerobic bacterium like Typhus.  It only kills aerobic organisms, like humans.]  Sure, they burned the bodies, but only to prevent the spread of the disease.  Hogwash.  There were many Jewish survivors of the camps who witnessed such atrocities.  Further, I remember seeing documentaries that claim the Nazis kept meticulous records on the numbers they killed.  What happened to those?  The film doesn't say.

Other than gas, the Nazis simply shot a lot of Jews, and had the foresight to photograph and film a lot of it.  None of this was mentioned or explained in the film under discussion.  

I would like to see more research on the Holocaust, what records do exist to prove it.  Of course, there was Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss, whose testimony at Nuremberg described the gassings, but according to the film, he was beaten and his family threatened unless he lied about it.  This doesn't ring true either.  For what possible purpose could the Allies have in fabricating such monstrous atrocities?

The film ends by praising Adolph Hitler, claiming he was a truly great man.  I remain unconvinced [I am being sarcastic].  Call me a skeptic.  Note:  A rebuttal of Holocaust Denial can be found at this link.  I have read through this website, and it refutes convincingly the Holocaust denial elements of "Adolf Hitler, the Greatest Story NEVER Told."

UPDATE:  I have been watching a lot of documentaries about the Third Reich, and there is no doubt that Hitler was a lunatic. Several German plots to assassinate him failed.  Hitler was an evil man who had not an ounce of empathy for other humans.  Once he took power, he executed leaders of other political parties, a beloved German general whom he saw as a potential rival, and many of his own followers in "the Night of the Long Knives."

Disappointment In Mississippi

It appears that Vichy Republican Thad Cochran has won the Senate primary run-off over Tea Party Chris McDaniel, in a close race in Mississippi.  According to the Washington Post, Cochran encouraged black Democrats to vote for him, the great procurer of Washington Pork for Mississippi, and this made the difference.

McDaniel said that "the Republican primary was decided by liberal Democrats."  How Democrats are allowed to vote in a Republican primary isn't clear.

H.L. Mencken said it best: "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."  It is always difficult to run against "free stuff," as the average citizen does not see the bigger picture nor care.  He only wants to know, "What free goodies can you stuff in my pocket today?"

We came close in this election, and we must keep fighting.  As Churchill once said, "Never, never, never give up."  We won't.  We can't.

Restoring a World War II German Helmet

German M-40 Army Helmet

I bought this German M-40 helmet from a source in Czechoslovakia.  In the pictures it appears pristine, but is actually freckled with rust spots.

The liner, bottom right, is not correct.  This is the type of liner used in World War I German helmets, as well as various European army helmets.

The helmet was painted black after WWII and used as a Civil Defense helmet.  Since the paint and liner are not original, it is permissible to restore the helmet.  You would never want to restore an authentic German army helmet, with the original paint, decals and liner, no matter how poor their condition.  You would be altering an historical artifact, which greatly decreases its interest and value.

This morning I removed the liner, held inside the helmet by three pins.  The liner smelled badly, like old sweat or body odor, indicating it is indeed aged.  The inside of the helmet was fairly rusted, worse than the outside.  I applied a rust remover (Naval Jelly) and got rid of most of it.  I will have to buy some steel wool today and scrub away at what remains.

Next, I washed the helmet and dried it, and applied a paint stripper to both inside and out.  It loosened the paint, but I can see it will take more than one application.  The stuff contains methylene chloride, a rather nasty solvent.  I will have to begin using thicker rubber gloves, as this stuff burns right through the thin ones I was using.  This is going to involve some work.  Ugh.

After I strip off as much paint and rust as possible, I will prime the helmet with Rustoleum, then paint it with German field gray paint.  After that, I will apply German army decals and replace the liner with a good reproduction of the type used in German helmets, an eight finger affair made of goat skin.  Right now, that seems to be days away.

It's difficult to tell whether this helmet ever saw combat.  I doubt it. Thousands of helmet shells were stamped out in advance of need, and many remain in Germany and elsewhere.  Reenactors and hobbyists can buy one of these shells and have it restored to the original condition of a new Nazi helmet.  I am doing my own restoration.  When it is done, I plan to invade the Sudentland.  Or not.

UPDATE:  See the restored helmet here.  I have one last task to do, and that is to seal the decals to prevent them from rubbing off and from scratches.  I have ordered a spray can of Dammar varnish to do that, the same varnish used on the original helmets.

Quote of the Day: Fred on Feminists

Can you name one thing, with a moving part, that was invented by a feminist?

--Fred on Everything

Obama's Stunning Achievements as President

It's easy to become almost jaded from the daily onslaught of Obama scandals, crimes and outrages.  Once you accept that this isn't America anymore, the daily outrages seem almost anti-climactic.  If ever there was a U.S. president who has crossed the line to impeachment, it is Barack Obama.  For the good of the country, Obama should be removed.  Blacks will go apoplectic, there will be one long, loud shout of RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACISM by Democrats and the left, and the citizens of Oakland, California will set things on fire and break windows.  Even more so than usual, I mean.

Tough.  Impeach the S.O.B.  Let us review some of his sterling achievements:

1.  Benghazi.  When the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by Muslim Terrorists (but I repeat myself), Obama ordered our military to stand down and take no action to save our embassy personnel.  Four Americans died, including the U.S. Ambassador, even though we had military assets in the area that could have saved these men.  However, fighting the terrorists would make it obvious that Obama's outreach policy to Islamic states was a failure -- that Al Qaeda was still in business, and that he was a naive fool.

Obama then lied, stating that the attack was just a protest over an American anti-Muslim film that got out of hand.  He and Hillary even went on television in Islamic states apologizing for the film, which had little if anything to do with the attack.  The emerging truth about Benghazi is that everything Obama did, failed to do, or said about it, was for political reasons.  He sacrificed the lives of Americans in harms way, because he saw that as the least damaging option in his re-election campaign -- and then lied about the nature of the attack for the same reason.

2.  Border invasion of the illegals.  Thousands of illegals are crossing our border with Mexico, with complete impunity, and are being housed at various military bases, with hundreds more arriving by the hour.  Obama has deliberately failed to enforce our immigration laws, while forbidding border states to enforce these laws since immigration is the purview of the federal government.  The illegals are swamping our social services and welfare programs, taking jobs from Americans, bringing diseases, and increasing crime rates.  Many illegals are being collected and released at Arizona bus stops, an apparent poke in the eye to the Arizona governor, for attempting to stop illegal immigration in lieu of the federal government's failure to do so.  Obama's disastrous immigration policy is deliberate -- for reasons that are not obvious.

3.  Use of the IRS to punish political opponents.  During Obama's re-election campaign, Democrat operatives conspired with officials in the IRS to (a) deny or delay the granting of non-profit status to conservative groups; (b) to criminally prosecute conservative non-profit groups for alleged illegal activity; (c) to illegally reveal the details of such conservative groups to Democrat operatives of Obama's campaign.  Now that the conspiracy has been revealed, the IRS has conveniently "lost" the emails of the IRS officials who were involved, in a blatant display of obstruction of justice.  However, such emails could not be lost in the highly redundant backup system in use, as required by law.  They could only disappear by a conscious effort to delete them.  Lois Lerner will look darling in an orange jumpsuit.

4.  Chaos, incompetence and corruption in the launch of Obamacare, including millions spent on websites that don't work, the cancellation of millions of existing health insurance policies, and their replacement with much higher premiums providing less coverage.

5.  The release of five top Taliban commanders in exchange for one American deserter.  Obama released five top terrorists in exchange for the return of an American soldier who deserted his unit and may be a traitor deserving court-martial.  Obama did this without giving Congress 30 days notice, as required by law; he acted unilaterally, allowing no discussion, protest or debate.

6.  The collapse of Iraq.  Thousands of Iraqis are murdered by an invasion of yet another Muslim terrorist (but I repeat myself) group.  Obama could barely stifle a yawn.  What should he do?  At the very least, express regret and attribute it on Islamic laws, religion and culture, the same causes of Islamic murder over the past 14 centuries.  Use the situation to inform the Islamic world that they cannot count on our support in the absence of religious tolerance, freedom of religion, secular government, and recognition of Israel and its right to exist.  Absent that, they can kill each other until the cows come home.

7.  The VA scandal -- letting veterans die by denying them medical care.  A number of American veterans needing medical procedures were placed on waiting lists at Veterans Affairs hospitals.  Many died on those waiting lists, and it is alleged that this was deliberate, in order to save costs.

There are many more terrible policy decisions by Obama -- his energy policy, driving energy prices to absurd levels, his support of non-existent man-made catastrophic climate change, widespread spying on virually all Americans via the NSA, and more -- but these are not necessarily crimes deserving of impeachment.  However, items 1, 2, 3 and 5 above are criminal.  Obama must be removed by the impeachment process as soon as possible.

Trouble Commenting at Saber Point? Problem Solved: Site Meter Has Been Removed

I've used Site Meter almost since I began this blog in 2006.  It has been great for gauging the flow of visitors and discovering what they find interesting here.  This week, however, the database containing my Site Meter data has apparently disappeared.  When folks tried to log on to this site, many would get a pop up screen advising them to log on to Site Meter.  You could cancel the pop up, but if you tried to comment, it would come back.

I may reinstall Site Meter later, but for now, I'm tired of dealing with its inoperability.  I removed it, and now you can comment again.

My First and Second Blogger Awards

As a blogger, I have received my second award.  My first was when The Skeptic's Dictionary website tagged Saber Point as "the dumbest website ever."  Whenever you piss off liberals, however, you are doing something right.  I was honored by their assessment of Saber Point.

My second award is from Political Clown Parade.  Saber Point is one of sixteen conservative blogs to be awarded the honor.  The award is for "Standing Guard Over Liberty," which is the motto of Political Clown Parade blog.

Here is the award:

My German Helmet and the Nazi Invasion of Russia In 1941

Reproduction German Helmet of WW II

My reproduction German helmet arrived this week.  The color is perfect, a kind of gray-green.  It is heavier than my uncle's German police helmet.  I tried it on, and was immediately aware of the weight.  No doubt German soldiers developed strong neck muscles wearing these.  Holding the helmet, I am aware of the cold steel, the heavy weight, and the smell of the leather liner.

Okay, so now I have a German helmet.  What do I do now, invade Poland?

Nah, I'll just keep it as a historical reference as I study the history of World War II, one of my interests.

I have been watching a documentary series from 1974, "The Unknown War," narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It is all about the Nazi invasion of Russia, Operation Barbarossa, which began in 1941.  According to the series narration, Hitler intended to destroy the Soviet Union and exterminate its populations, and then incorporate the lands into Germany.  The Russians had ample reason to fight like fanatics, as surrender was not an option.

The series covers great battles such as the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad and Kursk.  Due to Nazi encirclement of major Russian cities, millions of Russians starved to death rather than surrender.  Around 20 million Russians died, of war wounds, starvation and freezing in the bitter winters.  Nevertheless, the Nazi invasion failed.  Hitler all but exhausted his military resources in his obsessive desire to destroy Russia.  Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers died or surrendered, and many thousands of tanks and aircraft were lost in Hitler's vain effort.  There's no telling how WWII might have turned out, had Hitler not invaded Russia, and wasted so many German lives and assets, instead of directing those assets against the allied forces.  Russia had a formal peace agreement with Germany and would not have fought with the allies, absent the 1941 invasion.

Earlier this week, I watched "Escape From Sobibor," based on the true story of 600 Jewish prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp, who rebelled against their captors, killing eleven German guards and officers before opening the gates and fleeing, in mass, into the nearby forest.  About half survived the surrounding mine field and machine gun fire, and most of those were later captured and executed.  About 50 of the prisoners eluded capture and survived the war.

There is no escaping the fact that the Nazis were entirely evil.  If ever there was a just and necessary war, it was the allied war on the fascist powers of World War II.  It is instructional to study the depths of depravity to which men and nations can descend.  The goal, as always, is to learn how we might prevent such tyranny from happening again.

Ali Akbar Vindicated! National Bloggers Club Granted 501c3 Nonprofit Status by IRS

Brett Kimberlin and his cohorts have been publicly accusing Ali Akbar of defrauding donors to the National Bloggers Club (NBC) by falsely claiming the NBC was a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.  Donations to a 501(c)3 are tax deductible.  Kimberlin also claimed that Ali had never even applied for 501(c)3 status.  Sounds like the basis for a good defamation lawsuit against Kimberlin to me.

Actually, Ali had applied for the nonprofit status some time ago, but the status grant was long in coming.  You know, IRS, conservative non-profit, Lois Lerner -- you get the picture.

Well, the IRS finally granted the nonprofit status as of last Friday.  Now one of the claims Brett Kimberlin made in his RICO lawsuit has been proven totally false.  Wait til the judge hears about this, hey Brett?

Here's Ali's Facebook post of a few minutes ago:

Graphic of the Day: The Greatest Murder Machine In Human History

Use it if you like.

Disgusting Islamic Atrocities Proliferate

ISIS and other Islamic terror groups are busily killing their own people for a change.  In Kenya, one such group hauled people away in trucks, made them lie down in ditches, and then executed them with rifle shots.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban cut off the fingers of men who had voted in an election.

Islam is criminally insane, and getting more so every day.  Islam is a crime against humanity and should be banned everywhere in the world. All Korans and Haddiths should be confiscated and burned.

Terrorists, when captured, should be executed immediately.  

Read more about Islam's latest crimes against humanity here.

My Birds Have Flown: Young Robins Strike Out On Their Own

Bye Bye Birdie

My major project since last Thursday was to care for two adolescent Robins that I found in my back yard.  Both I and the mama bird fed them, until yesterday, when only the mama bird fed them while I stayed out of the way.

Yesterday I put the Robins into the branches of the persimmon tree where they were born.  They spent the day exploring the branches, occasionally fed by the mother Robin.  At the end of the day, I retrieved them and put them into their cage, to keep them warm and safe.

This morning I again released them into the tree.  This time, the mama bird did not show.  I guess she figured the young ones are ready to go on their own.  She was right.  One flew away within the hour.  The other stayed for awhile, and I was worried about him, so invited him onto my finger.  He allowed me to pet him and feed him a couple of pieces of a cherry.  Then he flew onto my shoulder, then flew to a perch on the patio.  Then he flew away into the sky.

Mission accomplished, now I can get some work done besides bird watching.

Nazi Helmets and the German Army

German Helmet in "Apple Green"

The recent 70th D-Day anniversary caused me to post pictures of German soldiers and their families, from wallets that my uncle took off of dead German soldiers after D-Day.  I also posted pictures of some Nazi artifacts that he brought back, including a black Nazi helmet.  This inspired my interest in Nazi artifacts and history, and made me want to own more of such artifacts.

I love the black helmet that uncle brought back from Normandy, still well preserved after seven decades, but the helmet is not a combat helmet.  It is a civilian police helmet.  It is in the standard M-34 Nazi helmet shape, but the steel is is a lighter gauge, and it has a different kind of vent holes.  Why my uncle picked this helmet among the thousands available, I do not know.  In any case, I have always wanted a Nazi battle helmet.  Why?  Just curiosity, I suppose, or a desire to own a piece of history.  In any case, I have been scouring the internet for sources of such helmets.  A well preserved German army helmet can be prohibitively expensive, so I have been looking for bargains.

Uncle's German Police Helmet

I notice that EBay does not allow any pictures of Nazi helmets or other artifacts that display the swastika.  This seems rather stupid -- what, are people who see it going to turn into pillars of salt?  Ridiculous.  However, European countries have outlawed the display of any swastikas, so no doubt EBay has to comply with their laws if it wants to do business in Europe.

So far I have bought three helmets.  Ironically, one is another police helmet, authentic and identical to the one I already have.  Another is a reproduction of the M-35 German combat helmet, my favorite model, painted in German field gray, the most typical color. It has the proper liner and chin strap, and I will use it for reference.  A third is an actual German M-40 model helmet, but it was repainted black after the war and used as a civil defense helmet in Czechoslovakia.  It has minor rust spots, the liner is wrong, may have come from another type of helmet.  I intend to strip it of paint and rust, and spray paint it in early war apple green, with double decals, one on each side of the helmet.  I have also ordered a replacement (reproduction) inner liner.

Last night I watched a film about the Battle of Kursk, Russia.  I was interested because Kursk is where "my Nazi," Corporal Franz Schmid, was killed.  Schmid's life and mine intersect only in a very oblique way:  his photo and death notice were in one of the wallets my uncle retrieved at Normandy.  Before last week I had never heard of the Battle of Kursk, but it was an intense fight, probably the greatest tank battle in history.  Hitler, his big fat ego punctured by the German loss at Stalingrad, was eager for revenge on the Russians.  The Battle of Kursk was to reverse his fortunes on the Eastern front, and inflict heavy damage on the Russian army.  However, the Russians kicked his butt in a serious way, largely destroying his armored divisions, and put Hitler into a steadily deteriorating, defensive position.

In my opinion, Adolph Hitler was a fool, a lousy military leader who wasted his splendid military by overreaching (his invasion of Russia was particularly stupid) smashing his armies against the brick wall of impossible goals, in a do-it or die bravado.  They didn't do it, and a great many died.

Father's Day and a Hallmark Card

I am the father of three grown sons and close to each one.  They are all different and following widely varying professions, but all have one thing in common:  they are all conservatives.  I raised those boys right.

I never thought much about being a father, or what I was supposed to do to be a good one.  All I knew was that I had three sons, all precious to me, and that I would move heaven and earth to care for them, see that they were fed, housed, guided, protected and knew they were loved.  Do I care if they send me a Hallmark card on this invented holiday?  No.

So far, though, the only Hallmark card I have received is this one:  it reads:

Nothing excites me more than you coming through the door.  

Happy Father's Day!

Love from Bogie and Missy

Bogie and Missy are my dog and cat, respectively.  Humph!  My dog and cat remembered, but I didn't even get a card from my wife!  I do note, however, that Bogie and Missy's hand writing closely resembles that of my wife.  Hmmmmm.

They Remembered

Bird Business

Stogie and Friend

My two adopted adolescent Robin birds are doing fairly well, getting enough to eat, and getting bigger and flying further.  They are still unable to take full flight, and I am hoping they will do so soon, as they are a lot of work.  Most of the work involves just watching them, to see that they don't get lost in the weeds (our former flower garden prior to the drought) or bushes.  Several times I have to retrieve one of both and return them to the top of their bird cage where I feel they are safe.  I have spent all day outside for the past three days, on bird duty.

All fifty of my bait worms are gone and I have been feeding one of them chunks of cherries.  The other has grown picky and as of today will only eat what mama bird brings him.  I hope he's getting enough food.  Tomorrow I'll visit the bait shop and stock up on worms.

The birds accept me fairly well and are not afraid of me, and sometimes use me for a roost.  See picture.

The Fall of Iraq

All appears lost in Iraq, as a Muslim army descends on Baghdad, decapitating both police and soldiers.  Drudge reports that the roads are strewn with decapitated bodies.  For all our efforts in Iraq, training and equipping their army, helping them organize democratic elections, we come down to a big fat zero in the end.  The extremists are taking over, enforcing barbaric Sharia law, and doing so rather easily, it seems.  The Iraqi military is falling like a house of cards in a strong wind.

Iraq is just another falling brick in the collapse of the Obama presidency.  What can we learn from this?  The main lessons, in my opinion, are these:

1.  Democracy and modernity are incompatible with Islam.  Therefore, any attempt to enforce modern civilization on an Islamic regime will fail.  Enforcing modernity could only succeed if Islam were first forcibly removed, and that would require killing and destruction on a massive scale.  Is it worth it?  No.  Therefore, the best alternative is to isolate ourselves from Islamic regimes, rather than attempting to democratize and modernize them.

2.  Nation building is a fool's errand.  The investment of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to transform tyrannies into democracies is a cost we cannot afford -- and the effort often fails.  If the tyrannies pose no direct threat to us, leave them to their fate.  If they attack us, our response should be their destruction, not their rehabilitation.

3.  The best defenses against Islamic barbarity are (a) energy independence and (b) the end of all Islamic immigration into the West, including encouraging those here to leave.  Islamic immigration is a demographic time bomb that will eventually eradicate western civilization and all of its great art, culture and political institutions that were developed over many centuries.  The Constitution, the Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights --  all will be replaced with barbaric Sharia law.

Britain, France and Italy are all busy replacing their populations with hordes of immigrant Muslims, and unless there is a major pushback from their traditional demographic, western civilization may eventually disappear.

The future of the world will not be progress and enlightenment, but barbarism.  Perhaps that is the natural state of man after all.

Babysitting Baby Birds: Stogie's Wildlife Rescue

One of My Baby Robins

I've been busy for the past two and a half days, babysitting two baby Robin birds that I rescued from my backyard.  I believe they simply got too big for their nest and were either blown out by the wind, or decided to explore.  In any case, my dog Bogie found them hopping about the yard, and was following them around, sniffing them, all while several adult Robins shrieked and flapped noisily overhead.  The baby birds have feathers, but cannot yet fly.

I quickly found a small box, and retrieved the baby Robins.  I put them (as well as their original nest, which I removed from the tree) in the box, and the box in the tree from which they had fallen, and hoped mom and dad would feed them.  Night was falling, so I left them there overnight.  Yesterday morning, I checked on them to find that one of them had escaped the box and was again huddling in the grass below. I decided to get more involved, so took the box from the tree and returned the escapee to his cardboard cell.  By now both birds were showing me open yellow beaks, and I knew I had to feed them or they might starve.  I was unsure that the mother bird would attempt to feed them, but my fears proved unfounded.  More about that later.

I bought earthworms from a bait shop, and canned mealworms from a pet store (as well as a bird cage), and began feeding them.  They ate well and were soon at full strength and vigor.  They were able to hop up to the box edge and sit there, and I joined them outside, to watch them and see what they might do.  They were completely unafraid of me at this point, would sit on my finger, and occasionally open their beaks to say "feed me!"  Later, when I went in the house, I noticed that adult Robins were coming to the box with beaks full of food, and feeding the little ones.  This was a relief, and lessened my worries about their chances for survival.

Bogie and Bird

One of the birds, the escapee, is more ambulatory than his brother, and began hopping about the canvas shelter area of the back patio (my dog, though curious, has shown no inclination to harm the birds).  I let him wander a bit, but always returned him to the safety of the box.  When night was falling, I transferred the birds to the bird cage, to protect them from predators (like roaming cats), and covered the cage with a towel for warmth.  They spent the night on the patio table, underneath the canvas shelter.

This morning the birds were still in fine shape, but hungry.  I fed them earthworms and mealworms, but as I sat here writing this, I can see the box through the sliding doors to the patio, and have seen the adult Robin visit the baby birds three times already.  I think the birds are a week or so from flying, and I will watch over them until they can fly and survive on their own.

Massive Influx of Illegals Unopposed by Obama -- Is It Time To Impeach Our Rogue President?

The lawlessness of Barack Obama is breathtaking in its scope.  Recently, Americans were shocked at the brazen illegality of his release of Taliban Muslim terrorists from Gitmo, or his heavy-handed use of the EPA to shut down coal plants. This week we are seeing the greatest influx ever of illegals from Mexico, overwhelming state and federal agencies who must house them, feed them and deport them -- if they can even be deported.

Obama has basically stated, in deed if not in words, that the border is open, and our immigration laws will not be enforced.  Instead of deporting the illegals, they are being put up at taxpayer costs in temporary housing at three military bases.  Two hundred thirty-thousand children are expected to be apprehended after crossing the border in the next two years, and those who avoid capture will number in the tens of thousands. Obama and Holder have promised to provide these children with lawyers to represent them, so they can sue to stay in the country.

Investors Business Daily reports that "this whole crisis is of the administration's making. Its Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program two years ago prevented minors' deportation for two years, and now Obama has added two more years."  Children are invading the border because they know they will not be deported -- Obama has said so.

There are reports that the federal government has been flying families from South Texas to Arizona and El Paso, Texas, and releasing them at bus stations!  Are they supposed to deport themselves on the honor system?  What kind of insanity is this?

I have to wonder what motivates this radical, Barack Obama?  Does he realize that his presidency is a disaster, that he will be enshrined in the Hall of the Incompetent along side Jimmy Carter, Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore?  Perhaps it is the knowledge of his own failure that inspires him to take revenge on those who have opposed him, like Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona, by dumping illegals in her state, instead of deporting them back to Mexico.

Maybe Obama realizes that he has only two more years to impose his radical doctrines on the nation, and has decided to push the envelope.  The majority of Americans no longer think of him as the Sacred Other, as the Being of Light who would transform America into the City of Oz.  The majority now know that he is, as Clint Eastwood described him, "the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people."  Like a jilted lover, he is now out for revenge:  he will leave office despised, but not before ruining the economy and transforming America into a Third-World nation, impoverished and bankrupt.  Suffer, you bastards!

Meanwhile, the GOP seeks not to block this massive invasion of illegals, but instead to grant them amnesty and help Obama manage them, essentially committing political suicide by ensuring a permanent majority of big-government voters.  If ever the worthlessness of the Republican Party was obvious, it is now.  The Tea Party must continue its efforts -- as Daniel Greenfield noted yesterday, the New Right must be patient and focus on the long haul.  Relief from statist insanity will not come overnight.  He wrote: You don't win them [wars] in one battle. You do it by staying in the fight.

Conclusions:  There is no question that Barack Obama is a lawless, irresponsible president, and that he should be removed from office by the impeachment process.  If the Vichy GOP wins control of the Senate in November, and retains control of the House, they could stop Obama's radical agenda, and even impeach him.   Do they have the political will?  Don't count on it.

1,382 Years Without Muhammad (Thank God He's Dead)

Iranian apostates are hanged and die by slow asphyxiation to maximize

suffering.  It is a very painful death.

Muhammad died in Medina on June 8, 632 -- 1,382 years ago today. This is a day all infidels should celebrate -- the death of the most evil "prophet" who ever lived.

Millions of people have been killed in the name of this false prophet, and human misery increased to absurd levels.  Thank God Muhammad is dead; may he receive eternal punishment that is commensurate with his crimes against humanity.

Celebrate the death of Muhammad tonight!  One suggestion is below, left (found on FaceBook).

Quote of the Day: The Greatest Killing Machine In The History of Mankind

The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale. When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing machine in the history of mankind, bar none.

--Mike Konrad, The Greatest Murder Machine in History

Remember that when someone criticizes "Islamophobia."

D-Day Plus Seventy Years: My Uncle's Souvenirs of the Invasion of Normandy 1944

My Uncle Theo, a Texan, took part in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy in June of 1944.  He was a medic with the 2nd Armored Division and didn't land on Normandy Beach until June 7 -- D-Day + One.  When he died in 1957, he left us a suitcase filled with war mementos, collected from the invasion of Sicily (Italy) and also the Normandy invasion (France).  There were Nazi wallets, Italian uniform buttons, German, Italian and French cash and coins, German medals, a German first aid kit, German eating utensils, some unfired bullets, Nazi patches, and even a black Nazi helmet.  I still have most of these mementos, carefully preserved.

As a child going through the suit case, handling the artifacts, I could sense momentous events, Germans and Americans, horror and death. The Nazi wallets were stuffed with personal pictures of handsome young German soldiers posing with friends, family and sweethearts.  This impressed on me the reality of war.  These dead Germans were human beings, and I could feel a certain empathy for them while still hating their cause.  But if somebody had to die, I thought, better them than us.  We didn't start this war.

Uncle Theo? (Sitting)

I noticed a sour smell in the suitcase that seemed to emanate from an orange colored plastic bottle.  It had German writing on the side, so I didn't know what it was for.  Years later, a friend who spoke German told me the bottle contained a salve for rubbing on the skin after a chemical or gas attack.  Now, all these years later, I still associate that sour chemical smell with D-Day.  I still have that orange bottle, but the smell is very faint now.  My uncle's suitcase, which had absorbed much of the smell, crumbled into dust years ago.  I now store his Normandy items in a large, plastic, sealed storage box.


Looking at many pictures of D-Day, however, I get an impression that it was rainy and wet.  It was a massive logistics operation, moving men, weapons, supplies and machines onto Normandy Beach.  LST's, a small ship with doors that opened in the bow, pushed their noses up close to the beach.  A special bridge built by British engineers provided the runway from the LST bows to the beach.  The LST's opened their large doors and expelled tanks, trucks, jeeps, artillery and long lines of troops.  Funny to think that 70 years have passed since that great undertaking -- a lifetime ago.

LSTs Unloading Men, Weapons and Machines
Normandy Beach,  June 1944
(Click to see full size)

Life Magazine printed photographs of the Normandy invasion, and there is a photo of a balding, husky soldier sitting near the water's edge, next to a line of dead American soldiers, most of who drowned coming ashore.   They wore their army life jackets (actually, a doughnut shaped, inflatable tube) too low on their bodies, and the life jackets flipped them over, pointing their heads down into the water, drowning them.  The Army life jackets were poorly designed -- Navy jackets didn't do this.

My father wrote to my uncle, who was at that time "somewhere in France," sending him a clipping of the photo, and asking if it were him.  I still have his letter in response, a letter headed "In France" and dated August 17, 1944.  He wrote "About the clipping you sent [the answer] is yes, but I probably could give no details now.  You see, this division has been under rigid censorship for two years, being an arm'd [armored] division."  However, Unc is facing away from the camera, so we will never be able to prove it (but dang, it sure looks like him to me).  That's the photo above.

As the allied troops moved off the beaches and into the French interior, my uncle went with them, winning both a Bronze Star and a Silver Star for tending the wounded under heavy small arms and artillery fire, near Carentan, France.  He also won his second Purple Heart prior to the Battle of the Bulge (the first was in Sicily), when he was wounded and sent back to England to recover.

The Coast of Normandy as It Looks Today:

The American Cemetery is to the right, the last resting place for those who died on the beaches.

Some of the Artifacts Brought Back From Normandy
by My Uncle Theo, Pvt, 2nd Armored Division

Photo:  On the left is a photo I took of some of Unc's Normandy artifacts.  There's a picture of someone's sweetheart, a German First Aid kit, two wallets, a gray leather cartridge box that was affixed to a soldier's belt, a spoon/fork combination in a gray leather holder that also strapped onto a soldier's belt, that orange bottle mentioned earlier, a case that held the orange bottle, a real Nazi helmet in near-pristine condition, some wallets, a patch, some medals, a German soldier's belt bucklet, some bullets, and one more wallet.

I will make a second post of some of the pictures that my uncle found in wallets of fallen Nazi soldiers during the Normandy invasion.  These pictures, except for Alfred Schmid, have not been published anywhere before.

See post below this one for those pictures.

Pictures Taken From Fallen Nazis In the Invasion of Normandy, 1944 -- by My Uncle Who Was There

Here are some of the photos that my uncle recovered from fallen German soldiers during the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), seventy years ago.  These photos have not been published before -- they are the personal photos of German families and friends, carried by German troops who died in France on and after D-Day.  Click on each photo to see it full size.

Corporal Franz Schmid.  This photo was found in the wallet of a friend or relative at Normandy.  This soldier probably died on the Russian Front, perhaps in the Battle of Kursk.  He is painfully young in this picture.

The verbiage is from a death announcement that also bore this photo, found in the same wallet.  It was printed in German and translated by a German friend of mine.

Click to view full size.

UPDATE:  I found the German Military Graves Commission website and database online, and Franz Schmid is listed.  He did indeed die in the battle of Kursk, Russia and is buried at the German cemetery there, Besedino.  The database gives a slightly different birthdate for Franz, Oct 18, 1920 rather than Oct 20, 1920.  Here is the online record:

Unknown boy, wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth.  This pic of this young man was found in one of the wallets my uncle recovered from the body of a fallen Nazi soldier at Normandy -- probably a relative of the fallen soldier who owned the wallet.

I have been researching this uniform for a couple of hours, and have learned that the uniform is that of the the German Reichsarbeitdienst (RAD), or German National Work Service.  It is not of the Hitler Youth as I originally thought, though the jacket is almost identical, and the hat similar, to those of the Hitler Youth.  The RAD was formed in July of 1934 as the official state and party labor service.  It was an auxiliary service to the military, but was not part of the military, even though it's members wore military style uniforms.

German youth between 18 and 25 were obligated to serve six months in the RAD or other national service, and then two years in the military after that.  

The cool hat being worn by this man is a Robin Hood RAD cap.  The RAD symbol on the front of the cap is the head of a shovel.




Alfred Schmid, probably the brother of Franz Schmid above.  Papers in the wallet identified this man.  He too fell in battle, also on the Russian front.

He is wearing a dress uniform complete with white gloves and a ceremonial sword.

It appears the photograph was taken in his living room.

German soldiers in an army barracks, possibly during basic training.  They are goofing off, mugging at the camera and striking poses.  Look at one man holding crossed bayonets, and another with a bayonet in his teeth.

I wonder how many of these young men survived the war.

This photograph always seemed sad and poignant to me.  A German soldier is kissing his sweetheart, perhaps before shipping out.  His name and that of his sweetheart are unknown.

Update:  Reader Doug Kursk says the eagle on this soldier's arm indicates he was a member of the SS, presumably the Waffen SS, who went into battle like other troops.

Two German soldiers on a motorcycle -- names and location unknown.

German soldiers on a train.  The little boy among them is interesting and puzzling.

Undoubtedly someone's mom, tending chickens back home while her sons went off to fight and die in Hitler's war.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.

Some German soldier's sister, sweetheart or wife.  She was cute and had a nice smile.  Name and location unknown -- undoubtedly somewhere in Germany.


















I have additional photos from the wallets, but not all are interesting.  There's a group of boys in Bavarian dress, playing accordions outside a shop; pictures apparently from Russia, and others.

Tomorrow's Post Will Be Interesting! Includes Photos Taken From Fallen German Soldiers (by My Uncle at Normandy)

Since it is the 70th anniversary of D-Day tomorrow, I have put some effort into my posts for that day.  I tell some personal tales of my Uncle Theo who went ashore on Normandy Beach on D-Day + 1 (and appeared in a Life photo on the beach).

Unc helped himself to the wallets of dead German soldiers, plucking them from their pockets and bringing them home as souvenirs.   These wallets contain the personal and family pictures of the German soldiers, some of which are quite poignant.  Adolf Hitler was not only the biggest SOB in modern history, he was the biggest SOB to the German people too -- sacrificing millions of their sons in an evil and ultimately, fruitless war.

The posts will publish automatically at 11:59 PM tonight and 12:00 AM tomorrow.

Tune in!

Sgt Bowe Bergdahl: Hero or Deserter? Is His Father a Muslim?

President Barack Obama's latest stunt was to negotiate the release of an American prisoner, a soldier named Bowe Begdahl who walked off his base in Afghanistan in 2009, and was immediately captured by the Taliban  They kept him as their guest for the next five years.

Before Bergdahl deserted his post, he had sent several emails to his father, complaining about America's wars in the middle east and expressing doubt as to the rightness of our mission there.  The emerging picture suggests that Bergdahl deserted and was captured under dishonorable circumstances.

Obama traded five of the most rabid Taliban leaders at Gitmo for this one low level soldier.  He did so without giving Congress 30 days notice, as the law requires.  Once again, Obama acted alone and outside the law, and his actions may result in the deaths of more American soldiers once these Taliban leaders return to the fight.

Bergdahl's father, one Robert Bergdahl, appears to be a practicing Muslim, complete with skull cap and big hairy beard.  The elder Bergdahl visited the White House for Obama's announcement of his son's release, and immediately uttered an Islamic prayer in Arabic.  He later tweeted his wish that all Gitmo prisoners would be freed, and expressed his wish in a way that suggests favorable identification with their cause.  He tweeted:

@Balkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.  God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!

So the question that is obvious is this:  Did Obama trade five highly dangerous Taliban leaders for one unworthy US soldier, one that may be both a deserter and sympathetic to the enemy?