Tag Archives: uss missouri

The End Of The Line

Leave a reply

In 1945, at the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri, Commander George Kosco, USN, took the only color film of the event. The film remained in Commander Kosco’s possession until it was restored in 2010. The USS Missouri was one of four battleships of the Iowa class, the Iowa, the Wisconsin, the New Jersey and the Missouri. They are gone now, the end of the line begun when the English built the first race-built galleons, sleek and fast, through the great wooden two and three deckers to steel and steam. The big gun ships of the line have had their day, and now they are gone.  

 

 

The race-built heeled into the wind

So swift, so sleek, so lean

Yet who could tell when she was launched

The future had been seen

The race-builts paved the wooden way

For frigates and the like

Ships of the line with billowed sails

And sheet-work marlin spike

Then sail was done for steam and steel

Just laughed at wind and tide

And guns now turned, no longer did

They line the checkered side

And then at last the end had come

For battleships and men

The Iowas are gone and we’ll

See not their like again

 

 

Victory Is Not An Option

1 Reply

President Obama, in an interview with ABC News, said he does not like to use the word victory. “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory’,” he said, “because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” This is astounding, though not astonishing, given what we now know about Barack Hussein Obama and his utter contempt and dislike for the United States, its traditions and culture. Disregarding the fact known to most schoolboys that Hirohito was nowhere near the USS Missouri on the day in question, it is not clear to me whether Obama thinks surrendering to the Americans was a humiliation to the Japanese not to be borne, or whether it was a personal embarrassment inflicted by vengeful and vindictive white people on a dignified man of color. Whatever, the import of what Obama said is clear. He does not believe in victory. He strove mightily, as did other Democrats, to lose the war in Iraq, in the belief that losing the war would be beneficial politically to Democrats. Which raises the question, what are we doing in Afghanistan? Why is he sending men to die if not for victory?

 

 

Victory or death, men used to say

But such words now are quite passé

And victory as such is much deplored

Our president has said as much

And he is surely more in touch

With matters military ‘cross the board

Than those of us who seem to think

That when at war one should not shrink

From doing what we need to do to win

So we should follow Obie’s lead

And when we fight we should concede

That victory in war’s a mortal sin

For enemies that kill our guys

Are merely friends that we may prise

Away from habits warlike, harsh and cruel

And turn them into people who

Believe in all the things we do

And all who don’t believe this is a fool

But somehow I can’t quite believe

That wearing hearts upon our sleeve

Is quite the way to show them we are right

For in a war you win or lose

And which is not for you to choose

And victory or death be why we fight