To courage, to integrity, the scarcest of all... in search of goodness in the pursuit of power, we have it in Joe Biden.. he was never perfect, but he’s always there: VOTE.
Thank you for suggesting another look at the General who recaptured the Philippines, accepted the Japanese surrender of WWII and was relieved of his duties by Truman during Korea.
It is good to remember someone with a long view of history, and could speak authoritatively on core virtues of duty, honor and country. Something we need to be reminded of on an almost daily basis
Yes, MacArthur helped "liberate" the Philippines from a brutal Japanese occupation, but it's important to recognize he also played an equally critical role in their precipitous and to many historians, premature fall, two years before.
Steve, to say merely “thank you” for posting this does not convey the depth of my appreciation for you sharing this incredibly profound speech and your accompanying comments.
Listening to the stirring words, “Duty, honor, country,” instead of thinking about all the smallness and pettiness of the age of Trump, I thought about some of the people I have come to admire in the last few years, people who exemplify adherence to “Duty, honor, and country.”
I thought of the many people who have spoken truth to power, knowing the loyalty of Trump’s base and their propensity toward violence.
I thought of whistleblower Alexander Vindman, who was faithful to the truth and who continues in his service to the country to be faithful to the values enshrined in our Constitution. I thought of the two teams of impeachment managers, who must have known that they would be subject to harassment and threats.
I thought of the witnesses who testified in the two impeachment hearings, especially Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump attempted to intimidate as she was testifying.
I also thought of the courage of the police officers who testified, all of whom had already experienced the hatred and violence of the MAGA base firsthand.
I thought of the members of the January 6 Committee, especially about the two Republicans on the Committee, whose political careers were ended, at least for now. The death threats and hate mail they received must have been terrifying.
I thought of some of the witnesses to the Committee, but especially Cassidy Hutchinson, whose testimony changed the momentum of the hearings, in my opinion. I can’t imagine the courage it took for her to come to those hearings and speak the truth.
And I think of Jack Smith, who I am sure has now exposed himself and his family to the worst expressions of hatred and revenge of which the MAGA base is capable. I pray for his safety and for the safety of his family and for the safety of all who are engaged with him in the endeavor to preserve our country and our democracy.
All of these people have served duty, honor, and country. May God bless them all and keep them safe.
Thank you, Donna, for pointing out all the ways so many people step up in a brave way to be honest and have the courage to defend what’s right. I read Steve’s article twice and listened to MacArthur twice. For me it brought up the struggle I have with militaristic thinking and I might as well just say the thinking of way too many men.
My dad served in WWII, my uncle was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force and my husband a graduate of Officer Candidate School. We loved and respected all these guys. For years in Cape May we been admiring and supporting the US Coast Guard and run to see them when they jog through town. (Our two year old grandsons wanted to know, “Are they the good guys or the bad guys?)
I lay awake the night of 9/11 thinking of my 19 year old son and all his friends, seeing their faces and imagining them in military garb with military gear and it was excruciating because I expected they’d be called to serve. At this point I already knew of the false motives and dishonesty of our leaders in the Viet Nam War and the lives that were sacrificed because of that.
Since then we have become a nation with a culture that celebrates violence-in movies, entertainment, sports, even our language. It’s my struggle especially because I am so often the odd one out but I just won’t even sit through a violent movie or a football game. I just don’t see how we can solve are huge amount of problems with the culture it seems that we’re steeped in. We’re so busy yelling at each other and yelling at the tv screen.
And I wonder how could any human being say in his dying breath that what mattered the most was the Corps.
To draft dodgers in the White House: William Jefferson Clinton, Donald John Trump... to criminals in the White House, Richard M. Nxon, Spiro T Agnew, Donald J. Trump, to brave men in the White House, Harry S Truman, Dwight David Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, George Herbert Walker Bush, to cowards in the White House, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, to liars in the White House, Donald John Trump, Thomas Jefferson, Mike Pence, to the best of the White House, Abraham Lincoln...to our very best citizen and jurist, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson...
Your choice for each category seems simplistic and overly broad. While some of them were indeed almost, if not entirely bad, others, while flawed, had offsetting, redeeming qualities. Maybe try toning it down instead of writing as if your personal opinions are absolute truths.
To General Douglas McArthur, you are not missed and not entirely forgotten, Korea remembers you, Manila remembers you, you were fired for insubordination to the howls of our fascist elites, and they are still with us, we are all the darkness and danger.
I paid my first visit to West Point last fall, merely by driving past it on a leisurely tourist trip up the west bank of the Hudson from Bear Mountain Park to Newburgh. After listening to this astonishing speech, I can voice why I am drawn to return for a civilian’s visit to the Military Academy: to pay honor, respect, and thanks.
My uncle, Walter Israel Wald (Class of 1940; POW Philippines 1941-1944; KIA 1944) and my father, Alvin Miles Wald (Class of 1944; Purple Heart WWll Europe) would be shocked if they heard the rhetoric of today’s “leaders”.
When Trump led the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol, I was appalled to think the sacrifices of my own blood for the defense of this country had come to this day....my Uncle Walt paid the ultimate price as a POW of his Japanese captors in the Philippines, only to be killed in the closing hours of the war....how he suffered, but never complained. The letters he wrote home to his parents, my grandparents, never led on he was being tortured, beaten and starved.
My father, Alvin M. Wald fought and witnessed the brutality of the Nazis in WWll Europe, then returned home never to say a word about it, though I know the loss of his brother in the Pacific theatre and what he had seen in Europe deeply affected him.
Interesting, the silence about the war from returning WWII guys. My father was on Guam and my uncle in the second wave of Omaha Beach. Neither would talk about it at all, ever.
They managed to suck up the horrors visited upon them by WWll, and got on with their lives. I don’t think this was unusual for a majority of WWll vets—one of the reasons they are considered “the greatest generation”. Don’t forget, they were still in their early 20s when they returned home from the most horrific war in the history of the world.
Compare their steely conduct to that of wrinkled old wimps like Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham and all the others who start crying, like the rich cowards they are, the second they don’t get their way. They know nothing of Duty, Honor, Country…it’s disgusting and a discredit to those who went before them in defense of our country.
Wonderful speech. Values are important. Humans are imperfect, and often stray from the values they hold dear. Values remain steady. I think we focus too much on how we rate against other imperfect people rather than how our actions align with the values we claim to follow.
Great speech. Thanks for pointing it out. McArthur is not at the top of my list of great historical figures. I prefer Patton. Maybe we can sometime talk a little about the Vietnam War. What a catastrophe. What a Johnson mistake. What a loss, 58,000 US losses.
And an estimated 3-4 million innocent dead throughout Indochina due to the dishonesty and bellicosity of the US military, McNamara and LBJ, and then, most egregiously Nixon & Kissinger's carpet bombing campaign in the bordering countries as the criminally (!) unjust, insane Vietnam War dragged on.
And then, due to Nixon & Kissinger's radical destabilization of the region, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces slaughtered AN ADDITIONAL 1.5 to 3 million innocent people in Cambodia.....
Phisto, my research back in the 1990s uncovered that US meddling in Central & South America (funding dictators and funding-arming-training their death squads at places like the notorious "School of the Americas"-- "School of the Assassins" as prime critic Father Roy Bourgeois called them) was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of over 1 million innocent civilians in nearly every land south of the US-Mexico border. (Think especially of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina.)
And i wrote a book-length treatment on George H.W. Bush's unjust war and sanctions on Iraq from 1990 onward (almost serialized by The New Yorker, but they thought i was too "harsh" on the Bush clan), which killed well over 1 million innocent Iraqis, especially by the sanctions (started by H.W. Bush, continued by Bill Clinton) that blocked essential medications and water purification chemicals.
As for Ukraine-- this one i'm very ambivalent about. I normally agree 95% of the time with the great correspondent-reporter-journalist Chris Hedges (starting with his staunch advocacy for veganism as the only solution to so many evils), but on this matter of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the involvement of USA and Europe, i disagree with Hedges that Putin never would have invaded except for NATO expansionism. Putin is a war criminal and a dictator working against his own Russian people's interests, and following in Stalin's shoes with the brutalization of Ukrainians. Hedges thinks so many of Ukraine's problems stem from US assisting in the ousting of former Ukraine PM / President Viktor Yanukovych, but Hedges ignores the obvious fact that Yanukovych was a tool of Russian oligarchic (and one Ukrainian oligarch's) interests, and was also a tool of the evil Paul Manafort (his speechwriter and crony).
Also, given the absolutely atrocious history of Stalin's massacres and deliberate starvation campaign against Ukrainians since the 1930s, i want Russia to finally get the f&#k out and LEAVE UKRAINE ALONE. And if USA/NATO Involvement is necessary for that, so be it. Jmo....
Good stuff! It's nice to find a similarly minded seeker here.
Hoping to at least skim your linked article today, especially considering where I was on 9/11 (and five days after).
Regarding your comments on Ukraine, I get your position (I've read Hedges for years too), but it's not worth a possible nuclear world war.
Whatever we think of Russia, the actions of our country are undoubtedly pushing toward catastrophe. Being our country, those are the actions we can most do something about.
I hear you, Phisto, on the possible escalating dangers of the Ukraine situation. It's FUBAR, as the old expression goes. I'm disgusted by Biden admin. (and i generally like "Ol' Joe") sending over CLUSTER MUNITIONS. As if their usage (and things like depleted uranium-tipped munitions) hasn't been ghastly enough over the decades. 😱🥹
Btw, i don't espouse anarchism like thyself, i'm much more aligned with Gandhi- and Bernie Sanders-style progressive social democrat views. But i enjoyed seeing your piece on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at your Substack site. As you may know, there's a well-done 2000 TV movie on him (Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace), freely viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2325_APzy6c&t=7s
P.S.-- Jerry Butler-- have you ever studied the legacy of another tremendous American military hero -- Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler? (maybe an ancestor?)
He became a scathing critic of US foreign and domestic policies in the first decades of the 20th century.... accusing the civilian and military elite as being "war racketeers." Makes for eye-opening reading....
No, I'm afraid Smedley is not one of my ancestors but was clearly a hero. A real stand-up guy clearly. A few more of those would be good to have in DC. I just have to say that my dad who fought across Guam and my uncle who did the same across Europe as well as hundreds of thousands others were all heroes, those who came back and of course those who remained. I know you think the same.
This video was put together beautifully along with the outstanding speech. MacArthur was 82 years old and the speech reflects his sense of duty and wisdom. You can’t fake or give a faulty definition of Duty, Honor, Country. Putin and Trump don’t have it and nothing you can do about it. Today, Ukraine’s general, Zaluzhnyi turns 50 on the 500th day of the war. The little Snake Island of the nation has shown the world the meaning of real honor, duty and country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/19/russian-warship-go-fuck-yourself-ukraine-snake-island
To courage, to integrity, the scarcest of all... in search of goodness in the pursuit of power, we have it in Joe Biden.. he was never perfect, but he’s always there: VOTE.
Thank you for suggesting another look at the General who recaptured the Philippines, accepted the Japanese surrender of WWII and was relieved of his duties by Truman during Korea.
It is good to remember someone with a long view of history, and could speak authoritatively on core virtues of duty, honor and country. Something we need to be reminded of on an almost daily basis
Yes, MacArthur helped "liberate" the Philippines from a brutal Japanese occupation, but it's important to recognize he also played an equally critical role in their precipitous and to many historians, premature fall, two years before.
Indeed.
Steve, to say merely “thank you” for posting this does not convey the depth of my appreciation for you sharing this incredibly profound speech and your accompanying comments.
Keep going young man!
Listening to the stirring words, “Duty, honor, country,” instead of thinking about all the smallness and pettiness of the age of Trump, I thought about some of the people I have come to admire in the last few years, people who exemplify adherence to “Duty, honor, and country.”
I thought of the many people who have spoken truth to power, knowing the loyalty of Trump’s base and their propensity toward violence.
I thought of whistleblower Alexander Vindman, who was faithful to the truth and who continues in his service to the country to be faithful to the values enshrined in our Constitution. I thought of the two teams of impeachment managers, who must have known that they would be subject to harassment and threats.
I thought of the witnesses who testified in the two impeachment hearings, especially Marie Yovanovitch, whom Trump attempted to intimidate as she was testifying.
I also thought of the courage of the police officers who testified, all of whom had already experienced the hatred and violence of the MAGA base firsthand.
I thought of the members of the January 6 Committee, especially about the two Republicans on the Committee, whose political careers were ended, at least for now. The death threats and hate mail they received must have been terrifying.
I thought of some of the witnesses to the Committee, but especially Cassidy Hutchinson, whose testimony changed the momentum of the hearings, in my opinion. I can’t imagine the courage it took for her to come to those hearings and speak the truth.
And I think of Jack Smith, who I am sure has now exposed himself and his family to the worst expressions of hatred and revenge of which the MAGA base is capable. I pray for his safety and for the safety of his family and for the safety of all who are engaged with him in the endeavor to preserve our country and our democracy.
All of these people have served duty, honor, and country. May God bless them all and keep them safe.
Thank you, Donna, for pointing out all the ways so many people step up in a brave way to be honest and have the courage to defend what’s right. I read Steve’s article twice and listened to MacArthur twice. For me it brought up the struggle I have with militaristic thinking and I might as well just say the thinking of way too many men.
My dad served in WWII, my uncle was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force and my husband a graduate of Officer Candidate School. We loved and respected all these guys. For years in Cape May we been admiring and supporting the US Coast Guard and run to see them when they jog through town. (Our two year old grandsons wanted to know, “Are they the good guys or the bad guys?)
I lay awake the night of 9/11 thinking of my 19 year old son and all his friends, seeing their faces and imagining them in military garb with military gear and it was excruciating because I expected they’d be called to serve. At this point I already knew of the false motives and dishonesty of our leaders in the Viet Nam War and the lives that were sacrificed because of that.
Since then we have become a nation with a culture that celebrates violence-in movies, entertainment, sports, even our language. It’s my struggle especially because I am so often the odd one out but I just won’t even sit through a violent movie or a football game. I just don’t see how we can solve are huge amount of problems with the culture it seems that we’re steeped in. We’re so busy yelling at each other and yelling at the tv screen.
And I wonder how could any human being say in his dying breath that what mattered the most was the Corps.
Amen, Donna, Amen.
Thank you for this beautiful comment. Thank you.
To draft dodgers in the White House: William Jefferson Clinton, Donald John Trump... to criminals in the White House, Richard M. Nxon, Spiro T Agnew, Donald J. Trump, to brave men in the White House, Harry S Truman, Dwight David Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, George Herbert Walker Bush, to cowards in the White House, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, to liars in the White House, Donald John Trump, Thomas Jefferson, Mike Pence, to the best of the White House, Abraham Lincoln...to our very best citizen and jurist, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson...
Your choice for each category seems simplistic and overly broad. While some of them were indeed almost, if not entirely bad, others, while flawed, had offsetting, redeeming qualities. Maybe try toning it down instead of writing as if your personal opinions are absolute truths.
Well put Mr. Lewis...thank you for sharing your thoughts.
To General Douglas McArthur, you are not missed and not entirely forgotten, Korea remembers you, Manila remembers you, you were fired for insubordination to the howls of our fascist elites, and they are still with us, we are all the darkness and danger.
I paid my first visit to West Point last fall, merely by driving past it on a leisurely tourist trip up the west bank of the Hudson from Bear Mountain Park to Newburgh. After listening to this astonishing speech, I can voice why I am drawn to return for a civilian’s visit to the Military Academy: to pay honor, respect, and thanks.
Incredible speech...good luck finding this today.
My uncle, Walter Israel Wald (Class of 1940; POW Philippines 1941-1944; KIA 1944) and my father, Alvin Miles Wald (Class of 1944; Purple Heart WWll Europe) would be shocked if they heard the rhetoric of today’s “leaders”.
When Trump led the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol, I was appalled to think the sacrifices of my own blood for the defense of this country had come to this day....my Uncle Walt paid the ultimate price as a POW of his Japanese captors in the Philippines, only to be killed in the closing hours of the war....how he suffered, but never complained. The letters he wrote home to his parents, my grandparents, never led on he was being tortured, beaten and starved.
My father, Alvin M. Wald fought and witnessed the brutality of the Nazis in WWll Europe, then returned home never to say a word about it, though I know the loss of his brother in the Pacific theatre and what he had seen in Europe deeply affected him.
Duty, Honor, Country.
Interesting, the silence about the war from returning WWII guys. My father was on Guam and my uncle in the second wave of Omaha Beach. Neither would talk about it at all, ever.
They managed to suck up the horrors visited upon them by WWll, and got on with their lives. I don’t think this was unusual for a majority of WWll vets—one of the reasons they are considered “the greatest generation”. Don’t forget, they were still in their early 20s when they returned home from the most horrific war in the history of the world.
Compare their steely conduct to that of wrinkled old wimps like Trump, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham and all the others who start crying, like the rich cowards they are, the second they don’t get their way. They know nothing of Duty, Honor, Country…it’s disgusting and a discredit to those who went before them in defense of our country.
Wonderful speech. Values are important. Humans are imperfect, and often stray from the values they hold dear. Values remain steady. I think we focus too much on how we rate against other imperfect people rather than how our actions align with the values we claim to follow.
With tears for our 6 children and 11 grandchildren.. for all children..
To Steve, Thank you, Sir..
Thank you for bringing us this marvelous testament to Honor, Duty and Country.
Great speech. Thanks for pointing it out. McArthur is not at the top of my list of great historical figures. I prefer Patton. Maybe we can sometime talk a little about the Vietnam War. What a catastrophe. What a Johnson mistake. What a loss, 58,000 US losses.
And an estimated 3-4 million innocent dead throughout Indochina due to the dishonesty and bellicosity of the US military, McNamara and LBJ, and then, most egregiously Nixon & Kissinger's carpet bombing campaign in the bordering countries as the criminally (!) unjust, insane Vietnam War dragged on.
And then, due to Nixon & Kissinger's radical destabilization of the region, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces slaughtered AN ADDITIONAL 1.5 to 3 million innocent people in Cambodia.....
Then Central America... then Iraq... then Afghanistan... now Ukraine...
...are we the baddies?
Phisto, my research back in the 1990s uncovered that US meddling in Central & South America (funding dictators and funding-arming-training their death squads at places like the notorious "School of the Americas"-- "School of the Assassins" as prime critic Father Roy Bourgeois called them) was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of over 1 million innocent civilians in nearly every land south of the US-Mexico border. (Think especially of Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina.)
And i wrote a book-length treatment on George H.W. Bush's unjust war and sanctions on Iraq from 1990 onward (almost serialized by The New Yorker, but they thought i was too "harsh" on the Bush clan), which killed well over 1 million innocent Iraqis, especially by the sanctions (started by H.W. Bush, continued by Bill Clinton) that blocked essential medications and water purification chemicals.
Afghanistan was another debacle from the get-go. Here's an essay i wrote 5 days after 9/11, published by the Gandhi Institute: https://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Understanding_and_solving_the_terrorist_problem.html
As for Ukraine-- this one i'm very ambivalent about. I normally agree 95% of the time with the great correspondent-reporter-journalist Chris Hedges (starting with his staunch advocacy for veganism as the only solution to so many evils), but on this matter of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the involvement of USA and Europe, i disagree with Hedges that Putin never would have invaded except for NATO expansionism. Putin is a war criminal and a dictator working against his own Russian people's interests, and following in Stalin's shoes with the brutalization of Ukrainians. Hedges thinks so many of Ukraine's problems stem from US assisting in the ousting of former Ukraine PM / President Viktor Yanukovych, but Hedges ignores the obvious fact that Yanukovych was a tool of Russian oligarchic (and one Ukrainian oligarch's) interests, and was also a tool of the evil Paul Manafort (his speechwriter and crony).
Also, given the absolutely atrocious history of Stalin's massacres and deliberate starvation campaign against Ukrainians since the 1930s, i want Russia to finally get the f&#k out and LEAVE UKRAINE ALONE. And if USA/NATO Involvement is necessary for that, so be it. Jmo....
Hey Tim,
Good stuff! It's nice to find a similarly minded seeker here.
Hoping to at least skim your linked article today, especially considering where I was on 9/11 (and five days after).
Regarding your comments on Ukraine, I get your position (I've read Hedges for years too), but it's not worth a possible nuclear world war.
Whatever we think of Russia, the actions of our country are undoubtedly pushing toward catastrophe. Being our country, those are the actions we can most do something about.
I hear you, Phisto, on the possible escalating dangers of the Ukraine situation. It's FUBAR, as the old expression goes. I'm disgusted by Biden admin. (and i generally like "Ol' Joe") sending over CLUSTER MUNITIONS. As if their usage (and things like depleted uranium-tipped munitions) hasn't been ghastly enough over the decades. 😱🥹
Btw, i don't espouse anarchism like thyself, i'm much more aligned with Gandhi- and Bernie Sanders-style progressive social democrat views. But i enjoyed seeing your piece on Dietrich Bonhoeffer at your Substack site. As you may know, there's a well-done 2000 TV movie on him (Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace), freely viewable at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2325_APzy6c&t=7s
Hey, believe what you want. I recall Gandhi and Tolstoy were quite the pen pals, and Tolstoy seems the original anarchist to me.
So hey, cousin. :)
I recall hearing about the film, but never saw it. I'll put it on the list.
I'm glad you liked the piece. Seeing a place he actually was is one of my life's greatest treasures. Were more of us like him, most of all myself.
P.S.-- Jerry Butler-- have you ever studied the legacy of another tremendous American military hero -- Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler? (maybe an ancestor?)
He became a scathing critic of US foreign and domestic policies in the first decades of the 20th century.... accusing the civilian and military elite as being "war racketeers." Makes for eye-opening reading....
https://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/General_Butler_Revelations.html
No, I'm afraid Smedley is not one of my ancestors but was clearly a hero. A real stand-up guy clearly. A few more of those would be good to have in DC. I just have to say that my dad who fought across Guam and my uncle who did the same across Europe as well as hundreds of thousands others were all heroes, those who came back and of course those who remained. I know you think the same.
Yes, Jerry, your ancestors and the others were all heroes-- willing to pay with their lives for freedom and justice in this world!
I prefer President Abraham Lincoln. Hands down.
For my good friend and wife of 63 years... thank you.
I was speechless at the end, with my mouth agape.
This video was put together beautifully along with the outstanding speech. MacArthur was 82 years old and the speech reflects his sense of duty and wisdom. You can’t fake or give a faulty definition of Duty, Honor, Country. Putin and Trump don’t have it and nothing you can do about it. Today, Ukraine’s general, Zaluzhnyi turns 50 on the 500th day of the war. The little Snake Island of the nation has shown the world the meaning of real honor, duty and country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/19/russian-warship-go-fuck-yourself-ukraine-snake-island