Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Remembering Pearl Harbor
In the early morning hours of December 7, 1941 the mettle and determination of a generation were challenged when the Imperial Japanese Navy unleashed a sneak attack on the U.S. Navy fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor.
In the face of these attacks the Sailors of the U.S. Navy responded with honor, courage and undying commitment.
Heroic actions were embodied by common men who, when suddenly faced with the challenge of battle, responded with the resolve and character that defined the Navy and nation.
The personal stories and accounts listed here provide a chance to reflect upon, ponder and understand what a rich heritage Sailors today share with veteran shipmates.
These accounts come from Sailors associated with six of the many commands and ships affected that fateful day.
In addition, they resonate the faithfulness, valor and ethos of that day and what it means to be a Sailor in the United States Navy.
Sailors today are part of this long blue line who have provided protection and security to the nation and the world.
Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941 -- Overview
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.
Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese agression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.
By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan's diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.
The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.
These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered.
However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace.
This page features a historical overview and special image selection on the Pearl Harbor raid, chosen from the more comprehensive coverage featured in the following pages, and those linked from them:
For additional information and related resources on the Pearl Harbor attack, see:
At NatGeo: http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/
Also: http://my.execpc.com/~dschaaf/mainmenu.html
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Policial State
Today, 08.21.08, the Brazilian government decided to unifies the data base from Brazilian Information Agency (used basically to spy Brazilians citizens), Military Intelligence agencies (used almost for the same reasons, but in the Military), Central Bank data base, IRS, Brazilian Federal Police Intel. Agency, Assents Recuperation and Juridical International Cooperation Department, Financial Actives Control Agency (control every financial trasation over US$ 5,000.00); all under the control of Brazilian Information Agency.
Since 2002 there isn´t anymore in Brazil any kind of banking privacy, in the same way, if you are called to splain our privacy life you are gilt until you are able to prove your innocence.
And the Brazilian Court granted already more than 10,000 permition of wiretapping in the last 5 years, some of then without any previous proves, just "fishing". Last week the Brazilian Supreme Court decides that the Federal Police must be have more caution in the use of ...algemas... , and the Federal Police replies that is a no can do situation, opening a crise with even one Supreme threatening to beat other one, all without any cover from the press, witch is more interest in the Olympic Games.
So technically I do believe we are already living in a Policial State. 8/21/08
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The continuing war at home
ON JULY 19, 2004, I didn’t die.
Physically, I was unhurt, but I was living with the loss of my friends, recurring nightmares of the events of the day, and an overwhelming guilt for being alive. I’m not even really sure you could call it living. I felt worthless; although I was newly married with a daughter, I thought about suicide.
I didn’t know what to call it then, but I was suffering from survivor guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder. The only people I could listen to were those who had been there with me. Hearing from them that they cared for me and that I could be proud of myself and my service meant so much more somehow than hearing it from my family, who love you in spite of a turmoil they don’t understand.
I had to get better not only to care for my family but to honor the friends we had lost by living a full life.
I underwent treatment at the VA, which involved group therapy sessions and meeting with counselors. But the thing that broke through more than any session was talking one-on-one with veterans of the Vietnam War. Those guys put me on a personal mission. “Don’t let your generation become like ours,” they told me. “Make your buddies aware, make the public aware.”
I could tell them things — one guy in particular. With all the doctors and social workers and other vets there, this big, tough Vietnam vet chose me to share a story that, although half a world and four decades apart, was a lot like mine. As he helped me, I was helping him, too.
This offered me a starting point. I didn’t have to open up completely then, but I could start, little by little, to unload the weight of my emotions and experiences.
If this set me on an upward slope, I reached a peak at a combat-stress retreat run through the Wounded Warrior Project. I didn’t say as much as I could have, and I can’t really explain what that week meant to me. I learned to look at things a different way and to process my feelings differently.
I won’t say that I was cured that week. There is no cure for post-traumatic stress or survivor guilt, just as there is no way to bring Lloyd or Persing back.
But I have fewer, less-intense nightmares. When I have a flashback, I know how to ground myself back into my surrounding reality. I have learned to control my symptoms rather than letting them control me.
A lot of combat veterans believe that asking for help is a sign of weakness. I will admit that I once felt the same, but reaching out saved my life. The help doesn’t need to come from a doctor. It can be another vet, or just someone you can trust. It can be hard to talk. But just take one thing out at a time, something small. You don’t have to dump it all out; just lighten your load, bit by bit, and you’ll get there.
PTSD is a wound. Like any other wound, it will fester and spread if you don’t treat it. Just like you would with a wound to your arm or leg, you treat it, you stop the infection. It may not work quite as it did before, and you may have a scar, but you will start to heal and find strength and ability to do things you didn’t before.
I am pursuing my education now through the TRACK program, working out and loving my wife and daughter. I won’t waste the life that was spared on July 19, 2004, and I will honor the friends I lost by living a better life.
Andrew Coughlan, a Michigan resident, served in the war in Iraq. He is participating in the nonprofit Wounded Warrior Project’s TRACK program, which provides education and transition service to wounded vets in Jacksonville, Fla.