Posted on 01/23/2024 5:03:13 AM PST by Tanniker Smith
Great to hear he’s got one more book in him.
I hope that Matt and E are doing well.
We were honored to have them in our home for dinner and a visit on one of his (few) road trips.
LINK TO DOWNLOAD PDF: "America's Retreat from Victory The Story of George Catlett Marshall"
In this book, Senator McCarthy outlined Marshall's role in handing over China to the Communists after the end of WWII.
It is based on McCarthy's 72,000 word speech on the Senate floor for which he was roundly criticized. I suggest you read the book and determine for yourself if McCarthy had valid points or not. Given what we have seen today, I am not inclined to discount anything related to politicized military officers, not even back then.
Critical reading for anyone who wants a well-rounded view of where we are now, today, with Communist China. (Also interesting from the point of view of Marshall's life...of all the leaders of WWII, Marshall stands nearly alone for not having written a memoir. As Marshall famously said: "No publicity will do me no harm, but some publicity will do me no good."
As a teaser, here is an excerpt from McCarthy's book, where he discusses Marshall's inability, and three-times-changed story about where he was and what he was doing on the morning of December 7, 1941, to illustrate his concern with Marshall's inability to accurately remember where he was, as the Army Chief of Staff, when tens of millions of Americans would never, ever forget where they were. In his book, McCarthy offers this anecdote (from Reader's Digest in 1944 describing a press conference in Algiers where Marshall met with 60 Anglo-American correspondents in Algiers) as an indication that Marshall had significant intellectual gravitas, and so incompetency was not the more likely explanation:
McCarthy then points out how "interesting" it was when Marshall, when he testified on what he was doing the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked, was unable to remember accurately.
He originally said he had been out riding horseback and thus could not be contacted. Then, he said his memory had been refreshed, and he had been having breakfast with his wife. Then, an excerpt was published in a book from the diary of a well known Soviet Aviator named Litvinoff who flew from Russia to the United States, in which he stated that he met with Marshall at the airport that morning.
The upshot of this is that Marshall made decision after decision after decision in the war that benefited the Soviets, and then after the war, made the same series of decisions that benefited the Communist Chinese in their goal to conquer China.
He was a political appointee to rank, under the auspices and guidance of Eleanor Roosevelt. This is significant in my eyes, given the path of Marshall's military career.
He served in the first WW on General Pershing's staff and became good friends with him. After the war, his career languished, and in 1933, he looked up Pershing and asked him to intercede on his behalf
I never liked this.
Marshall went the political route, and Pershing tried to help him.
General Douglas MacArthur, who was Chief of Staff of the Army at that time, was willing, but said he thought that Marshall should go through the channels which he thought he should easily be able to do. To assist him in this and grease his path, MacArthur gave him command of the Eighth Regiment in Georgia, which was the finest unit in the army.
It was a plum assignment. Marshall botched it so badly, that the Eighth Regiment went, in one year, from the best in the country to one of the worst. MacArthur said he couldn't promote him.
Then, six years later, after then-Colonel Marshall had been relieved of command of the Eighth Regiment (for taking them from First to Worst) he was promoted over the heads of 20 Major Generals and 14 Senior Brigadiers.
A political appointee due to his time running a large CCC camp (not even the Army!) where he got exposure the civilian side of the government, and found that there were other ways to flag rank without the aid of the Army.
His guiding patrons were Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. That tells me something.
Then, if you look at his conduct during the war and how he worked with Hopkins to manipulate Roosevelt away from any Mediterranean operations which would have caused Europe and the Balkans to be split with the allies instead of allowing the Soviets to swallow those areas whole...which they did.
In my opinion, there is too much smoke for there not to be fire in this man regarding his actions on behalf of communist countries. This was a difficult pill for me to swallow (and likely, for many of you given Marshall's nearly God-like status granted him) but take it for what it is worth.
Read?
I come to freerepublic.com for the pictures...
I kind of liked the old series, but...it wasn’t cast right in my mind. (I still enjoyed it, and it was more rigidly faithful to the books, IMO)
I love the way they cast the new one-it seems perfect!
I’m sure most here read high brow stuff, but that is boring to me. If you like a stand alone Sci-Fi story, I suggest Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
Read the complete Robinson Crusoe. I read one edited for teenagers when I was a kid. The complete one was quite eye-opening. It was really quite religious and informative about slavery. Written in 1719.
early 1960s, a Social Security Administration economist named Mollie Orshansky, concerned about the “dollar gap” between rich and poor, set out to create a statistic to quantify poverty nationwide. Such work was then a novel endeavor, and for good reason: most Americans did not see poverty as a permanent state. Looking at prices for the year 1959, Orshansky identified an income threshold below which a family would struggle to feed itself even a basic diet. That threshold, Orshansky reckoned, was around $3,000. By this measure, about 39 million Americans, or 24 percent of the population at the time, were poor.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, though, the rate of poverty was in fact steadily dropping. By 1966—in another reckoning, with a slightly different data set—Orshansky put poverty at 17.7 percent. Growth was vanquishing poverty, largely without redistribution. This accorded with the general assumption that poverty could be temporary.
No matter. “Whenever one speaks about the distribution of wealth, politics is never very far behind,” one of Orshansky’s successors, the French economist Thomas Piketty, would say many years later. Armed with this new data point, swiftly elevated to an official product of the Census Bureau, President Lyndon Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty.”
The Farhud, by Edwin Black. If you want to understand the roots of the Nazi connection to Arabs, and the model that is used by them for the extermination of Jews during the Third Reich and today, you will see why Nazism has explored, again, and is coming to this country.
But, it's Sci-Fi so...just go with it.
Read it many times. Greatest book of the 20th century
I never saw the old series, only the new one...
I’m not there yet, but I really enjoyed the first book.
I like SciFi. RAH and PKD are always good reads.
After the Dune series, I have The Necronomicon by HP Lovecraft.
Do not do much long reading but one from the past was
A Walk Across America
A Walk Across America is a nonfiction travel book first published in 1979. It was the first book written by travel author Peter Jenkins, with support from the National Geographic Society [some in which tried to edit out his evangelical conversion]. The book depicts his journey from Alfred, New York, to New Orleans, Louisiana. While on his journey of self-discovery, he engaged himself in others’ lives, lost his best friend, experienced a religious conversion, and courted a new wife. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_Across_America#Synopsis
Marked to check out later
If you like computer games, adventure, comedy then this will not disappoint. Not for the squeamish. Going to start the next in the series soon. Read they get better but the first is very good.
Out of complete frustration with the tyrant state we currently find ourselves in I have nearly worked my way through the 46 book series of “Jubal Stone US Marshall” A time where you could go anywhere, do anything, carry a gun everywhere and shoot anybody who gave you a hard time then keep their stuff. And a beer was 10 cents. 😆
Two series are worth every minute of reading.
1) “Space opera”—Sci-fi version of soap opera/warfare, but that trite description doesn’t do the series justice. The Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Futuristic star kingdoms battle for control and freedom amidst never-to-be-adequately-dammed political and human manipulations. From wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse :
“The Honorverse is a military science fiction book series, its two subseries, two prequel series, and anthologies created by David Weber and published by Baen Books. They are centered on the space navy career of the principal protagonist Honor Harrington. The books have made The New York Times Best Seller list.”
The main characters, Honor Harrington, a wonderful female officer which the series takes from midshipman up to captain and beyond, and her companion Nimitz (aka “Stinker”), a telepathic/empathic alien “Treecat” resembling a large earth cat but with 6 limbs and a penchant for celery (nearly-intoxicating to treecats and which produces noxious farts), are unbelievably enjoyable and memorable. Truth, honor, duty, sacrifice—all key themes. And the prequels and spin-off series are all excellent. And if you like the writing style, you’ll like other David Weber series (too many to describe).
2) Historical warfare, focusing on the view from the common soldier and the affected populace. The Richard Sharpe peninsular war series, by Bernard Cornwell (Europe, Napoleonic+, ca. 1800). From wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_(novel_series) :
“Sharpe is a series of historical fiction stories by Bernard Cornwell centred on the character of British soldier Richard Sharpe. The stories formed the basis for an ITV television series featuring Sean Bean in the title role.
“Cornwell’s series is composed of many novels and several short stories, and charts Sharpe’s progress in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars, though the novels were published in non-chronological order. He begins in Sharpe’s Tiger as a private in the 33rd Regiment of Foot who is continually promoted, finally rising to lieutenant colonel in Sharpe’s Waterloo. His military career ends with the final defeat of Napoleon, but he has more adventures as a civilian.”
Excellent depiction of duty and honor, and of the horrors of humankind and war, and wonderful recurring main characters, especially Sharpe. The battles and campaigns are well researched by the author, who usually personally visited the battle sites and some of the cities to better understand them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.