WA: Pappy Boyington Memorial Blocked at U-Dub

Paradosis | 2/10/06

[llevrok]

We don't need to honor any more rich white males

So says one member of the University of Washington Student Senate.

Gregory Pappy Boyington...graduate of the Univeristy of Washington (went to High School in Tacoma), winner of the medal of honor, shot down 28 enemy aircraft, was a prisoner of war for 20 months, and apparently does not - according to the student senate - deserve a memorial on campus. Apparently we are told that he "is not the type of person we want to honor" and some even went so far as to liken his duty in WW2 to murder. One of the biggest antagonists of the proposal was apparently the leader of the student Democratic Party. How sad.

This issue is particularly interesting to me because I personally knew Pappy Boyington, not so much as a friend, but as a regular visitor to the Chino Air Museum and Air Show. I met him on numerous occassions and thoroughly enjoyed his willingness to tell me stories about his experiences - and I must say it was HEAVEN to this young man who'd rather feel his way around a restored Corsair than hang out at the mall with his contemporaries.

Pappy was famous for once saying: "Just name a hero and I'll prove he's a bum." And he knew this from personal experience. Pappy's childhood wasn't easy and he and his mother had to work VERY hard to get him through school - he was no rich boy and neither did he live off government grants...personally I wonder if those students who "shot this memorial down" could remotely say the same? And he was a real human being who did not hide his faults, particularly with alcohol and marital problems. Like all heros, no one is a "super" hero. While Pappy could work hard, he could "play" hard too and landed himself in trouble from time to time. Here is a more detailed story...from the University of Washington oddly enough.

Also, clearly, the student who made the racist statement never met him because I will tell you that you could not mistake the Sioux in him. And while he did write a best-selling book (best selling authors are a dime a dozen), he was never really a rich man...rather he spent most of his last days wandering through Air Shows reliving the glory days, never in any grand luxury that I saw. He seemed a very nice man, who despite his personal problems did some extraordinary things to help defend freedom and defeat tyranny and injustice.

But, have our Washington youth revised history so much as this? To compare Boyington (or for that matter any of our WW2 vets) to murderers? What are these kids being taught today? They don't deserve those 20 months Pappy spent being tortured and beaten in a Japanese prison camp...they don't deserve any of what our grandfathers and grandmothers sacrificed to free Europe and the Pacific. Is it perhaps because those precious people are soon to be gone that we feel free to engage in leftist amnesia? I'm angry about this...how dare these snot nose, hemp-wearing, pot smoking, drum beating, dreadlock wearing, "gee when is the financial aid check going to arrive", brat kids diss Pappy Boyington?

Maybe REAL rich white guys ought to be offended (like Bill Gates and Paul Allen) and stop donating money to the UW and then the Student Senators will find they don't have the time to be in the student senate because they need to get themselves real jobs.

If any WW2 vets read this blog, please accept my apology on behalf of the University of Washington - and particularly thier ignorant student senate. We remember what you all have done. My kids will remember too.

[llevrok]

I take it you don't like them? \sarc

[Bigh4u2]

This is what the disgusting little buggers had to say.

The minutes! (Go to the bottom of the fifth page)

http://senate.asuw.org/secretary/minutes/senate/12/02-07-2006.pdf

[VOA]

bump

[Road Warrior ‘04]

http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/tokyo/omori/omori_yanks.html

List of POW's at Omori. Boyington and my father were there.

[jazusamo]

Thanks for the post. Colonel Gregory "Pappy" Boyington and Medal of Honor recipient, did more for our country during WWII than any of these students speaking out against him will ever know. These are some of the same students who try to prevent military recruiters from coming on campus. Hopefully, as some of them mature, they will come to realize they have their freedom due to heroes like Col. Boyington.

[calex59]

As a kid that grew up during and after WWII, I feel for the heros of that war. Almost everyone I knew had a relative of some kind that was either killed, wounded or had made it through without a scratch, but they all had relatives that had served in WWII. All these relatives were heros to us.

I had an uncle who was a marine and whose influence caused me to joint the army in 1959(don't ask me why not the marines, I just don't know).

For Pappy to not be recognized for the hero he was is disgraceful and these people should be slapped upside the head.

All the people who served during WWII are heros, people who put their lives on the line, the odds were very good they wouldn't make it back.

[VanDeKoik]

Sweet Jesus! Now I remember why I hate most college kids! I wish we could bring back the whole of the WW2 generation, make them 25, and unleash them on society. They would slap some sense into these Brokeback numbskulls before dinner!

[ConorMacNessa]

And rich imperial Japanese.

[xkaydet65]

I had a relevant issue in my clas yesterday. I have a Korean ninth grader who wouldn't stand for the Pledge. I don't force the kids to say it, but I demand they stand in respect. I took him aside and asked where in Korea he was from. Seoul. I told him my uncle Joe spent five months defending his country from June to November 1950, and 34 months in a Chinese POW hell after he was captured on the C'hong C'hong. I would not let that sacrifice be disrespected in my presence and I would visit his home with a picture on my uncle to shame his parents.

[llevrok]

My God. I recently read a book about Philippines POW camps. I hope Omori was even half more civilized.

So many brave and strong men were brutalized by the japs in these camps.

[Rev DMV]

My college history professors specialty was millitary avaition history. He had an interrview with Pappy that he had done that he had lent to me to listen. I wish I had made a copy of that. It was interesting to hear things straight from the the horses mouth.(unedited, hoo boy)

[Texas_Jarhead]

Jill Edwards and Ashley Miller are stupid @!#$%n idiots.

[Little Bill]

Give me a link! I lived in Spokane when I was a kid. I remember my old mans friends, WW2 Vets; Marines, Army, Coasties, Navy, would be disgusted by this.

[ExcursionGuy84]

"idiots" is TOO Nice of a term for those "Zero-ounce-of-gray-matter" psych-a-doodle-doos.

[goodnesswins]

WOW.....YOU DID GREAT!!!!!

[Bigh4u2]

And that's putting it 'mildly'!

I can think of a lot worse names!

[barj]

I met him a few times at El Toro. While he frequently had too much to drink on those occasions, he was a great guy. Definately a drinking problem, though. Miss him.

[clintonh8r]

These turds don't deserve the protections and liberties provided to them by men like Boyington. Semper fi.