the rix mix

A portrait of Lt. General Lewis "Chesty" Puller. He said these famous words as a Marine Corps Colonel when surrounded by Chinese at Chosin Reservoir in Korea.  Although enormous losses were inflicted on the Chinese, United Nations forces had to break out of the encirclement & engage in a harrowing, fighting retreat in brutal winter weather to the port at Hungnam. A very conservative friend posted this graphic on Facebook. It's the sort of thing he sometimes posts. But he had "shared it" from a page titled "Things liberals hate."

I commented, "I don't get this.  I mean I understand the USMC thing. But I don't get the 'Things liberals hate' thing." I'm a "liberal." I've known hundreds of liberals & haven't heard any of them express contempt for the United States Marine Corps or for any of America's men & women in the military services. Maybe for some of the upper echelon officers who have popped off on political matters they are supposed to avoid. That hardly counts. I used to hear radical anti-American leftists talk shit, but there aren't many of them around anymore. The most vicious anti-military group is the small, pathetic bunch of ultra-right losers from Westboro Baptist, the ones that show up waving homo-bigoted signs at military funerals.

I also just happened to finish reading, for the second time, The River and the Gauntlet by S.L.A. Marshall, subtitled "Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces November, 1950 at the Battle of Chongkong River, Korea". Published in 1953, based on eyewitness & Army reports, it is one of the most disturbing war books I have ever read. a tough read.  It recounts a disorganized retreat through a valley, under constant enemy fire, marked by the failure of numerous commanders, at the front & at the highest levels (Gen. MacArthur)  as well as uncounted acts of valor, courage & leadership by men who stepped up & tried to keep a 20 mile long convoy moving to the safety of British-held lines, just beyond a narrow ravine through mountains where everyone came under deadly crossfire. S.L.A.  Marshall was a pioneer of interviewing platoon level soldiers to build a picture of a battlefield from the ground up, with all its horrors, which he initially did as an official Army Historian during World War II.

What I & other liberals hate is divisive right wing bullshit. Put a lie out there  about what "liberals hate" & even a conservative with a good heart, like my FB friend, spreads it around like it's a fact & an ideological truth.