"He WON the ones he HAD to."

... Bottom line reply of a couple of British historians on George Washington's military prowess, in response to an argument that, "He LOST more battles than he WON."

I suspect that North Vietnam's General Võ Nguyên Giáp would have understood PERFECTLY. 

During our Bicentennial in 1976, CBS ran a number of "Bicentennial Minutes" (short educational American television segments commemorating the bicentennial of the American Revolution). 

In one of them, U.S. Army Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr. talked of his participation in the Paris Peace Talks, in 1973, as part of the delegation negotiating our withdrawal from Vietnam. At that time, he felt deeply humiliated at being party to what amounted to a surrender on our part. 

He recalled that one time, when leaving the conference room, he tore into one of the Vietnamese delegates, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield". 

Instead of the argument he was spoiling for, what he got in return was, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

He acknowledged THAT to be "the shortest, most succinct lesson in strategy I have EVER been privileged to hear".

Recently, on The History Channel, I came across Washington the Warrior (2006), (which I now have on order from Amazon). This is an uttelry fascinating look at our first Commander in Chief, which I cannot recommend too highly. There is NOTHING stuffy or boring about him.

To go along with that I would also recommend The Crossing (2000), about Washington's crossing the Delaware to attack a Hessian brigade at Trenton, New Jersey, at a time when his army was almost disintegrated from lack of supplies and support, figuring that the Hessians had everything he was in need of.

Hunt these up and enjoy History at its best.
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War of Worlds Musical

Watching the episode of "Fargo"  I recorded last night, I found a bit of THIS music in it. Sadly, this album appears out iof print; Amazon.com listed ONE new CD at $265.00. If you're interested, you may have no alternative to downloading the music. ...

JEFF WAYNE'S MUSICAL VERSION OF THE WAR OF THE WORLDS - PART 1 - THE EVE OF THE WAR - HQ

Narrated by Richard Burton, this is truly an amazing album, well worth the trouble of finding a download of the full album, if that's the ONLY way you can check it out.
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Riders on the Storm ...

... by Jim Morrison and The Doors.

The things you come across when you're looking for something else. While searching for a good video of "Riders on the storm", by Jim Morrison and The Doors, I found THIS piece by Ray Manzarek, keyboardist of The Doors, about how "Riders" came to be ...

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THIS you can trust.

... the philosophy of movie director John Milius.

The director of Dillinger (1973), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and The Wind and The Lion (1975) also wrote the screenplays for these, plus Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) and bits of Jaws (1975) and Apocalypse Now (1979) .

He was a great believer in taking care of things yourself.

Conan the Barbarian opens with the casting, forging and tempering of Conan's father's sword, and concludes with the father telling a very young Conan ...

 

"Fire and wind come from the sky,
"from the Gods of the sky.
"But Crom is your God,
"Crom, and he lives in the Earth."

"Once giants lived in the Earth, Conan.
"And in the darkness of chaos...
"they fooled Crom,
"and they took from him the enigma of steel."

"Crom was angered,
"and the Earth shook.
"And fire and wind struck down those giants,
"and they threw their bodies into the waters."

"But in their rage,
"the Gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield."

"And we who found it...
"are just men.
"Not Gods. Not giants.
"Just men."

"And the secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery."

"You must learn its riddle, Conan.
"You must learn its discipline."

"For no one,
"no one in this world can you trust;
"not men, not women, not beasts."

(Pointing to his sword):
"THIS you can trust."

The script for Conan is credited to Milius AND to Oliver Stone, but what I've seen of his movies tells me that speech above is pure John Milius, and describes perfectly his philosophy of life,

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Warbirds

Incorporating videos in my posts is new to me.  I've been blogging since October 2009. on an HP computer (the "Mack truck" of computers) that I bought around the end of 2003. Being an XP machine, with limited memory and on a dial-up connection, dealing with videos was an exercise in masochism. The old machine died a few months ago (hard drive crash).

I replaced it with a refurbished Windows 7 machine (HP of course :-) and took advantage of my apartment complex having outlets installed for Comcast/Xfinity, and got a good deal for activating high-speed internet and digital phone service. Like graduating from a Volkswagen to a Porsche.

So now, I'm learning how to incorporate youtube videos, play with the HTML code to adjust the size they appear here, and how to download those videos onto my computer (as insurance against them being pulled from youtube).

I started with 2cellos, a wonderfully insane music video.

Next came Insight from The Third Man ... , about a wonderful little speech that Orson Welles added to the movie.

And, NOW, here's my latest attempts involving the subjects of the title of this post.  Hope you enjoy.

The Brits know how to put on a show. During the Falklands War (when Argentina invaded the British Falkland Islands in 1982), one of these made an EXTREMELY long range attack down there.

 On its return, it made a demo pass over an air show outside of Houston, where I got a wonderful look at it.

The only surviving Messerschmitt BF109E-4 still flying. It was shot down and belly landed in a field during the Battle of Britain in 1940. It is currently with the Russel Aviation Group, Ontario Canada.

PS - If you like the background music, it's from DAFT PUNK's soundtrack for TRON: Legacy (2010).

On 21 September 1953 a North Korean pilot defected, flying a MIG-15 jet fighter interceptor to Seoul , South Korea. In the process the pilot collected a $100000 reward which had been offered by the United States Government. The United States Air Force quickly set about conducting flight tests to determine the capabilities, and limitations, of the Russian designed aircraft



Among the three test pilots was USAF Major Charles "Chuck" Yeager, the first man to fly faster than sound in the Bell X1 in 1947.  I remember Tom Wolfe's book "The Right Stuff" mentioning that.

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Insight from The Third Man ...

The Third Man (1949) 

Out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), arrives in post war Vienna to accept a job offer from ex-school friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to hear of Lime's death from a peculiar traffic accident.

Holly finds that Lime has faked his death and is involved in black market penicillin (diluted) that results in many deaths. He finds Lime and confronts him.

Based on Graham Greene's novel, the movie is faithful to it, but it was Orson Welles who added THIS little insight ...

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