In Memoriam: Frank Buckles, 1901-2011, Last American Veteran of WWI

by Sidney Carton

The Last American Doughboy has died.  Frank Buckles, who lied about his age in order to join the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in 1918 died February 27, 2011 at the ripe old age of 110.

Mr. Buckles first attempted to enlist in the Marines, but was rejected as flat-footed.  The Army accepted him, despite his lying about his age.  He served on the Western front as an ambulance driver until the Armistice on November 11th.  After the war, Mr. Buckles became involved in overseas business, particularly in the Philippines.  It was there in 1942 that he was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned in the Los Banos prison camp.  He suffered from malnourishment and beriberi, yet still managed to lead his fellow prisoners in calisthenics.  Following his liberation, Mr. Buckles settled in Charlestown West Virginia, where he spent the rest of his life.

As the last living American Veteran of the First World War, Mr. Buckles campaigned heavily at the end of his life for a national memorial to Americans who served in that conflict, comparable to the memorial built for the veterans of the Second World War over a decade ago.  While he died with this goal unaccomplished, the goal is a noble one, which this blogger firmly agrees with.  Those interested in learning more about this project may find it here.

The editorial staff of The Loadstone Rock salute the last American Doughboy as he “goes west” to join his comrades.  May we never forget them, or the dread conflict in which they served.

The Tuscon Massacre and the Awful Price of Hatred

by Sidney Carton

For years, some of us have worried about the seemingly constant rise in vitriol, paranoia and rage infecting the political discourse in our nation.  Whether it be the vehemently racist signs held up at political rallies across the country last year, or the rumors of “death panels” in regards to health care reform, or the bizarre rhetoric linking President Obama to the most vicious dictators of the 20th century, the sad decline in civility in our national political discussion had led some of us to wonder what the eventual cost of such flirtation with violence, hatred and paranoia would be.

We got our answer last Saturday.  On that now infamous morning Jared Lee Loughner, a disturbed young man whose own diatribes echoed the most paranoid screeds of our tortured political climate opened fire on a town-hall meeting hosted by Rep. Gabriele Giffords (D-AZ) in a shopping center in Tuscon.  When Mr. Loughner was finally wrestled to the ground, putting an end to his work of death and terror, there were six dead, and numerous more wounded, including Congresswoman Giffords, Mr. Loughner’s intended victim, who suffered a gunshot wound to the head, and possible serious brain damage as a result.  But while the raw statistics of this tragedy and the fate of Rep. Giffords give us an insight into the cost of our hateful, rancorous political atmosphere, the true cost of this despicable act was not summed up in the wounded Congresswoman, or the slain Federal Judge, who happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.  No, the true cost of our disastrous flirtation with hate speech and political extremism was her:

This is 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green.  She had recently been elected to Student Council at her Elementary School and had gone to see her Congresswoman at a local event to learn more about politics.  She wanted to grow up and serve others, instead she was savagely gunned down by a deranged loner who was so full of fear, hatred and empty selfish rage that she will never have the chance to do so in this life.  For those of you so hardened by cynicism as to dismiss the other victims of this travesty as “liberals” or “lefties” or some other dehumanizing label that makes them collateral damage, tell me now, why did this little girl deserve to die?  She wasn’t a Democrat, or a Republican.  She wasn’t a “liberal” or a “conservative,” she was a child.

Adding further bitter irony to this already tragic nightmare, Christina Green had been born on September 11, 2001.  On one of the darkest days of this nation’s history, she had been a brief glimmer of hope, that life went on despite nihilistic evil.  Yet her life was snuffed out prematurely because we as a people failed to learn the lessons of that awful day, and gave voice and ear to the same vicious, rancid and toxic hatreds that drove those 19 accursed murderers to commit their acts of atrocity.

It may well be true that Mr. Loughner bought the gun himself, and that various media personalities (who have profited heavily from these toxic diatribes of fear that, it seems strongly influenced his own twisted worldview), did not load the weapon, put it in his hand, point it at the victims or pull the trigger.  Indeed they did nothing that even I can consider criminally wrong.  But that which is legal, is not necessarily moral, and those who helped plant the seeds of paranoia, hatred and violence in the fetid soil of Mr. Loughner’s diseased mind bear at minimum some moral responsibility for his crimes.

Nor may I say that the guilt ends there.  For the blood Mr. Loughner shed has already stained many hands.  We all bear a small amount of guilt for those lives cut short in Mr. Loughner’s paroxysm of rage and hatred.  We are guilty because we gave ear and attention to the sick souls who preached the gospel of hatred to us through the varied formats of the media.  We are guilty because we hold these people up as the drivers of public opinion, instead of the sick, deranged, pathetic or cynical ranters that they are.  We are guilty because instead of denouncing their nauseating flow of perpetual spiritual bile and excrement as the shameful, vile and dangerous filth that it is, we not only tolerate it, but give it our sustaning endorsement through our time, our thoughts and our money.

So the next time any of you, dear readers, feel inclined to hurl hateful words laced with the venom of violence and vitriol against those with whom you disagree on matters as petty as politics, stop for a moment and remember Christina Taylor Green.  Then think for a moment on the burden of pain and grief carried by her family, and by all the families of those slain or wounded by the bullets of this man whose madness was given form, direction and targets by the vicious words of others.  Stop and think of the bitter fruit that may yet be borne from the seeds of hatred you may yet sow, and weep for the awful harvest already in session.

In Memoriam: Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) 1917-2010

by Sidney Carton

What do you say about the man who holds the record for the longest consecutive term of service in the United States Senate.  Senator Byrd was history personified.  I will remember him standing alone on the Senate floor alone, in an nearly-empty chamber on C-SPAN arguing against the Iraq War with a fierce sense of moral outrage that the body on which the Constitution had delegated War Powers, and which ought to have been carefully considering the actions which would (to date) end up killing over 4,000 American Servicemen and nearly a million Iraqis, lay empty, having essentially relinquished the fateful decision to go to war to the Bush Administration.

This was not the only time that Senator Byrd stood alone, but it was likely one of the ones he did not regret in his fading years.  He also briefly held the record for longest filibuster against Civil Rights Legislation during the 1960′s (a legacy of his early support from the KKK, support which he later repudiated)

Senator Byrd was famed for his near-encyclopedic understanding of the Constitution and Senate Rules and procedures, making him a formidable legislative ally or opponent depending on what you were trying to get through the Upper Chamber of Congress.   The Editorial Board of The Loadstone Rock bids farewell to an American Legend and extends its condolences to Senator Byrd’s survivors as well as the West Virginia constituents he represented for over half a century.

Memorial Day 2010

by Sidney Carton

Once again we remember those who served in uniform and died in the service to the nation.  It bears remembering that the honored dead have always included women, and that these individuals were more than soldiers, they were fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters husbands and wives, and their loss signals more than a vacancy in the ranks, it means the loss of a loved one who will not be coming home, an empty chair at holiday gatherings, a lingering wound on the hearts of their family members.  May they be remembered and may the way we live our lives and sustain our nation honor their sacrifices.

The Los Angeles Times Obituary section keeps a list of all military deaths since 2001, lamentably it is only for my home state of California, but if you wish to put a face to some of those we have lost, please visit their site here.

In Memoriam: Jaime Escalante 1930-2010

by Sidney Carton

It seems strangely fitting to have Jaime Escalante brought back into our remembrance (even if it is in a tragic sense) in an hour in which we are heavily engaged in questions of the best way to assist the least fortunate among us, and how to best reform education.  Mr. Escalante was an uncompromising educator who had the highest expectations of his students, using his mathematics classes in East L.A. to open up the opportunities of higher education to an entire generation of students for whom little was expected.

Mr. Escalante understood the principle of “teaching a man to fish” but he also understood that such a principle requires more than merely showing the starving man how to bait the hook and cast.  It requires dedication and time, to help strengthen those over whom one has stewardship until they can stand on their own.  High expectations are essential, but they must be matched by dedication, sacrifice and leadership from the front, all of which Mr. Escalante demonstrated throughout his remarkable teaching career.  He worked hard, his lessons were always interesting, and he laid it all out for his students, even suffering a heart attack in while striving to get them to excel.  In the end, the successes of his students came from the determination and hard-working attitudes of his students, which reflected his equally, fanatically determined leadership.  Jaime Escalante didn’t teach math, he shaped lives.

As we consider various models of assisting the underprivileged, the example of Jaime Escalante ought to remind us that it will require more than just money to raise the downtrodden.  It will require sacrifice, dedication, hours of thankless labor, and high expectations.  As we consider the reform of education, we should seek to develop and recruit teachers with the determination, skill and desire of Mr. Escalante, who should be rewarded according to their exertions, while their labors remain unfettered by calcified bureaucracies.

If in saying this I sound a little more right-wing than usual, tolerate me a moment.  I speak now of the future of our nation, of my own children, their education and perhaps the last, best hope to ensure a prosperous future for our nation.  If securing this future means that cherished institutions of the past (seniority, tenure) must be reformed, reconsidered, or even done away with altogether, then so be it.  I am not inconsiderate of the concerns of the Teacher’s Unions, they would not have themselves defanged and left prostrate before administrative institutions whose management track records do not inspire confidence.  Clearly, this will have to be a collaborative effort in which the welfare of the educators is not left to the whim of their supervisors.  That said, in the interests of preserving the dignity and relevance of the profession, American Teacher’s Unions need to be willing to give a little on this issue.  In truth, both sides do, in their zealous defense of their respective prerogatives, both labor and management in this system have overlooked the primary purpose for the existence of our education system:  To ensure us a future America with an educated workforce and electorate that can both help govern our nation and keep it competitive in the global arena.  For too long we have sacrificed the needs of our future to preserve the comforts of the  present, all the while forgetting that our future rapidly becomes the present.  If we now find the present greatly degenerated from the past, it may be time to reset our priorities.

Good bye Mr. Escalante, may you find many more attentive students in the hereafter.