30 Sept 00

I just completed a Shotgun Instructor's Program for a group of LEOs in upstate NY. One of my students is from the State DOC (Dept of Corrections). He is responsible for the training of over two thousand, armed prison guards throughout the prison system. They house 70,000 inmates in the state system alone!

In any event, they all use revolvers (S&W M10), and the system has no plans to convert to autoloaders! This is one of the few large agencies that still uses revolvers. Everyone else had a Glock, with the exception of one Beretta 92F.

/John

30 Sept 00

In 1967 I was in OCS at Quantico, VA, along with thousands of other bright-eyed college graduates, learning how to be Marine infantry officers and contemplating the inevitability of being shipped to "WestPac" (Western Pacific) , which meant Vietnam and heavy fighting. I remember hearing stories of glorious victories achieved a generation earlier at places like Tarawa and Iwo Jima.

What we weren't told is that, at Tarawa, for example, incompetent generals and admirals miscalculated the height of the tide. This inexcusable blunder forced the Higgins boats carrying Marines ashore to deposit their cargo hundreds of yards from the beach, compelling Marines to wade in neck-deep water, all the time being fired at by Japanese riflemen and machine gunners. Fewer than half of those thus embarked ever made it ashore.

When I was in Vietnam, I saw similar blunders, albeit on a lesser scale, being committed every day, by commanders who should have known better. The result was a continuous and pointless loss of life and many form letters which had to be sent to grieving parents and wives. It was difficult indeed to tell a bereaved relative back in the States that their son died for no good reason at all, just another casualty of casual stupidity and indifference. The list included viratually all of my friends.

It is no wonder that we who survived were all so bitter when we returned. Bitter to this day. I have to believe it's been the same in all great conflicts.

Lesson: There is a curious principle that guides all historical revisionists, that is to say, all those who write about "important" battles and "important" wars: THE LONGER THE CASUALTY LISTS, THE GREATER THE INVESTMENT IN BLOOD, THE GREATER THE NEED TO JUSTIFY ALL THE BLUNDERS THAT BROUGHT THE EVENT ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Thus, the endless platitudes surrounding the botched landing at Tarawa, the pointless slaughter at the Somme, and the doomed landing at Dieppe, to name just three. The list of inept command decisions leading to needless and appalling causalities is endless, while, for example, nothing is ever said of MacArthur's brilliant outfoxing of the Japanese at Ulithi (a superb natural harbor), which he captured without a shot being fired and which actually made a significant contribution to the shortening of the Pacific Campaign in WWII. Nothing is said, because the casualty list was short.

None of this is of much consolation to those who must do the dying, which eventually includes, of course, all of us.

/John