Craig Stewart 13 April 2010 Wartime Museum

Remember Pearl Harbor!

Remember Pearl Harbor!

Sleep well my brothers.
We have the watch.

Leslie Carbone: The Spirit of '76

Leslie Carbone has a post that has helped me a lot today: The Spirit of '76. It helped to blunt the disappointment and sometimes anger towards the party as they leave conservatism behind to chase votes, or whatever their reasons are.

SWAC Girl has a great intro to Leslie and finds the same things I find encouraging.
Quoting SWAC Girl:
“In Spirit of 76, she recounts how Gerald Ford invited Ronald Reagan to address the delegates at the Republican Convention. If we use history as our guide we often find a template to follow and words of wisdom to help us weather the storms. To what could have been a divided Party, Governor Reagan concluded his remarks with:

"We must go forth from here united, determined that what a great general said a few years ago is true: There is no substitute for victory, Mr. President."


I don’t pretend to know who to unite with someone who wants the exact opposite in life of you, but, over time, the job got done. Someone on the conservative side blinked, and we went on for the better. What helped me most? Her it is. I hope it helps you as much as me:

“The next morning, [after the ’76 convention] Gov. Reagan met with the California delegates. "The cause goes on," he reminded them. "It's just one battle in a long war and it will go on as long as we all live." He finished by quoting St. Barton's Ode:
I will lay me down and bleed a whileThough I am wounded, I am not slainI shall rise and fight again.
Next he met with his disappointed campaign volunteers. "Don't get cynical," he cautioned them. "[L]ook at yourselves and what you were willing to do, and recognize that there are millions and millions of Americans out there that want what you want, that want it to be as we do, who want it to be a shining city on a hill."And then he headed back to the ranch, passing, on the way to the airport, a hand-painted sign reading: "GOODBYE REPUBLICANS. YOU PICKED THE WRONG MAN."But, Nancy Reagan later wrote in her autobiography, "Ronnie has always believed what his mother taught him--that whatever happens, happens for a purpose. As he saw it, he lost the nomination in 1976 because God had other plans for him.
"Four years later, we would learn what they were."”

The biggest point I took away was don’t quit. If we quit now, things will be even worse. Ronal Reagan knew the world needed conservatives, and conservatism. And out of his defeat came a brighter future for the U.S. and the world. Somewhere on the other side of our senseless difficulties to move conservatism forward is a brighter future and a brighter day. We just have to earn it first. That man was a leader with vision, and yet today, it still encourages. May God make me a leader of the same caliber one day.

Wooden ships and Pickled? men

On 23 August 1779, the USS Constitution set sail from Boston, loaded with 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of water, 74,000 cannon shot, 115,000 pounds of black powder and 79,000 gallons of rum.

On 6 October, she made Jamaica, took on 826 pounds of flour and 688,300 gallons of rum.

Three weeks later, Constitution reached the Azores, where she provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England where her crew captured and scuttled 12 English merchant vessels and took aboard rum.

By this time, Constitution had run out of shot. Nevertheless, she made her way unarmed up the Firth of Clyde for a night raid. Here, her landing party captured a whiskey distillery, transferred 13,000 gallons aboard and headed for home.

On 20 February 1780, the Constitution arrived in Boston with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, and no whiskey.
She did, however, still carry her crew of 475 officers and men and 18,600 gallons of water.

The math is quite enlightening: Length of cruise: 181 days; Booze consumption: 1.26 gallons per man per day (this DOES NOT include the unknown quantity of rum captured from the 12 English merchant vessels in November).

LOGISTICS LESSON LEARNED: Don’t load up with too much water.

Evaporation, I swear!

Naval historians note that the reenlistment rate from this cruise was 92%.