It's a hell of a note but there are way too many dependent Americans on this American Independence Day. Maybe it's just me being cantankerous. Maybe I'm letting my inner curmudgeon override my normal warm and fuzzy persona but I believe there's more than a little irony in celebrating our independence with great hoopla when so many of us are happily reliant on someone or something besides ourselves for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson and his cohorts on the Committee of Five from the Continental Congress would be crapping little blue BBs if they fell through a wormhole in the space-time continuum and found themselves observing American society circa 2009. Advances in technology and sheer mind-boggling culture shock aside, guys like Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin would swear King George was still issuing oppressive fiats from across the Atlantic. These guys - and most other colonial types who supported independence from absentee dictatorship - were all about freedom of choice, individual liberty and less is more when it came to central governance of any sort. So that must have been what was on their collective minds when they drafted the Declaration of Independence and elbowed it through to ratification back in July 1776. Granted a whole lot of water in the form of sweeping societal change has passed under the bridge since 1776, but I'm of the opinion that most Americans would still opt for a little more individual determination and a lot less government intervention in their day to day existence.
Of course, I could be wrong about that. God knows it wouldn't be the first time. I distinctly recall coming back from Vietnam gleefully anticipating a homecoming parade or at least a hearty handshake from my fellow Americans who did not have to go to war because a whole bunch of other folks like me went in their place. Missed that one by a mile and I could be just as mistaken about attitudes today. Maybe most Americans do want to be told what to do by Big Government on one level or another every day of their lives. Maybe they think choices about stuff like what car to drive, what doctor to consult, what schools they can attend and what work they can do should not be personal choices based on what they want and what they can afford. Maybe most Americans think rugged individualism and independence are concepts that have no meaning or place in modern society. For all I know there might be a majority of people out there claiming American citizenship who believe it's best to just turn over all their disposable income to local, state or federal governments and accept what the bureaucrats say is best for them.
Maybe that's the way it is but I hope not. What I hope is that a lot of those Americans will take a moment or two on this Independence Day 2009 to ponder the slippery path on which we find ourselves embarked these days. We are a nation of multi-cultural, diverse individuals and from our individuality comes our strength as a nation. When Big Government turns up the heat beneath our melting pot we become weak, soggy, limp, flavorless and bland. Our founding fathers would gag down about one spoonful of that mess and puke all over their buckled shoes.
And here's another thing that's on my mind this time of year around Independence Day when I contemplate the very foundations of our society, our individual liberties and our freedom of choice. A whole hell of a lot of military folks from Valley Forge on through to Baghdad and Kabul thought enough of those concepts to believe they were worth fighting and possibly dying for; even when it wasn't necessarily their own freedoms at stake. Those are my kind of people, men and women who understand individual freedoms are not bestowed by government decree. They must be established, obtained and retained by individuals willing to risk their lives by picking up a flintlock, an M-1 or an M-4 and fighting for them if necessary.
Of course, if those individual freedoms weren't being threatened or impinged upon by various forms of oppressive governments, all that fighting and dying wouldn't be necessary for the most part. But that's not the way of things in our world and as long as human beings are disposed to tribalism, it won't be that way anytime in the near future. None of that is going to be challenged or changed by the intervention of Big Government in our lives or in the lives of people around the world. It's been tried before and it inevitably results in revolution or war. You don't have to take my word for it - and if you're disposed to Big Government running your life you won't anyway - just ask Thomas Jefferson when he blows through that wormhole. And if he's carrying a flintlock, stay out of his line of fire.

Coming as it appropriately does so soon after Memorial Day, the anniversary of D-Day gets short shrift on the American emotional scale. Most who bothered to pause at all in holiday pursuits to remember the service and sacrifice of our war dead figure they've done what's expected of decent folks on the last Monday in May and 6 June passes virtually unnoticed. Add to that a generation of young Americans who can barely find France on a map or even identify the Allied and Axis powers in World War II and you get an idea of why one of the seminal events of the 20th Century passes with barely a blip on our national radar.
Granted most Americans alive today were decades away from being born when American, British and Canadian troops stormed ashore on the beaches of Normandy, but that's no excuse in my book for ignorance of the extraordinary achievement that made D-Day successful and turned a very sharp corner toward bringing the agony of world war to an end. It seems to me that in these dark days of economic woes, political uncertainty, declining national influence, terrorist threats and ideological struggles, we need to wring out the crying towel, stiffen the national backbone, stop whining and take arms against our sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Apologies to William Shakespeare for the rip-off, but that's precisely what our soldiers and sailors did on that stormy day in June 1944 when the order came down to land the landing force on the beaches of Normandy. A few moments of reflection on what they pulled off in the face of fatal odds, might just help us find some badly-needed guts.
For a lot of reasons related to my military background and some of the movies I've worked on - especially Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers - D-Day in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) has held a special interest for me. Over the years I've spent a lot of very rewarding time talking to aging survivors of both the surface landings across Omaha and Utah Beaches as well as the airborne assaults further inland and these gents are truly inspirational.
To a man they tell the kind of stories we need to hear these days about taking action rather than the counsel of our fears; about finding ways to get seemingly impossible things done, and about understanding that there are some things more important - and more worthy - than our own self-interest. Standing on Omaha Beach one day with a group of veterans from the 1st Infantry Division who landed on those bloody sands sixty years earlier, I was staggered by the obvious odds they faced on D-Day. Looking in one direction at the German positions from which plunging and enfilading fire tore into the landing force and then in the other direction where a flat, wide-open expanse of sand and shale provided no cover for them as they came ashore from open landing craft, I wondered how in the hell anyone survived.
"Luck of the draw," said one of the guys from the 16th Infantry who advanced inland despite a bullet in his left thigh. "It all went to hell in a hand-basket right quick but you just had to keep going, keep pushing and find a way to get it done. There was no other option that day on the beaches." Based on my own combat experiences, I got the picture he was painting but I'm afraid too many Americans just can't see the important lessons about courage, fortitude, initiative and common purpose that the D-Day holds for all of us.
Focusing here on just the American effort on 6 June, we landed 73,000 troops across two beaches on D-Day 1944: 23,250 on Utah and 34,250 on Omaha. Parachute infantry and glider assault prior to the surface landings involved 15,500 more troops. Of those 2,499 were killed in action. No precise figures exist for the number of wounded but a military rule of thumb in this kind of operation says you can count on at least three soldiers seriously wounded for every one killed which would mean that some fourteen percent of all Americans involved in the assault stages of Operation Overlord was either killed or wounded. It was chaos on the beaches and in the hedgerows inland, but they managed to cobble themselves into fighting units - often led by lowly privates and PFCs - and lodged an Allied foothold on Nazi-occupied Europe that led inevitably to an Axis defeat.
There were a lot of practical factors involved in their success against such formidable opposition. The Germans were convinced that no sane commander would attempt an amphibious operation against fortified beaches in the blustery, rainy and windy conditions that turned the Atlantic into a heaving cauldron in the first week of June 1944. And senior German commanders including Adolf Hitler were positive the Allies would go the easy route and cross the channel at the narrowest point, landing between Calais and Dieppe, so an element of surprise worked in favor of the landing forces but that's about all they had going for them on D-Day.
Early preparation of the landing area by Allied air forces was off the mark and ineffective. Naval gunfire support started smoky fires that obscured the beaches. Landing craft drifted off course in the strong currents and put many elements ashore in the wrong places. Too many soldiers struggling in deep water and weighted down by heavy equipment drowned before they could get into the fight. Troops ran into unmarked and unexpected minefields. Paratroopers and glider infantrymen were scattered all over the countryside and well away from their planned drop zones. One veteran who was the assistant S-3 of his battalion in the 29 Infantry Division told me he might as well have used his detailed operation plan as toilet paper. "Once the first wave started coming ashore on Omaha we knew there was only one thing sure about this deal. If anything could go wrong, it was damn sure going to do so."
Yet they sucked it up, shrugged it off and kept moving...all the way to Berlin. No problem, no obstacle, no foul up in planning or execution, no amount of fear or trepidation stopped those men on D-Day. Their spirit, grit and guts are remarkable, admirable and full of life lessons for all Americans if only we'd learn. These guys knew about hard times and they understood you don't get past them by whining, bitching and walking around waiting for a hand-out or a hand up. If that's not an applicable and timely example for all of us these days, I don't know what might be.
We're losing our World War II vets at the rate of about a thousand a day right now. If you're feeling sorry for yourself or crying the poor-ass about your personal plight, find one of the surviving veterans and talk to him. He'll tell you to get over it and press on with spirit and vigor just like he and his buddies did on D-Day in Normandy. To do anything less is to lose the American spirit, initiative and courage that makes our country worth fighting for in war or in peace.

Like a lot of other Americans these days I'm spending too much time pissed off about way too many things. The economy sucks and blows like a big jet engine. America's traditionally robust place in the worldwide auto industry has crumpled like a cheap plastic fender, There's almost as many good people out of work as during the Great Depression and those mobs at job fairs across the nation are beginning to look suspiciously like bread lines. I'm not perceptive enough to fully understand how we got ourselves into this mess but I do know it took a world war to get us out of it the last time our economy swirled this close to the crapper. And that leads me to ponder Memorial Day which, unfortunately, is another thing that pisses me off.
As a veteran, I'm angry that this day will be passed by most of my countrymen with not one thought about the millions of Americans who lost their lives in our nation's wars or undeclared conflicts. As one who has watched men die in combat, I'm upset that we've lost perspective on what Memorial Day means and it's a national disgrace that beggars the crimes committed by the greedheads that engineered the recent economic train wreck. Stay with me on this and you'll see why.
Back in 1868 General John Logan decided his nation had forgotten the fallen on both sides of the bloody Civil War. As national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a group of Civil War veterans, he issued a proclamation that eventually led to declaration of a day of remembrance for all our war dead. There's a lot more to the history here, but that's a thumbnail sketch of how we wound up with a red-letter day on our national calendar which was supposed to provide a break from everyday chores and make time to honor those who made the supreme sacrifice to preserve our freedom.
Naturally, being the lazy, self-centered hedonists that many of us are, we've managed to turn that significant day into a combination barbecue, beer-bust, shopping mall safari and three-day weekend fun-fest. Too damn bad the veterans resting under their somber headstones or decomposing, lost and long forgotten on some remote battlefield, can't join in the festivities. Seems to me if anyone deserves a day off with beer, burgers and bargains at the retail outlets, they do. But those folks are dead and dead people really put a damper on parties, with the possible exception of a traditional Irish wake.
Maybe the Irish have it right. Maybe we should turn our backyard barbecues and other Memorial Day celebrations into a wake for all the courageous men and women who died just because their nation asked them to risk it and they believed it was their duty, their obligation and their honor to take the chance of losing it all. That would certainly improve my mood. It would also be a welcome signal that while the people of my polyglot nation may be blissfully ignorant of our commendable military history, they can still understand and appreciate the courage and patriotism it takes to lay down your life for a larger cause.
Naturally, given how tightly most of us are wrapped around the axle and trying to keep the wheels from falling off our personal lives, the moments of remembrance we owe our war dead don't happen except for isolated observances scattered hither and yon across the nation. Efforts of the most patriotic among us have failed to turn Memorial Day into anything much beyond a welcome week when we won't have to face Monday in the workplace. Not that there's anything very patriotic about our Congress these days, but you can blame that august body for the sham Memorial Day has become since they wimped out back in 1971 and passed the National Holiday Act to ensure all government bureaucrats got a three-day weekend. In 1999 wounded World War II vet Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii introduced a bill to restore the original day of observance and correct the national policy that slides the day around the calendar to the last Monday in May. To date, there has been no further action on that bill. And the Veterans of Foreign Wars were right on target in 2002 when they declared the quest for just another day off work "has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."
Are you receiving here? Have you got a solid copy on just how low I think we've sunk when the patriotic spirit and ultimate sacrifice of our millions of war dead simply serves to trigger more time on the couch mindlessly absorbing daytime TV that you normally miss while at work? Is the signal strong enough to let you know that failing to recognize their service and sacrifice is not only a national travesty; it's a personal thing that impugns your honor as an American? If you give a damn about that - and you should especially if you've got impressionable kids running around the house this Memorial Day - you need to halt in place for about thirty seconds and think about it.
It's simple. I'm not asking you to toss cold water on the barbecue, pass on the beer or even pause very long in whatever activities you've got scheduled for Memorial Day this year. What I'm asking you to do - and this is in the nature of an order as opposed to a request - is take some time on Memorial Day and say thanks in your own way to the men and women who died in defense of our nation and to preserve the way of life that is - regardless of your personal or professional problems right now - better than anywhere else on earth. I'm telling you to make this Memorial Day what it was meant to be: A time to remember those who made the supreme sacrifice so that the rest of us remain free to live in this great nation.
Notice when I'm talking about these fallen Americans I don't use terms like "gave their lives" and you shouldn't either. That would imply they wanted to die. Believe me when I tell you they didn't want anything of the sort. They wanted to live but they came up short on luck of the draw in combat. They wanted to live freely in a nation that allowed them to do that and offered a chance for success and happiness if they survived and worked hard for it. That promise made taking the chance on dying in combat worth the risk. This Memorial Day - and every day we draw breath in this great nation - we need to remember that. It's so little to ask for so much that was given to us all.

My buddy Barry Jones is a very special Marine. Not that I don't consider all Marines to be special per se, but Barry is the only one I've met personally that claims the title without benefit of boot camp. I've had some of my unlettered brethren tell me it's impossible but I regularly refer them to the history of the Corps during the Korean War or provide a lecture that runs something like this.
The United States Marine Corps was fighting for its very existence in the demobilization and drawdown period following World War II under extreme pressure from sister services who wanted the Corps' bodies and budget. Adding to the threat of extinction were certain axe-wielding members of Congress and a short, feisty guy from Missouri in the White House who believed the Marines were irrelevant for the atomic age ushered in by the war-ending strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The heated arguments became moot when North Korea invaded its neighbors to the south in June 1950 and President Truman ordered U.S. troops into the fray. None of America's standing military outfits - all at low post-war strengths and mostly enjoying hedonistic garrison lifestyles, especially in the Far East -were ready for a combat call-up on short, unexpected notice.
The Army sobered up some soldiers on occupation duty in Japan and dispatched them to the Korean peninsula where the North Koreans had forced the rag-tag Republic of Korea (ROK) forces into an ever-tightening noose around the southern port city of Pusan. The soldiers did the best they could to establish what became known as the infamous Pusan Perimeter, barely keeping the raging enemy hordes at bay. They needed help and they needed it in a hurry. General Douglas MacArthur, El Supremo in the post-war Far East and de facto warlord for the Korean situation, was a fan of Marines based on his experience with them in the Pacific campaigns of WW II. He demanded a Marine Brigade be sent on the double to shore up the sagging defenses at Pusan and begin a planned northward push to recapture the South Korean capitol at Seoul. The Corps promptly began a mad scramble at posts and stations everywhere to find enough Marines to populate the brigade, realizing that it was now or never if they intended to pull the fat out of the fire and stay in business.
Now back to my buddy Barry Jones who had graduated from high school around this time in his home state of Pennsylvania. He found gainful employment a little hard to come by what with all the returning WW II vets re-claiming their jobs and thought he might do something to delay starvation by joining the Marine Corps Reserve unit in his hometown. So, there he was in the summer of 1950, trying to learn which end of the rifle launches the bullet, and waiting for his turn to head for boot camp where he would be transformed into a Real Marine through the tender ministrations of Drill Instructors at Parris Island. And then - as they taught me to say in OCS - the defecation hit the oscillation.
Wearing a set of recycled dungarees and wondering what he'd done to deserve this, Barry was packed up and shipped off to Camp Pendleton with his fellow reservists as part of a Corps-wide mobilization. They arrived in southern California to find a cobbled together fire brigade of dazed Marines stuffing gear and people into ships bound for the Far East. Barry felt certain he'd be offered a course of solid instruction by veterans but the situation was chaotic at Camp Pendleton with press gangs of NCOs descending on all commands to shanghai Marines and turn them into riflemen regardless of their specialties. Barry says he mostly just ran around trying to avoid working parties and sneaking into combat training events on the off chance he might learn something useful before he had to board one of those ships and head for Korea.
When the situation at Pusan stabilized somewhat after the arrival of the Marine Brigade and some very hard fighting through the humid Korean summer, the turbulence on the Camp Pendleton end of the replacement pipeline stabilized a bit and Private Jones thought maybe they'd ship him down the road to San Diego for his boot camp experience. The Corps had no time to waste on basics for guys like Barry who were already in place and under arms. MacArthur was hard at work planning a counter-offensive and a very risky amphibious assault to re-take Seoul through the port of Inchon. Barry was pushed and pummeled through an advanced infantry course under the tutelage of recalled WW II combat vets and became a light machine gunner. Before he had a chance to put very many rounds through his M1919A4 .30 caliber weapon across the ranges of Camp Pendleton, he was assigned to a replacement company and boarded a ship for the trip to Korea.
The chilly winds of winter were beginning to blow down from Manchuria across Korea when Barry arrived and was assigned to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, Seventh Marines. His unit was headed north across the 38th parallel as part of MacArthur's ambitious push to build on his success at Inchon and the recapture of Seoul. Not that anyone bothered to tell Barry about it, but the plan was to push all the way to the Yalu River, taking the North Korean capitol at Pyongyang and ending the Korean "Police Action" in an allied victory. The battered and bruised veterans of Fox Company were happy to get replacements but a little dubious about guys who joined their ranks without having been to boot camp, the common denominator among all enlisted Marines. Barry Jones, boy machinegunner, was going to have to prove himself.
There were more than enough opportunities to do that on the march north with the 1st Marine Division headed for the Chosin Reservoir and a brutal, record-setting winter roaring into Korea. Barry fought all the way through that campaign, including the astounding stand made by his company on Fox Hill which guarded the road between Yudam-ni and Koto-ri and kept it open during the infamous withdrawal from the Chosin under intense pressure to communist Chinese forces that had entered the war a few weeks earlier. He endured some of the most horrendous battlefield conditions in military history during the Chosin campaign and took part in some of the most brutal combat ever experienced by American Marines. Barry Jones came out of that fight a bona fide member of the elite Chosen Few, bloody but unbowed with severe frost-bite in his fingers and toes.
Despite the hardships and heavy casualties, Barry Jones and most of the 1st Marine Division survived the Chosin Reservoir campaign and I thank my lucky stars for that. Korea vets, many of them Chosin survivors, taught me the little things about combat that kept me alive in Vietnam. That's the legacy of the Corps and it's one of the things that forges the tight connection between me and my friend Barry Jones.
Barry left the Corps physically after Korea but the Marine spirit is always with him and it's obvious to everyone he meets. It was partially that spirit that kept him alive and made him a successful detective during a long career with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. And it's that spirit that reassures me Barry will survive and prosper after the heart surgery he's just endured. He's a tough guy, true friend, hardened warrior and a fine Marine. But he still hasn't been to boot camp.