End of the Year - Just News

So much of what I read or view or hear in the news I simply ignore. Very little affects me directly, and even when it does, I find I can't do much about it. But then I encounter that which either gladdens or saddens and decide it's worth repeating. What follows are just a couple of news items that struck me in these final days of 2021. 

Richard Marcinko, R.I.P.  A truly remarkable man, Dick Marcinko left this world on Christmas Day at the age of 81. I am certain that a lot of people in present-day America did not like Dick Marcinko. In fact, I suspect he was (and still is) quietly hated by many of our military's senior leadership, much of the media, politicians of both sides, and certainly by the "woke" crowd that hates everything American. Dick, you see, was a full-blown, 100%, all-American, warrior. He despised those who despised America and devoted much of his life to protecting this country from the very worst of these. If he had one major fault, he was perhaps too much of a warrior, the kind of man who tended to ignore politically inspired "rules of engagement" when it came to both training and real warfare.

A Pennsylvania native, Dick enlisted in the Navy at 18 and eventually earned a commission. He held a B.A. in international relations from Auburn and a M.A. in political science from the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. In fact, that's where I met Dick, as I made my own way through the school's postgraduate degree program. As I recall, we first met at the bar in the Officers Club. When he heard I was a helicopter pilot, he spent a half-hour questioning and instructing me on how helicopters could be best used to support special operators. Of course, he was a Navy SEAL and had spent some serious, heroic, almost legendary time in Vietnam. Anyway, that bar-stool meeting was the first of two rather brief encounters with this man. I never ran into him again, although I did exchange a couple of emails with him maybe ten years ago. 

The above photos show Dick as I knew him (center) as rogue warrior (left) and as long retired hero (right).

Perhaps Dick's greatest accomplishment was the establishment of SEAL Team Six. At the time the Navy had only two SEAL teams, but Dick thought it would confuse the Soviets, causing them to invest time and effort looking for non-existent teams three, four, and five. SEAL Team Six was designed to be the Navy's top counterterrorism unit and Dick commanded the unit during its first three years, from 1980 to 1983. 

Later he was given the task of testing the Navy's ability to detect and withstand terrorist infiltration at its most secure bases. His unit, called Red Cell, was composed of a handful of SEALS and a Recon Marine, but they were remarkably successful penetrating target bases and commands. This work and Red Cell's somewhat questionable tactics (not unlike the tactics terrorists would use) identified serious weaknesses in many commands. It also made Dick some powerful enemies within the Department of Defense, among them my first Commanding Officer, by then a Vice Admiral. He has since died, so I won't mention his name, but will say he always seemed to care more about his own career than the welfare of those under his command. After Dick retired as a Commander in 1989, he was charged with defrauding the federal government, eventually convicted, and served 15 months in federal prison. I've always believed Dick was railroaded because he made so many senior officers look absolutely foolish and incompetent. Here's a link to a request for a presidential pardon. It's worth reading: Petition: Presidential Pardon for Commander Richard Marcinko

None of this slowed Dick down, and as a civilian he wrote many best sellers, including his autobiography and several novels. He was also CEO of a private security firm, Red Cell International. In 2011, just a few weeks after Osama bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team Six, Dick was honored at an Alabama Sports Festival in Birmingham and answered a few questions. He gave some interesting responses: Marcinko Answers Questions

Despite Dick's faults, I salute him and thank him for all he did for this country.

The Perils of Nationalized Healthcare. Here's a horrible story that clearly depicts what a nation can expect once it turns its healthcare over to government bureaucrats and fiscal freaks whose primary concern has little to do with actual healthcare. It offers us a clear example of the culture of death in action. 

During the pandemic, the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom attempted to give special needs children, including those with learning disabilities, do not resuscitate notices (DNRs). Adults with learning disabilities and mental illnesses had also received such notices. DNRs tell healthcare workers to withhold special treatment that would keep an ill patient alive. Most often it's the elderly or those suffering from terminal diseases who will sign a DNR. But in the UK, the NHS policy states: "You must be told that a DNR-CPR form will be/has been completed for you, but a doctor does not need your consent." 

Isn't that wonderfully, bureaucratically deadly. Of course, applying DNRs to children with learning disabilities during a pandemic would make things a lot easier (and less costly) for the NHS. If they get COVID, forget the therapeutics and simply let them die. And as several parents discovered, when their children with learning disabilities were asked if they wanted a DNR, most children had no idea what it meant and accepted it. The lesson for us all: If we ultimately opt for government-run healthcare, this is what we can expect to encounter.

Archaeologists Stunned: Ancients Were Smarter Than They thought. I've always been amazed by archaeologists, historians, theologians, and other certifiably intelligent folks who seem to believe that today's human beings are much more intelligent than those who came before. It's really a form of temporal bias or prejudice resulting, I suppose, from scientific and technological advances that result from the advance of knowledge. They seem to think these advances somehow appeared spontaneously in modern times and did not result from the dedicated efforts of many very bright people of the past who built on the work of their predecessors over the centuries.

Yesterday I read an article describing the surprise of archaeologists who finally realized the meaning of a Babylonian artifact, known as Plimpton 322. First unearthed in 1894, it was sold to a collector, and later (in the 1930s) given to Columbia University. In 1945 researchers realized it contained what are called Pythagorean Triples, but then everyone simply forgot about it. This year, when an Australian scholar, Dr. Daniel Mansfield, was given access he quickly realized the importance of the artifact. In his words it provided "Evidence ancient Babylonians were far more advanced than we thought." He went on to describe it as the "most interesting, most sophisticated mathematical document from the ancient world."

Yes, indeed, those ancients were actually pretty bright, and it seems the Mesopotamians had a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of Pythagorean Triples. The Babylonians, then, understood the geometry of right triangles and rectangles a thousand years before the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras came up with his theorem in the 5th-century B.C. The artifact, probably used as a device to assist in the art of surveying, shows that the ancients were avid appliers of science and mathematics. It makes us wonder how many similar advances were made by the ancients, but will never be known.

I've heard architects denigrate the architectural wonders of the ancient world, calling them primitive constructions. Such comments always lead me to question how many modern buildings, like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, will still be standing after 4,000 years. In the same way I find the plays of Shakespeare, the poetry of the Psalms, or the novels of Jane Austen far better than today's imitators. Too often today so-called educators excise the past from the education of the young, depriving them of the knowledge and wisdom of those who came before us.  As Isaac Newton wisely stated, "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Happy New Year.