Ninotchka is one of my favorite movies of all time. It perfectly illustrates the dichotomy between capitalism and communism. Greta Garbo plays Ninotchka and this is the movie that was advertised, “Garbo laughs!” She has my favorite line at 8:38 in the clip above: “The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.”
Fun fact: Ninotchka came out in 1939 when my father, Hubert P. Yockey, was 23. In his second book, Information Theory and Molecular Biology (1992, Cambridge University Press — see my Amazon widget on the right), he gave a problem featuring Buljanoff, Iranonoff and Kopalski — three of the characters from Ninotchka — without having seen the movie after its original run. Here is the end of the movie — it includes a scene with Bela Lugosi! — with the scene that must have fixed their names in his mind:
Sarah Palin has the experience, leadership, policies and temperament to be the president of the United States RIGHT NOW.
In 2008, of the four persons on the Democratic and Republican tickets in the presidential race, ONLY Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had the experience to be president AND only Gov. Palin had the best sense of what domestic and foreign policies must be implemented for America to prosper and be safe.
Instead we have been saddled with Obama, who gets everyone else to do his homework, who cannot truly accept responsibility for anything, who requires non-stop adulation, who hates capitalism and is determined to destroy it and who is still campaigning a year after winning the election because he has never run so much as a lemonade stand, and he has no idea how to govern and never will.
However, it is amusing to see that the Saul Alinsky paradigm of destruction on which Obama built his career became obsolete almost the minute that he took the oath of office. That’s because the Internet, e-mail, blogs, Twitter and Facebook have made a possible a leaderless, grassroots response to the fell plans that Obama and the Democrats in Congress have for America — with the result that Sarah Palin, grandmother and hockey mom, is able to PWN the POTUS from her Facebook page.
I first saw this in 1995 when I rented the movie to watch with my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, after getting caught up in a biography of Marlene Dietrich that she had listened to from a recording made for the Books on Tape program for people with disabilities. I was happy to learn that Dietrich had lesbian crushes as a teenager and lesbian affairs as an adult — if she hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t find this so, uh, endearing, but she did, so I do. Less is more, Hollywood, less is more!
Reminder: all race cards expired at noon on January 20, 2009.
Here is Noonan’s central problem: Obama is deliberately bringing down this country, but he is her Messiah and therefore it is anathema for her even to consider his culpability.
Obama is using debt bombs to destroy the United States as a capitalist democratic republic. We have not lost our way. Obama and his handlers and minions intend to destroy the U.S. economy for their own personal gain. They are doing this on purpose. How is it the innumerable times Obama has said one thing and done another, or said opposite things, has never tipped Noonan off? Why aren’t Obama’s socialist and communist and terrorist cronies — to say nothing of the tax cheats and felons — a continent of red flags for her?
The malaise Noonan is just starting to detect is the confusion that a con artist’s marks feel when they realize the con artist says one thing, but does another. They are attached to their belief that what the con artist said and promised must be true because it is just what they wanted to hear in exchange for handing over their power and money. It takes a long time to get the marks to register that you have to ignore what con artists say and pay attention only to what they actually do, which always will be in their own self-interest regardless of anyone else.
Noonan is only three years older than I am and should remember the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies a little better before making pronouncements that Baby Boomers are too pampered to be able to imagine that America can fail. In the Fifties and early Sixties I remember, we had a constant fear of nuclear war with the USSR that would wipe us all out. This was followed by the Viet Nam war and price controls. In the Seventies we had inflation — I am skeptical that any Boomer who remembers inflation does not dread it almost above all other things — gasoline shortages due to OPEC and double-digit mortgage interest rates due to Carter — and we capped off the decade with 444 days of the Iran hostage crisis.
Most of us also were born before the polio vaccine and while there may have been vaccines for them, I had measles, mumps and chicken pox as a child — illnesses virtually unknown to Gen X-ers. And when the AIDS epidemic came, it was friends my age who died and the survivors my age who led the charge to fight it.
When exactly was this halycon time of untroubled bliss that we Baby Boomers had all to ourselves?
The people I saw at the 9/12 Tea Party March on Washington were almost all Boomers — as a crowd, we were old, gray-haired, fat and a truly amazing proportion of the crowd was either in a wheelchair or using a three-wheeled scooter. Boomers ARE the people who know Obama and the Democrats are trying to bring down America and we are the ones organizing to save her.
Noonan: The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers.
Yes, because we know Obama and the Democrats cook the books.
Noonan: Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren’t rising, they’re bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we’re entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008.
Just because Obama and the Democrats told everyone the tide of cash from the stimulus package would create prosperity doesn’t mean it was true. We Tea Partiers and conservatives tried to stop it because we saw it was fake prosperity but REAL debt. Noonan and Gay Patriot — where have you been during all the Tea Parties and town hall meetings?
Noonan: Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either. Among the things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts. The experts missed the crash. They’ll miss the meaning of this moment, too.
Actually, for a year or two before the crash, the cable TV news shows had a constant parade of experts forecasting a crash. A number of them were flogging books they’d written forecasting a crash. However, perhaps it was possible to miss their relentless warnings if you only watched MSNBC or just read the New York Times.
Noonan: The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened, that this condition is reaching critical mass, and that it afflicts most broadly and deeply those members of the American leadership class who are not in Washington, most especially those in business.
…
The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can’t figure a way out. Have you heard, “If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better”? Or, “If only we follow the Republicans, they’ll make it all work again”? I bet you haven’t, or not much.This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I’m not sure we’re fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.
Immediately after the crash last September Obama began denouncing the economy and mocked McCain for his efforts to restore people’s confidence in our ability to get through any crisis and to reassure us the fundamentals of the economy were strong. It is Obama who has worked tirelessly to get Americans to stop believing in themselves. And it is the Democrats in Congress who have worked to intrude government into every aspect of our lives to usurp our liberty to solve our own problems.
I [Noonan] talked with an executive this week with what we still call “the insurance companies” and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress “are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area.” The executive said of Washington: “They don’t understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who’ve said to me ‘I’m done.'” He spoke of his own increasing tax burden and said, “They don’t understand that if they start to tax me so that I’m paying 60%, 55%, I’ll stop.”
He felt government doesn’t understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they’re human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they’re all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)
Uh, where have Noonan and Gay Patriot been while conservatives have been hollering, “I’m going Galt!” at the top of their lungs since Obama’s inauguration?
Noonan: And here is the second part of the story. While Americans feel increasingly disheartened, their leaders evince a mindless . . . one almost calls it optimism, but it is not that.
It is a curious thing that those who feel most mistily affectionate toward America, and most protective toward it, are the most aware of its vulnerabilities, the most aware that it can be harmed. They don’t see it as all-powerful, impregnable, unharmable. The loving have a sense of its limits.
When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren’t they worried about the impact of what they’re doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?
I think I know part of the answer. It is that they’ve never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don’t have the habit of worry. They talk about their “concerns”—they’re big on that word. But they’re not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa’s lap.
They don’t feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—”strongest nation in the world,” “indispensable nation,” “unipolar power,” “highest standard of living”—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.
We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.
Yo, Noonan! The people who intend to break America and who see making Americans disheartened as one of their first steps to complete control are Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd and Frank. Read Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin — and A Conservative Lesbian — for heaven’s sake!
Eric Erickson at RedState.com recently featured Ronald Reagan’s speech from Oct. 27, 1964, “We Have a Rendez-Vous with Destiny.” Reagan — you remember him, don’t you, Ms. Noonan? — had a clear sense of the perils ever-ready to kill America, as well as the clear solution: keep government small, keep taxes low, create the economic conditions that allow entrepreneurs to be filled with ambition and to thrive. He has the video and full text of Reagan’s speech — here is a pertinent excerpt:
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, “We’ve never had it so good.”
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector’s share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven’t balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don’t own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we’ve just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
Earth to Noonan and Gay Patriot: Reagan’s message in that speech is ever-green. Boomers are out in droves at the Tea Parties and town halls and we are working our e-mail lists and blogs to wake people up to the intentional destruction and confusion Obama and the Democrats are using to destroy capitalism and America. Not only do we have a clear plan for restoring economic prosperity and strength to America, we’ve been demonstrating and rallying in ever-growing numbers and generally shouting it from every rooftop and IP address. What on earth is the matter with you that you haven’t connected with that?
Update, 11/1/09:Smitty at The Other McCain got to Noonan’s column first and illustrates his points with a couple of YouTube videos that are worth watching — I especially liked “The Warrior’s Song,” which will not surprise my regular gentle readers. Smitty quotes Noonan and comments:
[Noonan] This is historic. This is something new in modern political history, and I’m not sure we’re fully noticing it. Americans are starting to think the problems we are facing cannot be solved.
Absolutely, they can. Just not by you, not by elite North Easterners, not by Progressive thinking. Get the [debris] out of the way. You’re part of the problem, not the solution, Peggy.
I have more details now on my Uncle Donald Yockey’s service during World War II. He volunteered for the Army Air Corps on May 26, 1941, and served as a crew chief in the 529th squadron of the 311th group in the 14th Air Force, which was designated the Flying Tigers, led by Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault. He worked on P-51 fighters. He was not in the American Volunteer Group (AVG) known as the Flying Tigers, which flew P-40’s. By the way, the P-40’s were painted with a tiger shark grin filled with sharp teeth, but the press left out the “shark” and called them the Flying Tigers. However, Disney designed their logo with a tiger instead of a shark.
The U.S. Air Force’s fact sheet on the 14th Air Force is here:
The Creation of the 14th Air Force
The China Air Task Force continued as the “Flying Tigers” under the command of Brigadier General Chennault. After the China Air Task Force was discontinued, the 14th Air Force was established by the special order of President Roosevelt on 10 March 1943. Chennault was appointed the commander and promoted to Major General. The “Flying Tigers” of 14th AF (who adopted the “Flying Tigers” designation from the AVG) conducted highly effective fighter and bomber operations along a wide front that stretched from the bend of the Yellow River and Tsinan in the north to Indochina in the south, from Chengtu and the Salween River in the west to the China Sea and the island of Formosa in the east. They were also instrumental in supplying Chinese forces through the airlift of cargo across “The Hump” in the China-Burma-India theater.
By the end of World War II, 14th AF had achieved air superiority over the skies of China and established a ratio of 7.7 enemy planes destroyed for every American plane lost in combat. Overall, military officials estimated that over 4,000 Japanese planes were destroyed or damaged in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. In addition, they estimated that air units in China destroyed 1,100,000 tons of shipping, 1,079 locomotives, 4,836 trucks and 580 bridges. The United States Army Air Corps credits 14 AF with the destruction of 2,315 Japanese aircraft, 356 bridges, 1,225 locomotives and 712 railroad cars.
Aunt Yolanda could not remember how to spell the name of the place in China where Uncle Donald was, but from the way she pronounced the name I think it was Tsinan.
I found more great information on the 14th Air Force here, which includes the most complete list I’ve found so far of its component units. It concludes as follows:
The outstanding accomplishments of the AVG [American Volunteer Group] and the CATF [China Air Task Force], along with the Flying Tigers logo, were inherited by the Fouteenth, along with General Chennault’s thorough knowledge of enemy tactics, his experience at countering those tactics and the experienced, effective ching pao air raid notifcation system.
During the next fourteen months it would grow to four fighter groups, two bomb groups, a photo recon squadron and a troop carrier squadron.
We believe that Kenn C. Rust & Stephen Muth best sum up the Fourteenth’s activities in their book, Fourteenth Air Force Story. Quoting from pages 10 & 11 of that book:
“The mission of the Fourteenth in the days to come — based in part on policies evolved by the CATF — would be sixfold:
To defend its own lifelines over the Hump;
To ferret out and destroy Japanese aircraft and troop concentrations;
To destroy the enemy’s military and naval installations in China;
To smash and disrupt Japanese shipping along the China coast and beyond and on the numerous inland waterways of China;
To destroy enemy supplies and military installations in Indochina, Thailand, Burma and Formosa;
To encourage Chinese resistance and provide all possible aerial support to their ground forces.
“To accomplish this ambitious mission, Chennault would take advantage of his interior positions, strategically located air bases spotted within a semi-circle stretching from before Ichang to Hankow and down to Canton and Hong Kong, with the Japanese concentrated around the rim of the semi-circle or beyond. Theoretically, such a battle position gave tactical advantage to the Fourteenth and, given an appreciable quantity of planes, men and supplies, Chennault could have blasted the enemy out of China. Since such was not the case, however, Chennault had to rely on jabbing tactics to cause the Japanese as much damage and confusion as limited supplies would permit.”
“Indeed the story of supply is to a great extent the story of the AAF in China, as the supply problem set the China Theater apart from all others, limiting activity and sometimes even stopping it completely. Every item necessary to maintain and operate an air force had to be flown into China along the 500 mile air ferry route from India over the towering Himalaya Mountains where bad weather and enemy action were a constant threat to success. The situation was such that the Fourteenth never received more than 15,000 tons of supplies a month and, up to mid-1944, often less than half that amount. Therefore, its limited forces were never more than sustained at full operational strength and often they suffered telling shortages of equipment and personnel.”
“Yet, despite such limitations, the Fourteenth managed to conduct effective fighter and bomber operations along a vast front during its operational life — from the bend of the Yellow River and Tsinan in the north to Indochina in the south, from Chengtu and the Salween River in the west to the China Sea and the island of Formosa in the east.”
All in all, a very limited number of planes and men, under the most difficult of conditions, had placed the Fourteenth Air Force in the ranks of great military organizations.
Aunt Yolanda says sometimes they were so strapped for parts and supplies that they had to use chewing gum and tape to make repairs to the fighter planes.
OK, now here’s the deal about the fundraising drive for Project Valour IT — we are raising money for laptop computers with voice-activated software for soldiers whose injuries have cost them the use of their hands, or who are brain-damaged. The money raised also will buy Wii game consoles and games to be used at Veteran’s Administration rehab facilities. Because Wii games use the entire body and are fun, they motivate soldiers to learn the new skills they need to replace the abilities they have lost.
This equipment is a bridge back to life for soldiers who have become disabled fighting for our American ideals, our liberty and our national security. Please look to your right for the donation widget, click on it to reach the donation page and give generously to send these soldiers the message that you are grateful for their service and stand by them to give them the tools they need now to live fulfilling, meaningful and productive lives.
Dad was watching CNN in another room and I overheard a report on the H1n1 vaccine, the H1N1 virus and how it kills. In the vulnerable populations — people under 24 years of age and people with chronic diseases or immune diseases — what can be deadly is getting the H1N1 flu AND a secondary bacterial pneumonia infection. Pneumonia kills by filling the lungs with fluid so people can’t get enough air to live.
What surprised me about the CNN report, which included commentary by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is that no one thought to suggest that people in the vulnerable populations who are still waiting for enough H1N1 vaccine for them to get one should ask their doctor about getting the vaccine against bacterial pneumonia. (I am not a doctor and so all I’m trying to do is prompt people to ask their doctor.)
Pneumoccocal pneumonia is the most common bacterial pneumonia, and it can be prevented with a vaccine. Yet few Americans get vaccinated.
There are currently two vaccines available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV; Pneumovax) for everyone over 65 and those from 2 to 64 years old with certain health conditions, such as chronic heart, lung, or liver disease, alcoholism, or impaired immunity. The PPSV is a single shot, with a 5-year booster for those who got it their first shot before they turned 65, or who are at very high risk. It offers protection against a wide spectrum of bacteria
The agency also recommends the pediatric pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV; Prevnar) for all children under 5 years old. The recommended schedule for the PCV is four doses at months 2, 4 and 6, and the final dose between months 12 and 15. The PCV provides more powerful immunity than PPSV but against fewer variants of bacteria. It has yet to be tested in clinical trials for adults, but it is the only vaccine for this disease available for children under two. It is also newer and more expensive.
Side effects for the vaccines are rare, and they do not cause pneumonia. Along with the vaccines for the flu, a pneumoccocal vaccine can help to reduce your risk of coinfection and severe illness this flu season. In short, it very well could be a lifesaver.
The National Institutes of Health has a page of information about both bacterial and viral pneumonia here.
Talk to your doctor to find out what is best for you and your family.
Thursday morning Adam Bitely of NetRightNation announced a new blog devoted to pouring sunshine onto Obama mentor and current Obama advisor, Valerie Jarrett, called StopJarrett.com.
Here is a perfect example of why I wrote Culture of Corruption (officially out today [July 27, 2009] — I’ll be launching on Hannity radio and TV.)
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a massive, 8,100-word profile of the Obamas’ best friend and Chicago crony, Valerie Jarrett.
The author, Robert Draper, laments that “[o]ver a four-month period of reporting, I struggled to understand Jarrett’s ineffable raison d’etre in the Obama White House.”
Four months. More than 8,000 words. Several glossy, high-fashion photos.
And he still couldn’t figure out that the “ineffable raison d’etre” of Valerie Jarrett, a Daley-trained politico and consigliere, is power.
Four months. More than 8,000 words. Several glossy photos.
But not a word about Jarrett’s involvement in Michelle Obama’s patient-dumping scheme at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jarrett sat on the board of directors.
I just want to add that the sight of the Grove Parc roofs falling in is the clearest possible image of the sociopathy of both Obama and Jarrett. They profited from the trust and money reposed in them to create decent housing for people who were poor and vulnerable. Instead of fulfilling that trust, they betrayed it and made those people’s lives far worse than they were before. I would bet that some of those tenants died as a result. Doug Ross quoted Boston.com and interspersed more photos from a post written during the presidential campaign in July 2008:
The squat brick buildings of Grove Parc Plaza, in a dense neighborhood that Barack Obama represented for eight years as a state senator, hold 504 apartments subsidized by the federal government for people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.
But it’s not safe to live here.
About 99 of the units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale – a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.
Grove Parc and several other prominent failures were developed and managed by Obama’s close friends and political supporters. Those people profited from the subsidies even as many of Obama’s constituents suffered…
Grove Parc represents Obama’s true character as a “community organizer” and state senator. Since this story surfaced in July 2008, but was not widely reported — and apparently actively suppressed in the July 2009 New York Times profile of Jarrett mentioned above — it also tells us the true character of the newspapers and cable news channels that either suppressed the story or were unaware of it, what with their preoccupation with publishing only Obama’s talking points du jour.
I had to appeal to our state senator, Ida Ruben (D), many times in the course of caring for my late life partner in order to get state government offices and state-funded county offices to do their jobs properly. Sen. Ruben literally saved our lives again and again, thanks to her commitment to her constituents and the zeal of her staff. So when I tell you that Obama’s corruption and laziness killed people when he was a state senator, I am speaking from personal experience of what vulnerable constituents need their state senator to do. Rising to the presidency of the United States has not improved Obama, it has given vastly more scope for his corruption and laziness to betray vulnerable people to their deaths, aided and abetted, as always, by Valerie Jarrett.
In honor of my uncle, Donald Yockey, who served with the Flying Tigers in World War II, and in memory of my late life partner, who was quadriplegic the last 10 years of her life due to multiple sclerosis, I have joined the Air Force team of the Valour IT campaign to raise money to buy laptop computers and Wii consoles for soldiers who have been wounded, especially those whose injuries have resulted in lifelong disability due to brain injury, spinal cord injury or amputation. Look to your right for the donation widget — click on it to open the page for making donations.
I just Googled to see if I could find something to link about the Flying Tigers and found that my uncle’s name is not listed on the official Web page of the Flying Tigers AVG (All-Volunteer Group). Since Uncle Donald volunteered on May 26, 1941, he appears to meet their criteria for inclusion — I’ll follow up to see why his name isn’t listed and whether they will add it. After the AVG was disbanded, Uncle Donald was part of the 529th squadron of the 14th Air Force. He was an airplane mechanic and is now retired.
P.S.
John Wayne’s first war movie was Flying Tigers in 1942. Director John Woo announced in July 2009 he will direct a film about the Flying Tigers featuring (gag) Tom Cruise.
Update, 10/29/09: I am aware that claiming service you can’t prove is bad. However, I have memorabilia from my uncle’s service in China and I’m thinking the reason he was invited to — and attended — all those Flying Tiger reunions is that he was a Flying Tiger. I am waiting on more specific information from my cousins so I can characterize his service correctly.
