During his remarks yesterday, Antony Blinken, who is President-elect Biden’s designated nominee to be the next Secretary of State, took a few moments to share something very personal about his family and their relationship with America. Specifically he related how his stepfather survived the Holocaust by managing to escape his NAZI captors, flee, and hide within the tree line. When he heard a tank approach he looked and saw the markings were American, not NAZI and then broke cover and ran to the tank for help. Let’s listen to him tell it:
Sec. of State nominee Blinken on his late stepfather, a Holocaust survivor:
“He heard a deep rumbling … He ran to the tank. The hatch opened. An African American GI looked down at him. He got down on his knees and said the only 3 words he knew in English … God bless America" pic.twitter.com/O5Sj95AH62
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 24, 2020
Unless something really strange was going on with personnel assignments, that tank and that African American tanker were part of the 761st Tank Battalion, known as The Black Panthers. The National World War II Museum provides us with a summary of their history:
The 761st Tank Battalion’s motto was “Come Out Fighting.” And that it did, from its first engagement at the little Belgian town of Morville-les-Vic in November 1944, and through heavy combat right through to the end of the war. But the 761st’s fight was not just against the Germans. As a segregated African American unit, it took part in the struggle for racial equality—a struggle in which the men of the 761st—the so-called “Black Panthers,”—would engage for the rest of their lives.
Brought into existence on April 1, 1942, at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, the 761st Tank Battalion trained amid the restrictions and racism of the Jim Crow South. First Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson of the 761st, an athlete who would become one of the greatest baseball players of all time, lost his chance to see combat when he refused to move to the back of a segregated military bus during an incident at Fort Hood, Texas in July 1944. The 761st battalion’s commander, Lt. Col. Paul L. Bates, refused to prosecute Robinson, but his superiors got around that by transferring the lieutenant to another unit, where he was court-martialed. Robinson was later acquitted, but too late to rejoin the Black Panthers.
The 761st arrived in France on October 10, 1944, coming ashore at Omaha Beach and moving into Belgium at the beginning of November. General George S. Patton famously gave the Black Panthers a pep talk, saying in part: “Men, you’re the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I have nothing but the best in my Army. I don’t care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sonsofbitches. Everyone has their eyes on you and is expecting great things from you. Most of all your race is looking forward to your success. Don’t let them down and damn you, don’t let me down!” Privately, however, Patton harbored the same doubts that many white officers had about black soldiers, and he was reluctant to commit them to combat.
On November 7, 1944, the Black Panthers finally got their chance as they attacked the German-held town of Morville-les-Vic in support of the 26th Infantry Division. Bates, wounded the night before the engagement, was not present; nor were many of his white senior officers. Instead, the first thrust into the town was commanded by African American Capt. John D. Long of B Company, who followed behind the lead Sherman tank commanded by Sgt. Roy King. “I am sure my men thought I was a bastard and hated my guts but they followed me,” later recalled Long, a no-nonsense officer who hailed from Detroit. “They were a well-greased fighting machine.”
Right inside the town, King’s lead tank was knocked out by a German panzerfaust. Two of King’s crew were wounded; their comrades dragged them to safety behind the tank and then went on to kill the soldier with the panzerfaust and also the crew of a German anti-tank gun. King ran to the aid of a white infantryman and was wounded in the process but refused evacuation; he would be killed in action 12 days later. At the end of the battle in Morville-les-Vic, a German officer would tell Long that the conduct of King and his crew “was only equaled by that of a Russian tank crew under similar circumstances.”
The Black Panthers captured Morville-les-Vic on November 7. Three days later, as the advance continued, Sgt. Warren Crecy’s Sherman was knocked out by a German anti-tank gun. Crecy jumped out, took charge of a machine gun on a nearby American halftrack, and used it to wipe out the enemy gun crew. On the following day, leading another tank, Crecy again dismounted under fire when his vehicle became stuck in the mud and worked to extricate it. While he was doing so, he saw an enemy machine gun take some of the 26th Division infantry under fire. Without hesitation, Crecy climbed up to his turret machine gun and used it to suppress the enemy. He would use the same gun again many times that same day—exposing himself to enemy fire and knocking out German machine gun nests and an anti-tank gun. He too would receive a Silver Star for gallantry in action.
Capt. Long proudly summed up his pride for the Black Panthers and their conduct. “Not for God and country but for me and my people,” he said. “This was my motivation pure and simple when I entered the army. I swore to myself there would never be a headline saying my men and I chickened. A soldier, in time of war, is supposed to accept the idea of dying. That’s what he’s there for; live with it and forget it. I expected to get killed, but whatever happened I was determined to die an officer and a gentleman. . . . The town of Morville-les-Vic was supposed to be a snap but it was an inferno; my men were tigers, they fought like seasoned veterans. We got our lumps but we took that f***ing town.”
Here’s a documentary on the 761st:
On 10 APR 1978, President Jimmy Carter* awarded the 761st Tank Battalion the Presidential Unit Citation for their extraordinary heroism in World War II.
For those interested, Kareem Abdul Jabbar has written an excellent history of the 761st.
I want to contrast the effect that Blinken’s family history in coming to America has had on him and his approach to public service and the similar history of Jared Kushner. Kushner’s grandmother, Rae, and her family escaped the Novogrudok ghetto and fled to the forest where they were eventually taken in by the Bielski brothers who ran one of the most successful partisan groups of World War II. It was during her time with the Bielski Partisans that she reconnected with her future husband with whom she would eventually immigrate to the US after the end of World War II. I find it exceedingly interesting that four years into the Trump administration and six years since the start of the Trump campaign, never once has Jared Kushner given the types of remarks that Antony Blinken gave today. I have no idea, nor do I actually care, how devout Blinken may or may not be in his Judaism. But I do know that for all of Jared Kushner’s often remarked about adherence to modern orthodox Judaism, he seems to be unable to comprehend the real gift he inherited from his grandparents, which is the same gift that Blinken inherited from his parents.
That gift is the promise of America. A gift that Trump, Jared, Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and the rest of the neo-nationalists and white supremacists and nativists and xenophobes that Trump and Miller have salted away throughout the executive branch do not understand. And they don’t understand it because, like the wicked son, they are inherently incapable of understanding it. That promise is what we see in asylum seekers and refugees. No one leaves everything behind, grabs their children, and walks hundreds and thousands of miles over land or traverses the same distances on the ocean, just because they want a chance to earn a few more dollars. The people that take these most desperate of measures, do so because as dangerous as it is, it is less dangerous than staying where they are. And they do so with only these thoughts in mind: at the end of the journey is safety, at the end of the journey is hope, at the end of the journey is the United States!
It is also the gift – the promise – that the African American Soldiers of the 761st Tank Battalion recognized. That America, the same America that denied them their equal rights as citizens, that denied them their equal humanity as people, that required them to serve in segregated units if they chose to serve, could be much, much, much more than that crimped, small minded, narrow, and shallow understanding of America that allowed the Jim Crow system to thrive. And the historical irony in the 761st fighting to end the NAZI’s racist, fascist regime of terror and genocide is that the NAZI system was modeled on the Jim Crow system put in place to overthrow reconstruction and politically, socially, religiously, economically, and culturally enshrine white supremacy as the de facto law of the land in the former Confederate states and, through terror and intimidation, spread it as far outside of the former Confederacy as possible.
Blinken and President-elect Biden and the surviving veterans of the 761st Tanker Battalion understand this, Kushner and Trump do not.
Open thread.
* Full disclosure: I interned at the Carter Presidential Center between my junior and senior years at Emory.
lapassionara
Thank you, Adam. What a wonderful story. And it does illuminate how hollow Kushner’s soul is, as you so aptly pointed out.
zhena gogolia
Wow, wonderful post. Thank you.
Blinken’s story was the high point of a very high 45 minutes yesterday.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Of course he hasn’t. He’s not a deep thinker by any stretch of the imagination nor is he going to “look back” the way warm, empathetic people with a sincere history in their legacy do. It’s all IGMFY.
I am always given to violent, historic imagery and metaphors when it comes to the modern GOP and it’s adherents and have hesitated of late because it’s offputting to many. But jeeeesusfuckingkeeristonabike, they make it easy. Tumbrels. Lots and lots of tumbrels.
Fantastic post. Should be in a Feckless Corporate Media Outlet like FTFNYT but we can’t have good stuff replace something deep by David Fucking Brooks, et. al.
Scout211
Thank you, Adam. I just learned so much from this one post and very much appreciate the education.
dmsilev
Just wanted to highlight this, since it deserves the emphasis. Well said. I would argue though that people like Miller do understand this America, and actively hate it.
RSA
Good post, Adam. Thanks for the history lesson.
donnah
Thanks, Adam. This is fantastic.
Mike in NC
Read Kareem’s book several years ago. It was excellent.
Mike in NC
Getting a late start to the day since the cats neglected to wake us up on time. Headline in the local rag: “Trump running out of options”. Almost as good as seeing, “Trump running out of oxygen”.
Betty Cracker
Related to the “promise of America” eloquently outlined above, now that Fox News has sort of accepted that Trump lost, the Fox & Friends crew is back to whipping up “caravan” hysteria. Adam is right — Trump, Kushner and the xenophobes in the current admin don’t understand America, and neither does the average Fox News viewer. That’s why shitweasels like Trump get tens of millions of votes, and it’s why the struggle to keep power out of their hands will be the work of generations, with the fate of the country in the balance and no certain outcome.
jonas
Kareem Abdul Jabbar writes military history? Who knew?
I actually saw him one time walking — just strolling, really — by himself down a quiet street in Westwood, not far from UCLA back in the 90s, sort of lost in thought, it seemed. Dude is taaaalllll.
Neldob
Thanks so much for this. I worry about the lack of respect the RWNJ give this country and what that means for my children’s future and this gave me a Ray of hope. Happy Thanksgiving.
Matt McIrvin
@jonas: We’re getting into the era of “did you know Kareem Abdul-Jabbar used to play basketball?”
NotMax
@comrade scotts agenda of rage
Kushner is totally at sea without PowerPoint. With it, majorly at sea. During a typhoon, with engines out of commission and rudder shattered.
//
Adam L Silverman
@jonas: And other histories.
Roger Moore
As a huge Jackie Robinson fan, I want to point out an inaccuracy in this statement. The bus Robinson was on was not segregated. At that time, the local bus system was segregated but the buses run by the military were not. Robinson was challenged for refusing to go to the back of the bus but understood his rights and refused to back down. That critical detail is almost certainly why he was acquitted at his court martial.
Although he was acquitted, he was subsequently medically invalidated because of an old football injury. This was almost certainly an attempt by the military to get rid of a man they saw as a troublemaker, which Robinson accepted because the experience had soured him on military service. Obviously, the old injury wasn’t serious enough to keep him from having a HOF baseball career. And yes, his playing career was fully worthy of the HOF. He deserved to go in purely based on his on-field performance without considering his role in breaking the color line or the years he lost to military service and the color line.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin:
Cathie from Canada
Yes, this is the America that the rest of the world admires.
But please don’t take it for granted again!
The rest of the world now knows that America is capable of electing someone like Trump – that you have millions of ignorant, racist voters, and a media that creates huge audiences by lying to them, plus you have an antiquated voting system that permits a loser to win. So we know now that you could easily elect someone like Trump again, and that you have even more competent autocrats just waiting in the wings, like Tom Cotton or Ted Cruz.
A single election isn’t going to be enough to make the world trust America again. It will take a long time before governments around the world will listen to your advice, support your treaties, negotiate agreements with you in good faith – not until we see you making serious and sustained efforts to fix what Trump showed is broken in America.
PAM Dirac
Thanks for the story and the insights, both great stuff. I’ve said that I want to work to make America the county refugees dreamed it would be. Long way to go, but I’m sure as hell not going to let the tiny, soulless scumbags currently in the WH stop me.
ALurkSupreme
@Matt McIrvin: I’m old enough to remember shooting baskets in my driveway and doing that private play-by-play thing that I assume kids still do:
“Here’s Alcindor in the lane. He shoots the sky hook. Scores! At the buzzer!”
Adam L Silverman
@Roger Moore: I don’t write the history, I just copy and paste the history.
Kent
I actually think they do understand it. But are sociopaths and don’t care. Or, as you say, actively hate it. And someone like Jared probably sees his ancestry as a sign of weakness best not talked about. He’d probably be more proud if his ancestors were Prussian aristocrats, or the commander of a confederate regiment during the Civil War. Because that’s the lot they have fallen in with now.
Mart
Family visited Fort Davis TX primarily to check out the UT observatory located there. The quaint hotel had a walking guide to introduce us to the town. We got to the Jeff Davis County Courthouse (because of course Jeff f’ng Davis) and the guide led us to a statue of a great American WWII hero. He was Mexican American and the statue was about 18 inches tall. If his name was John Brown we would have seen John Wayne play him in a movie.
From:
https://www.alpineavalanche.com/article_1c8d411e-1835-11e4-9fe4-001a4bcf887a.html
“Gonzales and the rest of the 36th Texas Infantry Division of the Fifth U.S. Army landed in Salerno, Italy, on September 9, 1943. While maneuvering alone, he destroyed four Nazi machine guns nests with grenades, took out one mortar squad and wiped out an 88- millimeter cannon.
Pat Draheim, director of the Overland Trail Museum, said in one battle, his fellow solders were pinned down and Gonzales walked up a hill and tossed grenades. She said he was severely wounded but slipped out of the hospital later to rejoin his company.”
He fired a machine gun so long he got third degree burns that he eventually died from, after of course going back to battle to kill dozens more Nazis. Somebody really needs to write the screenplay…
NotMax
@Cathie from Canada
If there’s one thing the history of successful diplomacy and international relations can teach us it’s that bowing to expediency is a commonality.
The Moar You Know
That’s a compliment. The Russians were fucking insane, didn’t mind dying and shot everything that had a swastika on it. No mercy. The Germans were terrified of them.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
If what I’ve read is accurate, the person who emerged from the tank was also the son of a freed slave.
dmsilev
@jonas: He writes op-ed columns for the LA Tines every once in a while (every few months I think). They’re always well worth reading.
pajaro
Thank you Adam for a beautiful and thoughtful post.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you for telling us the history of the 761st. May they rest in peace and power.
In WWI, the Harlem Hellfighters and other segregated units also served with great valor.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/wwipos/item/93503146/
raven
Thanks Dawg.
Kent
@The Moar You Know: No, they weren’t “fucking insane” They were battle-hardened troops defending their own homes, country, and very survival as a people against one of the most savage invading armies in the history of warfare. For the most part the Germans maintained some level of military decorum on the western front. In the east they waged an existential war of annihilation, and the Russians waged an existential war for survival with no quarter given on either side. Heroic yes, but not “fucking insane”.
TaMara (HFG)
Great post. Thanks.
Yutsano
@Cathie from Canada: It’s going to take time on our end. But we have been through this before and we will drag our butts back to being the nation with some semblance of a moral footing again. But we need to make some major structural changes first. A Dolt45 needs to never happen again.
Roger Moore
@jonas:
Kareem Abdul Jabbar writes books about African-American history. In this case, it happened to be African-American military history.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Would not surprise me at all.
artem1s
@Mike in NC:
I am visiting my isolated mom over the weekend mostly to keep my less considerate relatives from dragging her to the plague fest they are having tomorrow. I was able to visit her over Labor Day weekend too. We took a road trip and the rural parts of south, central Ohio was full of Trump signs sitting out in cornfields. Lots of oversized cult signs too. But this week, most of them are gone. WWC America knows it’s over despite what the FYNYTs cletus safaris are telling them.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the documentary.
Quiltingfool
I have never understood why so many Americans are against folks immigrating (well, yeah, I know why — as we all here do) to this country. Why, my ancestors came to these shores, way back in the late 18th and 19th centuries; and they didn’t undertake that journey because things were so great for them in their home countries! They came here for a better life. This is no different a reason than folks coming here today, as Adam explains far more eloquently than I. I remember being taught to have pride in my country for being a haven of hope for people who want safety and security for them and their families. As I’ve grown older and learned more about my country, things that aren’t flattering, I still believe that we must acknowledge our past sins and transgressions, make meaningful reparations, and go forth to do better.
Would this be popular? There are many who say they aren’t personally to blame for past sins of our nation — and they are not. But, although I know I am not personally responsible for the past, I am responsible for the here and now. The day of reckoning, will it come? Our thoughts, words and deeds shape our reality, and I hope we are starting, with a new administration, better thoughts, words and deeds that will begin to mend what has been terribly torn and tattered.
Oh, Adam, your essay made me cry with pride for those who were honorable, and weep with sorrow that we had such flawed and evil men and women in charge who have made a mockery of our country.
germy
No name
By Warshan Shire
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child’s body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying —
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
hah, that was exactly the scene I was thinking about and lo and behold you posted it. Long live Airplane!
Matt McIrvin
@Quiltingfool: They always claim the immigrants today are different, and then accuse them of exactly the same things that their own ancestors were accused of. Can’t assimilate, won’t learn the language, stealing our jobs yet don’t want to work, and they’re all probably political subversives and terrorists.
Kristine
Fantastic post. Thank you.
It has been such a blessed relief over these last few days to listen to remarks made by Biden’s nominees. Such good people. Competent. Kind. Like finding water after a long slog through the desert.
J R in WV
Adam,
Great story about real heroes, the Allies fighting all over the world were heroes who saved the world from unbelievable savagery — the same evil Trump and Kushner and Mller want to institute right here and now.
Does the 761st tank battalion still exist as a military unit? I know the military is a tiny fraction of the size it was by the end of WW II. We drove through Ft Huachuca in Sierra Vista, after getting in behind it on a sightseeing road trip some years ago. We were driving towards Sierra Vista when we came to a guarded gate. Since we had “papers” the civilian guard was able to issue us a one day pass, and directions to the front gate, which saved us 60 miles of road travel.
But it was too late to visit the Buffalo Soldier museum there. Will fix that next trip west, I hope next winter. Sierra Vista is the nearest good grocery shopping to our tiny ranch, about a 90 minute drive.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: He’s an idiot. He never actually in processed to be White House Communication Director. He was never on the payroll, never had a permanent access pass, never had a common access card, never had a clearance, nada, nothing, zippo. If you are fired or quit before your job actually starts you don’t count the ten days between the announcement you were taking the job and the start date as actually working. Anthony Scaramucci was never and will never be a Federal employee, appointed or otherwise.
LivingInExile
In the thread last night about Paul Ryan, did anyone mention that he landed on the board of Fox news?
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: It cased its colors after WW II. Was reactivated at FT Knox in 1947 as an integrated unit and then cased its colors for the second and final time in 1955. The Black Panther/Black Cat crest is part of the historical imagery for III Armored Division.
Dread
The appeal to empathy to look beyond ethnic and nationalist divisions and see the common humanity in all men and women (and non-binary people), even if it’s based on a sacred myth, is a beautiful thing that I wish more of humanity got and practiced.
rikyrah
Silverman!
So good to see you posting
You were missed:)
Loved the story, and the history lesson.
Anonymous At Work
And after all that and reading through and some aggressive Googling…the 761st Black Panthers were not the inspiration for the Black Panther Party nor their predecessors in the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. History is effing weird…
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
I knew that was coming.
debbie
@lapassionara:
Emphatically seconded!
zhena gogolia
@Cathie from Canada:
Thanks for your concern. //
Miss Bianca
This just makes me want to cry. In a good way. In the way we like. Not like how I’ve felt like crying for the past four years.
That’s why I like the “Build Back Better” slogan. That’s our challenge. That’s our promise.
germy
zhena gogolia
@Adam L Silverman:
Aw, don’t be so hard on the Mooch.
germy
Adam L Silverman
@Dread: I did a post on that in regards to the Trump administration immigration policies about two or three years ago.
Adam L Silverman
@zhena gogolia: Obligatory!
trollhattan
@The Moar You Know:
I’m picturing the Germans as Mel Brooks’ Indian approaching the all-black wagon train and saying “Schwartzers?”
A great post by Adam. I learned something and have great admiration for our incoming SoS. Am sure if Trump acknowledges his existence at all it’s something like, “Loser, what’s in it for him? There no money, working in government.”*
*Extraction of government money is not technically “working in government.”
Other MJS
Colbert pointed out how “A. Blinken” is pronounced.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Scaramucci famously dispensed makeup advice to Sarah Sanders. By the time he was done with her, she was rocking the “smokey eye” look that got her mocked at the correspondents’ dinner.
Scaramucci was just another in a long line of opportunists who jumped on the trump train. At least he seems to have a sense of humor. I mean, has Stephen Miller ever tried to crack a joke?
Other MJS
@Adam L Silverman: He reprized the role recently in a commercial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcveuhq2_oY
JustRuss
Great post, just ordered Kareem’s book.
Just One More Canuck
@Quiltingfool: well said. Immigrants are looking to improve their lives and are likely to be highly motivated and productive members of society. Why would you want to keep people like that out of your country? It’s so short-sighted
jonas
@Quiltingfool: Sadly, anti-immigrant hostility is as old as immigration and the country itself. For every tired, poor, huddled person who made it to freedom here over time — from Germans to Italians, to Irish, Poles, Chinese, and Jews — there was always someone waiting to tell them to go back where they came from. Fortunately, the determination and talent of immigrants has always shown up the lazy bigotry of the know-nothings.
SFBayAreaGal
I started crying. It is a good cry. Thank you Adam for this post.
So many heroes and heroines. For the 761th unit and others who sacrificed so much, to the brave men and women who leave everything behind to come here, thank you. You are what makes this country great and keeps the promise of America alive.
jonas
Probably, but they’re not ones you or I would find funny.
germy
@jonas:
There’s footage of him in college. He went onstage to try to whip up a crowd and they booed him.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Even more pathetically, that was high school. And it was his campaign speech for student body president.
Comrade Colette
@Dread:
*Applies only to Jews, not regular Americans. //MAGAts, and my grandma, and lots of other people, probably.
germy
@Adam L Silverman:
did you see this?
jonas
@germy: I’m not sure where these numbers are coming from. There’s no way the military vote broke 80-15 for Biden. This has to be expat civilians and foreign service workers who vote heavily Democratic anyway. If you’re attracted to the idea of living abroad, it’s highly unlikely you’re also attracted to someone like Trump.
Adam L Silverman
@germy: I’ve seen it. If Trump does it, and provided he doesn’t screw it up, expect the pardon to be for all crimes, charged and uncharged, known and unknown. The problem is Flynn is so arrogant and so stupid that he’ll just go right back to being an agent for hostile foreign powers and get in new trouble that Trump can’t get him out of after 20 JAN 2020.
germy
@jonas:
Here’s the source:
https://twitter.com/Redistrict
germy
That’s one hell of a pardon.
tokyokie
I read Simon Wiesenthal’s memoir, The Murderers Among Us, in junior high school, and one of the most moving passages his account of the U.S. forces liberating the Malthausen camp, where he was a prisoner. Wiesenthal was determined to touch the star on the turret of one of the tanks that had rolled in, and although he managed to do so, in his extremely weakened condition, the effort almost killed him. Somehow I’m guessing that neither Kushner nor Bannon nor Miller has ever been determined to perform an act of gratitude at the possible cost of their lives.
Adam L Silverman
@tokyokie: If I’m recalling correctly the Soldiers that liberated Wiesenthal had a Jewish Chaplain with them. Specifically national security and whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid’s grandfather. Zaid details it in this very long tweet thread:
Roger Moore
@germy:
Scaramucci was this close to joining the Trump cult, but somehow managed to avoid getting inducted. He’s smart enough to recognize what a disaster he avoided, and he’s enjoying the chance to poke fun at the people who got caught up in it. And yes, he has enough of a sense of humor to include his brush with the cult in the jokes, which puts him ahead of the curve in my book.
Lavocat
Thank you for this. I knew about the 761st but had never seen this footage. Excellent.
So glad to see Joe Biden flesh out his cabinet with a panoply of real Americans instead of old, white, rich, male bigots. It’s about fucking time.
Roger Moore
@germy:
I fully expect Trump to try to slip in a “past or future” when he pardons himself.
germy
@Roger Moore:
Yes, he’s smart enough to be self deprecating.
He seems to have a strong sense of self preservation, as well.
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: They cannot pardon for future crimes. But they can apparently pardon for past crimes that we don’t know about yet.
trollhattan
@germy:
Refreshing. Truly.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
During the Scaramucci Unit his rant re. Steve Bannon had me rubbing my eyes and wondering if it was full-blown parody, or performance art. I’m still unsure.
Tehanu
@Quiltingfool: I shared Adam’s whole post on Fbk and I quoted you in the “say something about this” part. Thanks for saying what I’m feeling so much more eloquently than I could:
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@jonas: In one dorm room in Dykstra Hall at UCLA the desk has been shortened and they made the bed larger, that was Kareem’s room.
I lived in Dykstra for my first 2 years at UCLA, a good number of the athletes still lived there, especially the underclassmen.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin: Are you sure that wasn’t Roger Murdock?
patrick Il
@germy:
I want to see Trump investigated, whether or not he ever gets indicted or it comes to trial, just so we have a reason to question people like Flynn and Stone under oath. They can lie or tell the truth – – either way works for me.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
No surprise, no doubt that decision made by officers who still didn’t believe in Black tankers. Thanks for the additional info.
In fall of 2001 I was collecting roadside rocks by a federal highway across Ft Knox when a heavily armed Sgt and his Cpl visited us to see our papers. Big slabs of sedimentary rock with fluorescent lined vugs in it.
Cpl stayed behind their PU Truck. SAW and M4 with a loaded grenade launcher. They were polite but… demanding, ver professional, no BS. Fortunately we had adequate papers. Only experience with Ft Knox…
...now I try to be amused
@J R in WV:
To the best of my knowledge all of the separate tank battalions were eventually deactivated. Wikipedia says they were replaced by organic tank battalions in the infantry divisions. I don’t know if any of the separate battalions were reorganized as organic battalions and kept their colors.
Ruckus
Thank you Adam.
It is always good to remember all the people of different races (a made up concept, like separating Cocker Spaniels by hair color) that have given so much for a country that has taken so much advantage of them and done so much damage to them and while I can not speak for them, it seems to me that all they have really wanted was to be recognized as equal. It shatters me to see how many people who look like me think that their skin color makes them better than that and are willing to prove to everyone that their vision of themselves is absolutely wrong.
I’m not saying I haven’t known this my entire life, just that it still stuns me .
Ronno2018
Great post. So many just do not think about the sacrifices their parents made for them and how to be grateful to the many diverse people that made the USA pretty damn awesome.
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: I think it was most likely part of the drawdowns that resulted form the early Cold War and then the reorganizations that were required for the war in Korea.
Adam L Silverman
@…now I try to be amused: What ultimately happened is the battalions, along with their regiments, were reorganized and are now, as a result of what is called Force Modularity, woven throughout the brigade combat teams. From Heavy (armor) to Infantry to Air Assault, etc, etc. And the same goes for the Infantry battalions, the Artillery battalions. As a result, the BCT I was the cultural advisor for, the 2BCT/1AD – an Armor brigade, currently has two armor battalions, one infantry battalion, an artillery battalion, a cavalry battalion, a forward support battalion, and an engineering battalion.