The Daily Mail tells the story of how a far flung bunch of strangers, including Michael Yon, created a temporary, self-organized network to get a British soldier an artificial lung he needed to survive until he could be flown to a specialist facility for treatment. The soldier was shot accidentally on his own base. What happened next shows when “can do” meets modern comms.
The respected American journalist Michael Yon, himself a former US special forces soldier, reported on his blog that he heard the shot and saw a flurry of activity and a medical evacuation helicopter taking Soldier X away. … Soldier X had been shot in the abdomen and chest, losing his right lung and damaging his liver … He was alive – but only just. … He needed a portable, low-pressure artificial lung and the Americans offered to help. But the bureaucracy of moving from the British to the American military system meant that valuable time was being lost. … Contacted by a quick-thinking British doctor at Camp Bastion, Mr Yon sent an urgent email to a group of American civilian volunteers called Soldiers’ Angels near Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where most American casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are initially sent.
The volunteers, founded by the great-niece of General George S. Patton, alerted the US Army’s nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center’s Acute Lung Rescue Team, which specialises in going straight to the aid of soldiers with severe lung problems.
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From then events moved rapidly. The “Soldier’s Angels” found a suitable artificial lung at the University of Regensberg. Now the race began to get it to him. A call went out to US units in Qatar to fly the specialists to the British casualty. Tanker support was required and that was arranged. Meanwhile, a C-17 was sent to pick up the patient; when that aircraft could not continue due to safety regulations and required downtime, a second C-17 was brought in. Like some kind of science-fiction machine that simply conjured resources to get the job done, US Air assets moved pieces around over two continents to get the soldier to the lung machine while doctors ran ten times a normal human’s blood supply through him to keep him going. He lived.
His mother eventually met the recovering soldier in Germany where she thanked the Soldier’s Angels, who were a key link in the chain of events that led to his recovery. They passed the word in turn to Michael Yon, still somewhere in Afghanistan. “She had no idea of the extraordinary lengths hundreds of people had gone to save him. I told her about some of this,” MaryAnn wrote to Yon. “She broke down and couldn’t believe ‘all of those people would do all that for my son’. It was a very, very moving moment.”
One of the key factors in the success of this effort was the powerful use of online reputation. Online reputation plus comms can result in magic. Michael Yon and the Soldier’s Angels knew of each other and knew enough to understand that they were all of them serious people. They were well-connected nodes in a network — not a formal network mind you — but an informal collection of nodes with roughly known reputational values that could make connections between them at need. And they did and made things happen. Even when the effort crossed into the formal domain of the USAF and the British Armed Forces it’s a fair bet that emails, IM or telephone calls were made to keep the wheels turning, not necessarily corresponding to any chain of command. Along the way paperwork was doubtless filed and things done to square events with the regs. But as someone told me once, there’s the way things are supposed to be done and the way things are really done. And that vitally depends on the power of reputation in informal networks.
The only official response from the MoD about the case has come in a statement from Surgeon Rear Admiral Lionel Jarvis, assistant chief of defence staff (health), which said: ‘The current Coalition operation in Afghanistan allows flexibility in the selection of the best casualty transfer system available at the time.
None of that should obscure the fact that things didn’t happen by themselves. They occurred because individual men and women took the initiative and acted. The vast ocean of connectivity bears no spark but for the fire embarked on it. And the great wonder of life is that we should find it where we never even sought to look.
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Thanks for bringing this story to BC.
Here is another story from Yon’s webmag:
Whispers
And here is Yon’s writeup about the event you posted here about.
Do Americans care about British Soldiers?
God makes Miracles, but every man can help when help is needed.
Papa Ray
Prayers for the young soldier, praise for his benefactors.
“God makes Miracles, but every man can help when help is needed.”
Yes, God makes miracles, and God uses the gifts of his creation, including any of us, to make those miracles happen. The greatest miracle is all the people that made those things happen and saved that soldier’s life. Thank God for them.
Nice story, The great-niece of old blood and guts, awesome. General Patton was always a quick thinker, obviously the trait was passed down. Michael Yon is awesome as well.
Thank you for bringing this story to our attention.
Our good name is the most valuable asset we each have.
Honor (and honesty) is very very serious.
Best regards, Peter Warner.
i was a bit of a snotty spoiled generation x’er and didn’t appreciate our soldiers…until I was in radio as a dj with a marine who served in the first gulf war. And at the same time i also happened to roommate with a nat’l gaurd gal who shot and killed an iraqi in gulf war one–this was a very painful story for her to tell me. As i learned more about what they did, what these actual soldiers did, on a day to day basis, the un-glamourous and dirty work they did, the heroic stuff they did, the places they went, the action they saw, the action they didn’t see, etc. I saw what a shallow self centered ignoramous i was. I realized that I did NOT do these things. I did NOT serve. I chose not to. I had the choice, but didn’t want to.
its hard to describe in a comment on a blog.
it changed my perspective. from then on I at least silently when I see someone in uniform thank them for their service–and mean it.
i don’t necessarily feel bad that i didn’t serve, but since then I have a much greater appreciation and gratitude for those who do. AND I SINCERELY THANK YOU!
These are the stories that need to be told, and at one point the elites in the entertainment industry may have believed in a certain duty to share amazing stories when humanity displays its greatness. The Hurt Locker is compelling and moving, with some realism, but it is still and ultimately a piece of fiction. It also leaves you contemplative, affected, puzzled, and finally a bit empty.
I can easily imagine this story on the big screen, filling an hour and forty-five minutes of time, and pulling me to the edge of my seat. When was the last time a great drama was filled with POSITIVE catharsis about anything, much less those that fight to protect us?
(And the same could be said for the stories of Medal of Honor winners, but this writes itself.)
From my experience, the best networks are informal.
When a network becomes formal, two things happen. First, the network gets bureaucratized with the effect that communication slows down and a central office monopolizes initiative. Secondly, the network gets a big fat target on its back. Once a network acquires a name or an identity, it is easier to attack that network.
Organization men seek to control, co-opt, or destroy organizations. Such men ironically ensure the power of informal networks. When organization men pulverize all rival sources of action and initiative, informal networks fill the void.
From my experience, the best networks are informal.
When a network becomes formal, two things happen. First, the network gets bureaucratized with the effect that communication slows down and a central office monopolizes initiative. Secondly, the network gets a big fat target on its back. Once a network acquires a name or an identity, it is easier to attack that network.
Organization men seek to control, co-opt, or destroy organizations. Such men ironically ensure the power of informal networks. When organization men pulverize all other sources of action and initiative, informal networks fill the void.
Yes–those who have compassion that springs from their own heart will do much more good than those who are paid to be compassionate. For those who are paid the compassion dies when their shift ends and its time for them to go home.
And when the money dries up for the compassion worker, the compassion goes away and they will go on strike.
Its like the difference between having a lover or a prostitute. The lover will stand by you when you’re broke. The whore won’t.
Although it’s a dramatic human story it’s interesting to examine how a “meme” like this gets started. It would make a great business school case. I think the initial point of departure in the narrative occurs when a nonstandard or unusual service is required by the system to save the injured man.
The act of recognizing the unusual requirement is the seed of this drama. That’s where it all begins. I think it would be safe to say that the subsequent bustle would never have happened if one British doctor had not said to himself: “right, we haven’t got the local resources required to help this man.” The next critical point is when, in addition to following the normal workings of the system he goes outside it and to Michael Yon. Think about this for a moment. Why does he do this and why Michael Yon?
Answer: he knows Michael is connected, even though he doesn’t know precisely what Michael is connected to. But he’s wired and that’s enough. Now although Yon wants to help he’s no doctor. It’s not like he’s got a database of medical resources on his laptop. But he does know who might know. So he gets in touch with Soldier’s Angels. This is a remarkable transaction because both sides have enough reputational currency to get an actionable transaction going. Reputation is why he sends the message on to Soldier’s Angels; reputation is why Soldier’s Angels take the call. Reputation is a powerful filtering mechanism. On the Internet anyone can send an email or an IM, but whether it is read or not; and whether it is taken seriously or not is a function of reputation.
Finally, the resource is found. And now things are starting to reach what Gladwell called a “tipping point”. There’s a constituency for it now and an urgency to back it up. So the thing gathers momentum like a snowball and bam, it happens.
Back in the Normany campaign of ’44, one of the principal tactical problems was getting tanks through hedgerows. And while there may have been many forgotten precursors to it, the one “meme” that took off was the Culin hedgerow ripper, which was nothing more than steel blades welded on to the front hull of a Sherman. There too something needed to go “outside the system” and the winning idea eventually did, through fortuitous circumstances that are almost impossible to carefully reconstruct.
Bureaucracies are great at delivering standardized uniformed products and that’s what we need most of the time, but the most fascinating instances occur when a bureaucracy brings forth something nonstandard; something unique. It looks like magic, but I suspect it really isn’t. At the bottom I think that the process which brings out the exception isn’t unique at all, but rather the operation of the same old dynamic of a meme propagating through amplifying nodes in the system. And the power of amplification is the reputation of the node.
Wretchard, Frederick Forsyth wrote of this in Day of the Jackal. The head of the Criminal Bureau, Lebel, uses the old boy network of police and intelligence services to inquire about a professional assassin, leading indirectly to the identities of the Jackal.
In the novel, Lebel is able to keep this discreet because everyone knows the reason for the inquiry. And again, reputation counted. Most of the men Lebel speaks to know of him if not directly. As he does them.
Years ago when I worked as a welfare caseworker I found the same thing to be true. When I had worked with people from other agencies often enough to build trust, I could get them to speed up paperwork or shift waiting lines when I needed help for someone in an extraordinary circumstance. You can’t abuse these informal networks, but when they are used for the really important things, even workers in a huge bureaucracy remember what their job is supposed to be. And I like to think that a few people came away knowing they were more than just names on an application form. I still remember the smile on one woman’s face: it said, if I can make it through this hell, I’ll make it and I’ll make sure my kids make it.
Why do formal networks run down and lose their efficiency? Is that more prevalent in larger more technically sophisticated networks? Does the application of additional wealth and resources result perversely in a regression to a mean with declining returns per input?
The term that wretchard uses for the grease that keeps the wheels turning is “Reputation.” To me that sounds like Max Weber’s theory of “Charisma.” Complex formal systems are supposed to have become repositories of the charisma that in earlier societies was embodied in the heroic leader and then in small tribal networks where everyone was known and their reputations were verified by direct observation. The ability to inspire people to perform tasks reliably and also the ability to inspire others to trust the organization and cooperate with it is a product of this charisma.
In the most primitive society the influence of the leader was personal and direct, in fact brutal. You wanted to cooperate and he had a reputation for efficiency. Later that reputation was transmitted to the person of a monarch and a team that was closely supervised. They acted out the rituals of the primitive hero and sought to compel or inspire the same level of cooperation as existed before.
In the modern bureaucracy that essential quality does not renew itself spontaneously but must be cultivated by managers and supporting institutions. Their ability to transmit the values and expectations needed to keep the bureaucracy sufficiently charismatic to function and preserve its reputation is a task similar that performed by religious institutions in transmitting the charismatic authority of the primitive leader into the simple but still formal and enduring structures of tribal and monarchical societies. It is an educational process.
What the Gramscian March through our institutions has done is rob many who should function as managers of the ability to articulate and transmit to an organization those charismatic values that are needed to keep it running efficiently. Instead of being managers they become reduced to administrators and they can not keep the complex clock properly wound. It loses power and reputation and runs down. This problem can even afflict the military when politicians press to fulfill PC quotas and reward administrative jockeying over principled leadership. That same degradation of the educational institutions also causes problems on the receiving end of the values communication. If the audience can not recognize the signals then they will not see the charisma in the institution, which then suffers a lose of reputation, and those it seeks to serve or work with will not cooperate with it. That will also decrease efficiency.
What Soldiers Angels does, and what Michael Yon’s journalism can do, is remind everyone both within the bureaucracy and in the watching audience, how important charismatic reputation is and what it can accomplish. Yon constantly gets emotional at what he sees as abusive bureaucracy that substitutes procedure for a sense of purpose. He demands a high level of honorable moral conduct that is rarely present in the leaders of these organizations. He has had public arguments with TSA and CBP in which his personal frustration is so clear as to be surprising considering that he has worked with these government systems for years. There are no angels to get him around the roadblocks in Homeland Security and managers there are unlikely to respond to a personal appeal that at its core is an appeal to trust his reputation in the way that warriors ideally can trust each other and then solve a problem. Recently Yon got very upset when a bridge outside of Kandahar was destroyed. He was immediately very vocal in his criticisms, posting on Facebook demands that the General he felt was responsible should be fired. To an outsider it could have looked like pique at having the mission that Yon was going to accompany delayed. To Yon I am confident it was an opportunity to demand a return to displays of personal responsibility that are the key to reinforcing the charisma and reputation that the whole organization needs. Yon described how some time afterwords he walked into a General’s office, not the one he felt was responsible for the failure to defend the bridge, and the General’s first words were a claim of responsibility that turned Yon’s entire attitude around in 30 seconds.
Every organization becomes hidebound over time and more devoted to administrative expertise than values driven problem solving. Even charities suffer from that problem. Remember though that the need to move from informal, tribal or revolutionary structures to structured organizations exists for a reason. When properly managed the formal organization with its accumulated technical expertise can accomplish amazing things.
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2010/03/maybe-michael-yon-has-few-points.html
Wretchard said: “It would make a great business school case.”
True indeed. As we speak I am prepping this summer’s corporate strategy course for MBAs. This will article will be used as an example when comparing what formal organizational structure does well with what informal or “social” structure does well.
Probably 25 years ago I read of a case similar to this. The wife of a member of an American diplomatic mission in a remote third world country was a approached by the wife of one of the Soviet delegation, who was in tears. Her son had become ill and they could do nothing for him. But Soviet doctors knew of an American drug that would help and the kid’s mother went directly to an American mother. The USAF flew a special airlift mission to carry the drug for the Soviets to use.
But the thing about informal networks is that the bureaucracy hates them. After the last launch of the space shuttle Columbia, there were NASA engineers at KSC and at JSC who were concerned about the possible damage caused by what everyone thought was a chunk of foam. The Houston people contacted someone they knew in AF Space Command to see if he could use his contacts to get NRO assets to image the Shuttle. But the NASA bureaucracy found out about the request, thought it was coming from the guys at KSC, who – get this now – had no responsibility for on-orbit operations – and thus were dabbling in the wrong sandbox. So the bureaucracy shut down the request for NRO support, and we lost our only chance at launching a rescue mission. The official investigation concluded that such informal requests needed to be stopped – rather than that the people who stopped them needed to be strapped in a flame bucket for a rocket launch.
Starling – you might want to use the Columbia case as an example, too.
I missed this story when it came out. I feel a mild sense of satisfaction that I have contributed money to both Michael Yon and Soldiers’ Angels over the past five years.
As they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day…
Jamie Irons
Informal networks.
In this case as in many others it worked out and should be applauded.
In offering my thoughts on previous topics, specifically regarding patriotic citizens that realize the peril we are in currently I have advocated that they NOT join any formal group, but rather maintain exactly what came about in this situation; an informal network.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is getting a good deal of press recently about the dramatic rise in what they term “hate” groups. Whether they are hate groups or not is debatable but that SPLC has branded them as such draws the attention of the ever growing internal “police” force in the United States. STAY OFF of MEMBERSHIP LISTS, but remain informally networked. It will save you some precious time should that time be needed. I promise you won’t regret it. And forget using the internet or any telephonic device. The human courier is back in vogue.
11 W
I remembered that this had been discussed here on BC previously. I finally found it.
Normandy and Iraq
Everything is new, everything is old.
Papa Ray
17) RWE,
“But the thing about informal networks is that the bureaucracy hates them.”
YES! As soon as the crisis is resolved (either by finding a solution, as in the Yon/Soldiers’ Angels case, or by it proceeding to an unfortunate conclusion, as in the space shuttle) the bureaucracy will attempt to reassert itself.
RWE, thanks for the suggestion. Do you have any links on this?
If so, you can post them here or send directly to me…. starlingdavidhunter at gmail
thx
Interesting that several of the commenters to the linked article feared that the NHS would finish the job.
Reminds us that the MoD abolished military hospitals and put the squaddies into the civilian system where “they” (plural may not be correct but there was at least one case) may be attacked by Muslims for serving in the war.
As for dealing with the Bocage country in Normandy, the Cullen Hedgerow device was not the only key locally-devised innovation. The problem was that the infantry needed to talk to the tanks directly. In a typical hedgerow assault operation the tank would break through the wall and the infantry would spot the areas that needed some heavy fire and relay that info to the tanks, very much in real time, like a fighter pilot would tell his wingman about a target.
US tanks were equipped by that time with what we would call low band VHF radios. These were vastly superior to the HF sets that were used earlier in the war, offering easier, channelized operation (literally like the push button radios we have in cars) offering much more bandwidth and more frequencies, and being almost immune to interference. And according to at least one report offering the unexpected side benefit of interfering with German communications in that same band.
But the radios in the tanks pretty much could not talk to the infantry. The tank radios were heavy monsters, virtually bulletproof but totally unsuitable for portable operation. The handheld walkie talkies used by the infantry were in a totally different band. The backpack radios had only limited frequency overlap with the tank radios. The other portable sets in the right band were designed to be put down and set up, not hauled on the run under fire.
The answer was simple. They attached a phone box on the back of each tank and the infantry, hiding behind the cover of the tank, would pick up the phone and tell the tankers over the intercom what areas needed attention.
Note that this was directly opposite to the philosophy in the Philippines in 1941, in which the local command got in a spat with the Ordnance Dept and so the Stuart tanks were equipped with no radios at all. “Nothing concentrates the mind so much as the prospect of being hanged on the morrow.”
Starling:
My best suggestion is to look for the Columbia mishap report on the Internet. It is freely available. But be aware that there is “the rest of the story.” I have a LOT of other material available outside the formal report, and if I can get it in a format that I can send you I will.
RWE,
The USAF flew a special airlift mission to carry the drug for the Soviets to use
That reminds me of the story of the American in Moscow some 30 to 40 years ago. The Cold War was occasionally getting hot and people were getting killed. The American was part of that struggle and they knew that their phone was bugged. One day they picked up the receiver and without dialing said “My child is sick, please help.” Within a half hour a doctor was at their door and the child was properly cared for. You can not do that frivolously and you should only do that once but knowing that there are limits and rules and shared values is very important. It can save millions of lives lives.
The possibility that the person listening in could believe in what they were doing and still have a human connection with the subject of their investigation was explored in the film The Lives of Others. That shared humanity is both a strength for the policeman seeking to understand their quarry and a vulnerability as it can corrode loyalties. It can be used to facilitate recruitment in both directions.
In places where the Taliban Salafists or the Khomeinists take power could you even hope to get help if you picked up that phone? Will the person listening in be getting their ethical cues from Dr Ezekiel Emanuel? There is a pattern of physicians, or associated practitioners like Che Guevera, going bad. Zawahari, Hanan of Houston, the Glasgow airport doctors all succumbed to the temptation. It isn’t only an Islamic problem, Nazi doctors and more recently Radovan Karadzic also lost their attachment to the basic humanity of the Hippocratic Oath.
Perhaps the problem happens when the physician draws a distinction between those they know and others. The latter become not Clients but Objects. Professional detachment morphs into seeing them as no different than laboratory mice in an experiment. There has been pressure to reword or dispose of the Oath in the training of physicians. It is viewed as an impediment to progressive health care by many, especially among Abortionists and their supporters. To me the problem with abortion isn’t simply with the act itself but the cost to all of us of taking that brake off of members of the medical profession who have our lives in their hands.
To be blogged under the title “Life on the Line.”
jason grey: There are many of us who did serve and do not say much about it. There are reasons for that. See Habu’s comment @ 19 for part of the reason. See Bill Whittle’s essay called “Tribes”. (Well, it was on his local “blog” and re-published from his first site but now gone. ????? What’s up with that PJM?)
Habu: I consider “The Southern Poverty Law Center” as that which they advocate against. They have become what they dislike – a hate group because the have adhered to a narrow, formalized agenda. Sad, because they cannot even see it. Mark Potok was on something today railing against us ‘fringe’ kooks at the TEA Parties.
(Be in Texas in one week to start the new gig.)
Of course, the airplane, C-17, used in the longer distance aeroevacs, is the one our president decried as ‘a waste of taxpayer dollars’ as he cut it from the budget.
As the infamous commenter said once about our education system:
“What would he do different if he was trying to destroy this nation?”
I remember the chiefs commenting that if you wanted to make things grind to a halt, require that the ‘regulations’ be followed. Effective networks meet, form up, perform and disband as necessary. Lest they grow official and become regulated…
tomw
FYI. the Iraqi my female roommate gaurdsman shot and killed in Gulf War One was a soldier who would have killed her if she didn’t shoot first…just to be clear.
#26. Ragnar. I have read Bill Whittle’s “Tribes” and consider it to be one of the best blogs ever. thanks.
about 4-5 years ago I stumbled upon Bill Whittle’s blog and was captured, soon after that I saw Steven DenBeste’s USS Clueless and it was over for me. I was changed forever. Between Clueless, Eject, and then Belmont I have been triple blessed. thanks GOD for the internet! keep it free! and open! forever!
Jason – Okay, I am glad to see you have read the good ones. Way back you could download the USS Clueless archive. It is 18Mb. I have it. BTW, did you buy Whittle’s 2nd Edition of “Silent America”?
O/T – PJM is going to require registration to comment starting this week? Going the way of LGF and Hotair, I see. Do that I will be gone as far as commenting, which may be a good thing as far as some EU trolls are concerned and maybe others. Comment registration is contrary to the spirit of the intertubes = free, open, anarchistic, etc.
I was very moved by your story. Thanks.
David Sievers MD FACS
formerly MAJ MC USAR
2nd Gen Hosp
Landstuhl, West Germany
APO 09180
Here’s another example, from today’s news, of a genuine heroine who used networks of her day and circumstances to accomplish greatness:
Andree Peel, French heroine who saved 102 Allied pilots from the Nazis, dies aged 105
God bless you, Angel Rose.
A terrific story and good topic.
Informal networks gathered together for a specific task are commonplace in all our lives.
For example what happens when it is learned that a neighbor or friend is ill and needs support.
I was witness to one such event this past week when a neighbor learned that she has leukemia (CML). Through a combination of facebook, texting and all of the other stuff we do every day now, a community of women, my wife very much among them, quickly coalesced to provide needed support. This has been going on forever but much more quickly and with somewhat different parameters than in the past.
Community is community and most of us now have online communities in addition to others. Reputation is as key now as it was when most such things happened over the backyard fence or a cup of coffee.
Wretchard described the key for the success of such networks in the internet as “online reputation” of an individual in a community who holds a solid positive reputation with people he or she never met, yet can reach out far beyond the usual circle of neighbors.
If that individual can provide the ‘tipping point’ things can happen in an avalanche not possible until the technology existed.
As it has always been, reputation is everything in getting things done. Technology has not changed that.
“A good name is more to be desired than great wealth, and to be respected is better than silver and gold.”
Proverbs 22:1
Spin
I’m sure this guy’s lungs are fascinating, but today I’m all caught up with a naked Rahm Emmanuel, and Dan Rather calling Obama a poor watermelon salesman.
We are very near the end of civilization.
Isn’t this the kind of thing that “Radar” on MASH was always doing? The strategic corporal, et al; I am occasionally successful at mustering a small army to get things done, but “were doing it for God and country” only goes so far when you need a favor for what is in comparison a trivial thing.
Great story; Kinda makes ya a little misty thinking about it. It is reputation and quid pro quo.
Once upon a time I used to go on about group processes and formal and informal organizational channels and stuff, but that’s back when average employees had some degrees of autonomy, if only because they were tiny cogs in great masses of anonymous white (or blue) collar workers. Today, those seething middle-class masses are gone, replaced by computers for the most part, which don’t really have informal channels of communication. For that matter, even in this story, the resources that are being sought informally are very rare and expensive, not just another crate of tomato soup for MASH 4077. When the scale and scope of the request gets huge, it’s increasingly hard to justify informal allocation. And yet, when the scale and scope of the resources gets huge, so does the bureaucracy, hampering their proper use. The dangers of gigantism from all perspectives, consult a brontosaurus today.
So there are no longer workers…only employees. That is what was expected.
Anyone thinking they signed onto something at work lasting longer than next month is mistaken. We all are justifying our jobs by the day. Like 1930′s depression.
Fukuyama is little better of an oracle than Erlich. Neither of them added anything to…anything in my IRA or insurance, education for the kids, nothing…yep we elect Obama and no good stuff happens; we are sinking lower.
Jobs…Jobs…Jobs
How many times do we need to say this?
That is not the fault of the American worker it is the fault of the government we elected. Still we own the power of our votes and that is considerable.
Spin
Ragnar:
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2009/10/07/tribes-2/
Paule Rahe who is a prof of History at Hillsdale College has written about American exceptionalism. Interview with Peter Robinson is here. Part of his thesis is that deToqueville recognized that Americans took more initiative and addressed problems with informal networks as a matter of commonplace. Yon and the Angels are simply being Americans.
O the undiscipline! O the Chaos! O the disorder! Aint it beautiful?
That is not the fault of the American worker it is the fault of the government we elected. Still we own the power of our votes and that is considerable.
Fault? Well, it is the fault of our decision makers for not forseeing the entirely forseeable, indeed the blatantly obvious. It is the fault of our “intelligensia” for not speaking truth to power – but then they never saw the truth, so how could they speak it? Not that most of the would know the truth if it sat up and called them mommy.
And *still* they prate about Hawley Smoot and Ricardo and Schumpeter and Americans who won’t study math and science simply because nobody will pay them if they do. Oh those darned money-seeking Americans, disappointing elitists since Jefferson.
The government is, after all, us, you and me, we. Can’t throw too many stones, can’t lay too much blame for fault if there’s a mirror in the house. Unless of course you be a democrat, arhhhh!
What a great story! It brings to my mind a line Steve Krikroian sang, “Life is sacred, love commendable”.
AM,
Yes, the colonel would have had Radar get sparky on the horn and Hawkeye would have traded a case of Bourban to get the parts so that Hawkeye could pay the Korean watch repairman to build the device that they needed to save the dying English soldier.
WWII scroungers had their ways of getting whatever they needed to cook a dinner or fix a tank or find the Krauts.
It’s not what you know but who you know.
And then there’s this
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8b5_1238383099
I lived in Landstuhl as a kid from 1964-66. My dad was stationed there. At the time US troops were being moved out of France as France left NATO. Many were redeployed to Viet Nam. At that time that base was a pure blast for a kid.
A couple years ago my brother was flown out of Afghanistan for treatment at Landstuhl.
29. ragnar. i did download Clueless. then I lost it, didn’t back it up. email me. i’d love to get a copy.
jasongray11@hotmail.com
i did not buy Whittles 2nd America.
but if you say its good. I’ll do it.
37. herb. thanks for the link. a very good re-read.
while i like bill’s video efforts, his writing is superb.
A remarkable and insightful story. Much admiration and thanks to the Soldiers’ Angels and all those other Americans who worked so hard and well to get one of our wounded ‘squaddies’ to safety.
Informal network gets new policy to military faster or in place of official network?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/despite-new-policy-pentagon-still-wary-of-the-tubes/#more-23035
A serious question.
I have many links that I think are important for all to read. I hold them and post in various blogs. Here I try and wait until the link is somewhat in line with the post at hand. But rarely that situation comes to hand before the link is old.
I would like Richard to clairify off topic links and/or someway for BC readers to see these links.
For example here is a couple of links that I think are worth the discussion of the readers of this great gathering place of Americans (and others):
The Other Government Takeover
Who Decides What’s In Your Kids’ Textbooks?
Any advice would be appreciated. I know that what the comment rules are but maybe there could be an open discussion post once in a while? Such as other blogs have.
Papa Ray
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,92407.0/all.html
46 – Papa Ray. Agree with you…and hope there is a way we can keep some of this material out in the open.
“…print the legend.”
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2010/03/the-anatomy-of-a-rescue.html