Granted That

sjekka: Saw this photo online. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunatly...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:45:45 -0400

sjekka:

Saw this photo online. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunatly I don’t know the original source.

Air Assault

Nice.

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:09:53 -0500

Nice.

Incredible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Tedder

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 14:10:39 -0400

Incredible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Tedder

"Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other..."

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 22:35:37 -0400

“Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.”

- Sam Harris

"Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a..."

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 22:38:58 -0400

“Americans in 1950 rediscovered something that since Hiroshima they had forgotten: you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.”

- T.R. Fehrenbach

Cannot get over the fact that it is now October, and I’m in the Hudson River Valley. My...

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 14:13:18 -0400

Cannot get over the fact that it is now October, and I’m in the Hudson River Valley.

My instinctive compulsion to take a girl on an apple picking date is getting the better of me. Think of the sweaters and the orchards. Think of the goddamn cider.

How can you not feel like settling the West after listening to...

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 21:47:29 -0400

How can you not feel like settling the West after listening to this?

"This selective disrespect sometimes manifests as a troubling contempt for the American public and..."

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:49:52 -0400

“

This selective disrespect sometimes manifests as a troubling contempt for the American public and its political representatives which I observed among some cadets and even their Army officer instructors. To them, we’re a part of a flaccid civilian world at odds with West Point ideals of martial and heroic individualism. Several of my students were even offended by the “support the troops” rhetoric trumpeted by a jingoistic US media, which they saw as expressions of bad faith or guilt.

At the same time, many cadets – and several of my Army colleagues – pledge allegiance to popular American political viewpoints, such as libertarianism. This despite the fact that they are servants of the state at its most coercive, which feeds, clothes, houses, educates, and employs them in what is an admirably successful example of central planning on a mass scale. One former colleague sometimes indignantly invoked Murray Rothbard, the “anarcho-capitalist” who dismisses the state as an “armed gang,” or attacked public-sector workers and their pensions, without the slightest bit of self-awareness or irony. In Soldier’s Heart, Samet describes another institutionally  approved form of iconoclasm.

”

- Anthony Galluzzo on the teaching of liberal arts at West Point from his article Sarah Lawrence With Guns in Jacobin Magazine.

(via anemosis)

This whole article is (at times painfully) accurate.

"The sensations of the new cadet when he reaches the Plain linger a long while. There are two West..."

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:22:17 -0400

“The sensations of the new cadet when he reaches the Plain linger a long while. There are two West Points, — the actual West Point, and the overarching spiritual one, of which the cadet only becomes conscious about the time when he graduates. The determinate West Point that is to be his master for four years and the shaper of his destiny meets him at the top of the slope with ominous silence. He hears no voice, he sees no portentous figure; but there is communicated in some way, through some medium, the presence of an invisible authority, cold, inexorable, and relentless. Time never wears away this first feeling; it comes back to every graduate on returning to West Point, let his years and his honors be what they may.””

- The Spirit of Old West Point (1907), by General Morris Schaff

Navy midshipmen, 1939

Sat, 19 May 2012 01:03:17 -0400

Navy midshipmen, 1939

The mud at Passchendaele Chills.

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:21:00 -0400

The mud at Passchendaele

Chills.

My bro with the Duke when he was a pup. My favorite.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:43:48 -0400

My bro with the Duke when he was a pup.

My favorite.

Freddy Martin — Tonight We Love

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:14:50 -0400

Freddy Martin — Tonight We Love

Photo

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:51:26 -0400

"By the time a decision gets to the president, there are no good options. If there was a good option,..."

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:05:11 -0400

“By the time a decision gets to the president, there are no good options. If there was a good option, somebody at a lower level would have made the decision and taken credit for it. By the time a decision gets to the president or secretary of Defense, more often than not, you’ve having to choose the least bad option.”

- Robert Gates

Duker. The Grand Duke of Austria.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:28:03 -0400

Duker.

The Grand Duke of Austria.

"We’re a small school—but with the resources and facilities of a full research university!"

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:14:53 -0400

“We’re a small school—but with the resources and facilities of a full research university!”

- The brochure of every small college ever

I don’t know who this guy is, but if he had light brown...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0500

I don’t know who this guy is, but if he had light brown eyes and a receding hairline, he would look EXACTLY like my dad. It’s actually creepy.

NASA’s Endeavor, May 28, 2011 Absolutely stunning.

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:44:17 -0500

NASA’s Endeavor, May 28, 2011

Absolutely stunning.

Wishing I were born farther south or farther north.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:01:08 -0500