Author: Tetman Callis

“Not all knights were great men, but all great men were knights, which meant that knighthood brought social elevation as well as membership of a military élite.” – R. Allen Brown, The Normans

“Real life opens before you only in the face of death, when you realize that at any moment you will be gone, only at this moment you understand what life is and how beautiful this world is.” – ZOV at Czmyt’s Pubs

“Many men with malaria were hospitalized more than once . . . many suffered from a milder form of malaria or other illness and did not turn in at the hospital at all. It became a rule of thumb in front-line units that unless one had a temperature of more than 103 degrees there would be no light duty or excuse from a patrol mission. The tropics weakened nearly everyone. Food had been in short supply during the early weeks of the [Guadalcanal] campaign, much of the fare had been substandard, and most of the long-time veterans of the fighting suffered some form of malnutrition.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Final Period, 9 December 1942 to 9 February 1943,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“All underground fuel storage areas on Sand Island [at Midway] were prepared for emergency destruction by demolition. The demolition system worked, too. On 22 May [1942] a sailor threw the wrong switch and blew up a good portion of the aviation gasoline.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Midway Girds for Battle,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“The [Pan-American] clipper took off for Midway at 12:50 that afternoon [December 8, 1941] to evacuate certain PAA personnel plus all passengers. Mr. H. P. Hevenor, a government official who missed the plane, was marooned on Wake and eventually ended up in Japanese hands. ‘It struck me as a rather drastic lesson in the wisdom of punctuality,’ commented Colonel Devereux [Officer-in-Charge, USMC 1st Defense Battalion Detachment, Wake Island].” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “The Enemy Strikes,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“Earthenware bowls are fragile and so easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed some consistency, and the same could be said of mankind.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Even grown men revert to being children when they are frightened or upset, they do not like to admit it, poor things, but there is nothing like a good cry to relieve one’s sorrow.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Russia is basically a millennium-long project of colonizing the vast expanses of Great Russian plains, Siberia and Far East. Our economic foundation has always been extracting natural resources from these lands and selling them to our neighbors.” – Dima Vorobiev (propaganda executive for the Soviet Union, 1980–1991), “Why was the Soviet Union behind in computer science compared to USA?”

“The United States had no intention of defending America on its own soil as long as the situation permitted any other choice.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “The Marine Corps on the Eve of War,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“At the outbreak of the war Iceland enjoyed the status of autonomous parliamentary monarchy, sharing the same king with Denmark. When the Nazis overran the latter nation in April 1940, the Icelandic Parliament voted to take over the executive power of the Danish King and to assume control of foreign affairs. The strategic island became, for all practical purposes, a completely independent republic—and a wholly defenseless one without even the pretense of an army or navy. This state of affairs gave rise to considerable concern in London and Washington, more genuine concern than it caused initially among the insular-minded Icelanders. To the British the threat appeared very desperate indeed. Early in May they determined to occupy Iceland, and the need for speed and secrecy fused decision and action. There was no time to stand on ceremony; despite Churchill’s bland assertion that the British occupation of Iceland was effected ‘with the concurrence of its people,’ they had, in fact, not been consulted beforehand. ‘As the attitude likely to be adopted by the Icelandic Government toward such an ‘invasion’ was in some doubt they were not informed of the proposed expedition.’ Indeed the first inkling the natives had that anything out of the ordinary was afoot came when early-rising fishermen discovered a British destroyer nosing up to a jetty in the harbor of the island capital, Reykjavik. At 0620 on 10 May, a reinforced battalion of Royal Marines landed and occupied the town, moving so swiftly that it was able to seize the German Consulate before the hapless Consul could destroy his papers.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Marine Occupation of Iceland,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“It has been said whoever possesses Iceland holds a pistol firmly pointed at England, America, and Canada.” – Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance

“We really do not know what happens to life’s sorrows after death, especially those last moments of suffering, it is possible that everything ends with death but we cannot be certain that the memory of suffering does not linger at least for several hours in this body we describe as dead, nor can we rule out the possibility that matter uses putrefaction as a last resort in order to rid itself of suffering.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Were we humans as foolhardy or daring as those butterflies, moths, and other winged insects, to throw ourselves all together onto the flames, then who knows, perhaps the blaze would be so fierce and the light so dazzling that God would open His eyes and be roused from His torpor, too late, of course, to recognize us, but in time to see the impending void once we had gone up in smoke.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“We say, Only yesterday, and we might as well say, A thousand years ago, for time is not a rope one can measure from knot to knot, time is a slanted and undulating surface which only memory can stir and bring closer.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“One day we a shall learn not to raise useless questions but until that day comes let us take this opportunity to ask ourselves, What will this new dawn bring.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“The Spanish-American War signalized emergence of the United States as a world power. Possession of the Philippines caused the Navy to reappraise the whole Far East situation. The USS Charleston, convoying Army troops to Manila, paused en route to seize the Spanish island of Guam to serve as an advanced coaling station. Seizure of Guam required no landing force. The Spanish governor had not learned about the declaration of war and mistook the token naval bombardment for a courtesy salute and hurried out to the Charleston to apologize for his inability to return it for lack of ammunition. He promptly surrendered the island upon being apprised of the facts.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Origins of a Mission,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I

“There are always options other than kicking in the front door.” – Justin King, “The Roads to a Q&A on Verdict Watch Day,” Beau of the Fifth Column, May 30, 2024

“When you ask Americans when the country was at its best according to different metrics, people reliably tend to answer the first decade of their life.” – Gabe Fleisher, “Was American Politics Ever Normal?”, Wake Up to Politics, May 29, 2024

“People don’t choose their dreams. Dreams choose people.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“6/9/45—Eleventh Air Force—In coordination with Navy surface and air forces attacking in the Kurils, 6 B-24’s and 8 B-25’s fly extensive armed weather recon and anti-shipping sweeps over Kurabu and Otomari Capes, Ichinowatashi, and Asahigawa. The B-24’s score no results, half of them jettisoning their bombs. The B-25’s then fly a diversionary bombing mission over Araido where they are attacked by 8 Japanese fighters. To evade them, the B-25’s fly over Kamchatka where Soviet anti-aircraft fire shoots down one, killing its crew. Another damaged B-25 crash-lands in Petropavlovsk. This is the first time Soviet anti-aircraft hits a U.S. aircraft.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945

“6/7/45—Twelfth Air Force—Major Gustav M. Minton, Jr., takes command of XXII Tactical Air Command, which ceases to function.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945

“To speak of yesterday, today, and tomorrow is simply to give different names to the same illusion.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“While we are all made from the same all too human substance, the same flesh, bones, blood, skin and laughter, tears and sweat, some of us become cowards and others heroes, some are aggressive and others pacifists.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“The time for miracles has either passed or has not yet come, and besides, miracles, genuine miracles, whatever people say, are not such a good idea, if it means distorting logic and the very nature of things in order to prove them.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Conflicts between fathers and sons, the inheritance of guilt, the disavowal of kith and kin, the sacrifice of innocents, go back a long way in time and promise to be endless.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“In truth I say unto you that many things in this world could be known before it is too late, if husbands and wives were only to confide in each other as husbands and wives.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Life chooses itself for us, without asking for our consent to its decisions.” – Mikhail Iossel, “All of It”

“Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential dearth in which its subject’s roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.” – Henry James, Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William (quoted in José Donoso, El obsceno pajaro de la noche)

“Good and Evil do not exist in themselves, each is simply the absence of the other.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)

“Ninth Air Force – A XIX Tactical Air Command squadron uniquely effects surrender of a number of German ground troops. Germans on roads being strafed by the squadron northeast of Carrouges, France, wave white flags, whereupon planes buzz the road and shepherd enemy troops into a column which then proceeds to US lines to surrender.” – Kit C. Carter and Robert Mueller, U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology, 1941 – 1945