Praise the Lord and Pass The Ammunition...

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship...

I have always been enamored of history. Since childhood, some history book was always my go-to grab in the school library. If I finished an assignment early in class, I often grabbed a volume of the encyclopedia to pass the time. There's a word for that, and I'm afraid it's "nerd."

Right now, I'm immersed in Ken Burns latest documentary masterpiece, The American Revolution. Like all his others, he delves into aspects of the conflict that are rarely explored. He's the only guy who could have gotten me to watch an 8 part series on country music.

Yeah, nerd is certainly the word.

But let me share just a smidge of history that bears on what's happening in this administration, which is the political equivalent of the Johnstown Flood. I promise it won't hurt.

It's about how even something as evil as war can be conducted by civilized people.

My grandparents were both teachers, and when we'd visit, I'd go straight for my Grandad's bookshelf. He loved history as well, and one day I ran across a book published in 1927 called "Count Luckner, the Sea Devil" by the journalist Lowell Thomas. It immediately hooked me like gullible trout.

Count Felix Von Luckner was a German naval officer in World War I and because he knew sailing vessels, he had the idea of turning a 19th-century, 3-masted clipper ship built in 1888 into a raider to sink enemy supply ships. He took the captured sailing vessel, added two diesel engines to give it more speed, and armed it with guns hidden behind removable panels.

He renamed it the Seeadler, which means Sea Eagle in German.

No, not a ship you expect to see in an era of dreadnaughts like the Battleship Texas, for instance.

Count Von Luckner began his raiding voyage in December of 1916, and the adventure began.

 The ship was disguised as a Norwegian wood carrier and succeeded in crossing the British blockading line despite being boarded for an inspection. The crew had been handpicked partly for their ability to speak Norwegian. Over the next 225 days, she captured 15 ships in the Atlantic and Pacific and led the British and US Navies on a merry chase.

But here is the interesting part, well, other than this antique dodging battleships all the way. In the capture and sinking of those 15 ships, only one man died, and that was an accident. Von Luckner would sidle up to the vessel he wanted, raise the flag and unlimber the guns at the last minute and get them to surrender. He took the crew on board and only then fired.

Only one British sailor was killed when a steam line ruptured.

He would then drop the captives at the nearest port available. After the war, he was lauded as perhaps the most remarkable officer on either side of the conflict.

That is how it can be done. In WWII, things changed, and downed pilots, or surviving sailors, were sometimes killed after the battle. Sadly, both Japanese and American commanders were known to kill survivors in the water or in lifeboats.

Admiral Donitz, commander of the Nazi submarine force, issued what was known as the Laconia Order. After a U-boat sank the British ship Laconia early in the war, it rescued the survivors and towed some lifeboats behind. A giant red cross banner was rigged to tell any enemy aircraft that there were civilians on board. But a patrolling B-24 bomber mistakenly struck them anyway. That's when Donitz ordered no more rescues.

Now, international law and the Universal Code of Military Justice in the US prohibit killing or torturing non-combatants or those who are captive, wounded, or no longer a threat. Which brings us to recent history. This is Army Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr...

While flying his scout helicopter in Viet Nam in March of 1968, he passed over a little village called Mỹ Lai. He saw bodies everywhere. Women. Children. Elderly villagers. Infants. No military-age males. No weapons. No enemy fire.
And he saw American soldiers—his fellow troops—shooting them.

He landed and confronted Lt. William Calley, who was in command. He took off again, but later landed and confronted a squad about to kill a group of villagers. He and his two crewmen pointed machine guns at them and forced them to back off. You know what happened later. Ultimately, Lt. Calley was convicted and sentenced to life, but President Nixon pardoned him 3 years later. A history website called The Two Pennies recounts...

In 1970, Thompson testified before Congress. Congressman Mendel Rivers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, declared that Thompson was the only one who should be punished at Mỹ Lai—because he had threatened to shoot American troops. Rivers tried to have Thompson court-martialed.
Thompson received death threats. Mutilated animals appeared on his porch. He was called a traitor. He went by a nickname to avoid being recognized. 

Finally, on March 6, 1998—thirty years after Mỹ Lai—Thompson and Colburn were awarded the Soldier's Medal, the highest military decoration for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. Andreotta received the medal posthumously; he'd been killed in combat three weeks after Mỹ Lai. Army Major General Michael Ackerman said at the ceremony: "It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did. They set the standard for all soldiers to follow."

This is Private Lynndie England, who got three years in Leavenworth Prison for mistreating prisoners in the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse affair. So, in normal times, the military takes these kinds of illegal orders seriously.

So, why am I rambling on like this? Well, firstly, I'm terrible at just shutting my pie hole. But also to say, I'm not sure we've learned anything. A lot of caterwauling was heard after 6 members of the only congress we have did a video explaining that service folks don't have to follow illegal orders, a standard set after the Nuremberg Trials. (You remember the Nuremberg trials? Right? Right?) All 6 were military or intelligence veterans.

The President, as is his wont, immediately called them traitors and hinted that the death penalty should be an option. Ka$h Patel's FBI is looking into it, as soon as they get back from his girlfriend's latest concert.

And Pete Hegseth, whose pronouns are Secretary of War, poked his head out of the Pentagon makeup room to announce they may even call former Navy combat pilot and astronaut Mark Kelly back to active duty just to court-martial him. Meanwhile, spokesmodel Karoline Leavitt challenged anyone to cite an illegal order given by the cast of F-Troop that she represents.

OK, how about blowing up boats in the Caribbean that you haven't definitively identified and could easily just intercept? And now we know, hitting said boats again when there appear to be survivors? Yes, killing men who survived your first bombing. According to the Washington Post story, this came as Hegseth ordered there be no surviving witnesses.

And as we hit these guys, and prepare to invade Venezuela for their drug smuggling sins, the President has pardoned the former dictator of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was doing 40 years in the cooler for, hold on, oh yeah, drug smuggling.

Meanwhile, the President's "peace" envoy coaches his Russian counterpart on how to kiss-up to Trump, and they prepare a Ukrainian peace plan that is still basically a Russian wish list of land they want and restrictions to neuter Ukraine. And Zelensky has to accept it, or we will cut him off, thus violating our promise of protection made in the "Budapest Memorandum" back in 1994.

Yep, we promised them protection, but, hey, that was a long time ago, right? And reporters had better not ask about that hypocrisy or he'll call them all stupid again.

Well, the female ones anyway.