Happy New Year. Hope all is well for you. The New Year is starting off very good for me and I wanted to pass the news on to you.

As I mentioned before, back in September 2012, Arcadia Publishing contacted me to do a book on Beale AFB for their Images of America series. I agreed to do the project and the book will be released on 20 January 2014.

The title is "Images of America: Beale Air Force Base During the Cold War" and contains a lot of rare photographs (some never released to the public) of operations at Beale AFB when it was under Strategic Air Command (SAC).

This is the link to Amazon if you want to see what the book looks like:

http://www.amazon.com/Beale-During-Images-America-Series/dp/1467130818/ref=pd_ybh_1

The Amazon site actually allows you to look at the introduction and the first two chapters. You may find the first chapter of interest to you. It covers the Engineer Aviation Brigades that were assigned to Camp Beale to start the construction work that lead to Beale AFB.

If you are interested in purchasing, then I recommend pre-ordering through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, etc. as the pre-order books are selling at 15-26% discounted prices over retail ($21.99). Those discounts are good until the release date above.

Note: This is not the WWII history of Camp Beale I have been working on for the last 6-7 years.

I hope your New Year is a good one. Take Care,

James

So this is something I ginned up because it has been a topic of conversation here in recent days. Since I had done some research to make my point I put it all in an email to send out to those with whom I have these sorts of conversations. It is political in nature, but war is the continuation of politics by other means, yes? (Thank you Clausewitz.)

This is how stupid things get done over and over in the government. The main problem is that there is no incentive for politicians to fix problems. The "power" that politicians have is in the ability to spend money. There are a few people on the Republican side that are true ideologues like Rand Paul that truly believe in reducing the amount of money in government, but they are few and far between. All Pols get power by being able to spend money - regardless of political affiliation. You will notice that the average budget during the last 6 years of Clinton was 1.7 T (yes, as in TRILLION) and the 8 years of Bush 43 averaged 2.55 T.

Of course, the trick of it is that Pols have to make it look like they give a damn about reducing the deficit (because even dullards know you can't just spend money you don't have forever) without actually significantly reducing the money/power they have to wield. One way of doing this is taking advantage of the fact that most Americans are so ill-educated that they can't even take in the concept of TRILLIONS of anything. As a matter of fact, a trillion is a lot take in even if you are the kind of person that doesn't give a hoot in hell what Kanye and Kim's baby is named (and therefore are an intelligent person). To help take this in, let's look at the congressional attention played to the egregious amount of money the military has spent on uniforms.

So the background is that House is discussing laws that would make the military use a common camouflage combat uniform. Why is this? Because the military's 4 branches have spent $14,344,000 on their 9 uniforms - and several are admitted flops. 14 million! Wow! That's a shitload of money! I could do a lot with that much cash. Well, apparently the House members feel the same. So they have gotten together and are drafting a law that would require all services to go to a single combat uniform. There! That will show the people that they mean business! . . . . . Those of you who don't know who won the last celebrity dance-off know what is coming, yes?

Here is what the 2012 budget spent:

$3.538 trillion.

With all the zeros it looks like this:

$3,538,000,000,000

And here is what we spent on uniforms:

$14,344,000

To put this in perspective, lets remove several zeros - 6 specifically - and this is what it looks like:

$3,538,000.00 . . . for the budget

$14.34 . . .for combat uniforms

So in other words, it's like saying you made $3,538,000 in a year and you spent fourteen dollars on clothes. Don't know about you, but I think I could swing that. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that the fourteen dollars you spent on clothes was over a 10 year period? Oops, I must have forgotten to do so. Yep, the first new cammo uniform was the Marines' MARPAT rolled out in 2003 - for the bargain price of $319,000 by the way.

But 14 million dollars is a lot of money to the vast majority of Americans and it is a number they can mentally digest. That is why it makes a nice punching bag to beat up on in front of cameras. Wow! That politician really cares about the budget! He's planning on cutting 0.0004025820937412293% of the annual budget!! Oh, of course that 0.0004025820937412293% wasn't all spent in one year, was it? Well, in 2012 we did spent $160,000 on uniforms so I guess it's only 0.000004490597810833567% of that year's budget, but he still must really care.

One parting thought. The total budget for 2012 was what? $3.538 T? Guess what we spent on entitlements. . .That would be 2.053 T. In other words, 58 percent of the budget. Until politicians decide that doing what is right, even when unpopular, is what should be done, our financial problem will continue to worsen. Of course, until we elect people who don't care about losing the power that comes with money, we aren't going improve our lot. We could fix that desire to stay in power for so long if term limits were enacted for congressmen, but since it is congressmen that would need to vote on term limits, that has a snowball's chance in hell.

Today I found an information about the dpla opening today http://dp.la/info/2013/04/18/digital-public-library-of-america-dpla-launches-today/ and tried it. First some German towns without result, then Alger. "General Alger visiting the town", surprising for me, but Wikipedia helped - and I'm on topic again

For Lebanon a lot of results, and Bethlehem Steel.

Christoph

Well, my next stop in my Spring 2013 Patrol will be to Thailand for Exercise Cobra Gold. This is an exercise that has been going on for decades between the Thais, the US and other countries. I won't be on shore maybe another week yet, but when I am, I will of course take tons of pictures. Also special about this trip is I signed up for a special tour when we do our port visit in Thailand after the exercise. I'M GOING TO VISIT THE ACTUAL BRIDGE ON THE RIVE KWAI!!! Someone told me about it and I jumped on the chance. Here is a web site I found about it:

http://www.bridgeriverkwai.com/

I am super stoked - even if it bears little resemblance to the movie bridge which was, in fact, made in Sri Lanka.I know you will be very interested in those pictures Marion!

Before that we had been operating in Guam and Tinian. I didn't get to go ashore on Tinian (which I regret) but some others did and I saw the pictures they took at the north airfield where they loaded up The Bombs. On Guam I went to the Asan invasion beach and saw some interesting things. There were still bunkers in evidence and I saved some sand from there as well.

Well, that's it from me. Perhaps if I had the time, ability, and something interesting to write about, I would do my Ernie Pyle literary impersonation, but alas, I lack it all!

Talk to you later,

Todd O.

The Philippines (Subic Bay Port)

The Comm setup

Me and the Phoenix

Two Cobras on the flight deck

The business end of a Cobra (AH-1Z)

Me in a Japanese Bunker with modern supports

Rough seas hitting a resupply ship during a RAS (replenishment at sea)

The mighty CIWS - pronounced sea-wiz - See the movie Battleship for a cool demonstration

Coming for a landing with the Philippines in the distance

I just wanted to post some pictures I have been taking around Okinawa. We have been trying to get out and see a lot before I leave. We've explored a lot except for a couple of weekends where there was a bug going around the family. So here it goes:

Pick marks on the side of the walls of the Japanese Naval Underground Headquarters. They had no power tools digging this structure.

I took this same picture in 1998 and have seen this sign around the webs, too. Amazing to think of the site that was here so many years ago.

Another view of that vault.

Not sure what this is but it is at the Peace Park. I have posted other pictures of the park itself in the General Discussion forum before so won't again here.

This is one of the castel ruins here on island. This is the Katsuren-jo ruins in my home town of Uruma Shi (うるま市).

There was quite the panaramic view from atop the walls.

This is Ikei beach on Ikei Island (one of the small of the Ryukyu Islands of which Okinawa is the biggest.) It was very nice!

Here's the boys on the bridge between Okinawa and Miyagi Island (which you passed through on the way to Ikei).

Check out the rest here: https://picasaweb.google.com/104745627018165888181

Just began receiving this newsletter. Thanks Troy!

I visited Fort Leonard Wood a while back...

Castle Courier2-2.pdf

So my monitor (another Marine that is normally the same rank who decides where other Marines get assigned) calls me yesterday and had some news. The place I wanted to go in Camp Lejeune wasn't open anymore and the other places in Lejeune were likely not going to happen. But the good news was that the Commo position (the S-6) for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) was open - in Okinawa. I told her to give me a bit and I talked it over with my wife. We both agreed it was a good time and we notified the monitor that it was a go. This is a primo position, too! It is one of 7 MEU commo positions in the Corps so they are hard to get. Our report date will be no later than 1 July so there won't be much time after school for us to get packed visit family and get there.

I will keep everyone updated as I get news. The good things is that I know several people over there that I have been working with over the last few years. I also already had a trip to Oki planned for April so this will also serve as a time to do some recon. Can't wait!

I'll be back there soon!!

Got this today because I'm a member of the WWII Museum in New Orleans

10 Ways to Observe Memorial Day