Annie
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con'td part 2Monday, September 26
The Dallas Mayor of New Orleans.
If I hadn't seen and heard this with my own eyes and ears, I would have thought it was too good to be true. Just about five minutes ago on Wolf-TV, Ray Nagin, the beleaguered Mayor of New Orleans, found himself the subject of an impromptu press conference. After the Congressional testimony today by former FEMA head Michael Brown, in which Nagin's performance during the Katrina crisis was largely criticized, the press wanted to get Nagin's reaction.
Now before I let you in on the audio I heard, let's go back to September 13th, on Fox News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume. Brit reported that it had been learned that Mayor Nagin, a mere week after the storm hit, had moved his family to Dallas, enrolled his daughter in school there, and had already purchased a house in Dallas. He was still going to be the Mayor of New Orleans, but have his primary residence in Dallas. Here's a link to the report from the 13th. We ridiculed that for several days, but it has fallen from the public consciousness. Until today, that is.
During the press conference, the Mayor's cell phone went off during one of his responses. We're sure it is, because it was audibly heard in the microphones pointed at him, and because Mayor Nagin looked down to see who was calling as he answered the question, then ignored it and moved on.
Take a wild guess at what the ring tone on his phone was? A nice cajun number? Blues? Jazz? Zydeco? Nope. It was the theme song to the early 80's prime time CBS drama, Dallas. What do you want to bet it was the wife wanting him to bring home some milk, bread and eggs on his way home this evening? Listen for yourself. Listen for the ring tone. Then think of who shot J.R. You'll recognize it.
09-27nagin-dallasringtone.mp3
What do you suppose people would have said if Rudy Giuliani had "Cleveland Rocks" as his ringtone as they were still cleaning up the mess at Ground Zero?
Posted at 3:01PM PDT
The Medal of Honor Show, Part Two.
As promised, here's another amazing story that stood out among amazing stories. Picture this in your mind as you read it:
HH: I'm joined now by Korean War veteran, Ronald Rosser. Ronald, I want to talk about your Medal of Honor, but first, I've got to tell people that during the break, you were telling me you're a three-generation 101st Airborne family.
RR: That's correct.
HH: Tell people about the two that came after you.
RR: My daughter was in the 101st Airborne during Desert Storm, and my granddaughter spent two years with the 101st Airborne, of which one of them was in Iraq as a combat medic.
HH: And that the family is not only vertically military, it's horizontally military. You're one of 17 children, the oldest son. And you've lost two of your brothers in the service of the United States military. Tell people about them.
RR: I had one brother wounded in action early in the Korean War, and then went back on the line and was killed in action. And I had another brother that was in the 1st Marines in Vietnam, and he was wounded in action, went back on the line, and was killed in action.
HH: So this is really the definition of a military family, Ron. Proud of your service in the military? Is it the defining part of your life?
RR: Oh, yes. I'm happy about it.
HH: Tell us about the action that surrounded your receiving the Medal of Honor.
RR: I'd been in the Army quite a few years when the Korean War broke out. 82nd Airborne for the most part. And the...I was perfectly happy about staying out of it, quite frankly, because I knew what was going to happen. And my kid brother got caught up in it early, and was wounded and then killed in action. So I reenlisted for combat duty in Korea, and the Army, as they always do, they took good care of me. They sent me directly over.
HH: Was that what you wanted?
RR: Yes, sir. That's exactly what I wanted.
HH: It says in this portrait of you that when you returned, you told your mother that you had avenged your brother's death.
RR: I tried.
HH: And what was her feeling of sending at least three...did any of your other brothers or sisters go in the military.
RR: Oh, yes. They did.
HH: Of the 17?
RR: Yeah. All my brothers but one was in the military. The one that was killed in Vietnam was an identical twin, and his brother was the only one that didn't go in the military. So we pretty much hung around the military one way or another.
HH: Okay, let's talk a little bit about January 12th, 1952. What was going on that day?
RR: I was attached to Love Company, 38th Infantry. I was a forward observer, and my job as a forward observer, was to call in offensive and defensive fires to protect the company. And we jumped off...there was 170 of us that jumped off that day.
HH: You mean we began an attack?
RR: Just fighting our way out to where we were going. We had to fight for about two miles just to get there. And we were going to assault this mountain, and the...I was with the lead platoon, and they were just ahead of me, and all at once, there was some heavy firing, and every one of them but one had been killed. They had got ambushed close in. The Chinese had overrun them, and hit them real fast. And so myself, and the company commander, led the next platoon directly into it. And...by the way, on the way out, we had lost probably another fifty men just getting there. So we was losing men pretty fast, and we lost all of our officers, we lost all of our sergeants, all of our corporals. And by the time we'd got to what I call assaulting position, we were down to about 35 men, counting the walking wounded, out of 170. And I got on my radio. I had the only radio left to the outside world. And I got on my radio, and I called back to my regimental commander, and I gave him a situation report down to 35 effectives, about out of ammunition, request orders. And he wanted to talk to an officer. I was a corporal, and he wasn't too interested in talking to a corporal. And so I drug my radio over to the company commander, who himself had already been wounded badly, and told him there that the Colonel wanted to talk to him. So I had the Colonel...told him to reorganize and make one final attempt to take his objective.
HH: You're down to 35 out of 170 men?
RR: Yes, sir. We were facing three battalions of Chinese. About 1,500 Chinese, not counting the ones we had already killed, and we killed a lot of them. Anyhow, the Captain there, he talked to the Colonel, and the Colonel told him to make the assault. He said yes, sir, and handed me back the mike. And I was watching the Captain, and he got a hopeless look on his face. And he looked just awful. And so I don't know what happened to me. I was talking, I was trying not to talk, and I heard myself say I'll take them up for you, Captaint. And the Captain said how are you going to do it? And I said, I'm going straight in shooting, Captain. And he looked up there, and the Chinese, you could see a big line of them waiting on us, about 200 Chinese waiting on us. And there was five heavy machine guns directly in front of us, and he said you're not going to make it. And I said well, we'll try. And so, I took those men straight into that hornet's nest, and when I got to the Chinese trench, I stopped and looked back, and I was by myself. And all the men that had been with me had got cut down. And so I had went through a lot of trouble to get there, and so I said well, you went through a lot of trouble, Ron. It's time to pay the fiddlers. So I let out a war whoop, and jumped in the trench with the Chinese. And I engaged 8 Chinese. They were crouched down with sub-machine guns. I engaged all 8 of them and killed them. Took out a machine gun nest with a white phosphorous grenade, shot a couple of guys that crawled out on fire. Went around the corner and engaged about 35 more Chinese in close combat, until I just really ran out of ammunition. And so I went back down the mountain to where the rest of the company was, or what was left of it, and took one wounded man with me, and got him back under cover, started scrounging around, getting me more hand grenades and magazines, and slung my rifle around my shoulder, and had about thirteen hand grenades hanging on me, and I had two in my hands. I had pulled the pins on both of them, holding the spoons down. And I turned about and started dog-trotting back up the hill toward the Chinese, and they couldn't believe what they were seeing. And I was charging straight up there toward them, in kind of a dogtrot up the hill. And they just stood there and looked at me. They couldn't believe that one man was coming up the mountain, so I just kept watching them. And finally, one of them raised his rifle to shoot me, and I threw my first hand grenade. Instead of shooting me, they all looked up to see where the grenade was going. And it went right in the trench with them, and it caused quite a bit of commotion, so as I went across the trench, I kicked the spoon on the second grenade, and dropped it in on top of the Chinese that was still kicking. And there was two big bunkers I was after, and I shot my way through the Chinese to the first bunker. And the Chinese were trying to come out the door to get me, and I was firing through the bunker door, and drove them back in. And I crawled over to the door, walked over to the door, really, and just backed up to it, threw a white phosphorous hand grenade in.
HH: Did they all run away at that point? We've got like thirty seconds left.
RR: They wasn't running away.
HH: Did you get some help from the guys down the hill at this point?
RR: No, sir. Nobody ever made it up on top. And I ended up taking the mountain three times, really, by myself. I was just lucky.
HH: Not lucky, courageous.
RR: Just lucky.
End of interview.
Posted at 2:00AM PDT
The Medal of Honor Show, Part One.
If you missed any of the Hugh Hewitt Show today, shame on you. It may have been the most interesting shows we've ever done. Every year, the surviving members of the Congressional Medal Of Honor Society, recipients of this nation's highest honor, meet. Hugh had the great privilege of being able to broadcast from Phoenix, home of this years conference, and got to meet and interview true American heroes, one right after another, for three straight hours. I could try to transcribe all of it, but I won't. There is a book available with the stories and the pictures, that is something you must obtain. It's called Medal Of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty. These men were all outstanding individuals, but there were two stories that were just amazing. Here's the first one.
HH: Joined now by a couple of men who fought at familiar places. Woody Williams, that's Hershel Williams. Woody was on Iwo Jima. Walt Ehlers at Omaha Beach on Normandy. Medal of Honor recipients both. Gentlemen, welcome. It's good to have you here. Let's start with you, Walt. I understand you're the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient of Omaha Beach?
WE: Not at Omaha Beach, Medal of Honor recipient of the Normandy campaign.
HH: Of the entire campaign?
WE: Yeah.
HH: Oh. How many other recipients were there for that action that day?
WE: Well, between the 6th and the 12th, there were ten Medal of Honor recipients, that were authorized. And only two of us survived, and that was Carlton Barrett and myself.
HH: And what was the events that day? What happened to you?
WE: Well, I didn't get mine for the D-Day, though.
HH: What did...describe it for us.
WE: I got mine inland, 9th and 10th of June, but I did land on D-Day with...actually the first wave got pinned down. They needed more troops on the beach immediately. So the Higgins boat came back and picked us up off of the boat, and took us in. And we landed amongst the chaos on the beach with the guys pinned down.
HH: Did you go back for the 60th Anniversary?
WE: Yes I did.
HH: And Woody, Iwo Jima just had its 60th Commemoration as well. Were you there for any of those?
WW: Yes I was. I was in Fredericksburg, Texas, for the 60th. And we had a re-enactment of the assault on Mount Surabachi. Very realistic and outstanding exercise.
HH: Woody, how many Medal of Honor recipients in the Iwo campaign?
WW: 27.
HH: And many of them still here with us today?
WW: No, there's 3 of us surviving. There were 13 that survived Iwo.
HH: Tell us about your day that day, or for the...surrounding the events of your battle.
WW: Well, we had been there two or three days, and they had...the reports say 800 pillboxes that had been built. You know what a pillbox is?
HH: Yes, sir.
WW: Okay. Lots of people think it's what Papa carries his pills in, but it's really a concrete bunker in today's language.
HH: And you don't want one in front of you, do you?
WW: No.
HH: Okay.
WW: But they were protecting, basically, the airfield. And they were keeping us from going forward. We were losing a lot of Marines. So I...when I landed, I had six flamethrower, demolition people in my unit. I was a lowly corporal at that time. All those other guys were PFC's and privates, so I could order them around. And the CO asked me if I might be able to do something about some of the pillboxes, because he, as well as the rest of us, were confused. And we knocked out a few pillboxes, and opened up a hole, and we moved through.
HH: And you kept fighting for the rest of the day as well?
WW: Absolutely.
HH: Under extraordinary fire. I read the citation in the book. You're understanding it, Woody, but that's...I'm afraid I'm going to get that a lot today.
HH: Walt, which unit were you with?
WE: I was with the 18th Infantry Regimen, 1st Infantry Division.
HH: And whose command was that under?
WE: Bradley's.