Miscellaneous

In 1917 Frederick Smith Pettyjohn II was born in a sod house on the White River, just north of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  His mother was a devout Irish Catholic, who died in 1931 after giving birth to her ninth child.  He fought with his father, ran off and lived on his own, doing men’s work, like driving a team and bucking hay.

In 1941 he was a sergeant in the Army, and when the 82nd Airborne Division was formed he volunteered.  In World War II the Airborne’s mission was to jump behind enemy lines and wreak havoc.  They were on their own, until the regular infantry could fight its way through enemy lines to relieve them.  He fought all the way from North Africa to Berlin, at the tip of the spear.

In September of 1944 he was badly wounded at the“Battle of Arnhem, the Deadliest Airborne Operation of World War II”.  The story is in the book.  I’ve seen the scars on his back.  He’d been hit multiple times by automatic weapons fire.  He returned to the States to recuperate and rejoined the 505 Parachute Infantry Combat Team in December for the Battle of the Bulge, and the subsequent liberation of Berlin.

The first time I met him was at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska in 1969, when I was 23.  I was having a hard time of it, and he and his wife Helen Mary took me under their wing.  That summer of 1969, in Anchorage, Alaska, was a turning point in my life.  I knew what I wanted now.  I wanted to live in Alaska.

I never served in the military, so I missed the Vietnam War.  I’d smashed up my ankle when I was at Cal, and I was 4-F.  I didn’t dodge the draft.  When I was freshman at Cal in 1962, I joined the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.  When I was a junior, I was going to take the Marine option and graduate as a 2nd Lieutenant in the USMC, in 1966.

That didn’t happen, and I felt a little guilty for not serving.  I told him about it, and he said not to worry about it.  “Vietnam is not a good war”, he said.  That made me feel a little less guilty.

I spent a lot of time with him that summer.  He was, among other things, a godfather and patron to the local Hell’s Angels.  He hired them to go out in the bush and stake mining claims.  Then he’d sell the claims to people who wanted some sort of legal basis for putting up a cabin in the Alaska wilderness.  He was making pretty good money at it.  I saw him make the sales.  He always let everyone know he’d been a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne.

He told me a lot of stories about the war.  Before a jump. like D Day, they were meticulous about their equipment.  Every strap tightened just right.  At Normandy he had 20 pounds of explosives strapped to each leg, to be used in blowing up bridges.  In the war he weighed 220 pounds, with a 53-inch chest.

Everything was screwed up when they landed, the entire unit scattered across the countryside.  He hooked up with three other troopers, and they spent the next few days wreaking havoc.

The war was the great experience of his life.  Nothing could ever compare to it.  We can only imagine what it all was like.

75 years after he jumped, my second grandson was born.  Cruz Oakley Pettyjohn, was born on June 6, 2019.  Maybe he’ll turn out like Fritz Pettyjohn of the 82nd Airborne, who was my father.

(A lightly edited version of this post is in today’s American Thinker)

 

Mexico is going to cave, and it’s not just the tariffs.  We’ve got them over a barrel on energy, and if we want we can wipe their economy out.  Without American energy imports, the Mexican economy collapses.

This actually doesn’t make any sense.  Mexico is awash in petroleum and natural gas.  But they just can’t get it out of the ground.  American petroleum engineers were critical to the early success of the Mexican oil industry.  From 1918 to the late 20’s, Mexico was second only to the United States in oil production, and it was number one in petroleum exports.  But the bounty was not fairly shared, and an inflamed Mexican nationalism booted the American oil industry out of the country.  Their oil industry has never recovered.

Take a look at a map of the Permian basin, the source of millions upon millions barrels of daily oil production.  You’ll notice that the geological formation containing this plentitude of hydrocarbons extends well into Mexico.  But there is no oil development on the Mexican side of the border.  They can’t get to the oil without o

“Our” in the sense that our petroleum engineers belong to us.  We have some 40% of the world supply, and ours are the finest in the world.  Institutions like Texas A&M turn out engineers like George Mitchell, the son of Greek immigrants, who started the fracking revolution.

And men like Scott Sheffield, from the University of Texas, the CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources.  He’s led the charge into the Permian, and he’s back from retirement to take another run at it.  Some years ago on Jim Cramer’s CNBC show, Sheffield predicted current American oil production of 5 to 6 million barrels a day (mbd) would double.

And so they have.  On June 3rd he told Cramer that American oil production would rise from the current 12 mbd to 17 mbd, a 40% increase.  Most of that increase will come from the Permian.

We don’t need all that new oil for ourselves, so we’ll export it, to countries like Mexico.  And, like Mexico, these countries will then be reliant on the United States for their economic well being.

This is why President Trump talks about “freedom fuels”.

ur help.

President Trump has demonstrated, time and again, his self-restraint.  Exhibit A is his patience with the unholy cabal of Mueller, Comey, Brennan, Clapper et al.  He could have exercised his authority to order than the entire witch hunt be shut down.  Mueller and his gang of vicious partisans could have all been fired, a la Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre.  You can make a good argument that this is exactly what Mueller was hoping for.  He had nothing, zilch, nada on the President.  But if provoked, he could do something rash, maybe enough to justify impeachment.  Lou Dobbs and many others were telling the President to fire Mueller.  But Trump was patient, showing the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.  He knew it was all B.S.  He took it for two years, and has at last been fully vindicated.

He’s been taking B. S. from the Obrador of Mexico before he became President last December.  Trump has been asking for help with the Central American invasion, and Obrador has just shined him on.

Now, it’s no more excuses, no more delays.  If you don’t cooperate at the border, we’ll shut your damned economy down.

Mexico is an economic dependent of the United States.  We not only take 80% of their exports, we provide them with imports of the highest quality.  And we provide for their power with our natural gas exports.  They can’t even think about getting into a trade war with us.

So Obrador will come to his senses, and he’ll shut down his southern border, and cooperate across the board.  It will take him a little time.  He has to try and save face.  But he’ll cave, and Donald Trump can celebrate another win for his country.  If he keeps this up he’ll get reelected in a landslide.

 

 

 

Creatures of the swamp cannot survive without it.  As Attorney General Barr begins to shed the  light of truth  on the swamp in Washington, its creatures will rant, rave and howl, but it will be in vain.  As the swamp shrinks, its denizens will turn on each other in fury.

Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham will preside over a portion of this spectacle.  It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.  Lindsey loves a camera, and he has an historical duty to perform.  Mueller and the other swamp things must be called to testify, under oath.  And among the questions they all must answer is, “What did the President (Obama) know, and when did he know it?”  Senator Sam Ervin of Watergate fame will fade into insignificance if Graham does his job properly.  Is he ready for his “Profile in Courage” moment?

I’m reminded of an African documentary I saw sometime ago.  A seasonal river was infested with crocodiles, and as the waters receded, eventually becoming nothing more than mud holes, the crocs were terrifying sights.  The mud became so thick that it was hardly liquid at all, the consistency of cake batter, and there wasn’t enough of it to go around.  So the doomed crocodiles, all near death, fought savagely with one another,  trying for a few more days of life.

When swamps die, it gets ugly.

Trump was in Pennsylvania yesterday, but his intended audience spans the globe, from Tehran to Moscow to Beijing.  He was putting on a show, for their benefit.

He looked marvelous, a man without a care in the world.  Just a man with nothing special to do on a Monday evening, so why not fly in to Montoursville for a Congressional candidate.  It was a picture perfect Trump rally, with an adoring crowd, and Donald Trump, raconteur, at his finest.  You can tell when he’s enjoying himself.  He starts channeling Jackie Gleason, a boastful Irish New Yorker.

By his whole demeanor Trump spoke to the world audience and said, ” I don’t have a care in the world.  I’ve got more oil than I need, a self sufficient continental economy, and the United States Navy.  You may have something to worry about.  Not me.”