Smoke on the Water

New Growth

An amazing thing, after a forest fire.

Be it sooner or later; sometime after the fire has wreaked it's havoc, after all that remains is but soot, ash and scar.  And......

....  LIFE, which makes it's appearance, anew.

And as with every forest which has ever existed, this cycle repeats through the ages.  Over and over and over again, from ancient millenia past, to the tiny sliver of time we call history, and into the future, long after we're gone, and are but ash and dust our own selves.

So now, from the dust of Acidman's ashes, which is the state he wished to return, rises a new growth.

A blogdaughter.

I found this in the comments to today's celebration of Rob.

I am at work right now...so can't be here for long. *sigh*

post'hu-mous: adj.
born after the death of the father

It's with this dictionary description of the word above that I am letting you all know that Rob has become a blog-daddy again. I have been wanting to have a blog for quite a while and even attempted once but chickened out.

Somehow I have the courage now.

That's Rob's longtime commentor, Cindi.  Go visit and welcome her.  Rob would have done it for her; I do it for her now.  And for him.

Got your back, Blogfather.

I surely do got your back.

Acid Flashback

At the time this bit appears on screen, it will be four in the afternoon in Georgia.

And, at that selfsame hour, many people shall gather at a funeral home in Savannah.  And likewise, untold thousands of words will also appearing on countless screens, from I expect, hundreds of writers.  All of whom pay homage to a great and fallen man.

Rob Smith was about as far away from sainthood as is possible and yet still be considered a good man.  And coversely, the cranky old bastard was a far, far better man than most who consider themselves saints. 

Acidman changed many a life.  Not only did his writing change my life, but his friendship, albiet from a distance, changed my life for the better.  Though I'd been reading and commenting on sites like the gone-but-not-forgotten Rachel Lucas, and the original Kim DuToit dot com, I had never even given a moment's thought to launching a work of my own.

That is, 'till Rob and Key Monroe joined forces and cajoled me into jumping into the abyss.

And as a result of that leap, my world has expanded far beyond my wildest imaginations.  I've been read, linked, cussed and praised by people and websites I'd have never imagined existed.

I have met and made many a friend, both online and off.

And that's really what so much of this comes down to.  Rob kicked me in the ass to start writing, as he thought I had something worthwhile to say.  But more than that, Rob gave a damn enough about someone he'd never met, to spend his time on the phone (which we all know he wasn't a fan of), and invest his experience, insight, humor and wisdom into me, and my fledgeling work.  Which in time, became a true investment of friendship, one with another.

I'm not alone in that.  He did it for dozens...maybe hundreds.  Truly, we shall never fully know.

Now, I don't claim to have been Rob's friend on par with his Georgia crew.  And only the ladies can know his friendship in the sorority of the scarlet toenail.  And most of them, ain't telling, nohow.  sigh.

I think if the number of blogs which hit the screen due to Rob's influence were calculated, the sum would be astonishing.  I'll wager that many readers became writers, just because they came to know that Gutrumbles had already blazed the trail ahead of them, that they had naught to fear in taking the leap.

Amusingly, some of those Acid-inspired blogs proved to be weak tea, dying in the scorn and derision of their progenitor.  I cannot count the times I read of Rob's ire at the various "mommyflowerkittenbabywhinypuppypoopyblogs" which came and often, went. 

Conversely, many times I burned countless hours, just reading links to other fine sites which Rob highlighted and recommended.  And I became friends with some of them, too.  Rob had a fine eye for great writing, and was generous in his appreciations.  He knew he was a fine writer, and he reveled in finding others, not in hoarding all praise to his own works.

Rob became a friend, and Rob introduced me to many a friend thereafter.  That ain't a bad thing, in and of itself.

As any writer knows, writing ain't easy, not if you do it well.  And Rob demanded that I do it well, or not at all.  So, I've tried here in this small site to stand in his shadow now and then, and every now and then, I've succeeded.

But mostly, I've been but able to stand in awe of the master.  His prolific output was beyond compare.  His take-no-prisonaers honesty, often breathtaking.  The consistent quality of his writing, a standard few can meet.

I won't speak much of the ongoing train-wreck aspect of his life.  Suffice to say, that mostly Rob was his own worst enemy on many levels.  And it is in those realms where I wish him to "Rest in Peace".

Because otherwise, I think Kevin Baker said it best.

If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

Damn straight.

Now, a final word.  I've been as maudlin, emotionally torn-up and just flat-out shattered at Rob's demise as imaginable.  I've shared tears with friends on the phone, swapped some war-stories of Rob and most sadly, have been the bearer of the bad news to three who had not yet read of his death.  Those were the worst moments of all.

But now, it's time to move on.  Rob wrote often of his football days, of playing through the pain, of hustling through the hurt.  So, we've got it to do.

Life goes on.  Shitty things in the news which would've pissed Rob off still need ranting.  The laughable idiocy of the Left still need lampooning.  Bourbon needs be sipped, cigars need be smoked, hogs must be roasted and fresh green peanuts need their boiling. 

It falls to us to do all that, lest we be dragged off and shot.

Goodbye, Rob.  Adios, Acidman, you cranky old bastard.

Your friend,

Jim

Sloop New Dawn

Galveston, TX

Robert M. Smith

1952-2006

His Obituary

Dammit, the man was but 54 years old.

Way too soon, Brother Rob.......way too soon.

Please be so kind as to go there and sign the guest book.  Thank you.

A Viking's Funeral

Well, not quite, but I'll be damned if this isn't absolutely perfect. 

Found as Trackback No. Fifty from Samantha's News.... , of yesterday's passing of Rob Smith, a.k.a. Acidman.

Rube, whoever you are.......  I am in your debt for such a perfect send-off.  Thank you, sir.

Ovid relented, and dimmed the lights. Clearing a path, he grabbed the nearest empty chair and sat at the table. "What the blazes happened last night?"

Plato looked up from his glass and said, "The New Guy."

Oh, yeah, thought Ovid, The New Guy. "Man, I thought Limbo was supposed to be for the virtuous heathens!"

Plato grunted indifferently, and downed the glass of fizzy grey liquid at a gulp. He belched wetly, and for a moment seemed unsure if it had been a one-way trip. Once he became convinced, he looked at Ovid and asked, "Have you seen Elektra?"

Pure. Awe-Inspiring. Genius. 

If you don't go read the whole thing, you can kiss my cracker ass.  And if you don't both shed a tear and break out a laugh, you ought to be dragged off and shot.

Rob would have loved it!  I can think of no higher tribute to Rob, and no higher praise for Sir Rube.

Truly, an inspired bit of writing.

Silent Echoes

I still cannot wrap my mind around the thought of Acidman's passing.  His words live on, why not him?

Yesterday found me speechless, profoundly unable to put words to the loss of a giant.  And yes, Rob was a GIANT, both in life, and on the keyboard. 

While I pecked away ineffectually, Rob was there with encouragement, advice and humor aplenty, helping to launch Smoke on the Water.  And launch it he did, sneaking the announcement of this site out there well ahead of it's intended time.  His quote (Nov 30th, 2003) is lost to his archives which start in mid 2004.  But he basically took great joy in kicking my blog out and into the open, while I was still yet building it.   An Acidlanche, as it were.

Mostly (still) speechless, I have read some very moving tributes to Rob, and I shall link to a few through the day in between work and tears.  For now though, my thanks to Chris Muir at Day by Day for this:

And yes, Rob leaves that much of a void.

G'bye friend.  I'll wait to hear your Gibson on the other side.

I'm still in a state where words fail me.  Yesterday, I could barely see to type, and even worse as I circulated my blogroll and Rob's comments on Samatha's "News...." post.

So, I'll let those more eloquent works from those sites speak for me, for now.  Myself, I am still distilling what Rob has meant to me, and the impact of his passing.

I know this; it is immense, and has changed my life for the better.  Thank you, Rob. 

Blogfather, I hardly knew ye.

Now, a few words from his friends:

Denny Wilson, a.k.a. Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanata

I drove up. As I was hobbling into the restaurant, he looked at me and said, "You're the sorry sumbitch who keeps catbombing me".

We talked about blogging. His philosophy was sumpin' he picked up from Lileks. You throw enough shit against a wall, some of it will stick. So, you write, write, write, and write. Some of it is bound to be good.

I remember him saying that there were three types of bloggers: there were linkers, like Glenn Reynolds; there were thinkers, like Stephen den Beste; and there were stinkers, like Rob and I.

Velociman

I'm going to miss the ornery little pissant. At least you knew what you saw was what you got. You may not like it, but Rob would be the first to tell you to Kiss His Cracker Ass. And I admired that. I laugh about Catfish having no filters, but I think Rob introduced the blogosphere to mainstream non-filtered bullet-dodging seat-of-your-pants writing. At the risk of sounding trite he did push the envelope, and knock down a few walls. If he went overboard (N-Word!) he would eventually be almost apologetic about it. But you knew deep down he didn't give a shit. He was warts and all. And I admired that, too.

To Robbie. My friend. RIP.

Donnie, at Cadillac Tight

Rob Smith, a.k.a. "Acidman", has passed on. Rob inspired me to start blogging lo those many years ago, and he was always a good friend to me. I'll miss him very much, and the blogosphere will be poorer without him.

Rest in Peace, Pappy.

Dax Montana, as posted by Yabu in his behalf:

As he said: We will share a moment of grief, with a moment of life.

And from Yabu

Thank you Rob, and may God rest your soul.

I’ll be there Thursday.

Cool Runnings.

Kim DuToit

I was always pestering him to come and visit us, but he never did—he was either in rehab or in too much pain, or else jumping whores in Costa Rica (which is how I’ll remember him, the horny-toad Cracker bastard).

The world will definitely be a less-interesting place from now on…

Misha, at the Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.

That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.

Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.

Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all

R.I.P., Rob. I’ll have a drink to your memory tonight.

Key Monroe

I know I am not the only one who has struggled to wrap their brain around this. It is amazing that the "good ol days" of Blogworld were only two years ago and change. Rob has had his struggles of late, I know, but I knew he'd come back to us. After all, for many of us, he is our Blogfaddah. And even during the rough patches, I have observed and concluded that he is just too stubborn to die.

So I stared at the words today, and waited for them to go away. To change. To not be true.

Steve of Hog on Ice

Rob was a real writer. Nothing was hidden. He said things about himself that I would hesitate to reveal about my worst enemy. I read his site even when I forgot to read sites belonging to close friends. He was a true original.

Rivrdog

Rob feared no one, but many feared him and tried to use the weight of absurdity and political correctness to destroy him. The list is long: his company, the infamous Kerr-McGee, his ex-wife and through her, the courts. He rose above all of them, and cut their absurd lives and arguments to shreds.

Kevin Baker, at The Smallest Minority

Rest in peace, Acidman. If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

Dana of Frankensoul

And now he's gone.  My heart is broken.  Rob, you will surely be missed.  While I am very sad that you are gone, I am so very very happy that we became friends and that my life was graced with your presence.  My life is better because you were in it.

Daniel Medley of LoBoWalk

It appears as though half of the blogoshpere will be converging on Fox and Weeks to pay final respects to that cantankerous troubadour of blogdom, Rob-Acidman-Smith.

I can’t make it, but if it were in anyway possible, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Peace and love, brother. Peace and love. 

Oceanguy, Somewhere on A-1A

They need to know their father was a good man who loved them both with all he had. I hope these eulogies from so many strangers will help. I hope their memories of bad times is extremely short, and that, in a very short time, only the good memories remain and their pain is replaced with the joy he would want them to feel while remembering him.

Good-bye Rob... Rest in Peace.

Matt of Baboon Pirates

I never played the blogparent/blogchild game, but Rob's blog is one of the first I read on a don't-miss daily basis, and I sure wouldn't have started writing mine if I hadn't been hooked into the blogosphere by Rob and a few others.

Raging Dave

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever." 

Da Goddess

I will miss his delightful cackle, his deeply sweet Southern drawl, his promises to come visit (I'll likely always be a bit pissed that he let me down on that one), I'll miss his wonderfully warm songs, the beautiful music he created, and I'll miss not being able to have him watch, or at least hear, my son play the guitar Rob sent him.

And damn if it wasn't just last week that I was on the phone with a blues legend, telling him of Rob's kind gesture. You see, the guitar was sent to Little Dude because he'd seen this bluesman in concert. Rob had seen this man at Merle Fest and understood the inspiration. The guitar was Rob's contribution to my son's future as a musician/storyteller. He always did stuff like that.

Jenny, a.k.a. Trailer Park Girl

We lived far apart and had each had little idea of what the other was like on an everyday basis, yet we learned some of each other's deepest secrets and glimpsed some of each other's darkest aspects.  We also had some good laughs and saw some of each other's nobler qualities.

My good friend Marcus, of On the Patio

I only met the guy in person once and that was recently in Austin. I was having breakfast alone and he had woke up late and was looking for the group that had already departed for a while. He joined me at my table, ordered food and neither of us really had an appetite. So we talked a bit. My impression was that he was not the same person that wrote all that stuff on his blog. Denny mentioned that he had played linbacker in school weighing in at 130 lbs..."he played above his weight." Denny was aluding to the fact that he had been a fighter all his life, and the point is well taken by any that did read or had met him.

Well, my impression is that he wrote above his weight as well. In person, what I saw was a quiet man that had something to say.

Serenity's Journal

This guy had some of the funniest stories, some of the saddest stories, some of the meanest stories.  He was a complete asshole at times, a racist prick and a soft hearted bastid.  But he always told the truth and he didn’t give one gottdamn who pissed in their Cheerios that morning over it.

Jay G., of North Georgia Dogma

You’ll be missed, Rob. You’ll be missed.

And if you’ll all excuse me, I’m off to the range. To shoot a bunch of guns I don’t own.

RW, also with North Georgia Dogma

Crap. This sucks. Rob was one dude who never let PC get in his way (whether you agreed or liked…didn’t matter, he spoke from the gut, just like his site’s name implied). Sadly, IIRC, he was an athiest so I’d be lying if I tried to be the type of person he’d hate and say “see you on the other side” so I’ll simply say “so long, my friend. You defintely left your mark.”

Jeff Soyer, of Alphecca:

Rob was haunted by many demons, some physical and some caused by others in his life. He faced them as best as any of us could have. The difference is that he never shied from sharing them with us. That's what made many of his posts so engaging and vivid.

Eric at Straight White Guy

Dear Rob,

… I took the news of your passing this morning with a very heavy heart… as I sit here now, I am listening to the song I asked you to play for me in Austin back in April… you know the song I’m talking about… the one that you could sing so well… thank you for singing it for me in Texas….

… damn, I am sad to see you go…

…. remember when I first met you in Dahlonega and you tossed me that ugly-assed Jawja Blogger tee-shirt as I walked up to the table?... I had only been keeping a blog for three months when I met you and the gang… and I never felt so welcome… remember back at the cabin with all of us playing and singing and smoking?... what a night… Kelley and orgia singing “Me and Bobby McGee”?... man, Halloween on Blood Mountain… what a trip….

Dale of Mostly Cajun

He had a lot of acquaintances and probably most of them called themselves his friends. I call myself one. You don’t have to always agree with your friends.

I hate that it ended like this…

Rob, we’re gonna miss you, buddy…

We should all wish to leave such a  mark on this world. 

For now, that is all.

Rob Smith, a.k.a. "Acidman", has passed on. Rob inspired me to start blogging lo those many years ago, and he was always a good friend to me. I'll miss him very much, and the blogosphere will be poorer without him.

Rest in Peace, Pappy.

Dax Montana, as posted by Yabu in his behalf:

As he said: We will share a moment of grief, with a moment of life.

And from Yabu

Kim DuToit

I was always pestering him to come and visit us, but he never did—he was either in rehab or in too much pain, or else jumping whores in Costa Rica (which is how I’ll remember him, the horny-toad Cracker bastard).

The world will definitely be a less-interesting place from now on…

Misha, at the Anti-Idiotorian Rottweiller

And beneath that rough veneer, beneath all of the raging against the fading of the light, there was a warm, loving man. Most of all I remember his posts about his love of his son, Quinton, in which the “softer side of Rob” shone through like a beacon.

That’s a side of him that I’ll remember well. A side of him that showed me and everybody else who cared to read that, no matter how much anger and frustration one man holds, there’s always more to a man that, that there is good as well as the bad and the ugly.

Some will remember him for the bad and the ugly, some will remember him for the good. I will remember him for all of it.

Because it was all him. He let it all hang out, that was his gift to anybody who cared, and I accept it all gratefully. Warts and all

R.I.P., Rob. I’ll have a drink to your memory tonight.

Key Monroe

I know I am not the only one who has struggled to wrap their brain around this. It is amazing that the "good ol days" of Blogworld were only two years ago and change. Rob has had his struggles of late, I know, but I knew he'd come back to us. After all, for many of us, he is our Blogfaddah. And even during the rough patches, I have observed and concluded that he is just too stubborn to die.

So I stared at the words today, and waited for them to go away. To change. To not be true.

Steve of Hog on Ice

Rob was a real writer. Nothing was hidden. He said things about himself that I would hesitate to reveal about my worst enemy. I read his site even when I forgot to read sites belonging to close friends. He was a true original.

Rivrdog

Rob feared no one, but many feared him and tried to use the weight of absurdity and political correctness to destroy him. The list is long: his company, the infamous Kerr-McGee, his ex-wife and through her, the courts. He rose above all of them, and cut their absurd lives and arguments to shreds.

Kevin Baker, at The Smallest Minority

Rest in peace, Acidman. If there's an afterlife, I hope yours is a lot like Costa Rica, with sweet nubile women, a working Roscoe, and all the good food, good beer, and good company you could ever want. You will be sorely missed.

And now he's gone.  My heart is broken.  Rob, you will surely be missed.  While I am very sad that you are gone, I am so very very happy that we became friends and that my life was graced with your presence.  My life is better because you were in it.

Daniel Medley of LoBoWalk

Oceanguy, Somewhere on A-1A

They need to know their father was a good man who loved them both with all he had. I hope these eulogies from so many strangers will help. I hope their memories of bad times is extremely short, and that, in a very short time, only the good memories remain and their pain is replaced with the joy he would want them to feel while remembering him.

Matt of Baboon Pirates

I never played the blogparent/blogchild game, but Rob's blog is one of the first I read on a don't-miss daily basis, and I sure wouldn't have started writing mine if I hadn't been hooked into the blogosphere by Rob and a few others.

Raging Dave

Rob Smith was one of those other people. You read his blog, and you didn't know whether to curse him out or laugh out loud. You looked at the things he did in life, and you had one of two thoughts. It was either A) "Oh hell, I wish I'd done that!" or B) "Did you mean to fuck it up that bad, or was it an accident?"

Never once did you read his writing and go "Meh. Whatever." 

Acidman, R.I.P.

I shall but copy and past the notice that Rob Smith's daughter Samantha posted on his blog this afternoon:

June 26, 2006

News...

This is Sam. Rob has passed away. They found him at 2:00 this morning slumped over on the couch. He did not shoot himself and no pills or alcohol were found in the house. When I find out anything else I'll let you know. Out of respect for my family please do not leave nasty comments.

~Sam

Posted by Acidman @ 02:10 PM • Permalink • Comments [0] • TrackBack [0]

Rob was a friend, and for a while, a mentor in blogging.  Though our conversations eventually took distant paths, our correspondence never led away from the trail of friendship.

Godspeed, Rob.  Rest in peace.

And to Samantha, Quentin and Mommie.... my prayers are with you.

L SEE D

This is an LCD Inverter for a Toshiba Satellite laptop computer.  It resides in the lid-screen of the computer, immediately below the screen and beind the word "Toshiba" on the bezel.

And without it, the screen projects no luminousity through the LCD pixels.  The image is there in data terms, and is only faintly visible in direct sunlight or very bright light into the screen.  Translate faintly visible as completely, utterly and totally useless in functional terms.

I just replaced that TAMURA HBL 0220 unit in my Toshiba, and am once again in possession of a working 'puter.

Though I've not been able to post to Smoke on the Water, I've not been wholly without the ability to read and keep up with the news. 

More on that, in just a bit.  For now, I just thought this status report would suffice.

The Flag and The Corps

Here at Smoke on the Water, this year's Flag Day is dedicated to the heroes and heroines of the United States Marine Corps.

The past few weeks have been a witness to a particularly rabid series of attacks on the Corps by not only the jihadists, but a cadre of even craftier enemies; the press.

But just as Zarqawi met his fate but a week ago, so also shall the Fifth Column of the Fourth Estate meet with the abject failure of low ratings, falling circulation, public aprobation and the disdain of history. 

So, Marines.... Semper Fi, from a long-ago Airman.  It is with no small pride that I dedicate this year's Flag Day to the Corps.

May you continue to defeat your enemies at CNN, ABC, CBS, NYT, PBS, NBC, BBC, Time, Newsweek and every other bastion of subversive propaganda.

May the traitors from your ranks find defeat, digrace and dishonor with every breath they take until the day they die.  This means you, Murtha.

May the songs of your victories cause anguish to your enemies, be they foreign or domestic.

May the Flag of the Corps fly proudly, ever so long as the Flag of the United States of America still waves.

Carry on, Marines, carry on.

Catch of a Lifetime

Writing is hard enough sometimes, and then you read something like this, and it gets damned near impossible.

You see, when an artisan like Val Prieto hangs a new fresco of words upon in the gallery which is Babalu Blog, I look at my own keyboard, and my fingers feel as clumsy wooden dowels attached to the pine blocks of my hands.

One cannot read of Val's family and finish the story unchanged. 

Of course, while my wife and I gave them the grand tour to the house and property, all I wanted to do was show my Godfather the canal. My brand new, very own, private fishing hole. The one that still beckoned from behind the brush.

"Tio," I said pointing out towards the canal. "Lo mejor es que tengo donde pescar." The best thing is I have a place to fish. "I was just cutting my way through the brush to get to the canal."

No sooner had I said that than Padrino took off his nice travel-back-home-via-airplane shirt, grabbed the machete that I'd stuck into the ground and he attacked the dense shrubbery hiding the canal. My old man followed suit.

So there we were, the three of us - my Godfather, my father and me - working in unison for hours, chopping and cutting, dragging and dropping, pulling and yanking away at the Florida Holly brush that covered my private fishing hole in my brand new home.

And when we'd cut and removed just enough of the shrubbery away for us to walk straight up to the canal's edge, my Godfather went to the car and came back with one of his fishing rods. He asked for a piece of bread which I quickly ran to the kitchen to get but we had none. All we had was crusts from yesterday's pizza. I went back to the canal with a piece of pizza crust, Padrino took it from my hand, cut a little piece off and he hooked it on. He dropped it into the water and not a minute later had caught a fish.

The man that had taught me to fish with the patience of a fisherman had just caught the first fish from my own private fishing hole. Mi Padrino me bautizo la pesca.

The fish on the end of the line wasn't the prize catch.

Now, go read the whole of Val's tale, and learn a bit because of  the Catch of a Lifetime. 

And I'll sit here and try to whittle my fingers back down into typing order again.

Zero Sum Zarqawi

Let's do the math.

This.......... (murdering incompetent coward)

Plus THIS.............

Equals THIS !

One Very Dead Terrorist Leader along with a goodly number of his crew.

Now that's what I call an elegant equation.

UPDATE:  12:30. 

THE BEST Take on the Zarqawi Zapping:   

Well, I'm Dead

Spew Alert!  Get those liquids far from the keyboard!

D plus Sixty-Two Years

Where once screamed shell and tourtured soul, where the sands became more soaked by blood than by the sea; now quiet prevails. 

And in today's moments of silence, give thanks to Almighty God for the sacrafice of brave men once young.  Too many, forever young but never forgotten.

Thank you, gentlemen.  Though I haven't words adequate to express my undying gratitude for your sacrafices, I do know of one who did, and who spoke them with unmatchable eloquence.

I give you, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

This was an emotional day.

The ceremonies honoring the fortieth anniversary of D-Day became more than commemorations. They became celebrations of heroism and sacrifice.

This place, Pointe du Hoc, in itself was moving and majestic. I stood there on that windswept point with the ocean behind me. Before me were the boys who forty years before had fought their way up from the ocean. Some rested under the white crosses and Stars of David that stretched out across the landscape. Others sat right in front of me. They looked like elderly businessmen, yet these were the kids who climbed the cliffs.*

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgeway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came. They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war. I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee".

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their value [valor] and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

I cannot add to the greatness of The Gipper, so I'll simply say; thanks for reading this, and thanks to all who served, fought, bled and died on that momentous day.

That is all.

The Quotable Crusader

There is a post you need to read, penned by the indomitable Emporer Misha of the Anti-Iditorian Rottweiller.

But before I give the link to read the aforementioned post, I'm going to post here, some selected excerpts from Misha's responses in the comment section which follows the original article.

I think you'll find them worthy of note on their own merit, which is indeed why I'm featuring them here at Smoke on the Water.

And if you think the comments are good, just wait till you read the article which inspired them.  It is indeed, a hallmark piece, and ought be writ large upon parchment, a work for the ages.

But first, the comments.  Misha writes this in response to commenter Coydog.

We have to draw a line in the sand. We have to say “this far and no further” while we still possess enough sand to draw it on.

We cannot win a war walking backwards, we cannot stop the advance of a faith that means to wipe us and all that we believe in out unless we dig in our heels and start taking the fight back to them.

And we must keep on fighting until they have had enough and surrender or until we can fight no more, whichever comes first.

The worst that can happen if we choose to heed the call of the generations that went before us is that we may die, die doing our duty in a manner that we can be proud of.

Or we can stay in denial, we can keep our heads in the sand until they’re chopped off.

We can piss away all that Western civilization has built and be cursed by future generations for our cowardice, our lack of honor and our lack of will to fight for what is right.

I’d rather die on my feet, thank you very much, with the song of the sword as the last sound I hear.

And this, from his response to Mike Zeares 

The list of battles fought and lost by my noble ancestors is long indeed, the only constant being that if there was a fight to be had, they’d be right in the middle of it. I suppose that’s one of the main reasons that there are only about 5 million of us to this day.

I remember visiting the Alamo and seeing the flag of my native land in there, next to the flags of every other nation that lost one or more sons on that day.

I was honored, of course, to learn that a son of my country had given his life on that day, that he’d laid down his life in defense of my adopted home, but I can’t say that I was all that surprised.

If there’s a fight going on and there’s a Dane within a day’s ride of it, he’ll be there like a cat to catnip. It’s in our blood and it has done absolutely nothing to help us survive. As a matter of fact, it’s a bloody miracle that there are any of us left, considering our nature.

Maybe G-d keeps us around to piss everybody off.

I don’t know. All I do know is that I have it in me as well. I’ve been drawn to hopeless causes more times than I can remember, I’ve had my ass kicked every way you can imagine as a result, but I have no regrets and I’ll do it all over again if the opportunity presents itself.

It’ll be the end of me eventually, I know, nobody stays on a lucky streak indefinitely, and one day my dumb ass will write a check that I can’t cash, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

We all die. We’re born with that sentence hanging over our heads. It doesn’t matter. You’re already dead. Just make your death mean something.  (emphasis, mine)

Now that you've read a bit of the commentary, it's time for you to go read the whole thing.  And I assure you, you'll understand why I've highlighted Misha's quotes in Blood Red.

Ride to the sound of the trumpets, the battle is nigh!

Ace High

In tennis, scoring a point from an unreturnable, smashing serve is of course, an Ace.  Likewise, so is a fighter pilot possessed of superior armament and skills, who has downed five or more of the enemy's aircraft.

And in a standard deck o' fifty-two, the Ace reigns supreme.

For some time now, I've had a draft of an essay sitting on the back burner.  And every now and then, I'd edit what I already had, or add a new paragraph or  thought, but it never quite came together in a manner I thought fit for publication.

I needn't bother now. 

Ace, of Ace of Spades has taken keyboard in hand, and thoroughly dissected the fetid, fevered swamp which is the mind of the progressive.  And done it in a manner so startling in it's brilliance, that I am quite humbled by it's magnificence. 

Leading lights of leftism have a powerful psychological tool for enforcing their own preferred orthodoxies. It's one thing to tell someone he's wrong on an issue; it's another thing to tell him, impliedly, that he's evil or stupid because of his stance on an issue. True, a leftist can reject any progressive leader's opinion. But when he does so he imperils his sense of self-worth. If progressivism can be challenged on this point, why not that one? And if it can be fairly challenged on many points, then how can it be those who believe in progressivism are enlightened for doing so? If major tenets of orthodox progressivism are open to debate and challenge, doesn't that mean that one's status of intellectual, based almost entirely on one's belief in progressivism, is similarly open to challenge?

That way madness lies, of course.

Give yourself thirty minutes and truly spend some quality time reading Ace's exploration of the core of the progressive.  Read it twice, and dwell upon it awhile.  It is filled with "damn, I wish I'd have said that!" bits of goodness.

And then laugh the next time a progressive moonbat spews forth with their usual blather, as you'll be well prepared and able to just grin at 'em.

Which of course will drive 'em nuts, but only you will know why.

Now then, my musty olde unfinished essay goes now to the digital dustbin, and that rightly so. 

Nicely done, Ace.