Recognizing Courage

Our “old smokejumpers” coffee group always met at the Red Atlas on Tuesday’s at 10AM. At one meeting, sometime before the Covid pandemic caused us to stop meeting out of care for each other, Jack Atkins told us he wouldn’t be coming the following week for personal reasons. Then on national television, most of the rest of us saw Jack, with his wife Elaine, accept a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor from President Donald Trump for their son Travis who was killed in action in Iraq on June 1, 2007. When he got back the next week, we didn’t say much about it, except to ask, “Did President Trump treat you respectfully?” With the answer, “Yes,” we went back to entertaining each other with smokejumper stories.

This Monday, November 18, 2024, Colonel Ray Read, Director of the Montana Military Museum, called and asked me to arrange placement of Army Staff Sergeant Travis A Atkins citation into Montana’s Congressional Medal of Honor Grove west of Helena, at Fort Harrison, home of the First Special Service Force, the Devil’s Brigade. This morning I received word from Jack that he and his wife will have no objection.

                      OFFICIAL CITATION

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of the Congressional Medal of Honor to

STAFF SERGEANT TRAVIS W. ATKINS United States Army 

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:

“While manning a static observation post in the town of Abu Samak, Iraq, Staff Sergeant Atkins, was notified that four suspicious individuals, walking in two pairs, were crossing an intersection not far from his position. Staff Sergeant Atkins immediately moved his squad to interdict the individuals. One of the individuals began behaving erratically, prompting Staff Sergeant Atkins to disembark from his patrol vehicle and approach to conduct a search. Both individuals responded belligerently toward Staff Sergeant Atkins, who then engaged the individual he had intended to search in hand-to-hand combat. Staff Sergeant Atkins tried to wrestle the insurgent’s arms behind his back. When he noticed the insurgent was reaching for something under his clothes, Staff Sergeant Atkins immediately wrapped him in a bear hug and threw him to the ground, away from his fellow soldiers. Staff Sergeant Atkins maintained his hold on the insurgent, placing his body on top of him, further sheltering his patrol. With Staff Sergeant Atkins on top of him, the insurgent detonated a bomb strapped to his body, killing Staff Sergeant Atkins. Staff Sergeant Atkins acted with complete disregard for his own safety. In this critical and selfless act of valor, Staff Sergeant Atkins saved the lives of the three other soldiers who were with him and gallantly gave his life for his country. Staff Sergeant Atkins' undaunted courage, warrior spirit, and steadfast devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the 2d Brigade Combat Team, and the United States Army.”

Precision Engagement

That’s SGT Frank Vukasin of Great Falls, Montana, bundled in his winter coat, while using his frozen fingers to jam another eight-round clip into his M-1 rifle and kneeling for the ages. Next to him lie two dead white-clad German soldiers. In 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, this was precision engagement. As soon as he reloaded, he’d be back on his feet maneuvering again through the Ardennes Forest on this flat battle-field, rather than remaining stationary as would have been the case in the trench of a WWI battle-line. He could pour out a 30 to 40 rounds-per-minute rate of fire in place of the slower rate WWI infantry rifle, the more accurate M1903 Springfield with its single-shot bolt-action.

A history of Black Eagle, Montana, families says Vukasin had been working in the Anaconda Company Refinery when he got drafted. After surviving the war and returning  home, he and his brother traded up through a couple of Black Eagle saloons. He once got a gig as an actor with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in that poolroom scene of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. In the years after his wife passed he made his living as a gambler. He died in January 1995 and is buried in Highland Cemetery among hundreds of fellow veterans, not too far from Charlie Russell.

Since 1996, the word battle-field has been replaced by the word battle-space, a multi-dimension civilian and military sphere ranged by every kind of weapon, including weaponized lying and demeaning of truth-telling. Battle-space can be fully ranged with doctored images, honey trap pornography, destructive and instructive movies, and bad or good art and writing, using targeted new media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and hundreds of variations being sought and linked by like-minded groups.  

The iconic photo of Vukasin in The Bulge serves as an early example of weaponizing images in battle-space. Eight years after Vukasin died, his photograph taken by a U.S. Army Signal Corps cameraman and preserved by our National Archives, was used by the NRA to narrate its firearms oriented point of view. The picture, properly sourced and credited, belongs to all of us, each for our own reasons, as I am using it here to ask a question: “Did anyone care then or now whether SGT Vukasin was a Republican or a Democrat? No! We cared that he was a calm and courageous American soldier who could shoot straight.

That’s because during WWII our leaders did everything possible to bring us together, instead of doing everything possible to aggravate divisions that split us from each other to  disempower us. Fear is being used to harden our hearts. Whether or not we order Pizza with anchovies and who we talk to on FaceBook help to precisely target messages to our minds, which is far better than an enemy’s bullet to our brains. Now we are where we’ve come to be, and only by learning and relearning in our best respective ways will we recover from the November 5, 2024, battle-space defeat of our country.

On the cold winter night we were making inquiries in Black Eagle the waitress in “Borres” told my friend Magoo and I, “The name’s pronounced ‘Vukaaasin.’ When my father was alive, he could tell you everything. He knew all those guys. There were a lot of bars around here. When they came back from the war they all hit the bars. Sorry, I can’t help you more!”

MT 2 Concession Statement

 

Commissioner Downing, congratulations on a clean win. I did my effort in the best way I knew how and have no regrets. Tough job ahead of you. Good luck. Sincerely, John B Driscoll

In the Primary Election 100,411 votes were cast for the nine Republican Candidates and 40,290 (or 28.6%) were cast for the four Democrats. 129,315 more Eastern Montanans voted in the General Election, and 91,631 (or 33.9%) voted for me.

U.S. Military Readiness

 

4:00 PM, 11/03/2024: Completed the first 84 pages of this book. Decided to read it because Darrell Valance thought I should read it. A young former infantryman (8 years) in Hobson was trying to tell me something but I could tell he thought it wise to tip-toe around all that he wanted to say because I’m a Democrat, but he told me enough. We were having the conversation because I am trying as hard as I can to understand why former officers like Sheehy, Zinke and Downing, sworn to protect our U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, support so clearly a threat to our constitution as Trump. The movie War Games, starring Steve Bullock, was produced in part by a group called VetVoice, and, when they were interviewed I could see that they are concerned about the radicalization of some of their fellow soldiers and marines. And, the military is facing a recruiting problem. I am familiar with readiness issues because I used to be the officer responsible for monitoring the readiness of our army guard units. The challenge of meeting readiness standards so that fighting units go off to war ready to fight is HARD. This book is bringing me up to date on the additional challenges.

I easily agreed with the authors criticism of the shuffle of general officers to the board rooms of military industry’s with which they used to deal. Though I sense a little male whining at having to make cultural changes, it’s not so much. I think it’s a helpful book and I’m looking forward to finishing the last 144 pages. We need to get every branch of our armed forces into tip top fighting condition while never again wasting them on wars of choice like Iraq.