Tag Archive for joe boyles

Joe Boyles’ National Security: Hayek

November 29, 2011 Editorials Comments Off

By Joe Boyles

Guest Columnist

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you know that I’m a self-proclaimed conservative.  While my republican credentials are less than sterling, I’m a rock solid conservative.  Of the three brands of conservatism (economic, social, and security), each is important to my political philosophy, but my bottom-line is economic.  To me, if it doesn’t “add up,” everything else is moot.
But what does it mean to be a conservative and where does that come from?  I’ll endeavor to answer those questions personally.
I believe in free-market capitalism.  I think when government interferes with the free-market economy, it generally does so for the wrong reasons and mucks things up.  So I side with that first and great (small d) democrat Thomas Jefferson when he said, “that government which governs the least, governs the best.”
I don’t believe in central planning.  That’s for communists and socialist wannabees.  Decentralization is much like entrepreneurism; it unleashes the individual to, as the army likes to put it, “be all you can be.”  Accordingly, I believe in individual responsibility — if we all take responsibility for our individual actions and not look to others to blame when things go wrong, the world will be a better, more civil place.
I think one of the greatest creations of the American form of government was federalism – we are a united nation of fifty sovereign states.  This is in keeping with the theme of decentralization.  Each state is different and has a unique set of laws which apply only to that state.  When the heavy hand of Washington weighs in and trumps the rights of each state to make its own laws regarding issues reserved to the individual state, it angers me.  Not surprisingly, I am an “originalist” when it comes to interpreting the Constitution.
I believe in the elements of private business like profits; capital investment; cash flow; return on investment; cost of goods; customer satisfaction; competition, etc.  As a rule, these are concepts that are foreign to government and the public sector.  They live in another world.  They don’t have a clue about what makes the business cycle tick.  Naturally, I put my faith in the private sector economy.  If you want to see economic growth and greater employment, then place your emphasis on the private, not the public sector.  This is where I think the president has it exactly wrong.
So where do these ideas come from?  Maybe some of it had to do with my economics training in the late 1960s and my introduction to Milton Friedman.  A few years later, I did meet Barry Goldwater, but by then, his heyday had eclipsed.  I was a big fan of Ronald Reagan and the people who introduced us to supply-side economics.  Jack Kemp was one of my heroes.  But who laid the ground work conservative philosophy?
Quite possibly, the answer is a brilliant Austrian economist by the name of Freidrich A. von Hayek.  Writing from London in 1944 (he was in exile during the Nazi years), Hayek published the classic work, “The Road to Serfdom.”  What a simple but elegantly descriptive title!  Hayek rejected all forms of totalitarianism, whether in the form of communism, fascism, or anything else.  He argued that this would lead to subservience to the state or serfdom as he described.  And it wouldn’t be sudden.  There would be a road we would travel upon that would gradually eat our liberty and swallow our individual freedom to make our own choices, our own mistakes.
Hayek warned us that growth in planning was inevitable and that we must guard against it.  Today, we see this in the form of ever-growing regulation and increased tax burden.  These were battlegrounds that Ronald Reagan fought against during the 1980s.  Coming from central Europe, Hayek would see the economic turmoil of the European Union today as a natural progression of socialism and the welfare state.  It cannot be sustained and like all forms of totalitarianism, eventually will collapse under its own weight.  The central question is how much damage will it do before the fall?
One of the things that Hayek wrote about was “the law of unintended consequences,” legislation that often goes astray when bureaucrats and judges take over interpreting the new law.  That reminds me of a story told by Monica Crowley when she served as an intern to Richard Nixon during his post-presidency.  Crowley asked him what he was thinking when he signed the Endangered Species Act twenty years before and now was being used to economically hamstring farmers and other builders.  Nixon sheepishly replied, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Hayek died nearly two decades ago, but his good ideas have stood the test of time.

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Hurricane

August 23, 2011 Editorials One comment

No, this isn’t a diatribe about another sports scandal at the University of Miami, although I’m not certain who is more professional, the Canes or the Dolphins.  And can anyone tell me why the UM mascot is a duck?  Some things just defy explanation.

Instead, this is about Florida’s most serious natural threat – tropical cyclones or hurricanes.  With Irene bearing down on the southeast, I’m worried about a couple of issues.

First, we have a lot of new Floridians who have never experienced a hurricane.  After getting blasted in 2004 and 2005, we haven’t seen a hint of a big storm since.  And in those six years, Florida has continued to grow.  The 2010 census lists our population at 18.8 million.  In a couple of years, we’ll pass New York as the third most populous state.  That means a whole lot of folks don’t understand the intensity of these storms and how to prepare for a big blow.

They don’t understand how to plan for an approaching hurricane – food; medications; cash; a full gas tank; batteries and a radio; food and water for three days; etc.

They don’t understand the counter-clockwise rotation means that the worst area of the storm is in the northeast quadrant.  They don’t understand how you need to evacuate way ahead of time so you’re not caught in the mother-of-all traffic jams in deteriorating conditions.  They don’t understand that you need a place to evacuate to and people who will take you in.  They don’t understand that you might need to drive for 500 miles to find a vacant hotel room.

They don’t understand that the wind will destroy things but water kills.  They don’t have a plan to take care of their pets.  They don’t understand that once you evacuate, it may be weeks before you’re allowed to return to your home.

In short, they are green, and that is a dangerous thing on the peninsula of Florida during the second half of the year – the Atlantic hurricane season.

Second, a lot of real estate, particularly in coastal zones, is insured by the taxpayers of the state of Florida.  After those two devastating years (in 2004, we were hit by five storms including three major hurricanes; four struck Florida the next year including two major storms), property insurance rates went through he roof.  Homeowners complained to the politicians who were all too quick to put a band aid on the mess.

Led by newly elected Governor Charlie Crist and a compliant Legislature in 2006, the Florida CAT fund became the primary source of insurance and reinsurance in what was then a booming real estate market.  Private insurers bailed out of the Florida market faster than illegals in an ICE raid.  As we’re discovering with health insurance, private companies cannot compete with the government behemoth because politicians make sure that the government doesn’t charge market rates.  Instead, government goes belly-up when the bill comes due.

The Legislature has been pecking away at this problem for the past three years, but I’m deathly worried that when (not if) we get smacked by a big storm, the resultant bill will devastate our state budget.  Then watch our bond rating dive like opening day of scallop season.

Here in North Central Florida, it is easy to be complacent.  Nowhere in the peninsula is there anyplace more protected.  The shallow waters of the Big Bend are not conducive to attracting big storms.  Ernest Page, who was quite a historian, once told me that the only storm that was still a hurricane (winds above 75 mph) when it arrived in our county was the 1935 hurricane that first devastated the Keys.  If memory serves me correctly, that was the most powerful storm to strike the US mainland in the 20th Century.

But the damage from a major hurricane striking an urban area like the Gold Coast would affect us all in ways we cannot imagine.  The people who live in these hurricane-vulnerable areas must pay the insurance tab to protect their property.  The fact that vote-greedy politicians bought their support by buying down insurance rates betting  the state wouldn’t get struck, at least on their watch, is just another example of political malfeasance.

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Federalism

August 16, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles Guest Columnist

There is a huge debate raging just below the surface in our country, and it is as old as the nation itself.  The issue is “federalism.”  Are we a nation of 50 individual, unique states or are we a national melting pot where state (and local) laws are routinely trumped by the federal government?

When the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, they met because the Articles of Confederation that had been in effect since the Declaration of Independence created 13 state fiefdoms where all laws where subservient to each state law.  Imagine driving up the Valdosta Highway and stopping for a toll booth and customs inspection at the Withlacoochee River.  The fledgling United States was ungovernable.

So they created a Constitution to unite the country, but at the same time, they had to respect the rights of the individual states.  The key phrase was adopted two years later with the Bill of Rights.  The Tenth Amendment reads as such: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This is the basis of “states rights.”  Despite the negative connotation given this term during previous periods of racial strife, states rights are an important concept guaranteed by the Constitution.  It means that we are a collection of 50 states, each different, and state laws do matter in areas where federal jurisdiction is limited.

Unfortunately for three quarters of a century since the days of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the federal government has encroached severely into the rights of the states.  From their lofty perch on Capitol Hill, politicians refuse to recognize that Wyoming is not New York.  During the Carter Administration, Congress decided that the national speed limit was 55 mph.  I’ve driven on the New Jersey Turnpike where 55 is too fast.  Can you imagine driving across the expanse of West Texas at a plodding 55?  Dumber than dirt.

One of the actions which diminished the power of the states was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution.  This was the 1913 amendment that changed the election of senators from the legislature to popular vote.  In the original constitutional deliberations, it was decided that the senior half of the bicameral legislature, the Senate, would represent the states.  Accordingly, each state legislature would select two senators to represent the interests of the state.  Today, we have senators who are above their state’s interests and take a national perspective.  In my view, this has severely damaged federalism.

Today, we are seeing the states, predominantly those from the South and West, push back.   Twenty-six states, led by Florida, have challenged the constitutionality of last year’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  Although the challenge will be decided by the Supreme Court, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the state’s challenge.

Led by Arizona, many states are now pushing the federal government on immigration control.

Why should cash-strapped state governments be forced to pick up the tab for the social welfare (education, health care, worker’s compensation, etc.) of illegal immigrants when the federal government is failing to control our southern border?

Beltway insiders, who have no respect for the Constitution and specifically the 10th amendment, trample routinely on the rights of individual states in the name of big government.  Recall when then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacted to the reporter’s question concerning the constitutionality of Obamacare with this dismissive response: “You’re joking, right?”  This is hubris.

States are returning federal funds to Washington because too many strings are attached.  Here in Florida, our new governor rejected the I-4 high-speed rail project and returned a couple hundred million DOT dollars to Washington.  Kansas and Oklahoma have returned major healthcare grants to HHS designed to set up insurance exchanges.

The states are reacting to overreach by the federal government.  We are a great nation when the individuality of each state is recognized and respected. Too many swaggering politicians that we’ve sent to Washington have turned their back on federalism.  It is time we grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and set them straight.  For one, I’d like to see repeal of the 17th Amendment and return the selection of senators to the way Mr. Madison and his cohorts intended.

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A Snapshot In Time, At The Rotary Club

August 16, 2011 Around Madison Comments Off
Louise Florey, in her senior year, is the “Judson Girl” whose story Joe Boyles recounts in “Forever Young.”

Louise Florey, in her senior year, is the “Judson Girl” whose story Joe Boyles recounts in “Forever Young.”

By Lynette Norris
Greene Publishing, Inc.

Going through thousands of letters accumulated in his father’s old footlocker, Joe Boyles came across one small bundle of letters tucked into a corner, set apart from the rest.  At first, once he realized they weren’t letters written by his mother, he thought about just throwing them away.

But a voice began speaking from those letters, a voice belonging to a young teenaged girl from Monroeville, Ala., at the height of the Great Depression – 1936 to 1938.

Those letters became the basis for a short, non-fiction story penned by Boyles in 2005, Forever Young:  The Story of a Depression Era Judson Girl.

At the Aug. 10 meeting of the Rotary Club, he read excerpts from that story as he talked about the remarkable young girl who wrote the letters, and the friendship that began between two teenagers who met at camp one summer, nearly 70 years ago.

Louise Florey was a bright, attractive, dark-haired young girl, with a twin sister, a younger sister and a younger brother.  Her mother was a widow who was raising four children in Depression-era Alabama, a woman who somehow kept things together for her children.

Louise was doing well both in school and in 4H, well enough to earn a spot in the National 4H Camp in Washington D.C.  It was at that camp, during the summer of 1936, where Louis would meet fellow camper, Joe Boyles’ father, Eugene.  The two struck up a friendship that would continue over the next two years, through the exchange of dozens of letters, and follow Louise to Judson College for girls in Marion, Ala., where her hopes and dreams for the future began to take shape.

In September of 1936, as Louise was entering her freshman year, she wrote excitedly about how beautiful the college campus was, not very far from the Marion Military Institute for Young Men.

The students were awakened every morning by someone ringing a triangle loudly in all the dorms; the college newspaper was called, appropriately enough, The Triangle.

At that time, the freshman classes at most colleges were set apart for a period of initiation, and Judson was no different.  The freshmen, known as “rats,” were required to wear tennis shoes, huge hair bows, and the color red as they carried books for the upperclassmen.  A few months later, Louise was one of the upperclassmen, gleefully greeting a new wave of “rats” on campus.

The letters reveal other glimpses into a time long past, a time when movie tickets were 35 cents, when the death of movie star Jean Harlow at age 26 would come as a shock to a young girl, when the moody, unpredictable Rhett Butler of the wildly popular bestselling novel, Gone With the Wind would capture her imagination long before Clark Gable made the role his own.  It was a time when the mere prospect of having telephones in the dorm, although it didn’t pan out, was a cause for great excitement.

Louise loved to imagine that she was on “dates” with Eugene, even though they lived well over 300 miles apart.  “Let’s make it a date,” she would write of a movie coming out; they would both go alone at the same time on the same day and pretend they were on a movie date with each other.

As she imagined what her life would become and what she would do after she graduated, she also imagined the children she would someday have, and like her friends, she had already picked out names for them.  She would save all her letters that she received from all her friends and one day read them aloud to her grandchildren.

During the long, hot summer of 1938, Louise was on vacation from college, visiting a cousin in Alabama.  On a hot afternoon, just shy of her 19th birthday, she was drowned in a swimming accident when she and her cousin were washed over the spillway of a dam.

Eugene never saw Louise again after that summer at 4H Camp; during the two years following, his only contact with her had been her letters that he so carefully saved.  The letters would never be read aloud to grandchildren; they would remain silent until their discovery decades later, when they would speak to a new generation and afford a rare glimpse into a time long past – like a snapshot taken by a girl, who would herself remain forever caught in that time, forever young.

 

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Downgrade

August 9, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles – Guest Columnist

Last week’s downgrade of United States Treasury bonds by Standard and Poor’s is historic.  S&P has been rating our government bonds since World War I; this is the first downgrade.  The other two international rating agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, have not followed suit … yet — but can similar action be that far behind?

The fundamental reason behind the downgrade is our public debt, now approaching $14.5 trillion.  This level of debt is about 70 percent of our gross domestic product.  That’s bad, but the future looks even bleaker as the Obama Administration projects annual deficits in excess of a trillion dollars for as far as the eye can see.  This is unsustainable … which the S&P recognized when they downgraded our bonds from AAA to AA+.

The battle over the debt ceiling which concluded (temporarily) before the August 2nd deadline was a precursor to the downgrade.  The president and his party wanted a balanced approach which would include raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires.”  (Jargon rhetoric like this makes my head explode.)  The Republicans countered with spending cuts and no tax increases.  I’m not certain who “won” the debate, but I am certain that we’ve turned the corner on the debt ceiling – no longer will Congress blindly raise our “credit card” limit as they have done dozens of times without some sort of debate on the prudence and what must give.  The days of blank check spending are over.

If that message needed reinforcement, then S&P delivered the coup de grace with Friday’s action.

Meanwhile, the president appears feckless in his response.  No president can control the economy, but he gets credit for times when things go well and blame when they don’t.  Right now, he’s getting a lot of criticism.  Will this hold true 14 months from now when the course of the next election is set.  Who knows what will happen between now and then, but economies are like aircraft carriers at flank speed – it takes time and space to slow and turn them around.

Let me give you a formula for getting this economy rolling again.  First, let’s decrease federal spending.  That means tackling entitlements and reforming them for the 21st Century, not the New Deal and Great Society they were created for.  Second, let’s reform the tax code and make it flatter.  Remove a bunch of silly loopholes that accumulate through lobbying by special interests.  Third, let’s pull the shackles off business in the form of health care mandates, environmental rules based on poor science and general regulation.  Fourth, let’s begin domestic energy (oil and gas) exploration and production and watch tens of thousands of jobs be added to the economy.  Then, let’s stand back and watch the American economy grow impressively and lead the world as it should.

Do I believe that Barack Obama can provide the leadership to make these things happen?  In a word, no.  He is ideologically incapable of closing the gap between the possible and the likely.  His quiver is empty.  The revolver is spent – no bullets, silver or otherwise.

While the American economy is headed downhill in a hurry, the president is out raising obscene amounts of money to finance his billion dollar reelection bid.  Seems out of touch, doesn’t it?  Who’s to blame for the economic morass?  According to Obama, everyone and everything but him.  More signs of unreality.  What solutions does he offer?  More spending on unemployment insurance, investment in green technology, blah, blah, blah.  You know Mr. President, if you keep digging the debt hole, sooner or later you’ll end up in China … where most of our dollars are headed anyway.

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Rumsfeld’s Rules

August 2, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles – Guest Columnist

I just finished reading Donald R. Rumsfeld’s Known and Unknown, his extensive 2010 autobiography.  Next year, Don Rumsfeld turns 80.  He had led a remarkable life and apparently, saw fit to set his career down on paper.  Part of this was to explain his tumultuous six year stint as George Bush’s Secretary of Defense.

Don Rumsfeld hailed from the North Chicago suburb of Winnetka.  After schooling at Princeton and a stint as a naval aviator, he entered public life as a Congressional staffer.  In 1962, he was elected to Congress and served three terms before Richard Nixon selected him for a series of cabinet posts, including NATO ambassador.  During this time, Rumsfeld hired a young graduate student from Wyoming named Richard Cheney.  Their career paths would intersect repeatedly over four decades.

In August 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency rather than face impeachment hearings over the Watergate Scandal.  His appointed Vice President Gerald R. Ford became the 38th president.  Immediately he sent for Don Rumsfeld to become White House chief of staff.  He was just 42.  The next year, Ford appointed Rumsfeld the youngest secretary of defense in our history.

After Ford lost the 1976 election, Rumsfeld left public life for private business, becoming CEO of the G. D. Searle, a worldwide pharmaceutical company which developed the artificial sweetener Aspartame under his tutelage.  Over the next quarter century, Rumsfeld would lead several large business organizations and serve both Republican and Democrat presidents as special envoy.

Following the contentious 2000 presidential election, George Bush asked Don Rumsfeld to unretire and return the Pentagon for a second stint as secretary of defense.  He held that position until after the 2006 mid-term elections when he retired to his New Mexico ranch.  Close to half of the book is devoted to his service in the Bush Administration.

Having led such an interesting and challenging life, Don Rumsfeld is known for having penned “Rumsfeld’s Rules.”  There are dozens of these rules and I’ve selected a few to give you a flavor of their wisdom as well as my take on them.

(Public money drives out private money.)  You can chisel this in stone.  Wealth is created in the private sector.  Government confiscates some of that wealth in the form of taxes to provide services.  In so doing, it removes wealth from the economic engine.

(Treat each federal dollar spent as hard earned.  It was … by the taxpayer.  The federal government should be the last resort, not the first.)   These are corollaries to the previous rule.  All too often, we expect the government to do something that we can do ourselves much more efficiently.  No one wastes money more than the government.  Never forget, it is easier to spend (and waste) someone else’s money than your own.

(Watch the growth of the middle management level.  Reduce the layers of management.  They put distance between the top of the organization and customers.  Find ways to decentralize.  Push authority down and out in the organization.)  I’ve combined three of the rules into one because they are related.  Bureaucracies grow in the middle.  It’s sort of like putting on pounds around the waistline.  If you want to improve an organization, trim the administrators that make up “middle management.”  When one of these folks retires, don’t replace him and see how the organization handles the vacancy.

(People do better in staff jobs if they have operational experience.)  Oh yeah.  Nothing can substitute for experience; they have walked in the other man’s shoes.

(Watch for the “not invented here” syndrome.)  This is how good ideas are killed in a bureaucracy – we didn’t invent it so it must be a bad idea.

(Develop a few key themes.  Repetition is necessary.)  This is the genius of someone like Ronald Reagan.  Develop a few key objectives (deregulate, lower taxes, defeat the USSR), hire good people, and focus their efforts on achieving the goals.

To me, one of the most interesting sections of Rumsfeld’s autobiography is his description of work in the private sector.  His success in business was indicative that the leadership and skills he developed in public life would translate to the business sector.

Normally, I’m not a fan of biographies, and even less of autobiographies which often are self-serving, but “Known and Unknown” is different.  It is well researched and supported by documentation, footnotes, and source material.  If you are interested in the foreign affairs of the first half of the Bush Administration, I recommend Rumsfeld’s memoirs.

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Say it ain’t so, Joe

July 19, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles
Guest Columnist

We lost Joe Akerman this weekend at age 81.  Joe and I were just a couple of Joe’s we greeted each other with the phrase, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”  The roots of this greeting go back to the greatest scandal in baseball history when nine members of the Chicago White Sox were implicated in throwing the 1919 World Series.  The star player (his lifetime .356 batting average is second only to Ty Cobb) of the team that would be forever known as the “Black Sox” was Shoeless Joe Jackson.  When the scandal was revealed, a youthful fan looked up into the eyes of his hero and said, “Say  it  ain’t so, Joe.”

So Joe A and Joe B would regularly greet each other with the famous phrase: “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”  We shared a love for history which was Joe’s profession and my avocation.  Joe would call me up and tell me of an idea for my column or a book I should read.  No one contributed more ideas to this column than Joe Akerman.

He was particularly fond of veteran’s stories and introduced me to several local World War II vets who had compelling stories.  It was Joe who introduced me to Earl Dennis, a B-17 bomber pilot who lived on the Valdosta Highway.  Earl was a fascinating and humble fellow that I became great friends with.  My story about Earl’s 1944 tour with the 91st Bomb Group is now at our museum and is one of my best.

Joe also told me about Lee Cason’s wartime diary.  In 2005 when I went to see Lee, he was too far gone mentally to be able to discuss his wartime exploits in the Southwest Pacific, but his diary was so remarkable that the story was already written … at the time it happened.  This is living history.

Joe was a Gator and proudly wore the orange and blue.  For years at NFCC, Joe had a running bet with die-hard Georgia Bulldog Bobby Scott: whoever lost the annual October “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” had to wear the other team’s hat around campus the following week.  Bobby hated … hated wearing that Gator cap, but a bet is a bet.  In his own subtle way, Joe could rub it in with the best of them.Joe had a great sense of humor, but he was so subtle that it would sneak up on you.  Not until he displayed that wry smile and wink would you know that you’d been had – the joke was on you.

Joe was also a great Republican and conservative, but surprisingly, I didn’t talk politics with him too often.  I think it was because we had other things to talk about that were more interesting and fun.  When I would get too political in my column, Joe would chide me, “When are you going to stop writing that political garbage and get back to writing stories about our veterans?”  He could needle me pretty good.

Of course, Joe was a published author.  No one documented the history of Florida’s cattle industry and the colorful men who formed its backbone better than Joe Akerman.  His books are classics.  After all, it was beef cattle that put Florida on the map before oranges and tourists became popular.

Joe was one-of-a-kind, and I will miss him.  We have his lovely bride Princess to hold up and for that, we can be glad, but it won’t be the same without Joe.  I’ll miss his advice; his pranks; our debates.  When I lose a friend like Joe Akerman, it gets down to the fact that I’m selfish – I don’t want to lose what I had.  Say it ain’t so, Joe.

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Rockin’ Robin

July 12, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles – Guest Columnist

I just finished reading Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds, edited by his daughter Christina along with Ed Rasimus.  When my daughter Kim sent it to me for Father’s Day, she had no idea that I had a long association with General Olds.

In the fall of 1967, I was beginning my second year as a cadet at the Air Force Academy.  Then Colonel Olds arrived at USAFA to become the commandant of cadets.  He took over from BGen Ted Seith, a well respected bomber pilot.  Olds brought the swagger and bravado of a fighter pilot to the cadet wing.  The change was palpable.  General Olds would remain commandant for the remainder of my schooling, nearly three years.

Robin Olds, who died four years ago at age 85, lived a story-book life.  He really was “larger than life.”  His father Robert was an aviation pioneer from the WW I era so the boy grew up in the company of airpower greats like Hap Arnold, Billy Mitchell, and Tooey Spaatz.  Naturally he wanted to follow in their footsteps.

That led 18 year old Robin to West Point in the summer of 1940.  Because of the war, his class would graduate a year early in June 1943 and by that time, he had earned his pilot wings during summer training.  He also played football, earning All American honors in 1942 as a tackle (he played at 6’2”, 205).  Years later, he would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

The reason Olds attended West Point was to obtain a regular commission and become a fighter pilot which he accomplished.  His first fighter was the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.  The P-38 flew primarily in the Pacific theater, but Olds’ group, the 479th went to England to join the 8th Air Force.  He became an ace (5 enemy kills) in the P-38 before his group transitioned to the better P-51 Mustang.  Olds ended the war in Europe with 13 air-to-air kills, 12 by ground strafing, the rank of major (at age 22) and command of a fighter squadron.  He was well on his way to a remarkable career.

Robin Olds came of age in the golden age of aviation brought about by so much wartime innovation.  Consequently, he flew dozens of different fighters during a time when new aircraft were introduced yearly.  One of the most interesting things about this book is his detailed description of the flying characteristics of so many aircraft.  For example, there is a great description of the problem of compressibility in the P-38 where the shock wave in a high speed dive renders the tail elevator inoperative.  The only way to recover from the dive is for the aircraft to slow down sufficiently to regain control of the elevator.  Robin was able to recover from this mistake.  How many did not?

Returning from England, Olds was an early entry into the new technology of jets, qualifying to fly the P-80 Shooting Star.  At an early air show featuring jet fighters, Robin met Hollywood siren Ella Raines.  A year later they married, beginning a tempestuous 29 year relationship.  In truth, they never reconciled their differences.  Ella was a movie star and her husband, a hard-nosed fighter pilot.  It was not a match made in heaven.  Love does not always conquer all.

Robin continued his career, flying fighters and leading units and men.  Ella would follow him some times, consenting to live in Washington, New York or London while her husband flew in Germany, England and North Africa.  Two daughters were caught in the middle of their parent’s troubles.

When Olds was sent to the Pentagon, he was a caged tiger.  Suffice it to say that he made just as many enemies as he did friends.  After serving as wing commander at RAF Bentwaters in England, he arrived at Ubon, Thailand to command the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing in the fall of 1966.  For a year, Olds led the Wolfpack into tough battles against the North Vietnamese.  He flew 152 combat missions over the north, knocking down four MiGs with missiles from his F-4C Phantom

II.  His reward for the brutal year was a general’s star and command of the Academy’s cadet wing.

I learned a lot of things from General Olds, among them leadership by example.  Robin led his men from the front.  (Trust me; he would do more than sneer at anyone who suggests that you can lead from behind.)  He believed that you should not ask anyone to do something you are unwilling to do yourself.

Robin Olds was an imposing man; after all, he was a tackle.  He spoke with a raspy voice.  He was a heavy drinker, but I observed that more of the whiskey in his glass would be poured over the head of some unsuspecting fellow than actually down his throat.  At age 85, it wasn’t his liver that gave out but rather, his heart.

Fighter pilots are amazing, Type A personalities.  They charge head-long into the fray, modern day knights of the air.

They are masters of their machine.  They live life on the edge.  Robin Olds was a fighter pilot’s fighter pilot, the leader of the pack.  I’ve met many unforgettable men over the years, and Robin Olds was at the head of the list.

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Overseas

June 28, 2011 Editorials Comments Off
National Security
Joe Boyles, Guest Columnist

 

In my 27 year military career (1970-97) covering 12 assignments, three of those were spent overseas.  My first assignment out of flight training was to Korea in 1972.  I spent about half the next thirteen months in Southeast Asia at DaNang AB in Vietnam and Korat AB in Thailand.  Next, we went to England for three years.  In the early 1980s, we spent nearly three years in Germany.  In those assignments and a later as an inspector general, I traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Far East.
I must admit that overseas assignments were an attraction to me and my family during my military career.  We enjoyed living in foreign cultures, gained a much better world-view and appreciation for our home, the United States of America.
That said, it is important to look at our military commitments overseas in today’s context and ask, are we overextended; are we in places that no longer make any sense; and do these commitments have the opportunity to create problems for our nation?
Last week, President Obama announced that we would be withdrawing about one-third of our military commitment to Afghanistan over the next 15 months.  Today we have about 100K military servicemen, mostly Army and Marines, in Afghanistan.  Thirty months ago when Obama took office, we had about 35K in Afghanistan but the outgoing Bush Administration had built a plan to double that strength.  Obama implemented that plan, then surged another 30K to the current strength.
President Obama’s announced drawdown is clearly politically motivated – he wants to demonstrate to his political base that he is serious about winding down our military commitment in Afghanistan.  His announced withdrawal is two months prior to the next presidential election where he wants to be reelected.
This was a more aggressive timetable than was recommended by his military commanders.  We’ll be withdrawing most of these troops during the 2012 fighting season which extends into November.  It isn’t a good idea to withdraw forces when your enemy is strongest.
In the larger context, think about our military commitments overseas today.  In addition to 100K in Afghanistan, we have nearly 80K still in Europe, primarily in England, Germany, Italy, and Turkey; 60K in Iraq; 30K in Korea; 30K in Japan; 10K in Panama; and thousands more sprinkled at various locations around the globe.  It is a heavy and expensive commitment.  Certainly America is the premier global power in the early 21st Century, but do we need this many stationed at overseas locations?
Do we need overseas bases at all?  Yes, just like the Navy needed overseas coaling ports a century ago, we need overseas bases to project our naval and air power.  We cannot base everything from CONUS (continental US) bases – the earth is simply too large.  I’m not as convinced that we need much overseas land power, i.e. soldiers and marines.  I fear that we are maintaining some of these bases and manpower in foreign lands simply because we’ve always done it, at least since the end of World War II.  It is kind of like inertia; public policy via the status quo.
How many soldiers do we need in Germany or Marines in Okinawa?  Why are we devoting so many soldiers to protecting the border of South Korea while ignoring our own southern border with Mexico where we have a sincere threat to national security?  After six decades, can’t the South Koreans protect their own national sovereignty?
It is expensive to base overseas and that money largely goes to prop up the economy of the host country.  CONUS bases recycle taxpayer dollars to the local economy and the impact is significant – just ask our neighbors in Valdosta and Lowndes County.
The Pentagon bureaucracy is about as nimble as an aircraft carrier traveling at full speed.  This is a matter where political leaders who are sincerely interested in national security must ask the right questions and force the “military-industrial complex” to justify such a heavy overseas commitment.

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Double Negative

June 7, 2011 Editorials Comments Off

National  Security
Joe Boyles  – Guest Columnist

I love the English language.  I enjoy crafting words into sentences in the traditional form – subject, verb, and object with prepositional phrases thrown in to make the sentence even more descriptive.  It is wonderful to compile sentences into a coherent paragraph, and then a set of paragraphs which carry a theme to a logical conclusion.  My love for English is one of the reasons I write this column each week.
I do my very best to follow the rules of our language, so you can imagine my chagrin when a congressman last week said, “I can’t say with certitude that picture isn’t me.”  My 8th grade English teacher Mrs. Banks would have roasted me for uttering a double negative – in this case, “can’t and isn’t.”  She would have sternly said that two negatives cancel themselves so that in essence, you are saying “I can say with certitude that picture is me.”  Mrs. Banks would have given me an F for such a transgression.
The congressman in question is Anthony Weiner from some place in New York City.  He’s supposed to be really smart even though he said (and did) something really dumb.
The picture in question is of a man’s mid-section clothed in underwear.  Whoever sent this picture of whomever (after more than a week of tortured explanations, there are still a lot of things unclear), the subject was – how can I put this delicately – inspired and the recipient of the Facebook photo was a young coed at Washington State University about half the age of weirdo Weiner.
This subject is only tangentially related to national security because Weiner is an influential congressman who claims that he was one of the principal architects of the contentious health care bill, the so-called Affordable Healthcare Act of 2010 aka Obamacare.
I really couldn’t resist writing about this indiscretion.  Opportunities like this are rare.
There are a lot of things I can say about this.  First of all, let’s start with a disclaimer: I can say with absolute certitude that photo is not me.  Whew – now I feel better.  Second, although I’m a great believer in heritage and family, if my name was “Weiner,” I’d give very serious consideration to changing it.
Where I grew up, boys with a name like Weiner would get beat up.  Instead, I’d change my name to something like Lance Armstrong.  Guys with names like that don’t get beat up.  If my name was Dwayne Johnson, which isn’t too bad, I might change it to The Rock.  Guys named The Rock never get beat up, especially if they look like The Rock.
Here’s another disclaimer: I don’t have a Facebook account … and I don’t Tweet, whatever that is.  When someone under the age of thirty asks me “how many friends I have,” I give them a blank look.  I don’t even text which shows you what a techno-dinosaur I am.  I’m not saying I’ll never do those things, but if facing and texting and tweeting get you into trouble like old Weiner, I don’t want any part of it.  I get in plenty of trouble without going out of my way to look for new opportunities.
Is it easier to write about Anthony Weiner’s difficulty because he’s a liberal nerd?  Sure it is, but I’d like to think that I’m non-partisan when it comes to political hijinks.  To me there’s a certain amount of justice seeing these high-flying politicians brought low by their own silly actions and ridiculous explanations.  I’m all for self-inflicted wounds.
For example, let me see if I can come up with a plausible way to explain why someone is caught playing footsy between stalls in the men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis Airport – just killing time between flights??????  If you buy that, I have some waterfront property about 20 miles east of Miami you might like.
You know, sometimes a word can be both a noun and verb in our borrowed language.  Take the word “weasel.”  Not only does Weiner look like a weasel (noun), but he’s trying to weasel (verb) his way out of a mess of his own creation.  I chuckle just thinking about his tortured explanations.  He’s changing his story faster than Lady Gaga changes outfits.
In the wake of the Watergate nearly forty years ago, when the suffix “gate” is added to your name, you’re in a heap of trouble.  Welcome to Weinergate.  Just as in the real Watergate Scandal, the original sin is damaging but recoverable.  But, the cover-up quickly spins out of control.  Politicians frequently lie, but we don’t want to catch them in a bald-face lie intended to save their sorry butt.  Just ask John Edwards.
You know, I’m being too hard on Tony W (that sounds better than Anthony Weiner, doesn’t it).  He’s disadvantaged.  If he had Mrs. Banks in the 8th grade like I did, she would have set him straight – in more ways than one.

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Joe Boyles To Speak At Historical Society Meeting

February 18, 2011 Around Madison Comments Off

The Madison County Historical Society will have their meeting on Sunday, February 27 at 2:30 p.m. (changed to fourth Sunday this month). It will be held at the Treasures of Madison County Museum, 200 South Range Avenue. Joe Boyles will speak on Madison’s Treasures.

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