Friday, October 13, 2023

the GENERIC VETERAN


ENJOY SOME HISTORY IN VETERAN'S CHALLENGE CARDS

 Merchandise for the Generic Veteran  

genericvet.com    

vinyl sticker. Inquire.
Email Inquire  (vic@buzzcreek.com)

6x8 and 4x6 sticker sizes. Both are $10 ea shipping paid. 
order 4 or more and costs are $8 each. 
Paypal, Venmo, CashApp options to buy
Stock available December FIRST 2023
Venmo - @Vic-Campbell32570
CashApp - @me3tvorg
PayPal - paypal.me/buzzcreek

Include size and quantity as described in list (to be provided before Nov 25)

genericveteran.com (https://tinyurl.com/3ym8sc48)

.... in development.

Available merchandise is linked below .  For now we will use the SPRING.com service.


Item to begin

QRcode  Window decals  .  The Weasel Award began as an honor to Super Skates. 😁




Monday, August 28, 2023

US Civil War Naval Warfare

 The Naval Order of the United States  

Ask vic for meeting id and passcode vic@buzzcreek.com





History presentation for the September 13th, 2023 at 2000 (8 p.m.) Eastern:
NAVAL ORDER OF THE UNITED STATES

presents
Dwight Hughes
“The Naval Civil War in Theaters Near and Far”
13 September 2023: 2000 EDT

In his classic treatise of strategy, On War, Carl von Clausewitz discussed “different factors of space, mass, and time” related to battle, one of which is “theater of operations.” He defined an operational theater as: “A sector of the total war area which has protected boundaries and so a certain degree of independence.” Protected boundaries might consist of fortifications, natural barriers, or simply distance. Combat theaters of the Civil War are identified as the Eastern, the Western, and the Trans-Mississippi with subordinate campaign theaters in each.

The naval side of the conflict also can be defined in terms of theaters, which interacted with but are distinct from military counterparts. These naval theaters warrant independent consideration as: the Offshore Blockade, Littoral Coasts and Harbors, Heartland Rivers, and the Wide Oceans.

Bounded primarily by land-water interfaces, some wet theaters overlapped terrestrial sectors and extended into the continental core while others stretched beyond familiar battlefields to the far side of the world. Each exhibited unique characteristics and posed exceptional challenges to the United States and Confederate States navies and to their command authorities. Each employed unprecedented technologies, strategies, tactics, and command procedures.

The blockade was a bold and contentious strategy for a novice commander in chief, the largest military campaign of the war. In the littoral, titanic clashes erupted against powerful defenses while the U.S. Navy and Army began to envision joint operations leading to massive amphibious invasions. Naval and military operations converged most thoroughly in the heartland where riverine warfare was invented blending maritime mobility and firepower with hard fighting on land.

More successful than should have been expected, the Confederate Navy focused on underdog strategies: commerce raiding and blockade running at sea, with defense of key fortified positions along interior lines ashore bolstered by asymmetric new technologies including ironclads, torpedoes (mines), and submarines. On the oceans, swift Rebel commerce raiders blended the ancient technology of sail with revolutionary machine propulsion causing immense damage to powerful Yankee shipping and whaling interests.

This presentation introduces naval theaters and discusses their unique strategic, tactical, technological, and command characteristics. Based on an essay in The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War (Savas Beatie, 2023).

About the Speaker: Dwight Hughes is a public historian, author, and speaker in Civil War naval history (www.CivilWarNavyHistory.com). Dwight graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967 and served twenty years as a surface warfare officer including with river forces in Vietnam. He holds an MA in Political Science and an MS in Information Systems Management. Dwight authored A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015) and Unlike Anything that Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2021). He edited and contributed to The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War (Savas Beatie, 2023). Dwight is a contributing author at the Emerging Civil War blog and has presented at numerous roundtables, historical conferences, and other venues.
Watch this Naval Order History Presentation Zoom Meeting!

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81241470593?pwd=bEVtR1I4RFZNZ3BmWDBtR1dMWG15QT09

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Christmas Letter 2022..

Photos and notes from 2022.  Grand year! I just sent out the "Christmas cards"  in late January 2023. A note in the card points readers to this page for more information. 


So -- Here is a summary of a superb year.  

In January, Holly (Vandenberg) and Alex repeated nuptials with the "planned" wedding to cap off the wedding a year earlier (in February) that met severe restrictions over a pandemic.  It was a small family affair.  It set them on a path but to share the joy -- the "public" wedding for a grand celebration of friends and family took place.  The photos are a fine memory. Perhaps I will add a link here to a selection.  It certainly gave hope for a grand future in the world given all the superb young people in attendance who were and continue to be examples of the best of America. 

Karen and Vic made three trips to Houston Texas this year.  Our brother-in-law, John Platt passed away.  We celebrated Toni's birthday. There was a service of remembrance for a truly exceptional man. Two other trips to Houston in the course of the year helped Karen's sister to organize for her life to come. On the third trip in September, we attached a Houston Annual Meeting of the Destroyer Veterans Association (Tin Can Sailors) to celebrate with Vic's shipmates and families from the USS O'Callahan.  These are always fun events.  Shipmates are forever bringing up sea stories that require the refreshment of memory.  The added benefits of catching up with families and friends from a military experience and beyond . 

In APRIL, we also were honored to have our wonderful New Jersey friends (some are expatriates of NJ now as well) Join us in Milton for some refreshed memories and expanding some more. With our Gulf Coast as a backdrop the outings were easy.  Beaches and FOOD and Naval Air Museum and FOOD! To survive in NJ, people like us NEEDED the support of natives who spoke the language. They saved our lives on many occasions. AND their sons are lifelong friends of Alex. The sons were here for the wedding in January. They are the kind of people you always hope your life can be infused with.

Some of us have taken to sharing IRISH BLESSINGS with people we meet.  Our ship was named for an Irish Catholic Chaplain who was a hero in WWII with the USS Franklin (google) . In the course of honoring our ship's namesake, Fr. Joseph O'Callahan, we became close to the families of USS Franklin too. Sometimes we are able to join at their ship's reunions. 

One of our trips involved a visit to dear cousins (mom's Carswell side) - some with life changing events underway.  We were able to visit in Chipley (Gainer, Boswell), Panama City (Howell), Jacksonville (Bhide) and in Orlando and Melbourne, FL (Starling) . Our nephew's family (Kevin and Angie)  in Orlando gave us much enjoyment for a dinner out with the kids. While in Orlando we were able to participate with more NJ lifesavers - Charlie and Helen Yacomeni who held a 50th wedding anniversary.  It turns out, some of our favorite cousins are feeling the march of time as much as we are.  We are missing some of them already.  Rest in Peace, Carol (the last visit was purposeful with her dad's archives finding a safe home forever (E.W.Carswell collection at UWF Archives). Me missed the passing of our dear cousin Kitty Starling but were happy to share some memories with Warren. Kittye was only a few years younger than mom - and was her companion niece while mom lived with her sister, Vera to work in Jacksonville in the war years. 

Karen and Vic both had Covid in October. Fortunately the strain was not awful but mainly miserable. 

My sister and bro-in law , Wanda and John Roberts built a multi room cabin in a Christian retreat at Indian Springs, Georgia. (they have 16 grandkids and by tradition, enjoy this church camp experience every year - sometimes several times.   We went there in NOV with her and our other cousins from the Campbell side in the fall.  It was a refreshing experience to be with dear cousins and siblings to explore the historic area and sample the Georgia BBQ.  We do love our cousins.

In December, a few days before Christmas, my brother, Jim, remarried. His bride is Jane (Salter) Campbell.  They were both single and somehow, Jim eased her past his penchant for talking about all the history of the area, to settle down and enjoy being together.  We are all loving Jane. She has much family in the area as does Jim. Both are at home in the circles of the other. 

Actually, my blind friend, Roy Allen also got married this year, in November.  This is also a case of two older single people finding a mutual attraction.  Sandra is great with Roy and provides a "HOME", where before, he struggled weekly to maintain cooking and laundry. The house now sparkles with aroma of good cooking and bright home arrangement. (blind people don't require a lot of bright spaces because ... well ... they are blind anyway.  The whole atmosphere and attitude for Roy is improved and frankly, the same for Sandra. The love is real.

Back in March, Karen and Vic went up to Carrollton, GA to visit some long lost relatives. Vicky Gatewood and Terry and Gloria Gatewood were retrieved to the family radar and we had a tremendously rewarding experience from the family reconnection.  Life has many pathways. A recovered path can be a grand life experience.

Through all this year I have had the fantastic opportunity to visit the VA Clinic with some of my veteran buddies - sometimes for me and often for them. We had CRUDD meetings almost every Saturday. Coffee and regular guys - all of whom have some unique and fascinating part of themselves that is expressed in lively conversation. One of our CRUDDS is 91. Dick Miller is a story unto himself with many stories in my FB pages that expand on his life.  He is a Korean War Marine who survived in the same unit with my cousin, Rogene Kilpatrick (deceased) at the "Frozen Chosin". Yet for all his love of Marines, he never got to go to a Marine Corps Birthday Ball.  We tuxedoed him up and with Alex's Marine buddies we ferried him and his granddaughter to the ball in Mobile. Photo ops abounded and memories were made.  (CRUDDS - Chumuckla Reprobates Utopian Debate and Discussion Society -- see Chumuckla.com)