Tucson Cavalry References

In Tucson there are two good cavalry references outside of the statues of the Bugler and the Rough Rider.

One is on Park, there is cavalry officer painted on a building front of a store. Why? No idea.

Two is on the side of a buliding painted half red and white. There are fourteen horse shoes painted in various spots on it. It is next to a hot dog place and you notice it from the window.

So there are few old west buffs out there still.

B 709 vs Rough Riders

So the Desert Dragons had two diffeent heritages. Don't we all though? You have your name from your father, 8th Battalion 40th Armor would be this, and you have your mother's line, the Rough Riders would be this, just like every person does.

So what one do you identify with?

That is up to you as life is full of choices. I like both and luckily it looks like both make reference to Teddy Roosevelt so I guess we are in luck.

Thom Davidsohn

Felt like highlighting Thom's stuff today.

40th Armor Regiment And The Colors

So what about the colors on the 40th Armor Coat Of Arms? Well on the crest they don't have any as far as I can tell but on the shield it is a Masonic Reference.

The green background and the white T Rex mean two things. One is the regimental crest meaning of armor, but more inportantly is white is the symbol of purity. This is why the T Rex is white and not green. The Green background is a reference to the York Rite Freemason's Knight Orders known as the Green Degrees.

The red around the sword has two meanings. In masonry it is the color of war but on a sword it represents the Order Of St George and Winston Churchill was a member of that as well as the York Rite of Freemasons.

The Blue Tounge has a specifc meaning as well and that is to the Jews. In the Green Degrees there are numeorus references to the Old Testament.  In Numbers 15:38 it tells the jews they must attach a blue ribbon to their clothes.

You have to remember that Hitler rounded up the Freemasons as well so the notion that Churchill and FDR, although represented by his relative, would tolerate that is not very likely.

40th Armor Coat Of Arms

The 40th Armor Regiment Coat of Arms is in two parts. One the crest is on top and was made after World War Two because it reflects service during the war. The bottom is the shield and it was made in 1943.


The crest is an iron grate with eight openings that stands for Troop E 87th Cavalry. It was assigned to the Seventh Armor Division and broken up into four platoons and assigned as assualt gun sections to the other four recon cavalry troops.

The two chains have eleven links each. They represent the eleven companies that came out of the 40th Armored Regiment. Headquarters for the 40th Tank Battalion and 709th Tank Battalion are the loops. Companies A,B,C, D of both battalions and  Troop E 87 Recon Troop. There are two sets because that is how many battalions can be seeded from those companies under the Army Regimental system.

Th Lion represents the 40th Tank Battalion that was part of the Seventh Armor Division. This unit fought as part of the British Army on two occasions during the war and that is why the Lion.

The tree represents the 709th Tank Battalion. This unit fought at the battle of the Hurtgen Forest .

The shield represents the 40th Tank battalion in that it took the regiment's name just like a family crest. The sword represents Ascalon the name of Winston Churchill's airplane that make refrence to a medievil sword myth. The T Rex represents Teddy Roosevelt because of TR.

When they designed it in 1943 they knew it was going to the Seventh Armor Division and it is a reference to the British 7th Armoured Divison. That was really their first but they numbered it 7th. This was the unit that mentored American Armor in North Africa.

Why Churchill and Roosevelt? They were both Secretary of the Navy and Lord of the Admiralty of thier countries but more important both were cavalry officers as well.

The fact they used a Rough Riders area to seed a Reserve unit no doubt played a part in this.

314th and 111th Cavalry

The Rough Riders was started by Leonard Wood and Teddy Roosevelt to fight in the Spanish American War and went to Cuba. The 2nd Battalion was actually what became the 111th Cavalry of the New Mexico National Guard. The first and third battalions were volunteers with the majority coming from the Southwest.

The 314th was the next incarnation of this formation even though the 118th Cavalry alluded to it. There is no rule says you can not do that so that so it is like the Masons and the Knights Templar.

The 314th really was the Rough Riders and in that regard so was the 8th Battalion 40th Armor was really another incarnation that used the franchise package of the Army Regimental System.

Just food for thought.

May 1st 1970

So on May 1, 1970 Richard Nixon decides to invade Cambodia and the operations last until July 22 of that same year. So why was this such a big deal? The Kent State Riots were a direct result of this but what was the actual anger about?

Richard Nixon was elected to end the war. When he was Vice President under Eisenhower they had a very similar situation by having to end the Korean War. Eisenhower did this with in six months although we still have troops there today. The thought was that Nixon would just duplicate the formula but this was not possible as Korea is a penisula and Vietnam is not.

So this I will examine more in the future as well.

314th Cavalry Regiment

Years back I had a great discussion with a guy in my maintenance section of the 8-40 Armor at Fort Huachuca. In it we discussed 3.14 and the uses of determining the diameter of various pipe. He installed irrigation systems and I was working for a water utility.

Oddly we did not know that the old cavalry regiment for the Army Reserve out of there was the 314th Cavalry. It was also stationed at Fort Bliss as well.

Just food for thought.

Flight Of The Prisoners by Tissot

Gerald Ford

Was Gerald Ford the Reduction Gearbox of America?

When a turbine motor is mated to a transmission it has to have a way to reduce the torque so as not rip the transmission and drive train up. Think about the fact you are using an aircraft motor to power a land vehicle so this would be needed. The answer is a reduction gearbox and this is a device that takes the output of the shaft that is generated by the stators chopping the air to make it a force and taking it and using a series of defusing motions allows it to be used as the force needed to turn the shaft entering the transmission.

So if you think about the Vietnam War and the associated domestic problems it was Gerald Ford that allowed us to transition to what would become the Jimmy Carter era.

Sounds simple but I am going to explore our last true Freemason President of the United States.

Duty at Fort Riley

This Is Ridiculous!

Army chief faults unfit recruits for injuries

By Jim Wolf Jim Wolf Wed May 18, 6:57 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Army recruits have had poorer diets and are less fit than past generations, making them more prone to injury from heavier loads lugged in combat, its top general told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
"It's really the generation of Americans that have this problem," said Chief of Staff General Martin Dempsey. "But it's exacerbated by the load we ask them to bear."
He singled out poor eating habits plus carbonated drinks as a contributing factor to "musculoskeletal" injuries that have been a leading cause of U.S. medical evacuations from Iraq and Afghanistan. Such injuries typically include fractures, tendinitis and connective tissue disorders but not combat injuries.
Dempsey was responding to concerns from U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, a World War Two veteran who won the Medal of Honor, the highest U.S. decoration for military valor.
Inouye, 86, fretted that individual U.S. troops' combat gear was pushing toward 125 pounds (56.7 kg) compared with, as he put it, the no-frills load he carried as an infantryman.
"I feel for them because I believe my combat kit never exceeded 20 pounds (9 kg), including my rifle, boots and helmet, grenades and all the ammo I carried," the Hawaii Democrat said at a hearing on the Army's fiscal 2012 budget request at the Appropriations Defense subcommittee he chairs.
"I hope we can lighten the load and lighten the injuries," added Inouye, who lost his right arm in a battle against German forces.
Dempsey said troops' heavy combat load was a "constant issue on our minds" as the Army tried to lighten everything from boots to helmets to rifle opticals. It is also studying squad-level changes that could shift more of the batteries being lugged to automotive "mules" and robotic devices, he said.
But part of the problem "is that young men and women coming in the army today are not as fit or as skeletally sound as you were," he told Inouye.
"Even in basic training, before we load the soldier with the gear that eventually they will have to learn to bear, we have these same kind of musculoskeletal injuries," Dempsey said.
The Army did not immediately respond to a request for details of a typical combat load.
Inouye said musculoskeletal injuries had risen ten-fold in the last four years and the cost of related disability benefits was topping $500 million a year.
(Editing by Paul Simao)

San Francisco

Since the City of San Francisco is named after Saint Francis Asisi I thought I would move that stuff over here from Yankee Tirade. Although the St Francis House behind the Grand Lodge of New England is in Boston as well as Cardinal O'Malley being a Capuchin Friar which is an order that honors the saint as well.

So what is the big deal with St Francis? He is supposed to be the first person to get stigmata. Although there have been many cases since.They say it is real but who knows and its thought that eighty percent of people who get it are women.

So in the future I will examine this as well as Nixon and Cambodia.

Fort Richardson Chapel

Big 80s Metal

Listening to Big 80s Metal HDRN on the web. Forgot how this music was and we all thought it was so radical. In the end this will be viewed as just an extension of Do Wop music.

Still it was a fun time and I wonder if Fun and Games is still on Route 9?

More Tammy Ricker

She does some good stuff here.

RUSH

I am listening to Rush on the interent now. This is one of those bands that when you are into them you are really into them and then you might not listen for a year. Working Man still had to be their best work in my opinion.

Called That One Wrong!

Mike Huckabee announced he will not run for President. It is begining to look more and more like I will have to pull a Bull Moose and get in myself.

Just food for thought!

40th Regiment?

The 40th Armor Regiment has another interesting thing I would like to look at. It was formed at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana on April 15th 1941 as the 4th Armor Regiment but quickly renamed the 40th Armor Regiment on May 8, 1941.

Unlike the 1st Armor Regiment it did not take the history of the like numbered Cavalry Regiment.Or did it?

Robert E. Lee's last command before leaving the Union was the 4th Cavalry Regiment.The regimental coat of arms has a Tyrannosaurus Rex on it. The motto for the State of Virginia is SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS.

Gordon Sullivan

Gordon Sullivan of Boston, Massachusetts is a graduate of Norwich who went on to become the Chief of Staff of the United States Army. He served in the 3rd Battalion 40th Armor when it was an element of the 1st Cavalry Division in Korea in the early 1960s.

So he is a Force and Valor man as well.

Berlin Brigade?

Since 6th Battlion 40th Armor served in West Berlin it was allowed the Army of the Occupation Medal until 1990 unlike the rest of Germany that stopped issuing it in the 1960s.

Ronald Burgess, the head of the DIA, wears an Army of the Occupation Medal and is a 1974 graduate of the Armor Officers Course. So did he serve in the 40th Armor before going the intelligence route?

DIA is currently involved in intelligence gathering in the American Mexico Border Region as per Fox News.

The Chains?

So I have not figured out the true meaning of the chains on the 40th Armor/Cavalry Regiments' crest. Does it represent that there were active and reserve units during the Cold War? I do think the grate and chains do not represent World War Two but afterwards at this point. The lion and tree represent the 7th Armored Division elements and the tree the 709th Tank Battalion.

David Petraeus' father in law was in one of the 7th Armored Division elements before he became the head of West Point. I am not sure it was a 40th Regiment element of the 87th Recon Squadron because only Troop E was and the rest came from scratch as far as I can tell.

My 2012 Prediction

My guess right now for the 2012 GOP ticket is as follows:

Mike Huckabee and Joe Heck.

Skull and Bones

So what do Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have in common? They were all members of Yale's Skull and Bones before they became President. Howard Taft's father helped form the fraternity when he was at Yale himself.

The three do not share the same religion and only Taft was a Freemason. Taft was a Unitarian, H.W is an Episcopal and W. is a Methodist.

I have covered the whole agent 355 thing before but if you take the Skull and Bones emblem and flip it upside down in a mirror it says 355. Agent 355 was kidnapped from the Culper Spy Ring in the Revolution that was started by a Yale graduate.

Nina Berman

This is some good stuff from NYC that is by Nina Berman called Purple Hearts.

4th and 5th Battalions

So I figured out where the 4th and 5th battalions of the 40th Armor Regiment went. 4th was stationed at Fort Carson Colorado as late as the 1980s. The 5th Battalion was stationed at Fort Irwin in the 1960s.

So these might have been active duty replacements for the 2nd and 3rd when the left Korea.

The Rough Riders

Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood both have Masonic Lodges named after them .Oddly TR's is number 322 the skull and bones number as well as Ronald Reagan's cavalry regiment.

Kansas City

I bought one of those five dollar best of cds the other day of fifties music. Some stuff you just don't want on your ipod and it had Wilbert Harrison's Kansas City on it. Forgot how much I enjoyed that song.

Richard Nixon

Was Richard Nixon the FDR of the GOP?

He attempted to save millions from extermination by invading Cambodia in 1970 and is that not what FDR did in Central Europe in 1945?

He took us off the gold standard just like FDR had done before.

He fired bombed Hanoi but is that really any different than what FDR did to Germany and Japan?

So I think I am going to explore some of these issues in the near future.

The Dead?

I had a short conversation yesterday with a man around thirty that grew up just north of San Francisco. When I asked if he liked the Dead he asked who that was. I said the Grateful Dead and he replied I have no idea who that is.

I was shocked.

John Wayne Freemason

Just found out that John Wayne became a Freemason in Tucson, Arizona in 1970. Good to know.

The Conspirator

Just saw the Conspirator and it was a darn good movie. More of a court room drama than a Civil War movie but all in all it was good.

I had no idea John Wilkes Boothe shouted out the Virginia State Moto when he hit the stage after killing Lincoln.

7th United States Cavalry

I talked to an old fellow Desert Dragon who had been with Seventh Cavalry during Desert Storm. So I got o thinking why is it we are obsessed with Custer? It really should be Wesley Merrit we should study because like Custer he was a West Pointer that was general in his twenties but he survived and died of natural causes.

The coat of arms for the seventh does not match their DUI.

3rd Battalion 40th Armor

So it looks like there were two tank battalions attached to the 1st Cavalry Division while it pulled duty in the late 1950s early 1960s. The 2nd and 3rd Battalion 40th Armor were both there at one point and clearly functioned as a regiment in the regard that 3rd battalion was lettered E,F, G and H.

Tht system was discontinued years later but it makes me wonder if the 7th and 8th Battalion 40th Armor were used as reserve replacements when the 2nd and 3rd were pulled from Korea. This would make sense and makes me think the iron grate on the crest would be the DMZ and the chains the 2nd and 3rd and in a strange way the  7th and 8th as well.

In The Boom Boom Room

I am always looking for people, usually older, that have a fixed idea on what ruined America. I got a good one yesterday and it was David Rabe and his play In the Boom Boom Room. I have never seen it but the synopsis of it looks pretty subversive but you never know until you actually watch it.

So this is a nomination for helping cause the downfall of western civilization.

601 Cigars

I have a new brand I am getting into and that is 601 Cigars. I had the green ring the other day and the blue and both are very good.

Always good to find a brand that is generally good.