Category: history

Selective Service, then and now

In the late summer of 1986, I signed up for Selective Service, aka “the draft”. I had just turned 18, and this was the law.

In those pre-internet days, everything was paper-based. Most of us signed up at the nearest branch of the US Post Office.

I would like to claim that I was rip-roaringly gung-ho to kill commies (the default US enemy of choice in those days), but that would make me seem far more heroic than I actually was.

In those latter days of the Cold War, relations between the USSR and the West were thawing. A youthful reformer named Mikhail Gorbachev was in the Kremlin, and he seemed very eager to reach an accommodation with the West. Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Despite Reagan’s earlier remarks about the USSR being an “evil empire”, Reagan wanted peace, too.

Then, as now, the Middle East flared up from time to time. In April 1986, Reagan bombed Libya in retaliation for that country’s part in the bombing of a West German disco, in which two US service personnel were killed. This action went down in history as Operation El Dorado Canyon.

But no one expected a protracted conflict in the Middle East, some five years before the 1990-1 Persian Gulf War.

The Vietnam War, moreover, was still in recent memory (though I could not remember it). Anyone over the age of 35 could recall how divisive that war (and its accompanying draft) had been.

In August 1986, my odds of being drafted were about the same as my odds of going on a date with Heather Locklear.

That was then, and this is now. The Trump administration has just announced plans to automatically register 18 to 25 year old men for the draft, starting in December.

On one hand, this represents no substantial change of the law. To the best of my knowledge, today’s 18-year-old men are subject to the same Selective Service obligation that I complied with back in 1986.

What about the war in Iran? Disastrous and ill-advised as that conflict is turning out to be, I don’t foresee a long commitment there. This is not the USA of 1964 or 1990. There is no appetite for an extended ground conflict in the Middle East. Even President Trump seems to realize that he’s made a major blunder. At some point, we will either negotiate a settlement, or declare victory and go home.

The new policy is, rather, typical of the automating craze of the twenty-first century, one that requires us to opt out, while Big Brother (in either corporate or governmental form) constantly opts us in.

From an administrative standpoint, if there is going to be a Selective Service system at all, this new policy probably makes sense. We aren’t in 1986 anymore, and that old system was burdensome and inefficient.

I noted this even then. The government already had my name, age, address, and Social Security number. Why did they need me to proactively sign up for Selective Service, when it wasn’t optional, anyway?

-ET

Buc-ee’s and the need for belonging

This past week the first Buc-ee’s opened here in Ohio. The event attracted Buc-ee’s fans from throughout the Midwest. Some reportedly camped out in front of the store. They saw sleeping on the pavement as a small price to pay, if it meant being among the first customers through the doors on the morning of the grand opening.

This is a gas station we’re talking about.

I can just imagine the reaction of some of the readers in Massachusetts or California. “Well, what do you expect of the unwashed masses in Ohio, that flyover state where most people vote Republican?”

But foolish mass events are not limited to Ohio or the Midwest. Consider the time, money, and emotional energy that people invest in Taylor Swift and spectator sports. Remember the Pokémon GO fever of a few years ago?

It would be easy—and facile—to dismiss all such followers of mass enthusiasms as dimwits or sheep. But there is something far more complex going on here. No one really cares that much about a gas station, even if every Buc-ee’s does have a vast, deluxe restroom.

And no, they aren’t all idiots.

I grew up during the 1970s and 1980s. I didn’t grow up in a small town, but I grew up in a close-knit suburban environment. I saw both parents every day, and my grandparents every week. I attended the same schools that my mother attended. Many of my classmates’ parents had been my mother’s classmates.

My growing-up environment felt almost like one big extended family. This doesn’t mean that everyone was always kind and supportive (though many people were). But there was a sense of: this is your home, your microcosm within the much larger, much more random and unknowable world.

I don’t feel that way about this twenty-first-century environment, and I know that many others share this sense of dislocation, or isolation. The situation is made even worse by the uncertainty of global events, and the bad behavior of our national leadership in recent years.

And yes, if you’re married (or otherwise romantically partnered) you might smugly say: “Well, I have my significant other.”

Perhaps you do…for now. Romantic partners are notorious for dying, moving on, and changing the locks on you. Most people, even if they’re romantically partnered, find that they need more than that.

I’m talking about a broader social support system. This is what used to be provided by communities of church, school, extended family, neighbors, and old friends. This was once the reality for many Americans—not in some distant, mythical past, but within my lifetime. I know, because I experienced it.

But we no longer attend church, we homeschool our kids, and most of our relatives live in another state. Old friendships and acquaintances are limited to Facebook.

It is therefore not entirely surprising that people seek group affiliation via Taylor Swift or Kansas City Chiefs fandom.

Or, perhaps, enthusiasm for the grand opening of the next Buc-ee’s.

So yes, I understand, on one level. But I can’t help reminding you: at the end of the day, it’s just a gas station.

-ET

Civil War veterans in the 20th century, and other temporal oddities

Union and Confederate veterans shake hands at the Gettysburg reunion of 1913.

The last verified combat veteran of the American Revolutionary War was John Gray. He died in Noble County, Ohio, at the age of 104. Gray was present at the Siege of Yorktown, among other battles.

So here was a man who lived long enough to a.) fight in the American Revolution (1775-1783) and b.) see the conclusion of the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Speaking of the Civil War: many Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, lived well into the first half of the twentieth century. I have seen newspaper clippings from the Cincinnati Enquirer, showing such men in Memorial Day parades as late as the early 1940s.

My paternal grandfather (born in 1909) once told me that he interacted with many Civil War veterans during his Indiana boyhood, though they were all very old men by this time.

The last verified veteran of the American Civil War, Albert Henry Woolson, died in Duluth, Minnesota in 1956. Woolson was 106 years old.

Wow. Nineteen fifty-six. That is not so long ago, in historical terms. My parents were both ten years old in 1956. I would be born a mere 12 years later. So fifteen years before I was born, the American Civil War was still technically part of “living memory”.

The last verified African American slave, Peter Mills, died in 1972 at the age of 110. (There were a few other claimants who died around the same time, but Mills was the oldest one whose story was verifiable.) That was well within my lifetime. (I was four.)

Facts like this fascinate me, because I am both a.) a history aficionado, and b.) a nostalgic. (I had a strong sense of nostalgia by the time I entered my teens.)

I can claim no meetings with Civil War veterans or former slaves, but I do have one connection to the nineteenth century. My great grandfather, who was born in 1895, lived until 1987, the year I turned nineteen. I can now claim to know, or have known, individuals born in three consecutive centuries.

-ET

New Cover for REVOLUTIONARY GHOSTS!

Revolutionary Ghosts is my 2019 novel based on a premise that mixes supernatural horror and history:

Suppose that the Headless Horseman of Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” were to return to terrorize modern-day America.

But not 21st-century, present-day America. (The current century has enough real horrors without make-believe, thank you very much.)

Most of Revolutionary Ghosts is set in 1976, the year of the American Bicentennial. This is historical horror with a cool ‘70s vibe.

The original 2019 cover was, however, badly in need of a refresh. This is the new cover:

You can find Revolutionary Ghosts on Amazon. The book is coming out of Kindle Unlimited on April 1. Shortly after that, you’ll be able to get it on Apple Books, Kobo, Google, and B&N. Library distribution will also be rolled out. So you can read it that way if your local library has an arrangement with OverDrive.

-ET

Pearl Harbor + 84 years

This happened 27 years before I was born. But I grew up hearing about it from my grandparents, who were members of the World War II generation.

In 2025, the living ranks of those who remember this as news are growing thin. But for me (largely because of my grandparents), December 7 will always have a special significance.

And this Pearl Harbor Day, like the first one, falls on a Sunday.

-ET

The year is 1938…

The year is 1938. Betty Lehmann is an undercover German spy. Can anyone stop her? Find out in THE CAIRO DECEPTION, a 5-book, World War II historical fiction series.

**Read it for FREE in Kindle Unlimited**

 

 

Veterans Day, and my grandfather’s World War II stories

Tuesday was Veteran’s Day here in the USA. Many GenXers, myself included, had grandparents of the World War II generation.

My maternal grandfather was born in 1921 and enlisted in the US Navy in December 1941, shortly after Pearl Harbor. In the video below, I relate some of the stories he used to tell me.

Happy Veterans Day to all who served!

-ET

‘Red Storm Rising’ by Tom Clancy (reading notes)

Some quick reading notes…
 
I’ve been reading Tom Clancy’s 1986 novel, Red Storm Rising.
 
The book posits a war between NATO and the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
 
Here’s the odd thing: 
 
Clancy decided to more or less ignore nuclear weapons, making this hypothetical war a solely conventional one. Not a very realistic story choice, but Red Storm Rising would have quickly become a post-apocalyptic novel otherwise.
 
It’s interesting reading, if you like long battle scenes and the other books in Tom Clancy’s oeuvre.
 
-ET
 

Bonner Fellers, ‘Emperor’, and postwar reckoning in Japan

On September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally, effectively ending World War II. The American postwar occupation of Japan began shortly thereafter.

Japanese forces committed many atrocities during World War II. Their victims included subjugated Asian populations, as well as Allied prisoners of war. The postwar era would bring a reckoning. Among the first tasks of the US occupation authorities was to round up Japanese officials who were guilty of war crimes.

Japanese officials aboard the USS Missouri on September 2 1945 for the surrender ceremony

Adjacent to this was determining the culpability of Emperor Hirohito. Hirohito’s future status was a sensitive topic.

The Allies did not demand Hirohito’s overthrow and imprisonment as an explicit condition of surrender, which prevented Japan from continuing the fight until the last man. But Hirohito’s long-term continuation on the Chrysanthemum Throne was not a foregone conclusion, either. That would depend on whether or not the American occupation authorities would try him as a war criminal.

In a worst-case scenario, Hirohito would hang, and the Japanese would stage a general insurrection against the US occupation. A bad outcome for everyone. Therefore, the options had to be weighed carefully, and it would all begin with an investigation.

This is the subject of the 2012 movie Emperor. Continue reading “Bonner Fellers, ‘Emperor’, and postwar reckoning in Japan”

‘Texas’ by James Michener (mini-review)

I have just finished reading Texas (1985) by James Michener.

James Michener (1907-1997) specialized in vast historical novels, usually centered upon the history of a particular place.

For example, Hawaii (1959) covered the history of Hawaii. Alaska (1988) covered the history of our 49th state.

View on Amazon

His books are long and vast in scope. A thousand pages is a typical length. Michener wrote novels that today’s short attention-spanned, Internet-addled American finds daunting. But he was quite popular during his heyday, the 1950s through the 1980s.

Because of the historical scopes involved, Michener’s novels span many generations, with wide casts of characters. His books are less novels, in the conventional sense, than collections of interconnected novellas. If James Michener were alive today, and publishing on Amazon Kindle, he would almost certainly be publishing his long books as series of novellas. But that wasn’t what the brick-and-mortar-centric book retailing industry of the 20th century wanted. And so James Michener’s long tales were delivered as doorstop-sized novels.

Texas follows the usual Michener formula. There are storylines from the Spanish colonial period, the obligatory story about the Alamo (of course), and characters from more recent times.

I have sometimes found James Michener to be a bit too didactic. (In the historical fiction blockbuster space, I much prefer Edward Rutherfurd and John Jakes.) A novel based in historical events is fine; but if I want to read an actual history, I’ll turn to nonfiction. But in Texas, Michener emphasizes story and mostly avoids the dreaded info-dump.

I am not even going to attempt a plot summary of Texas. There is simply too much to describe. Any plot summary I might write would run on for five thousand words, the length of a long essay or a middling short story.

Suffice it to say: Texas contains many plots and characters related to the history of Texas. It’s also a very entertaining book, if you aren’t daunted by the 1096-page length.

-ET

‘The Americans’: is now the time for a sequel?

I don’t evangelize many 21st-century television shows. But I am unabashed in my enthusiasm for The Americans, the period spy drama that originally aired on FX from 2013 to 2018.

The Americans is about big events of the final decade of the Cold War. But it is also a family drama: about Philip and Elizabeth Jennings and their two children. The Jenningses are deep-cover Soviet KGB operatives. Philip and Elizabeth do all the bad things you would expect KGB agents to do. But they also cope with the pressures of maintaining their cover, and keeping their secret from their two children, who were born in the USA.

The series finale was set at the end of 1987/early 1988, just as Cold War tensions were easing. No spoilers here, except to say the series ended in a way that was satisfying, while simultaneously leaving the door open for sequels.

And it’s easy to imagine any number of sequels, based on a myriad of post-1988 plot lines. So much was yet to happen: the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan (1989), the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), and the collapse of the USSR (1991).

And what about the post-Soviet, Yeltsin and Putin eras? The possibilities are endless.

In a March 11, 2023 interview on The Rich Eisen Show, series star Matthew Rhys hinted at the possibility of The Americans continuing in some form.

That was almost two years ago. I remain cautiously hopeful. But I am also realistic about these things. Despite the high quality of the show’s concept and execution, a revived version of The Americans would face certain obstacles.

To begin with, young audiences may have difficulty relating to the subject matter. I am in my 50s and I remember the 1980s as if that decade ended last year. Viewers under 40, who lack such a perspective (and who have suffered the intellectual depredations of American public education) may struggle to get a foothold as they begin a show that involves Cold War-era history.

The Americans premiered in a crowded 2010s TV arena, filled with more accessible shows involving dragons, superheroes, and teenagers performing magic. The Americans was always a critical success, but it never got the viewership it deserved.

That may also have been an issue of timing. Between 2013 and 2018, the US public was focused on economic recovery, ISIS, Islamic terrorism, and the 2016 presidential election. The Cold War and Russia seemed far, far away.

That faraway perception of Russia may have changed, however, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and talk of a Cold War II from all quarters.

Now may be the perfect time to revive The Americans, in fact. A post-Soviet storyline would make the most sense. But there is plenty of material surrounding the fall of the USSR, too.

Even if The Americans zoomed forward to the present era, it could be made to work. All of the main characters, though much older, could plausibly still be alive.

I’m crossing my fingers for a sequel to my all-time favorite television show. As the above interview with Matthew Rhys suggests, I’m not alone in hoping for more seasons of The Americans.

-ET

Audrey Hepburn’s languages

I study multiple languages, and I worked for many years as a professional translator. I love foreign languages, and I love learning them.

Nevertheless, I don’t have much interest in the online “polyglot” community, as it has come to exist on social media platforms like YouTube. 

Nor will I ever create one of those cringeworthy YouTube videos in which a language learner displays his or her various languages for the virtual claps of fellow language learners.

(On that note: I am particularly dismayed by the “polyglot” YouTuber who employs randomly chosen native speakers as unwitting”props” in public spaces.)

I am far more impressed with people who combine multilingualism with a full slate of personal and professional interests. Foreign language study should be a part of every well-rounded, well-educated life. But not the sole focus of it…and certainly not an excuse to engage in constant public preening.

This is why I’m genuinely impressed by the linguistic achievements of the late Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993). Her first language was Dutch. She also spoke fluent French, English, and Italian. She was proficient in Spanish and German. 

Watch the above video, and you’ll see what a natural multilingual she was. You’ll also note that, unlike so many of today’s YouTube polyglots, she did not make a big deal of her attainments. She did not say, “Hey, watch me speak X language now!” Rather, she used the languages she had learned in a situationally appropriate and unpretentious manner.

-ET

Iron Maiden: what was cool about ‘The Trooper’

“The Trooper” appeared on Iron Maiden’s 1983 album, Piece of Mind. Both the song and the MTV video are now regarded as classics.

But when I first saw and heard this, it was just another new song in the MTV lineup.

Not to me, though. I immediately recognized something special about “The Trooper”. I can’t say I predicted that it would become a timeless classic. But I’m not exactly surprised, either.

Yes, of course, there is the hard-driving beat. Also, the juxtaposition of old movie footage with studio clips of the band in the video. (This would become a signature technique for Iron Maiden music videos.)

Even more than all that: this is a heavy metal song about the Crimean War, inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1854 narrative poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade”.

In the early 1980s, heavy metal bands like the Scorpions and AC/DC were singing about the usual, tired topics: sex, parties, and rock-n-roll. Iron Maiden was writing songs about 19th century warfare. And the musical results were pleasing to the ear.

Now, if you don’t think that’s cool, well, I don’t know what to tell you. This is why I’ve been an Iron Maiden fan for over 40 years.

-ET

**Shop for Iron Maiden merchandise on Amazon**

Pearl Harbor Day 2024: and then no one remembered

World War II ended twenty-three years before I was born. But since I grew up hearing about it, World War II was almost living history for me.

All four of my grandparents could tell you exactly where they were, and what they were doing, when they heard the news about Pearl Harbor.

My maternal grandfather, then 19 years old, enlisted in the US Navy the following week. His enlistment led to many combat experiences in the Atlantic. These were stories I grew up with.

My grandfather in the Atlantic Ocean, 1943

In 2024, the ranks of living Americans who can remember December 7, 1941 are growing thin. It was 83 years ago, after all.

In one sense, this is perfectly natural and unremarkable. None of my grandparents could remember the assassination of President Lincoln, or the Battle of Antietam. History moves on, and each new generation has fresh tragedies to remember.

This process of generational forgetting seems to happen more quickly as one grows older. I am sometimes shocked to meet young adults who do not remember 9/11. And then I do the math.

I would like to say that I will remember Pearl Harbor Day in honor of the Americans who died on December 7, 1941. That would be the correct and most patriotic way to put it.

But if I’m being honest, I’ll remember Pearl Harbor Day because it traumatized and moved my grandparents, who told me about it.

Pearl Harbor forever changed the life of my maternal grandfather, in particular. I heard about the war from him. And because of him, World War II will always be living—and secondhand—history for me.

-ET