Baseball Quiz: There are now 23 who have hit 500 home runs.
Name the ten who played at least one season in the 1960s.
Answer below.
Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble
On Monday, Master Sergeant Keeble, a full-blooded Sioux
Indian, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his
heroism in the Korean War.
President George W. Bush
It’s taken nearly 60 years for Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson
Keeble to be awarded the medal he earned on the battlefield in
Korea. His nominating paperwork was lost, and then it was
resubmitted, and then it was lost again. Then the deadline
passed, and Woody and his family were told it was too late.
Some blamed the bureaucracy for a shameful blunder. Others
suspected racism….Whatever the reason, the first Sioux to ever
receive the Medal of Honor died without know it was his. A
terrible injustice was done to a good man, to his family, and to
history. And today we’re going to try to set things right….
It’s easy to understand why so many people argued so
passionately for the Medal once you hear the story of what
Woody Keeble did. This story unfolded at an important time in
our history. The year was 1951. The world was divided by a
Cold War. America was under threat and – some believed –
overmatched and out of heart. The great evil of communism was
said to be the future of the world. It was on the advance in
Europe, and in China, and on the Asian peninsula of Korea.
On that peninsula, a battle raged between communist forces in
the North and the forces of freedom in the South. And Woody
Keeble, a decorated veteran of Guadalcanal, raised his hand to
serve his country once again. Woody said he volunteered for
Korea because, “somebody has to teach those kids how to fight.”
And that’s exactly what he did. In George Company, he quickly
became a mentor, a teacher, and a legend. He was so strong that
he could lift the back of a jeep and spin it around.
Some people knew he had been scouted by the Chicago White
Sox. He had a heck of an arm, and he threw grenades like a
baseball. One soldier remembered the time Woody walked
through a mine field, leaving tracks for his men to follow.
Another recalled the time Woody was shot twice in the arm and
he kept fighting, without seeming to notice.
That fall, Woody’s courage was on full display during a major
offensive called Operation No Man [sic]. His company was
ordered to take a series of hills protecting a major enemy supply
line. High up in those hills and manning machine guns were
Chinese communist forces. After days of fighting, the officers in
Woody’s company had fallen. Woody assumed command of one
platoon, then a second, and then a third, until one of the hills was
taken, and the enemy fled in wild retreat.
That first advance nearly killed him. By the end of the day,
Woody had more than 83 grenade fragments in his body. He had
bleeding wounds in his arms, chest, and thighs. And yet he still
wanted to fight. So after a day with the medics, he defied the
doctor’s orders and returned to the battlefield. And that is where,
on October 20, 1951, Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble
made history.
Communist forces still held a crucial hill that was the “pearl” of
their defenses. They had pinned down U.S. forces with a furious
assault. One soldier said the enemy lobbed so many grenades on
American troops that they looked like a flock of blackbirds in the
sky. Allied forces had tried heavy artillery to dislodge the
enemy, and nothing seemed to be working. The offensive was
failing, and American boys were dying. But our forces had one
advantage: Woody was back, and Woody was some kind of mad.
He grabbed grenades and his weapon and climbed that crucial
hill alone. Woody climbed hundreds of yards through dirt and
rock, with his wounds aching, bullets flying, and grenades falling
all around him. As Woody first started off, someone saw him
and remarked: “Either he’s the bravest soldier I have ever met,
or he’s crazy.” Soldiers watched in awe as Woody single-
handedly took out one machine gun nest, and then another.
When Woody was through, all 16 enemy soldiers were dead, the
hill was taken, and the Allies won the day.
Woody Keeble’s act of heroism saved many American lives, and
earned him a permanent place in his fellow soldiers’ hearts.
Years later, some of those tough soldiers’ eyes would fill with
tears when they saw Woody again. One said: “He was the most
respected person I ever knew in my life.” Another said: “I would
have followed him anywhere.” A third said: “He was awesome.”
Those brave boys battled tyranny, held the line against a
communist menace, and kept a nation free. And some of them
are with us today. We are honored to host you at the White
House. We thank you for your courage. We thank you for
honoring your comrade in arms. And we thank you for your
service to the United States.
As the war ended, Woody went back to North Dakota. In some
ways, his return was a sad one. Within a few years, his first wife
died. He would suffer from numerous affects of the war. A
series of strokes paralyzed his right side and robbed him of his
ability to speak. And the wounds he sustained in service to his
country would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Yet Woody was not a bitter man. As a member of his family put
it: “Woody loved his country, loved his tribe, and loved God.”
Woody even found love again with a woman named Blossom.
Woody may not have been able to speak, but he could still get a
message across. He wrote a note asking Blossom to marry him.
She told him she needed some time to think about it. So while
she was deliberating, Woody put their engagement
announcement in the newspaper. [Laughter] This is a man who
was relentless in love as well as war. [Laughter]
In his community he was an everyday hero. Even in poor health,
he would mow lawns for seniors in the summers and help cars
out of the snow banks in the winters. He once picked up a
hitchhiker who was down on his luck and looking for work.
Woody wasn’t a rich man, but he gave the man $50. Those who
knew Woody can tell countless stories like this – one of a great
soldier who became a Good Samaritan.
To his last days, he was a devoted veteran. He proudly wore his
uniform at local events and parades. Sometimes folks who loved
him would see that uniform and ask him about his missing
medal. They felt he was cheated, yet Woody never complained.
See, he believed America was the greatest nation on Earth, even
when it made mistakes. And there was never a single day he
wasn’t proud to have served our country.
Woody suffered his eighth – and final – stroke in 1982. His son,
Russell, took him to the hospital and prayed it wasn’t the end.
But Woody knew, and he wasn’t afraid. Woodrow Wilson
Keeble died in graceful anonymity, unknown except to the
fortunate souls who loved him, and those who learned from him.
Russell put it this way: “Woody met death with a smile. He
taught me how to live, and he taught me how to die.”
I am pleased that this good and honorable man is finally getting
the recognition he deserves. But on behalf of our grateful nation,
I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late. Woody
will never hold this Medal in his hands or wear it on his uniform.
He will never hear a President thank him for his heroism. He
will never stand here to see the pride of his friends and loved
ones, as I see in their eyes now.
But there are some tings we can still do for him. We can tell his
story. We can honor his memory. And we can follow his lead –
by showing all those who have followed him on the battlefield
the same love and generosity of spirit that Woody showed his
country everyday.
At the request of the Keeble family and in accordance with the
Sioux tradition, two empty chairs have been placed on this stage
to represent Woody and Blossom and to acknowledge their
passing into the spiritual world. The Sioux have a saying: “The
life of a man is a circle.” Well, today, we complete Woody
Keeble’s circle – from an example to his men to an example for
the ages. And if we honor his life and take lessons from his good
and noble service, then Master Sergeant Woody Keeble will
serve his country once again.
—
Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway
While we’re on the subject of the Korean War, here are a few
thoughts I’ve been meaning to pass on concerning the legendary
U.S. leader who turned things around at a critical juncture,
courtesy of some book excerpts from the late David
Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter,” as published in the
November 2007 issue of Smithsonian.
“(Ridgway) was an imposing man, forceful and trim, 5-foot-10
but thanks to the sheer force of his personality, seemingly much
bigger. He was a Spartan. He worried that America was in
decline because of the country’s ever greater materialism; he
warned that it was becoming a place where people never walked
anymore and that the nation’s men were becoming softer every
year. His views, ironically, were not all that different from those
of the Chinese commanders who had launched their successful
assault on American troops. He believed a loss of fiber had
contributed to the disappointing early performance of our young
men in Korea. They had become too dependent on their
machines and their technology. The first thing he intended to do
when he took over was get them out of the warmth of their jeeps
and trucks and make them patrol exactly as their predecessors
had done, climbing the hills on foot. If they shared nothing else
with their enemy, they would share the cold.”
“(Ridgway) was not caught up in the vainglory of war. He never
tried to sugarcoat what war was about. When he nicknamed his
first major Korean offensive Operation Killer, he received a note
from Army chief of staff Joe Collins, suggesting that such a
name might be difficult for the Army’s public relations people to
deal with. Ridgway was not moved by the objections of PR
people on this or any other issue. The name, he had been told,
was too bloodthirsty and lacked sex appeal. Later he wrote, ‘I
did not understand why it was objectionable to acknowledge that
war was concerned with killing the enemy….I am by nature
opposed to any effort to ‘sell’ war to people as an only mildly
unpleasant business that requires very little in the way of blood.’
“He was aware that he was in charge of the most precious kind of
national resource – the lives of young men who were dear to
their parents. ‘All lives on a battlefield are equal,’ he once said,
‘and a dead rifleman is as great a loss in the eyes of God as a
dead General. The dignity which attaches to the individual is the
basis of Western Civilization, and this fact should be
remembered by every Commander.’ That did not mean he did
not fight the enemy with full ferocity or take a certain pleasure
from a battlefield littered with their dead, for he knew the
alternative, a battlefield littered with American dead. After the
Battle of Chipyongni in February 1951, when the Chinese finally
broke and the Americans killed thousands with air and artillery
strikes, one company commander had spoken of the battlefield as
covered with ‘fricasseed Chinese.’ Ridgway liked that phrase.”
“In Korea (Ridgway) was the soldier’s soldier. Gen. Omar
Bradley, a plain-spoken Midwesterner not readily given to
superlatives, wrote years later of Ridgway’s performance in
Korea, ‘It is not often in wartime that a single battlefield
commander can make a decisive difference. But in Korea,
Ridgway would prove to be the exception. His brilliant, driving,
uncompromising leadership would turn the battle like no other
general’s in our military history.’
“On arrival Ridgway almost immediately started to tour forward
positions. He was appalled by what he found: defeatist attitudes
on the part of his commanders, low morale and almost no
military intelligence of any significance. He visited one corps
commander who did not even know the name of a nearby river.
‘My God almighty!’ he said later of that particular piece of
ignorance. How could there be decent intelligence when all the
American units had broken off contact with the enemy and were
fleeing south? ‘What I told the field commanders in essence,’ he
later wrote, ‘was that their infantry ancestors would roll over in
their graves could they see how road-bound this army was, how
often it forgot to seize the high ground along its route, how it
failed to seek and maintain contact in its front, how little it knew
of the terrain, and how [it] seldom took advantage of it.’ He was
sickened by finding an army broken in spirit, ‘not in retreat, but
in flight,’ as Lt. Col. Harold Johnson, who had been at Unsan,
said. Ridgway thought the corps commanders shockingly weak,
the division and regimental commanders too old and more often
than not out of touch as well as ill-prepared for this war.
Nothing enraged him more than the maps at the various
headquarters he visited. Each American unit, it seemed, was
surrounded by little red flags, each flag indicating a Chinese
division. But many of his units simply had no idea how many
Chinese were near them because they were not sending out
patrols. Not to know the location and strength of the enemy was
in his eyes as great a sin as a commander could commit. He
changed that quickly. He was everywhere in those days. He
visited each headquarters, not just division and regimental, but
sometimes battalion and company, arriving in his little plane
flown by pilot Mike Lynch, landing where he had no business
showing up and often where no airstrip existed. What he wanted
was for the most forward units to go out and find the enemy.
They were to patrol, patrol, patrol: ‘Nothing but your love of
comfort binds you to the roads,’ he kept repeating. ‘Find the
enemy and fix him in position. Find them! Fix them! Fight
them! Finish them!’”
“Ridgway was unintimidated by those early Chinese victories
and the awesome size of the Chinese force; he seemed to have
his finger on the strength and weakness of every unit and was
full of confidence about what his forces could do. That was the
way he had commanded in World War II. He was, his talented
World War II deputy Jim Gavin once said, always drawn to the
cutting edge of the battle. ‘He was right up there every minute.
Hard as flint and full of intensity, almost grinding his teeth with
intensity; so much so that I thought that man’s going to have a
heart attack before it’s over. Sometimes it seemed as though it
was a personal thing: Ridgway versus the Wehrmacht. He’d
stand in the middle of the road and urinate. I’d say: ‘Matt, get
the hell out of there. You’ll get shot.’ No! He was defiant….
“In contract to MacArthur, who never spent a night in Korea and
who saw the war primarily in theoretical terms, Ridgway was
there all the time. He wanted the fighting men in the field to
know that he shared their knowledge and their hardships, and he
wanted field commanders to know that he could not be fooled.
His presence put everyone on a constant test of excellence. The
Corps chief of staff later said of that period, ‘Oh, God! He came
to every briefing every morning…He’d go out all day with the
troops, then when he came back at night, I’d have to brief him
again – on everything, even minor things like which way the
water drained in our sector.’”
By March 1951, Ridgway’s leadership and tactical brilliance had
turned near-certain defeat of UN forces into stalemate. On April
11, 1951, President Truman removed MacArthur from command;
Ridgway succeeded him as Allied Commander of the Far East.
A cease-fire was declared on July 27, 1953. The peninsula
remained divided at the 38th parallel.
U.S. casualties numbered 33,000 dead and 105,000 wounded.
The South Koreans suffered 415,000 killed and 429,000
wounded. The Chinese and North Koreans maintained secrecy
about their casualties: estimates are 1.5 million dead. Today, the
United States maintains a force of some 28,000 in South Korea.
Stuff
–After 17 seasons, Green Bay Packers great Brett Favre, saying
he was “tired,” is hanging it up. It is said Favre would have
returned had Green Bay signed receiver Randy Moss, but Moss
opted to re-sign with New England.
Favre is #1 in passing yards (61,665), completions (5,377),
attempts (8,758) and TD passes (442). But he’s perhaps best
defined by his record 253 consecutive starts.
Bill Plaschke / L.A. Times
“Even as he disappears into the distance, Brett Favre is larger
than life. With Favre’s retirement, the NFL has lost far more
than a Hall of Famer and a hero. Football has lost its face. With
his beard stubble and fiery eyes and gaping grin, has anybody
ever symbolized the game’s rough-hewn hope better than Favre?
“Football has lost its voice. With his Southern accent filling
everything from his signals to his whoops to his tears, has
anybody ever sounded like the sport’s small-town beginnings
more than Favre?….
“Having some of the best quarterback statistics do not mean he
was the best quarterback. He was not. He won but one Super
Bowl. With his penchant for taking chances, he lost as many big
games as he won.
“Typically, he blew his final chance at going to a Super Bowl in
January when his wild interceptions doomed the Green Bay
Packers in an overtime conference championship loss to the New
York Giants.
“He won’t be remembered as one of the quarterback gods. He
will be remembered as something far more important. He’ll be
remembered as one of us.”
–This is awful…Austrian skier Matthias Lanzinger broke his
shin and fibula last Sunday during a super-G race in Kvitfjell,
Norway. The problem was the double fracture severely damaged
blood vessels in the leg and the first surgery was only partly
successful, leaving doctors no other option but to amputate the
lower left leg. Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer
commented afterward, “The lacking safety measures at these
races are shocking,” alluding to the fact that Lanzinger was
flown to a hospital in Lillehammer in a tourist helicopter because
a medical chopper wasn’t available.
–Goodness gracious….I’d say there is a little money in Premier
League Football (soccer). The current owners of Liverpool have
rejected an $800 million bid for the club from Dubai
International Capital.
–This is too funny…from a report by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of
the Wall Street Journal.
“A memoir published last week will likely be recalled as soon as
today by Pearson PLC’s Riverhead Books imprint….
“David Shanks, CEO of Penguin Group, whose units include
Riverhead Books, (said), ‘There are enough inaccuracies in the
book to make us think that we will need to recall it.’
“Mr. Shanks estimated that 19,000 copies of Margaret Jones’s
‘Love and Consequences’ have been printed, most of which have
likely been shipped to bookstores.
“The book, a memoir of a drug-gang member, is a fraud.
According to a story in the New York Times, Ms. Jones is a
pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer. Ms. Seltzer and her book were
the subject of a profile that appeared in the House & Home
section of the New York Times last week, the Times story
reported. After the article appeared, a family member called
Riverhead to explain that Ms. Seltzer had been raised in a
comfortable suburb, not South Central Los Angeles.
“Also, Ms. Seltzer is white, said the New York Times article, and
doesn’t have a mixed racial heritage as she claimed. The Times
story said that Ms. Seltzer admitted to having made up the story.”
–And from Brian T. Murray of the Star-Ledger, a sad tale, with a
twist.
A mother black bear and her cub were killed in Sussex County,
N.J., but the mother had been wearing a radio collar that state
biologists had affixed. However, the killer thought he’d put
investigators off the track by cutting off the collar, nailing it to a
board, and sending it floating down a river.
A month later, though, the state Department of Environmental
Protection charged a 29-year-old man, which could lead to
$5,000 in fines for illegally shooting the two bears with a
shotgun, hunting without a license and destroying property.
So what was it about the collar? “Switches inside (it) let
biologists know if a stationary bear is hibernating or dead, said a
member of the state Division of Wildlife.”
The older sow had been on the state’s Bear Project radar for
seven years and fewer than a dozen have been fitted with the
collar. The day before the bears were shot, a biologist had been
tracking the sow. “When the collar suddenly indicated the sow
was dead on Jan. 1,” writes Murray, “biologists were perplexed
that it also indicated the bear was still moving – directly south.”
It took until Jan. 9 to trace the transmitter to a log-jam, about two
miles downstream, where it was found nailed to the board.
Officers, though, knew exactly where to start their probe.
Having studied the sow’s travels, they knew it had a relatively
small home range, and finally on Jan. 29, the carcasses of both
animals were found, with officers having developed other leads
due to interviews conducted in the area. A motive was unclear
because neither the hides nor any other part of the bears was
removed.
–Run for your lives! Scientists are warning that Spain’s waters
could see more swarms of jellyfish this summer. What
researchers have learned is that jellyfish proliferate in the winter
and between November and January, they discovered 30 colonies
ranging up to 10 jellyfish per cubic meter of water, all along the
coast. The summer tides then carry them inland from deeper
waters, causing the plagues that have seen “millions of jellyfish
wash up on Spain’s beaches.”
A big part of the problem is over-fishing as the jellyfish face
fewer natural predators, such as swordfish and red tuna, that
normally eat the creatures. Global warming also plays a role.
But it’s not just Spain’s waters facing a problem this year.
“Spectacular growth has been found in jellyfish populations in
Japan, Namibia, Alaska, Venezuela, Peru, and Australia,”
according to a professor at Barcelona’s Institute of Marine
Sciences.
Back in 2006, the Red Cross treated 21,000 people who were
stung on the beaches of Catalonia, while on a single day in
August of last year, 400 bathers were treated at a beach in
Malaga. In December, hundreds of swimmers were stung off
southeastern Brazil.
–A study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine (not among the 25 or
so publications your editor subscribes to) concludes that “the best
sex should last between seven and 13 minutes, and even three-
minute sex is ‘adequate.’” Which is why the best sex is normally
performed during halftime of a college basketball game, while
it’s adequate to hook up with your partner during a caution flag
in a NASCAR race. Or, it would have been adequate during any
of the three-minute rounds of the recent Klitschko-Ibragimov
title fight, seeing as neither one of you would have missed
anything. [Sydney Morning Herald]
–Chopper pilot Warren, of “For Worse….” fame, is likely to
take his own life, having been spurned by Liz, who in her own
right appears to age 40 years from one panel to the next, then
discovers the fountain of youth overnight; highly disturbing to
Jeff B. and I. Jeff, by the way, did identify the 5th, and last,
reader of the strip….an inmate utilizing the prison library.
Top 3 songs for the week of 3/4/78: #1 “(Love Is) Thicker Than
Water” (Andy Gibb) #2 “Stayin’ Alive” (Bee Gees) #3
“Sometimes When We Touch” (Dan Hill)…and…#4 “Emotion”
(Samantha Sang) #5 “Night Fever” (Bee Gees) #6 “Dance,
Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” (Chic) #7 “Lay
Down Sally” (Eric Clapton) #8 “Just The Way You Are” (Billy
Joel) #9 “I Go Crazy” (Paul Davis) #10 “How Deep Is Your
Love” (Bee Gees)……….so, do you think the Bee Gees were hot
in those days? Just a dreadful time for music…and not a good
time to be going to college, as your editor was.
Baseball Quiz Answer: The ten who clubbed 500 homers and
played at least one season in the 1960s are………
Hank Aaron…755
Willie Mays…660
Frank Robinson…586
Harmon Killebrew…573
Reggie Jackson…563 [1967 first season]
Mickey Mantle…536
Willie McCovey…521
Ted Williams…521 [1960 last season]
Ernie Banks…512
Eddie Mathews…512
If you said Mike Schmidt, his first season was 1972.
Next Bar Chat, Monday.
