The American rebels with a cause in “From Here To Eternity,” the heroes of that 1941, Pearl Harbor drama, are all, in some sense, a replica of Lt. Col. West. The Colonel’s individual freedom and individual integrity, his truth to himself and responsibility to his enlisted men were fulfilled in the clearest and most unswerving manner.

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In my opinion, he saved the lives of American servicemen and drew a line in the sand before the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, homicidal bully of Iran.

In the eyes of Col. West’s military superiors, he was considered the villain in “From Here To Eternity.”

To the contrary, he belongs with the characters played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra. Three distinctively American integrities.

Why was the Colonel singled out for an enforced “resignation”?

The collective bargaining and cronyism of the Third Millennium, American Army-at-War was seen spitting on its own best soldiers because of the New World Order’s increasingly Marxist agenda.

In the film translation of that always surprising novel by James Jones, From Here To Eternity, individual freedom and individual responsibility are the heroes battling the community organizing pressure and collective bargaining going on under the guidance of Captain Dana “Dynamite” Holmes. That officer is, in short, the villain, played by Phillip Ober with perfect contempt for anyone or anything but himself.

Does such elitism sound familiar?

There are prophetically Marxist-style cabals and pressures existing to both force Prewittt, the Montgomery Clift character, to box, and to “transform” Frank Sinatra’s Maggio into a coward and someone ashamed of his Italian roots. Maggio would rather die, be beaten to death, than succumb to any bully.

Neither effort succeeds, of course, and both Maggio and Prewitt, true to themselves, die as heroes, fighting not only their enemies abroad but the very “community organizers” and “collective bargainers” that can so obscenely crop up in any military setting.

With prophetic irony, the villainous officer of “From Here To Eternity” is given the same sentence which a whole new, politically correct military – during President George W. Bush’s militarily ambitious administration – felt obliged to give our contemporary hero, Lt. Col. West a forced resignation.

Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America” had already begun during the previous Presidency. Decades before that, the soul of the American identity died with the legalized murder of Roe v Wade: Again, as in slavery days, all men and women are no longer created equal.

No wonder the likes of the Soros/Obama New World Order arrived. The enemy to the essence of American identity already had 30-some years of a homicidally corrupted law and order.

Therein lies our President’s stated view of his mission: to save the collective. The undeniably Marxist collective.

Before the American military had to even face confronting the Soviet Union, James Jones’s “From Here To Eternity” captured the basic heart of our dilemma now: Community Organizing and Collective Bargaining versus Individual Freedom and Individual Responsibility.

The Soviet Union and Red China are clearly a child of the former disciplines and America the proud and resilient offspring of the latter.

How odd that the Marxists abort millions of the very collective they claim to be protecting while traditional America feels obliged to ensure the life of every child conceived within the United States.

The title, “From Here To Eternity,” is ultimately the most hopeful thing about James Jones’ novel. That, of course, and the fact that we eventually, after huge sacrifice of the Free World’s lives, won World War II.

My last article for Big Peace set America in the classically tragic mould of Oedipus and a potential family bloodbath. That, of course, then inspired this week’s ESR article on America’s Second Civil War.

Do the murderous feelings within “From Here To Eternity” still remain in today’s America.?

I feel those American identity nightmares are worse now than ever.

Perhaps the character closest to Lt. Col. Allen West in “From Here To Eternity” is Burt Lancaster’s First Sergeant Milton Warden. This sergeant knows the entire universe of enlisted life and, yes, miraculously he treads a clear but complicated path of moral rectitude. He’s the strongest of the heroes in that film and I suspect that Lt. Col. Allen West is neck and neck with the Lancaster character and, with his officer’s credentials, will indeed stand with Sergeant Warden in the best tradition of American manhood and heroism.

No, the Sergeant of “From Here To Eternity” is hardly a saint, nor should we expect Col. Allen West to be one during his long and inevitable pilgrimage to the White House.

Am I that sure of his destiny?

Yes.

Col. West may not become our President – though circumstances may very well make him that – but he will serve in some very important role in our next President’s cabinet, that team of advisers which President Obama has so cavalierly ignored.

Aside from the obviously worn-out and beleaguered Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who or what traipses through or calls the Oval Office more often than the labor union bullies running things in Wisconsin?

This bully, played with divinely crafted sadism by Ernest Borgnine, won’t mess with the likes of Burt Lancaster’s Sgt. Warden. Fatso ultimately drops his knife.

The increasingly Fatted Marxists of the Obama Nation, in turn, won’t mess with Lt. Col. West.

What do you think?

Look at his life. Borgnine was born to Italian immigrant parents in 1917, spent 10 years in the Navy, including all of World War II, then bummed around as a second string character actor for another decade before snagging an Oscar in his first major role. The closest thing to life experience one of today’s stars has is a three week stint at $5,000-a-day rehab resort getting seaweed facials and talking about how his daddy never told him he loved him during group therapy while secretly gobbling the vicodins he smuggled in inside the liner of his Louis Vuitton cosmetics case.

You want retro cool? Forget posers like George Clooney and his pathetic attempts to relive the Old School dream with his Ocean movies, skinny ties and succession of cocktail waitress girlfriends. Ernest Borgnine is a 33rd Scottish Rite Mason, was in From Here to Eternity with Frank Sinatra, and was married to Ethel Merman. He married Ethel Merman! Try and top that for retro cool, George. Borgnine not only founded the Old School but is a Professor Emeritus.

What are his politics? Who knows? While his most recent political contribution was to George W. Bush in 2004, Borgnine comes from a time when actors concentrated on acting. He is very active in supporting Navy veterans, but you won’t hear him spouting off about his specific views. He’s a generic patriot – there’s probably a yellow ribbon on the back of his Caddy (you just know he drives a Cadillac) and anyone he sees messing with the flag can probably expect to feel one of those meaty Borgnine paws hard across his pie hole.

But can he act? Hell yes. There is that aforementioned Academy Award for 1955’s Marty. Marty is the heartbreaking story of a homely 30-ish meat cutter and his delicate romance with a plain-Jane schoolteacher. Borgnine is fearless as Marty, lashing out at his own looks and his inability to connect with women in a way no modern star ever could or would. It is a brave performance in a way you simply do not see today, and a performance that is a credit to both Borgnine’s talent and lack of ego.

Marty is about real people and real love, but if it were remade today – and lacking either vampires or a graphic novel pedigree it never would be – you can just imagine the Hollywood weasels’ notes:

Instead of this lonely butcher thing, which is a downer, how about making Marty a swinging TV reporter looking for The One?…And can we rename him Gavin? And let’s make the girl a model – is Kate Hudson busy? We’ll need a non-threatening gay friend for her. And let’s get Gerard Butler as Marty, I mean Gavin. Awesome. I think these changes are really going to test well.

Borgnine’s ten minute supporting role as the general who gives Lee Marvin his suicide mission at the beginning of The Dirty Dozen is like a master’s class in acting. In just a few minutes, he shifts from deadly serious to comic and back while holding his own against arguably the toughest guy ever on screen. Watch his face and his expressions and reactions, then compare his technique to that of today’s actors, whose “performances” seem to consist largely of them standing there staring vacuously and radiating their unnatural beauty. No contest.

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Ernest Borgnine has been in classic Westerns like The Wild Bunch and Bad Day at Black Rock, got capsized in the original Poseidon Adventure and even showed up on SpongeBob SquarePants. Sometimes he was a maybe bit too versatile – this Italian-American portrayed “Ragnar” in The Vikings. Still, he epitomizes the concept of the working actor, with roles ranging from big budget films to parts in what only one grading on a generous curve would label as B movies. He’s had several TV series and a ton of guest shots, including a part in the finale of ER and a memorable appearance in a classic episode of The Simpsons. And if you check out his IMDB site, you’ll find over 200 entries and see that he has three more movies coming out. The dude is 92!

You can have the soulless, polished Berluti loafers that are the stars of today – I’ll take the scuffed character of the old bowling shoes reeking of spilled Budweiser and the feet of a hundred guys with names like Sal and Bob that is Ernest Borgnine.