In honor of Memorial Day, I thought we’d to try something a little different for this week’s spotlight.  I wanted to feature an artist who has written some great songs that pay tribute to our fallen heroes.  As luck would have it, one of our site members, Sibella Giorello, an accomplished author who has published several books (and whose first-rate journalism has garnered national awards, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize), contacted me a few weeks back telling me she had recently conducted an interview with this week’s featured artist.  I read her wonderful write-up, thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the man behind the music, and wanted to share of few highlights from her interview.  You can read the full version at BigDawg Music Mafia.  It is my great honor and privilege to introduce Mr. James Hooker…

By Sibella Giorello

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Listen to this song.  Listen to it.  If this song doesn’t crack your heart wide open — especially on Memorial Day weekend — don’t worry about Obamacare; you’re already dead.

I first caught James Hooker’s “Hanging Out With the Boys” on Big Dawg Music Mafia when the tune was on the BigDawg Jukebox.  But by the final chorus I’d downloaded the entire album and felt like some IED had  just gone off. An Incendiary Ear Device that blew my mind.

“Hanging Out With the Boys” album had everything from blues to ballads to bagpipes. A soulful heart, yet not sad. Patriotic but not corny. And beyond all that, it managed to be absolutely unabashed in its support for our men and women in uniform.

After days of listening to it, I wrote singer/songwriter James Hooker a thank-you note.

But musicians are a funny breed.  That innate sense of timing that makes them hit the right riffs on stage also shows up in conversations.  For instance, Hooker’s reply to my letter.  I told him my blues-musician husband thought his voice sounded like a cross between Leon Redbone and Leon Russell.

Hooker’s reply?

“Just so long as he doesn’t say Leon Panetta.”

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Forced to choose a single moment from a single film that best exemplifies the extraordinary spirit America’s fighting men and women show day in and day out in their sacred duty to protect this country, it would be this one. Here’s a chunk of what I wrote about this scene back in February of 2009 when actor James Whitmore died:

Whitmore plays Sgt. Kinnie, the battle hardened leader of a small group of soldiers lost and confused in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge. Because of frostbite, Kinnie limps through most of the film as he leads the men through increasingly difficult times right up to that dreaded moment where bayonets are necessary because the ammunition’s run out.

Whitmore’s superb in the role, was nominated for an Oscar as a supporting actor (he won the Golden Globe), and launched a sixty year career that would include memorable turns in “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950), “Kiss Me Kate” (1953), “Them!” (1954), “Planet of the Apes” (1968), “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970), “Chato’s Land” (1972), “The Shawshank Redemption” (1994), numerous television appearances and two successful one man stage shows as Will Rogers and Harry Truman.

But the closing scene of “Battleground” is how I’ll always remember him

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A few Memorial Days ago, I was sitting comfortably on my sofa, enjoying salty snacks and a refreshing sweet tea while watching a program honoring our military on TV. Mary would inform me when the charcoals were ready to throw on the steaks. Life was good.

Featured in the TV program was Veteran actor, Charles Durning, who was a U.S. Army Ranger during WWII. Durning won the Silver Star for gallantry and was awarded three Purple Hearts for bravery at Normandy.

Buy Tea Are the World today and support America’s Mighty Warriors

Despite his remarkable achievements and sacrifices for freedom, still moved after all these years, Durning humbly stood at the podium and wept for his fallen brothers. Wow.  Do they make real men like Durning anymore?

After the TV program honoring Durning and other American heroes, the following program honored great American conscientious objectors.

Folks, it was quite annoying watching these guys, conscientious objectors, being portrayed as superior human beings while pontificating about the evils of war and why they chose not to participate. I thought, “You guys are free to enjoy success, freedom and spout your crap ‘in English’ because brave men like Charles Durning fought on your behalf. How dare you!”

Debbie Lee is the mom of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. On numerous occasions, Marc stepped up putting himself at risk to defend his fellow soldiers. In response to the death of her decorated son and experiencing first hand the challenges facing the families of fallen soldiers, Debbie Lee founded AmericasMightyWarriors.org. (more…)

As Memorial Day weekend approaches and we make plans to celebrate with family and friends, there are so many who will not be celebrating.  They will, instead, be visiting Arlington Cemetery and hundreds of other cemeteries across the country where their loved ones, who paid the ultimate price for our freedom, have been laid to rest.

And then there are the “lucky ones” who made it home.

YouTube Healing Waters by Lisa Mei and BigDawg

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Some homecoming.  They returned to a country that is struggling with sky-rocketing fuel and food prices, out-of-control government spending, record deficits, high unemployment rates, record home foreclosures, businesses going under, and the ever-increasing government intrusion into our private lives.  These heroes, our wounded active duty military members and veterans, have the added struggle of trying to muster the will and courage to press on with their lives as they suffer in silence not only from their physical impairments but from the never-ending nightmares, anger, loneliness, guilt, depression, and a number of other gut-wrenching emotions — all of which are triggered by and attributed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Thankfully, there are caring organizations that understand what our battle-scarred warriors are going through and are actively engaged in helping them begin the healing process.  One such organization is Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc (PHWFFI).

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Watch it ALL!

It only gets better as it rolls on. (more…)

Thank You.

These may not be the best known or most famous of WWII films, but they deserve to be. Keep an eye out. You’ll be glad you did.

1. Command Decision (1948) – Made just after WWII, this Air Force drama set in 1943 when the outcome of the war was still in doubt, is one of the most intelligent examinations of the burden of command ever put on film. Clark Gable is absolutely outstanding as Casey, a Brigadier General forced to give orders that on their face appear cold and even monstrous, but in truth are just the opposite. Caught between the Washington brass who have a war to sell and the men under him who see only a General ordering their comrades to certain death, Casey is a leader willing to be hated and even lose his command in order to do the greater good. What Casey cares about before anything is saving American lives. That means winning the war as quickly as possible, something which can only be accomplished if unspeakable sacrifices are made in the here and now. (more…)

Her thumbs danced over the tiny keyboard of her cell phone, glumly texting a friend.  I reached over and, uncharacteristically, snapped it shut.  Gently, but firm.

“Not today, hon.”

With a loud sigh of disgust she slammed the phone back into her purse and sat there in the fold-out chair and sulked. My wife’s look to me of indignant expectation (You going to put up with that?) was met by my practiced calm of everything-will-be-fine (She’s a teenager, that’s what they do). 

Hoping against hope that my doubting Thomas wife was wrong and that I was right, I settled in to listen to the Memorial Day program at the Los Angeles National Cemetery.  It was May 30, 2009, and as we sat there on the lawn that cloudy morning, our little family was a whirl of dysfunction.  It had been building for some time; petty problems had ruined our peace, and small arguments and squabbling set my wife and my 16-yr-old daughter at mutual odds.  I sat there amidst the several thousand gathered feeling alone, distant, isolated.  And completely alienated from my family.  How could three so close seem suddenly so distant?  (more…)

Disclaimer: What you are about to read is fiction. It is a story about peace. Peace at any cost.

THE WORLD TODAY: A News Summary

May 2009

BONN (EU News) – The current CSPEU administration has decided to increase productivity by lowering the age that children are required to enter the workforce from nine to eight years of age. The EU Vice Minister for the Interior states the lowering of the work age is due to an increased shortage of youthful workers. “It’s a reflection of the ongoing fighting between our peaceful union and the obstinate Russians.”

Citizens and subjects in the 18-25 age bracket have seldom been seen in recent years. The Vice Minister commented on this by stating, “This temporary downturn in our youthful population is insignificant compared to the tremendous loss of life on the Russian side. Though our rockets delivering Vemork V weapons obliterated St. Petersburg and most of Moscow years ago, the Russians, though scattered and ill equipped, still choose to resist to this very day. It staggers the mind why they wish to continue their own misery. ” (more…)

Robert Avrech’s lovely paean to the patriotism of Old Hollywood reminds me, by way of contrast, of a blink-and-you-missed-it scandal from seventeen months ago. Even in a cultural arena rife with liberal outrages against military families, it marked a new low. And although it was but one small battle in the culture war, it is worth recalling in the wake of Memorial Day as a reminder of just how far our popular media has fallen from the sterling ideals of our forefathers.

What does NBC stand for again? National Broadcasters against Conservatives? No Blessings for the Corps? On December 7, 2007, as the country solemnly remembered Pearl Harbor and the timeless sacrifices of soldiers long dead, one of our major television networks decided that running ads praising today’s modern armed forces constituted a bridge too far. The two thirty-second spots had been produced by Freedom’s Watch, a now-defunct conservative action group which aspired to be the MoveOn.org of the right, using “grassroots lobbying, education and information campaigns, and issue advocacy” to fight the good fight against the legion of hippy-dippy protesters, nihilists, and ideological bullies that perpetually rage (and increasingly reign) throughout blue-state America. (more…)

Memorial Day puts the lie to the nonsense that violence never solves anything.

Those rows of white tombstones decorated with little flags are the reason Americans don’t walk downtown, past the ruins where the synagogue once stood, to grab a schnitzel und ein bier from that little imbiss next to der bahnhof.  They are why there isn’t a smoking pit in the heart of Los Angeles where the Library Tower used to be.

Violence never solves anything, war is not the answer, arms are for hugging….  It’s hard to believe that there are adults out there that actually buy into such foolishness.

Memorial Day is about men and women who didn’t orient their lives to the dictates of poorly thought-through bumper sticker clichés that belong on the rear of some NPR-listening public school administrator’s Prius.  It’s about men and women who understood that sometimes doing the right thing means doing the hardest thing. (more…)

National Memorial Concert

The second annual Ride 2 Recovery Memorial Challenge is from May 25-30. For the first time, the event started with a cycling clinic featuring Olympic cyclist Wayne Stetina and former Mercury Cycling Team mechanic Scott Moro. With support from cycling professional like Gary Hanson and Neil Stewart, Vietnam vets Jim Penseyres and Duane Wagner, all of the R2R participants had a great deal of knowledge to learn the ins and outs of riding and healing.

The clinic really helped get the R2R participants oriented on their bikes and almost all of them had their riding positions fixed up and this will make for a much more comfortable ride.

The Wounded Warriors that participate in the Ride 2 Recovery events have come from all over the US and almost all service branches are represented. Many of these brave men and women have seen their friends and fellows soldiers not return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Memorial Day is not just another day off. (more…)

While volunteering for the McCain Campaign last year, I ran across a display of quotes by former President Ronald Reagan… One of them touched my heart so deeply that it inspired me to sit down and start writing a song as a tribute to our men and women in the United States Military.

The quote said… 

“We all share the love of peace, but our sons and daughters must learn two lessons men everywhere and in every time have had to learn:  that the price of freedom is dear, but not nearly as costly as the loss of freedom – and that the advance and continuation of civilization depend on those values for which men have always been willing to die for…” 

While some of our brave men and women in uniform have made it safely back home to their loved ones, others have come home wounded – their lives forever changed.  Yet still, there are those who have gone on to another home – paying the ultimate price for freedom… with their lives…  (more…)

During this Memorial Day Weekend Big Hollywood pays tribute those who have fallen, and those who sacrifice so much in the cause of freedom.

Remember when Hollywood celebrities flocked across the globe to entertain and support American troops? Remember when Hollywood—as a community—denounced tyrants, Jew-haters, and mass murderers?

Joan Crawford as Miss Liberty

My father was a Rabbi, a Chaplain in the 42nd Division during World War II and the Korean War. He often told me just how much the troops loved and respected their Hollywood supporters.

Here’s just a brief sampler of what Hollywood patriotism once looked like.

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This week’s Washington Times column:

On this day in which Americans honor their war dead, perhaps a smidgen of our time should be spent reflecting on the unheralded and fearless wartime antics of Sean Penn.

Yes, that Sean Penn: Hollywood actor, director, tough guy and agent provocateur in America’s time of peril – a man history, no doubt, will credit with an assist in bringing democracy to Iraq.

It is now time for Mr. Penn to end his service to his country and commit to the next chapter in his life. He has done more than enough. America simply doesn’t make medals for Mr. Penn’s kind of service. Nor would he accept them. Now he must come clean and take on the next challenge of his career: Bring the rest of Hollywood to America’s aid by creating an army of underground patriots.

With a Democrat as commander in chief, it’s now or never for Tinseltown to get the patriotic bug. (more…)