Mr. President, Bobby Powers and Party Time have a message for you and the rest of your fellow “Cleptocrats” in D.C.:

—–

Now THAT is how you deliver a message since it appears emails, phone calls, faxes, office visits, and…oh…a million-plus sign-bearing, flag-waving patriots descending upon the Nation’s Capitol don’t work.

I just love these guys!

Bobby Powers stumbled across my YouTube page over a year ago and introduced himself via email.  Naturally I checked out his site and instantly became a fan when I heard their song Take Your Hands Out of Our Pockets.   Since that day, I have had the great privilege of sharing the stage with Bobby and the rest of the Party Time gang (Robin Gordon, Tony Rook, and Michael Marino) after our first meeting on the National Mall at the 2010 Tax Day TEA Party.

Left to right: Robin Gordon, Bobby Powers, Michael Marino, Tony Rook

You won’t find a nicer group of patriot artists than these gentlemen.  Not only are they extremely gifted musicians who have generously offered to learn the songs of several performers and back us up at events we’ve performed for (many of whom, like myself, don’t have a band that can travel with us and normally just perform with our song tracks), but they are superb songwriters who are no strangers to the music industry.

Bobby & Robin are the Co-Founders of Bobby Powers and Party Time.  Bobby Powers, a.k.a. Bobby Steele, is a nationally renowned songwriter, having written a Top 10 song for Sa-Fire called “Thinking of You” as well as a Number 1 Song, “If Wishes Came True” for Sweet Sensation, which was also nominated for a Grammy.  Bobby spent the next 20 years honing his vocal and performing skills as the frontman of several bands, as a duo with his cousin, and as a solo artist.

Bobby formed Party Time with Robin several years ago, and they have since played numerous prestigious gigs such as playing for Michele Bachmann at the Washington Monument, FreedomWorks’ Take Back America Convention at D.A.R. Constitution Hall, the Virginia TEA Party Convention in 2010, M.O.M. For America’s An Evening with Michelle Malkin Banquet,  CPAC 2011, among numerous local and State political and non-political gigs.

Bobby Powers & Party Time at D.A.R. Constitution Hall (Take Back America Convention)

Robin Gordon, as one half of the Country recording artists “Robin & Cruiser” has had several national chart records, including “No Heart Left To Break,” which was a top 50 record.  He has also shared the stage with many country luminaries, such as Alabama, The Oak Ridge Boys, Charlie Pride, Restless Heart, and many others, including blues legend John Hammond.  Robin has also appeared numerous times on television, including the very well known live national TV show “Nashville Now” hosted by Country Music Hall of Fame and National Radio Hall of Fame member Ralph Emery.

Robin also recorded numerous tracks with such studio legends as Reggie Young, who was the guitarist on “Drift Away,” Pig Robbins, the piano player on many #1 Country hits, Paul Franklin, who’s dobro work can be heart all over the radio as well as on Randy Travis records, and several members of Elvis’ band, along with other too numerous to mention.

Country Music Hall of Fame member Owen Bradley, who produced Patsy Kline & Brenda Lee’s biggest hits along with K.D. Lang, and many others, helped Robin mix his 1st single, “Rings of Gold.” He has also had the honor of co-writing with many #1 songwriters including Tommy Rocco, Susan Longacre, Stan Webb, and Grammy winner Jerry Gilespie, among others.

Together, Bobby & Robin have created a unique sound through their songs and music, which they hope people will continue to enjoy listening to as much as they enjoy creating and playing.

For you heavy metal fans, Party Time bandmates Michael Marino (Bass) and Tony Rook (Drums), perform together regularly in Florida and have written some fantastic, hard-hitting political rock anthems as “Chloes Open Socket.” I will share more about them in an upcoming article.

Bobby Powers and Party Time want to use their music to bring a new awareness to voters of the need to right the wrong direction that the current administration is forcing our country towards and to spread the word of the Movement to “Take Our Country Back” from the lunatic fringe that is now usurping its power.  We are blessed to have these dedicated patriots in the fight with us.

Bobby shared his thoughts about BigDawg Music Mafia:

Imagine a place where you can actually express your feelings and opinions…..feelings and opinions that MOST of the occupants of this great country also think and feel…the kinds of thoughts and feelings and opinions that the self proclaimed elitist class will do anything they possibly can to cover up………that place is Big Dawg Music Mafia!!

BigDawg is a small seed right now but it will become a B-I-G Dawg….the kind of Dawg that media moguls will not be able to hold on a leash!!!

And in the mean time…Bobby Powers and Party Time say we should party “like it’s 1773“…and that’s exactly what we’re doing.

The best is yet to come.

—–

I’m sold.

It’s the glasses propped at the end of Waterston’s nose that closed the deal for me. The authority and intelligence that comes with such a precarious propping makes it impossible for me to support off-shore drilling any longer.

We should all be like Sam. We should all oppose offshore drilling and do so regularly (with reading glasses properly propped). But like Sam we should still allow ourselves to  benefit from the off-shore drilling. Fill the gas tank, heat the home, fly to Washington DC to lord our moral authority over others, and of course make a gajillion dollars in the frivolous and unnecessary energy-sucking industry of entertainment.

No reason to be the change we want.

It’s so easy to be a liberal. You’d think there would be more of them.

Dum-dum.

By the way, the organization Waterston’s activisting for is Oceana, which was founded by “Cheers” star Ted Danson; the guy who told us in the late 80s that we only had ten years to save the oceans.

Hey, just because these people are always wrong about absolutely everything doesn’t mean they’re always always going to be wrong about absolutely everything.

The Freshmen is a standard situation comedy aimed at fans who enjoy watching single people talking about sex as they approach middle age. Three roommates share a house; only the twist here is that all three are freshmen congressmen learning about life in Washington DC. The central theme of the series is how their antics end up getting published on a website that looks remarkably like the Huffington Post.

I’m certain that’s not accidental, since Arianna Huffington is a producer of the show.

I’ve been a fan of the Huffington Post since  it’s inception. Next to Big Hollywood, it is probably one of Andrew Briethbart’s greatest creations. I’ve been “debating” the Huffers since May of 2005, and surprisingly only had my account suspended twice. I currently post as TimnySlagle. Tim Slagle and Timmy Slagle were both removed for making allegations that RFK Jr. is a junkie, the same way Rush is incessantly referred to there. But much like flirting in a men’s room and being a tax cheat or a philanderer, drug addiction is only wrong if you’re a Republican. (I also suspect that shortly after this article is released, I’ll be registering another new screen name.)

Predictably, the television pilot’s Democrat Congress-persons, Cameron and Jane, are two nice, decent people who only went to Washington to try and make a difference; while the Republican, Vince,  is corrupt, over-sexed, and only using his office to get rich. He’s a publicity whore willing to do anything for campaign contributions. Strangely, he acts like no Republican I’ve ever met. In fact, he seems more like a young Bill Clinton.

I’ve only read the pilot script, but I will bet a large sum of money that later in the season we’ll find out Vince is gay. It’s a plot twist only slightly less predictable than Avatar. He also tells the Democrat Congressman that there is no need to read a bill before you vote on it — you just vote with your party. Somewhat ironic, considering what just passed through the Democrat House like a greased burrito.

Sarah Chalke, formerly of Scrubs and Becky #2 from Rosanne, is Jane, the star of the show. She plays a successful promiscuous career woman who accidentally married a gay man and is currently infatuated with the President. The plot-line seems remarkably similar to the biography of Arianna Huffington. It’s quite obvious that Sarah Chalke is what Arianna sees in the mirror every morning. Either she cast the role herself or Hollywood has finally run out of Gabor sisters.

I’m sure that the critics are going to think the show is non-partisan, but the only joke against the Left is one small skit about how many different awareness wristbands Democrats have to wear. (This reminds me of a stunt Rush Limbaugh did years ago, when he appeared on his TV show with a lapel full of awareness ribbons.)

People looking for political satire will be quite disappointed since the show makes fun of homosexuality more than politics. It is amazing that a group of liberals are responsible for putting together such a show; one that would be considered homophobic if a conservative made it. Just another example of the privilege of language accorded the Left.

A running gag is that everyone refers to Jane as the “gay-husband lady.”  Her husband leaves her to sell jelly with his lover under the brand name “Two Fruits Fruit Preserves.” Gay jokes are a constant. Here’s a sample from just this one episode:

• Vince assures Jane that a dinner party will have have a number of eligible bachelors there and that less than half of them are secretly gay. 
• Talking about his wristbands, Cameron gushes accidentally that he’s the “Queen” of colored bracelets.
• When recommending Jane hit on a lawyer, Vince assures her the guy’s straight because his socks don’t match.
• When apologizing for suggesting a silly pick up line, Cameron suggests Jane ask her former husband how to pick up men. 

Finally, a wealthy fundamentalist constituent trying to get Vince to ban rainbows says that the rainbow is now a sign for gays and lesbians to dress outrageously and march in parades.

This last joke is obviously a patronizing nod to the gay community in the hopes of saying that we’re on your side even though we just made a lot of adolescent generalizations about you.  Much like the comment policies at the Huffington Post only allow you to make fun of Republican drug addiction issues, Arianna feels her liberalism  has guaranteed her the right to gay bash.

If this show continues to keep all the jokes below the belt and avoids touching any weightier subjects I’m certain it will be a big hit.

It even made me chuckle once or twice.

But Palin ain’t buying it by the barrel, she’s got a whole pipeline of pure grade indigo flowing from the North Slope as she pumps up the volume on her NY Times #1 bestselling memoir.

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House.

When I completed the journey that is Going Rogue, I wrote down five things:

–She is a positive role model for all Americans
–She is an executive, takes on hard problems and makes tough decisions
–She has tremendous energy, balance and intellect
–America shafted itself in this last election
–Alaska is lucky to have her

Oh, and a sixth, Sarah Palin could be the next president of the United States.

Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor.

The most salient take-away from Going Rogue for me was what I admired most in her campaign, which was that she had been in charge as either a mayor or a governor whereas none of the other candidates on either ticket had. Having been a commander several times in the military I know that there is a huge difference between being a hardworking and important staff officer and an ‘alone at the top’ commander. No matter how fancy the title, executive officer or Senator, at the end of the day, you are recommending to someone who actually makes the decision.

As a Governor, mayor or commander, you have the unparalleled responsibility to actually make decisions that have ramifications. There is little training that can prepare you for all those heads turning in your direction when it is decision time. You can’t blithely abstain on a vote or hide behind the guy in front of you, because you own the decision. Case in point is Obama’s inexcusable delay in making a decision on Afghanistan. His indecision, cloaked as ‘sleeves-rolled-up-pensiveness’, is an indicator that he was, at a minimum, unprepared to be commander in chief. What we see in his speech at West Point is a minimally slimmed down version of what General Stan McChrystal submitted to the president on August 30th. So now big Stan has nine months to do what he said it takes 12 months to accomplish.

Palin, on the other hand, demonstrates decisiveness and vulnerability. Is she prepared for the enormous breadth of responsibility of president? I think she’s ready for the hard part, which is making tough decisions. She’s no “Ruminator-in Chief”, that’s for sure, and if the American people think a second year back bench senator was ready to be president, I’m not sure we’ve got the right rubric out there.

Palin is real. She takes counsel of her fears and continuously comes back to her foundation of family, God, state and nation for reassurance and guidance. She has strong moral guideposts that she uses to navigate the shark infested political waters. Reading about the decisions Sarah Palin faced at multiple levels of government reminded me of something my command sergeant major in the 82nd Airborne Division used to say when we faced a tough decision together: “Sir, when you’re right, don’t worry about it.”

Palin is right on many issues such as energy policy, defense, business, and size of government. She gets it and my hope is that she firms up her base and then reaches out to moderates across this country. She has a gritty determination borne in the salmon hauls and caribou hunts that make her pioneer tough.

I am left wondering why the McCain campaign bottled her up and didn’t let the maverick, well, be a maverick. McCain made an unconventional pick and instead of hiring a Wall Street stockbroker to manage her I’m perplexed, and disappointed, that he didn’t let this one-woman campaign juggernaut do her thing. If she was accustomed to traveling all over Alaska campaigning essentially by herself or with her family by her side, surely she could have done without all of the layers of control. I believe that Sarah Palin is precisely what the American people are seeking: an honest, intelligent, passionate, practical conservative who is nonpartisan and a tough decision maker.

Oddly, as I read Going Rogue and learned the real story behind the mainstream media assault upon this patriot, I was briefly reminded of the first time I met Hillary Clinton. She was in her first year as New York’s junior senator and my impression of her was largely shaped by what I read in the newspapers or saw on television, meaning mostly negative. When she came into the Pentagon for a 45 minute briefing from my boss, I was one of four people in the room: the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Senator Clinton, her assistant Uma Abedin, and me.

Over the next 90 minutes, she not only ignored her schedule, but she demonstrated a keen intellect, undeniable sincerity, and genuine interest in the many complex topics discussed. I came away from that meeting with an entirely different viewpoint on Senator Clinton than had been painted for me in the media. I tucked away the lesson to always remember that there is a phalanx of reporters, journalists and hate mongers who are trying to tell us all what to think.

And so it was with Sarah Palin, someone I actually supported. I think Palin recognizes that the extreme members of both parties and media put each of them through the Mixmaster, in some part because they are women, and she extends an olive branch to Clinton for a chat over a cup of coffee.

No matter what your political leanings, you better believe that Sarah Palin will step forward when the time is right. She has spine and she is called to public service. She’s been bloodied in the faux battles of presidential politics and yet she’s still standing, making tough decisions. She seems to have an iron core spirit and a will to make our country better.

And like that pipeline of ink, she seems to have an indomitable will that when attacked, unfortunately for her opponents, she doesn’t break. Her resolve seems to strengthen.

As her father said, “Sarah’s not retreating; she’s reloading.”

We should hope so, because she’s precisely the kind of leader America needs.

“I am really a coward. I know I am, so that’s why I did foolish things. I was decorated eight or nine times, trying to prove that I was not a coward, but after it was all over I still knew, know, that I was a coward.”

– John Ford –

June 4, 1942. The Battle of Midway. John Ford was on his back, covered in debris, unconscious. All around him bombs were dropping, buildings were erupting into monstrous fireballs, and young marines were dodging deadly lines of machine-gun strafing sent down by Japanese fighter planes. Ford and his assistant, young Jack MacKenzie Jr. (whose father was an RKO cinematographer) had been perched on the roof of a power station on Eastern Island, brazenly filming the morning attack by the Japanese and reporting enemy plane positions to headquarters, when a bomb landed a scant twenty feet from their position. The shockwave was so great that MacKenzie later recalled he was “bounced flat on my face by the terrific explosion,” adding, “we almost lost Commander Ford.”

The blast had sent a large chunk of concrete slamming into the director, knocking him out cold. When he came to, he also found that metal shrapnel had ripped through his left forearm, leaving behind an ugly three-inch gash. Bleeding and badly shaken, Ford grabbed his camera and with MacKenzie hurried down from the power-station roof. Moments later, they watched the enemy bomb the building into oblivion.

“Film faces!” Ford told MacKenzie before dashing off. For the rest of the morning they staggered about the island, each capturing spectacular images of raging infernos, flying debris, swooping planes, and young soldiers — kids, really — shooting enemy Zeros out of the sky with anti-aircraft guns. Talking of that hard-won film footage later, Ford said, “The image jumps a lot because the grenades were exploding right next to me. Since then, they do that on purpose, shaking the camera when filming war scenes. For me it was authentic because the shells were exploding at my feet.”

At one point, with the Japanese dive-bombing so close to the ground that Ford could clearly see their smiling faces, he watched in astonishment as a group of bold Americans trotted out into the open and proceeded to fulfill their daily morning duty of running up the red, white and blue. Wounded and exhausted, Ford had the presence of mind to race into position, raise his camera on his good arm, and forever capture the stirring moment of our country’s colors rising in a blue sky billowing with black smoke — the events of “The Star-Spangled Banner” brought to majestic life. Upon viewing the footage later, Henry Fonda would reverently call that meager strip of celluloid, “one of the all-time great shots.” In its own way, it rivals the famous raising of the flag on Iwo Jima several years later — less iconic perhaps, but just as moving. By God, it was “time for the colors to go up,” Ford later marveled, “and despite the bombs and everything, these kids ran up and raised the flag.”

When it was over, twenty men were dead on the islands, but out in the ocean America had won an incredible victory, using guile, strategy, lots of guts, and a bit of luck to overcome a ruthless, numerically superior opponent. John Ford was left standing amidst the carnage, his pockets filled with exposed film cartridges, his body quivering with adrenaline and fear. “Oh, we’d go ahead and do a thing,” he recalled toward the end of his life, “but after it was over, your knees would start shaking.”

When Ford viewed the rushes that he had taken at Midway — the massive explosions, the debris slamming into the camera, the spectacular raising of the flag amongst black clouds of ruin — he knew he had something special. But in a way, the material was too good — sure to be heavily redacted by the Navy as too frightful and disturbing for public consumption. So in Washington soon after the battle, the wily director secretly passed the reels to one of his young Field Photo editors, the former child actor Robert Parrish, and asked him to cut it down to a decent twenty-minute documentary.

“Is it for the public or the OSS?” Parrish asked.

“It’s for the mothers of America,” Ford shot back. “It’s to let them know that we’re in a war, and that we’ve been getting the shit kicked out of us for five months, and now we’re starting to hit back.”

Ford devised an elaborate series of ruses that kept the film one step ahead of the higher-ups. “I don’t want you to work here,” he told Parrish. “As soon as it’s discovered in Honolulu that I’ve smuggled the film past the Navy censors they’ll come snooping around with enough brass to take it away from us. They’ll assign seven or eight high-ranking associate producers and public relations officers to the project. The four services will start bickering over it and the whole thing will get so bogged down in red tape that we’ll never see it again, let alone the mothers of America.” He thus ordered Parrish: “You get on a plane and take the film to Hollywood. Don’t report to anyone. Go to your mother’s house and hide it until you hear from me. . .I’ll tell them that it’s not my fault if an enlisted man steals eight cans of top-secret film and runs home to his mother!”

In Hollywood a few weeks later, safe from the many prying eyes in Washington DC, they edited in secret, preparing an “official” war documentary like no other. Ford eschewed bland reportage, instead going unabashedly for the gut and the heart. To fulfill his vision, he began calling in favors all over town. The great Alfred Newman, musical head of Twentieth-Century Fox (and composer of the now-famous fanfare that, to this day, proceeds every Fox movie), was called in to orchestrate stirring versions of well-loved tunes like “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Anchors Aweigh,” and the Marine and Air Force Hymns. A wistful piece of accordion music from Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath was spliced in at a key moment. Accessible, down-home, folksy movie stars like Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell (who played Tom and Ma Joad, respectively, in Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath), along with more erudite and stentorian men like actor Donald Crisp and the director Irving Pichel (who was later blacklisted), were asked to emote heartfelt lines of dialogue written by Ford and his longtime (and very liberal) screenwriting partner, Dudley Nichols:

Men and Women of America — here come your neighbor’s sons!

. . .men who fought to the last round of ammunition, and flew to the last drop of gas, and then crashed into the sea.

Get these boys to the hospital, please do! Quickly! Get them to clean cots and cool sheets, give them doctors and medicine, a nurse’s soft hands. . .

Editor Parrish thought such lines sounded hopelessly corny, and told Ford as much. Ford stressed that this wasn’t going to be just another throwaway rah-rah newsreel to be dumped between features at the theater.

“You have a mother, don’t you?” he asked Parrish.

“Of course.”

“Well,” said Ford, “how do you think she’d feel if she saw you in that ambulance.”

Throughout the editing, Ford’s choices were unconventional, oftentimes startling. He dwelt on wistful shots of sailors relaxing in the setting sun during the evening before the battle, and built a humorous Wild Kingdom-like interlude featuring the birds on the island. He spent what some thought was an inordinate amount of time showing the haggard faces of downed pilots rescued after over a week at sea. He lingered on images of the impromptu funerals for men killed in the battle, their flag-draped bodies lined up on the ground. Heck, he even included a quick shot of himself:

This film was turning out to be much more than the usual show-only-the-positive-stuff propaganda piece. It was, in the words of biographer Joseph McBride, “an extraordinarily vivid and eloquent meditation on war, one of the rare pieces of propaganda that is also a timeless work of art.”

Remembering the political battles he suffered through during the early days of Field Photo, Ford made sure that all branches of the armed services were well-represented in The Battle of Midway, going so far as to measure the amount of coverage each received down to the foot. He also staged a screening for President and Mrs. Roosevelt, the Joint Chiefs, and an assemblage of White House aides, hoping their approval might fend off any censors looking to re-edit his film. As the story goes, the President talked distractedly throughout the movie, until suddenly stunned into silence by a heroic close-up. It was his own son — James Roosevelt, who had requested combat duty at the start of the war, and who was assigned with the Marine Raiders on Midway when the battle occurred. Ford had caught a quick shot of the young Major saluting, and before the screening had secretly spliced it into the film to surprise the President. The entire audience fell into a hush for the remaining minutes of the film, and when the lights came up Eleanor Roosevelt had tears in her eyes. “I want every mother in America to see this picture,” President Roosevelt intoned, and soon hundreds of prints were being distributed to theaters across the nation.

Robert Parrish, the editor who had been so worried that Ford’s cornpone dialogue would be laughed out of the theater, later attended the premiere of the documentary at Radio City Music Hall. He watched the audience fall under the film’s spell, quietly absorbing the rousing military anthems, the sensitive pre-battle montage, the electrifying shots of exploding buildings and billowing black clouds, the heroic raising of the flag. Then, as all of this gave way to the shots of the emaciated downed pilots, Jane Darwell’s loving, matronly voice cooed over the sound system:

Get these boys to the hospital. Please do! Quickly! Get them to clean cots and cool sheets, give them doctors and medicine, a nurse’s soft hands. Get them to the hospital. Hurry! Please!

Somewhere in the darkness of the theater, a woman choked back an anguished scream. Others began to groan softly as if in physical pain. A cacophony of weeping rose up like a wave and filled the theater. And like a dam bursting, Parrish watched that jaded, seen-it-all New York audience fall apart. It was a primal reaction he would never forget.

“On reflection,” Parrish mused decades later,

there have been so many changes in combat film. It’s so much more realistic now, and it’s not particularly unusual to see people get shot, particularly after Vietnam. But The Battle of Midway was the first film of its kind. It was a stunning, amazing thing to see. At Radio City people screamed, women cried, and the ushers had to take them out. And it was all over the material that we had fought about, the stuff I thought was too maudlin, like when Jane Darwell says, “Get those boys to the hospital, please do! Quickly!” The people, they just went crazy.

It’s indescribably sad to realize that, in our time, many people now laugh at the exact same footage that made those women weep. They watch old movies like The Battle of Midway and they cackle at the narration, groan at the music, and dismiss it all as a hokey and corny reminder of an absurdly innocent and gullible age. They sit in self-satisfied judgment of the rubes of the past, safe and smug in their twenty-first century superiority, drunk on their impregnable sense of entitlement and sophistication.

We forget. Always, we forget. We forget how much mental strain Americans of that time were under. We forget that the first six months of World War II saw America lose battle after battle in the Pacific. Thousands of husbands and sons were killed. A steady stream of 9/11-sized disasters shook the country’s psyche, one after the other, boom, boom, boom. Everyone knew people who died, or were trapped in murderous concentration camps, or were at that very moment risking their lives every day in faraway lands, possibly never to return.

And in the midst of all of that pain and worry and anguish, one man — a self-described coward — had used all of his artistry and courage and guile to create against all odds a twenty-minute paean to those lost husbands and fathers and sons, a message brimming with hope and awash in love and pure patriotism. It was more than a film, it was a gift.

John Ford had been right: those old-fashioned words and sentiments, presented without shame, were just what the mothers of America needed.

Next Saturday in For Conservative Movie Lovers: a study of the bestselling 1942 book They Were Expendable, and of the hero whose exploits formed the basis for John Ford’s incomparable film.

Previous posts in the series “John Ford, John Wayne, and They Were Expendable“:

Part 1

FURTHER READING AND VIEWING

John Ford’s The Battle of Midway: I believe it is the solemn duty of every conservative to see this at least once in their life, and by “see” I mean really see, not just blithely skitter through with one eye while the other drifts through their incoming email.

There are a number of versions available on the web, but all are exceedingly poor quality — with one exception. Recently, The Documentary Channel posted a gorgeous restored version of the film on YouTube, allowing us to see and hear The Battle of Midway for the first time in all of its original glory:

It’s less than twenty minutes long, so do yourself a favor: close the shades, throw out the cat, take the phone off the hook, and watch this with your full attention. Think about how someone in 1942 must have felt while viewing it with a packed audience in a darkened theater, all of them having suffered through six months of defeat and loss, and none knowing what the perilous future would bring. Allow those days to come back to life for you here in 2009, sixty-seven years later. Open your heart to John Ford’s film and his worldview — if you are a conservative who cares at all about our military, past and present, it’s something you will never forget.

As a chaser, interested parties can read an oral history transcript of John Ford describing his wartime service and the filming of The Battle of Midway at the Naval Historical Center website.

Growing Up in Hollywood and Hollywood Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. These two volumes of reminiscences by former child actor and Oscar-winning film editor Robert Parrish contain lots of great stories about the movie business, with plenty of first-hand tales of John Ford in all of his perplexing, frustrating, tyrannical, monumental genius. In particular, he provides a more detailed look into the making of The Battle of Midway than what could be summarized here. The sheer daring and cleverness of Ford as he crustily keeps The Battle of Midway one step ahead of the Navy’s censors and bureaucratic roadblocks is thrilling to read.

 May 11-17, Washington, DC

Arlington, Virginia – GI Film Festival co-founders Brandon Millett and Major Laura Law-Millett announced today the line-up for the Third Annual festival showcasing the world’s best military films.  The festival will run from May 11-17, 2009 at the prestigious Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC and other DC area venues, including the Canadian Embassy and the Russell Senate Caucus Room.  The award-winning GI Film Festival is the first and only film festival in the nation dedicated to honoring American soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines through the medium of film.  (See www.gifilmfestival.com for more information.) 

The GI Film Festival is not only the premiere film festival honoring America’s troops but also the most significant film festival in the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area.  Major corporate sponsors for 2009 festival include among others:  Target Corporation; TriWest Healthcare Alliance; America’s Huey 091 Foundation; Pence-Friedel Developers, Inc; USO International; MGM/UA; HBO, Inc.; American Military University, and Discovery Communications’ “The Military Channel.” 

Highlights of the “Seven Days in May” event include: 

• 48 documentary and narrative premiere films from the nation’s top independent and studio filmmakers, including active duty GIs and military veterans;
• Sixteen feature-length films: Perfect Valor; Lioness; The Way We Get By; Jerabek; Triangle of Death; Bedford: The Town They Left Behind; America’s Marine Aviators; Inheritance of War; The Divided; Seal Team VI; Everyman’s War; Warriors in their Own Words; Injury Slight…Please Advise; Art in the Face of War; My Vietnam, Your Iraq; The Lesson is Priceless;
• “Work in Progress” exclusive screening of the feature film Lt. DanBand: The Documentary, following actor Gary Sinise as he and his Lt. DanBand entertain our troops worldwide and the many incredible organizations that support our heroes and their families.  The film is directed by military veteran and Hollywood filmmaker, Jonathan Flora;
• World Premiere of Citizens United Production’s Perfect Valor, featuring former Senator Fred Dalton Thompson; produced by David Bossie (Border Wars);
• GI Film Festival red carpet premiere of HBO’s Taking Chance, starring Kevin Bacon;
• GI Film Festival red carpet premiere for “Wounded Warriors” of MGM/UA’s Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise;
• World Premiere of the feature documentary America’s Marine Aviators;
• VIP reception featuring the launch of the new USO national publication, On Patrol;
• Special private screening for Members of Congress of the GI Film Festival’s 2008 “Best Feature Documentary,” Brothers at War;
• Presentation of the GI Film Festival’s “GI Spirit Award” to actress Karri Turner;
• A reception at the Russell Senate Caucus Room honoring military veterans in Congress featuring special guest Medal of Honor recipient Senator Daniel K. Inouye;
• VIP receptions featuring celebrities, top military leaders and warriors, and filmmakers.

 
“The GI Film Festival provides a unique opportunity to not only support the American warrior, but to participate in a meaningful and inspirational cultural event,” said GI Film Festival co-founder Brandon L. Millett.  “It is possible to sit through the entire slate of GI Film Festival films and experience the full range of human emotion.  Shocking combat films, patriotic tear jerkers, popcorn action films, historical documentaries; we will screen them all.”

In only its third year, the GI Film Festival has become the most significant venue for the screening of military films, including Hollywood features The Great Raid, Forrest Gump, and a never-before-released version of the Civil War epic Gods and Generals.  In addition, one 2007 GI Film Festival premiere, Operation Homecoming, was a finalist for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.  Last year’s GI Film Festival “Best Feature Documentary,” Brothers at War earned a theatrical distribution deal from the prestigious Samuel Goldwyn Films and is now in theaters.  Another award-winning offering from 2008, The Last 600 Meters, will release in theaters and air on PBS in 2010. 

 ”This range of films is important, not only for the American GIs but for the public to see our warriors’ story from a variety of perspectives; from the active duty service member inside the arena of war, to the wounded warrior struggling to overcome his or her disability, to the military spouse at home waiting for their loved one to return.   This diversity is the heart of what we offer at the GI Film Festival,” said GI Film Festival co-founder Major Laura Law-Millett. 

The GI Film Festival has quickly become the “go to” festival for warriors, military film buffs and filmmakers.  This year’s slate includes 16 original feature-length documentaries and narratives, two major studio feature films, and 30 short films covering the Civil War, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

“This festival is all about warriors and filmmakers.  It is established for the very reason to let artists tell the story of our great troops, their successes and their sacrifices,” said GI Film Festival Chairman Stephen K. Bannon. 

Tickets for GI Film Festival premiere films are available for $10.  Tickets for primetime events, which include film screenings and receptions, are available for $50.  Full festival passes are available for $250 and include access to all film screenings and primetime events on Thursday through Sunday. 

Other GI Film Festival sponsors include – Corporate:  AAFES; American Military University;  AUSA; Meco Environmental; MillerCoors; MPAA; No Jurisdictional Boundaries; Media: GreatAmericans.com; The Hill Newspaper; ICR, Inc.; Military History Channel; Military.com; Stars and Stripes; Washington Times; WMAL; WUSA9; ZAM Media; Military:  American Red Cross; American Veterans Center; Army National Guard;  Freedom Is Not Free; Operation Hug-a-Hero; Snowball Express; USO Metro DC; Young Marines; In-Kind: Gallo Winery; Hint Water; The Leadership Institute; Resolution Gear; Skincando; Solas by Kara Kurz; and the Sony Corporation. 

For more information, please visit www.gifilmfestival.com.

This week’s Washington Times column:

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. | After spending two weeks on something akin to a fact-finding mission in depressed New York and depleted Washington, D.C., I found no answers to our nation’s mounting ills. I discovered that there is much to be angry about and unlimited reasons for deep concern. But on the evening after my return, the stars aligned on the outskirts of Los Angeles at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and for a brief moment I felt safe again in America.

On Saturday, my wife and I were privileged to attend the second annual “Celebration of Freedom Gala.” We joined more than 1,000 others who, like us, were electrified to honor 43 of the 98 living Medal of Honor recipients. We also gave our thanks to former first lady Nancy Reagan, war hero and actor Charles Durning, and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

In between courses, we heard rousing patriotic vignettes. One was Steve Amerson’s refreshingly traditional and soaring national anthem. Another was a tear-inducing “Freedom Never Cries” from John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. Scores of celebrities donning black ties and gowns mingled with our nation’s highest-decorated veterans and active-duty men and women.

Unlike at other awards shows, this star-studded crowd honored something bigger than themselves. I note this without taking anything away from the individual achievements of talented artists who have paid homage to every cause under the sun. But this event was different. The armed forces of the United States have fought and died to protect the freedom of expression that allowed these artists to ply their trade.

Before the program commenced at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, one prominent actor sang the praises of HBO’s “Taking Chance” to a Vietnam-era Medal of Honor recipient. The film is not just another Hollywood attack on the military. Quite the contrary. “I watched it with my son, and we both cried,” the well-known face from film and television told a true hero. “It is deeply respectful and not in the least bit political.”

The same could be said of the dinner. Partisanship was not on the bill as dozens of decorated veterans of unknown partisan stripe stood to accept the audience’s unconditional and rousing appreciation.

Tom Selleck presented the “Lifetime Achievement Award” to a frail yet still elegant Mrs. Reagan, who received the first extended standing ovation of the evening. The 87-year-old former first lady was making her first public appearance since fracturing her pelvis and sacrum in October. She summoned the courage to accept the award in front of a cross-section of people who have grown to admire her during her half-century in Hollywood and in public service.

Gary Sinise, a Presidential Citizens Medal recipient and the event’s co-sponsor, delivered the Bob Hope Award for Excellence in Entertainment to Charles Durning, whose courage and grit during World War II earned him the Combat Infantryman Badge, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. The 86-year-old star of “The Sting” and “Dog Day Afternoon” received a hero’s welcome worthy of both his military and film career.

Mr. Sinise asked attendees to commit themselves to entertaining the troops and singled out one actor/singer who had done so in spades: Connie Stevens, who labored for 40 years for the USO. Miss Stevens, still beautiful and radiant at 70, accepted the extended and deserved standing ovation.

You can read the column in full here.