Wall of Respect. West Coast Vietnam Memorial Wall.

The Wall of Respect, the West Coast Vietnam Memorial Wall, is located at the General George S. Patton Memorial Museum. The museum was established to honor the late General George S. Patton and the thousands of men who served with him at the Desert Training Center and overseas. The museum, is located off Interstate 10, about 30 miles east of Indio at Chiriaco Summit, which was the entrance to Camp Young, command post for the DTC during World War II. The site was donated by Joseph Chiriaco, one of the first area residents General Patton met when he arrived to set up the center.







Exhibits display memorabilia from the life and career of General Patton. The exhibit halls include the many and varied aspects of military life with particular focus on the Desert Training Center and soldiers of World War II. Information concerning Southern California water development and the building of the Colorado Aqueduct can be found as well as Natural Science exhibits which show rocks, minerals and fossils of the region and plants and animal life of the desert and mountains.








The museum has a nice collection of over a dozen armoured vehicles. There are 5 types of tanks on display, with the majority being varieties of the M47 and M48 "Patton" tanks. There is another fenced-off area nearby that contains 5 or 6 additional tanks in varying stages of repair.

ROLLING THUNDER


ROLLING THUNDER

Judge London Steverson
London Eugene Livingston Steverson (born March 13, 1947) was one of the first two African Americans to graduate from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1968. Later, as chief of the newly formed Minority Recruiting Section of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), he was charged with desegregating the Coast Guard Academy by recruiting minority candidates. He retired from the Coast Guard in 1988 and in 1990 was appointed to the bench as a Federal Administrative Law Judge with the Office of Hearings and Appeals, Social Security Administration.

Early Life and Education
Steverson was born and raised in Millington, Tennessee, the oldest of three children of Jerome and Ruby Steverson. At the age of 5 he was enrolled in the E. A. Harrold elementary school in a segregated school system. He later attended the all black Woodstock High School in Memphis, Tennessee, graduating valedictorian.
A Presidential Executive Order issued by President Truman had desegregated the armed forces in 1948,[1] but the service academies were lagging in officer recruiting. President Kennedy specifically challenged the United States Coast Guard Academy to tender appointments to Black high school students. London Steverson was one of the Black student to be offered such an appointment, and when he accepted the opportunity to be part of the class of 1968, he became the second African American to enter the previously all-white military academy. On June 4, 1968 Steverson graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with a BS degree in Engineering and a commission as an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 1974, while still a member of the Coast Guard, Steverson entered The National Law Center of The George Washington University and graduated in 1977 with a Juris Doctor of Laws Degree.

USCG Assignments.
Steverson's first duty assignment out of the Academy was in Antarctic research logistical support. In July 1968 he reported aboard the Coast Guard Cutter (CGC) Glacier [2] (WAGB-4), an icebreaker operating under the control of the U.S. Navy, and served as a deck watch officer and head of the Marine Science Department. He traveled to Antarctica during two patrols from July 1968 to August 1969, supporting the research operations of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Research Project in and around McMurdo Station. During the 1969 patrol the CGC Glacier responded to an international distress call from the Argentine icebreaker General SanMartin, which they freed.
He received another military assignment from 1970 to 1972 in Juneau, Alaska as a Search and Rescue Officer. Before being certified as an Operations Duty Officer, it was necessary to become thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Alaskan remote sites. Along with his office mate, Ltjg Herbert Claiborne "Bertie" Pell, the son of Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Steverson was sent on a familiarization tour of Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force bases. The bases visited were Base Kodiak, Base Adak Island, and Attu Island, in the Aleutian Islands.[3]
Steverson was the Duty Officer on September 4, 1971 when an emergency call was received that an Alaska Airlines Boeing 727 airline passenger plane was overdue at Juneau airport. This was a Saturday and the weather was foggy with drizzling rain. Visibility was less than one-quarter mile. The 727 was en route to Seattle, Washington from Anchorage, Alaska with a scheduled stop in Juneau. There were 109 people on board and there were no survivors. Steverson received the initial alert message and began the coordination of the search and rescue effort. In a matter of hours the wreckage from the plane, with no survivors, was located on the side of a mountain about five miles from the airport. For several weeks the body parts were collected and reassembled in a staging area in the National Guard Armory only a few blocks from the Search and Rescue Center where Steverson first received the distress broadcast.[4]. Later a full investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the cause of the accident was equipment failure.[5]
Another noteworthy item is Steverson's involvement as an Operations Officer during the seizure of two Russian fishing vessels, the Kolevan and the Lamut for violating an international agreement prohibiting foreign vessels from fishing in United States territorial waters. The initial attempts at seizing the Russian vessels almost precipitated an international incident when the Russian vessels refused to proceed to a U. S. port, and instead sailed toward the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian MIG fighter planes were scrambled, as well as American fighter planes from Elmendorf Air Force Base before the Russian vessels changed course and steamed back

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J'aime les Americaines, encore.

It appears that President George Bush is the most popular American with the French since Jerry Lewis.
All over the civilized world, voters are turning terrorist-coddling liberals out of office and voting for politicians friendly toward Bush, the world's sworn enemy of Islamic fascism.
Those foreign leaders so admired by Democrats for hating George Bush and loving Saddam Hussein are being replaced by rulers who pledge their friendship to the United States.
Retrospectively, Barak Hussein Obama's answer about our most important ally being "the European Union" may eventually become true, thanks to Bush's ceaseless ally-making.
In Germany, pro-American Angela Merkel crushed the mincing anti-American chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2005.
Last year, conservatives swept Canada, making Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper the prime minister. I haven't loved Canadians this much since the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard is both the longest-serving Australian prime minister and -- by his own account -- the most conservative. As The New York Times rooted for his defeat in 2004, claiming Australians were furious with him for his support of the Iraq war, he won a historic third term.
Along with Howard, Bush's staunchest ally in the war on terrorism has been Britain's Labor Party leader Tony Blair. He's about to leave office -- only to be replaced by a leader from the even more pro-American Conservative Party. American celebrities who threaten to move out of the country every election rather than live under a conservative leader are running out of countries to move to.





According to Conservative columnist and writer, Ann Coulter, only Spain remains a nation of women. As long as Spain exists, it will not outlive the shame of its gutless capitulation to terrorist bombings in 2004. It is worse than Sweden's neutrality toward Hitler.
But France! Until this week, France seemed a less likely place to find someone who supports America than a meeting of Democrats.

There is an Italian saying, "Tutto mondo e un paese" (Moan and complain against promise of positive action.) Disregarding the literal translation it means that some things are the same the world over.

Nicolas Paul Stephane Sarkozy Nagy-Bocsa is called “Sarko the American” by his critics. His Hungarian father fled communism after World War II to Paris where he met and married a French woman of Jewish-Greek extraction. Sarko went to Catholic schools before attending the prestigious Institute of Political Science and studying to become a lawyer. In 1983 at the age of 28 he became mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, France’s richest town per capita. In 1988 he was elected to the National Assembly and became Budget Minister under Prime Minister Edouard Balladur. In 2002 he was appointed Interior Minister and began a crackdown on crime. His popularity soared.





From Le Monde (major French daily): "At the end of the day and without pretending to know what is in their hearts, French voters opted (regarding recent Presidential election there) for energy. The Socialist Candidate for president, Segolene Royal, campaigned as a “feminist”, but the suave Sarko seduced enough of the women of France to secure a 53 percent majority in the presidential election. Sego positioned herself as a “mother” who would be the first female president. The news media swooned, but the electorate did not. The women of France voted for the candidate they thought would be the most competent leader. A woman is a woman and may even be a feminist, but that would not necessarily make her the best president. The French Defense Minister, Michelle Alliot-Marie, said “We don’t want a president who changes her ideas as often as she changes her skirts”.

Against Segolene Royal, Mother Courage seeking to accompany the French in their difficulties, they gave their preference to the man who presented himself as carrying the promise of action against a predictable decline."



With Nicolas Sarkozy's decisive victory as the new president of France, the French have produced their first pro-American ruler since Louis XVI.
"Sarkozy the American," as he is known in France, called Muslim rioters "scum." Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
He explained his position on Muslim immigrants in France, saying: "Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn't practice female genital mutilation on one's daughters, one doesn't slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules."
Sarko never issued an apology or entered rehab. To the contrary, he said: "I called some individuals that I refuse to call 'youth' by the name they deserve. ... I never felt that by saying 'scum' I was being vulgar, hypocritical or insincere."
Is there a single American politician who would speak so clearly without then apologizing to Howard Dean?



The blunt Sarkozy, 52, is the son of a Hungarian immigrant and the first president of France born after World War II. The generational difference is evident in his head-on approach to tackling the nation's problems.



"I want to express my conviction that in the service of France there are no camps," he said. "To all those who want to serve their country, I say I am ready to work with them and I will not ask them to deny their convictions."
Sarkozy said in his speech that he was elected May 6 with a mandate for change.
"The people conferred a mandate on me. ... I will scrupulously fulfill it," he said.
"Never has opposition to change been so dangerous for France as in this world in complete change, where each is trying to change faster than the others, where delays can be fatal." He promised to restore the values of "work, effort, merit" and to "invent new solutions." On the global front, protecting human rights and fighting global warming will top his agenda.

The Torch has been passed from Chirac to Sarkozy


Tony Blair is my friend.


It looks like the Democrats are going to have to drop their talking point about Bush irritating the rest of the world. Evidently not as much as Muslim terrorists irritate the rest of the world. The politicians who hate Bush keep being dumped by their own voters. At the Democratic presidential debate a few weeks ago, Barak Hussein Obama said that Bush had "alienate(d) the world community" and vowed that he would build "the sort of alliances and trust around the world that has been so lacking over the last six years."
Democrats are terrific at building alliances. Remember how Jimmy Carter won the love of the world by ditching our ally the Shah of Iran, allowing him be replaced by a string of crazy ayatollahs? Since then, we haven't heard a peep from that area of the world.
The smartest woman in the world sniped that she would "create alliances instead of alienation."
Yes, it was spellbinding how her husband charmed North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his sociopathic son Kim Jong Il by showering them with visits from Jimmy Carter and gifts from love-machine Madeleine Albright. And that was that: No more trouble from North Korea!
According to Ann Coulter, the center of the supposedly America-hating world is France. But now it turns out even the French don't hate America as much as liberals do. Also,in celebration of France's spectacular return to Western civilization, she is having croissants for breakfast every day this week.

Segolene Royal, the Socialist candidate, is a 53 year old unmarried mother of four children. To her supporters she was charming, beautiful and tres chic. She was a moment of truth for feminity but she was not pro-American enough for the French. She ran as a feminist, but she never answered the question "What do women want?"



The French Socialists look on work as punishment. They have a national law that will not allow anyone to work more than 35 hours per week. One out of every four French citizens is a civil servant who cannot be fired. That is 25 percent of all French citizens. The Socialists want to protect all welfare-state benefits. Miss Segolene Royal promised to create 500,000 more subsidized jobs and raise the minimun wage by 20 percent.

Her partner of 30 years - and father of her children - was the socialist party leader Francois Hollande.
Together they were the power couple of French politics, the equivalent of Bill and Hillary Clinton, ready to spearhead the rejuvenation of the French Left.
Even Jacques Chirac's wife, a political conservative, felt comfortable in talking up Royal as a potential successor to her husband.
But above all, in the context of fractious and enfeebled French socialism, Sego was her own woman, not an elephant, as the grey, male and mostly tired old warhorses of the party are known.


The legacy of 12 years under the Presidency of Jacque Chirac has left France with a sluggish economy, skyrocketing public debt, and chronic unemployment at about 8.8 percent. That is the highest in the European Union (EU) except for Poland, Slovakia, and Romania.



US Representative, Tom Lantos, a Democrat from San Mateo, California said "I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone". He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."

"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said.

After leaving office in 2005 Schroeder became chairman of the North Europe Gas Pipeline, which is 51 percent owned by the Russian state natural gas company Gazprom.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, once Schroeder's chief of staff, said Lantos' comments overstepped "the limits of political decency."

He said Lantos' comment "insults not only the former chancellor but also the great majority of German people."

Lantos said Chirac "should go down to the Normandy beaches. He should see those endless rows of white marble crosses and stars of David representing young Americans who gave their lives for the freedom of France."

He said under the successors of Schroeder and Chirac, Angela Merkel in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France, relations with the United States "will take a very positive turn"

Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, and sent to a Nazi labor camp when he was 16. He is the only survivor of the Holocaust ever to have served in Congress.



One of Sarko’s first priorities is to do away with the 35 hour work week. He admires the American work ethic. “American society”, he said, “understands that work can be liberating. While he is mending fences with the US, he is opposing the entry of Turkey into the EU.
But Turkey badly wants to join the European Union, and, in February 2002, the European Union Parliament voted overwhelmingly that a condition of Turkey's admission to the EU would be an acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. Only time will tell if this condition is met or modified.

In his victory speech, President Sarkozy said "Whatever our disagreements, France and the United States share the same values: freedom of speech, thought and faith; equality between men and women; and love of life.”
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.
Not since Lafayette and Rochambeau helped save Washington’s bacon at Yorktown, have our two countries expressed such authentic affection for one another.
‘Georgie and Sarko, I think this is the beginning of a great friendship’.