Pete Hegseth has begun his hearings for Secretary of Defense. He needs to be confirmed because let&#8217;s face it: Pete is awesome.
Democrats are determined they are going to club his nomination.
None of that is going to happen. Hegseth is going to be confirmed. He’s a military colonel who went to Princeton. The attempt to claim that “he’s just a Fox host” is garbage. It’s not true.
He has all the right principles for DOD. He wants to come in and clean house.
And — he also happens to have all the right enemies.
The people who despise Hegseth the most are members of the far-Left — people who want to weaken the military, people who seem very happy, for example, with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
The Hegseth hearings began with a lot of fireworks because some of the Code Pink protesters showed up. They lined up, all wearing idiotic uniforms and carrying signs that said things like, “No Hegseth, no Crusade” and “No Hegseth, No Christian Jihad.”
Stop, guys; I already support him. You can&#8217;t do anything to make me support him any more.
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Hegseth’s opening statement was exactly what you would expect from him, which is to say it was excellent and articulate, including all the right principles.
Hegseth praised the Lord for his nomination. You could see Democrats’ heads exploding because he mentioned Jesus.
This is great. You have a man of faith who is actually leading the Department of Defense. I think that&#8217;s a very good thing. He <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14283863/pete-hegseth-senate-confirmation-confronts-sexual-exploits.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>:
<blockquote>I&#8217;m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged. By the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny [his wife]. I&#8217;m not a perfect person. But redemption is real. And God forged me in ways that I know I&#8217;m prepared for. And I&#8217;m honored by the people standing and sitting behind me. And I look forward to leading this Pentagon on behalf of the war fighters.</blockquote>
Then, he proceeded to talk about some of his policy prescriptions. He <a href="https://www.instagram.com/cpac/reel/DE0SSGnPvMB/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spoke</a> of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal:
<blockquote>There&#8217;s been no accountability for the disaster of the withdrawal in Afghanistan. And that&#8217;s precisely why we&#8217;re here today. Leadership has been unwilling to take accountability, and it&#8217;s the time to restore that to our most senior ranks.</blockquote>
Hegseth also talked about getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a priority at the DOD. He said it needs to be a lethal, war-fighting machine, not an initiative for making people feel better about their woke choices. He <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/hegseth_opening_statement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>:
<blockquote>Our standards will be high, and they will be equal (not equitable, that is a very different word). We need to make sure every warrior is fully qualified on their assigned weapon system, every pilot is fully qualified and current on the aircraft they are flying, and every general or flag officer is selected for leadership based purely on performance, readiness, and merit. Leaders—at all levels—will be held accountable. And warfighting and lethality—and the readiness of the troops and their families—will be our only focus.</blockquote>
Hegseth suggested our top priorities include winning a nuclear war. He also declared, “I support Israel killing every last member of Hamas.” That sounds good to me, and it should sound good to civilized people everywhere.
We have serious issues on the table. We have a continued war in Ukraine. We have Iran still making moves in the Middle East. We have Turkey now making incursions into Syria.
But we also have the possibility of protecting Taiwan from Chinese predations and containing Chinese predation. We have the possibility of standing up to the Iranian terror fighting nexus and Turkish operations.
This is a moment of opportunity for the United States military — if we can seize it, if we can change our procurement processes, if we can change how we actually recruit, if we can change how the American war machine works.
Hegseth is going to go in there with a chainsaw and cut a lot of the deadwood.
He&#8217;s a threat to the system, which is precisely why he deserves our support.
Another thing: If they thought they would destroy him in this hearing, they were out of their damned minds.
* * *
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Hegseth Kicks Ass: Confirm Him Now

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My Old Home

The Battle Of Luzon, Part 4: Victory And Aftermath

American General

Douglas MacArthur

History

Japan

Pacific Ocean

Philippines

U.S. Army

U.S. Navy

World War II

To truly appreciate the tragedy that unfolded in Manila in 1945, one must consider that up until then the city had been nicknamed “The Pearl of the Orient.” Historian James Scott offers: “In the four decades leading up to World War II, Manila developed into a small slice of America in Asia, home not only to thousands of U.S. service members, but employees of companies like General Electric, Del Monte, and B.F. Goodrich. The city boasted a great quality of life, with department stores and social clubs, golf courses and swimming pools, all in a tropical setting, and at a fraction of the cost of living in the United States.”
Then in December 1941, the Japanese came.
Filthy, ragged, half-starved U.S. prisoners were paraded through the streets of Manila after their 1942 surrender. The sight of their more physically imposing former protectors being ignominiously herded along by diminutive Japanese soldiers was disillusioning. “Filipinos stood and watched in an agony of embarrassment,” recalled Manila journalist Nick Joaquin. “These were the God blessed Americans, supposedly invincible. Now here they were: mighty giants being herded rudely by little Jap soldiers. We would never recover from that loss of innocence.”
For the unlucky POWs, however, their three-year nightmare of criminally sadistic captivity was just beginning. 3,700 U.S. civilians were also caught up in the invasion; they would languish in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, where they desperately ate dogs, cats, pigeons, rats, insects, anything to survive. On the eve of their liberation, the civilian prisoners starved to death at a rate of three to four per day. (MacArthur’s Philippine guerilla network informed him of this, hence his relentless drive to keep moving).
Believing their new Filipino subjects to be an inferior race, the Emperor’s troops had no qualms about looting food supplies and stores, while stealing vital farm equipment which left fields to rot. By the third year of Japanese occupation — with the exception of Japan’s puppet Filipino government officials and collaborators — starvation was rampant, killing some 500 civilians per day. Hordes of beggars roamed the streets; some went so far as to dig up graves to rob jewelry, watches, anything that could be bartered for a fistful of rice. Parents unable to feed their children might abandon or even sell them. (U.S. intelligence reported that by 1944, it cost less to buy a Filipino child than a hog).
<div id="attachment_856933" style="width: 719px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856933" class="wp-image-856933 " src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/SC-202168-710x576.jpeg" alt="General MacArthur visits the ruins of the Manila hotel that was his pre-war home on Luzon, 23 February 1945. He is accompanied by Colonel James Corbett and two infantrymen, one armed with an M1 rifle. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command." width="709" height="575" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/SC-202168-710x576.jpeg 710w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/SC-202168-300x243.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/SC-202168.jpeg 740w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px" />General MacArthur visits the ruins of the Manila hotel that was his pre-war home on Luzon, 23 February 1945. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
On February 3, 1945, U.S. troops entered the capital. But they did not find an open city. Instead they faced a fortified urban center they would have to take block-by-block, street-by-street, even house-by-house. This came as a rude shock to their five-star commander. Having thoroughly outmaneuvered his enemy, MacArthur expected there to be few if any Japanese left in the area. Other than its sprawling port facilities, which could be demolished before evacuation to deny them to the Americans, the city held no strategic value, as MacArthur himself concluded in 1941 when he abandoned Manila for the more defensible jungle terrain of Bataan, declaring it an open city. Therefore, the notion that Yamashita, a first-rate commander, would choose to defend Manila perplexed him — and then, as the destruction and carnage mounted, infuriate him. But MacArthur’s assumptions had been correct; the Tiger of Malaya had no intention of fighting for the Philippine capital. 
Yamashita, however, was dealing with a problem that plagued the Japanese High Command throughout the war. That was the intense rivalry, even downright disdain, between the Imperial Army and Navy top brass. In the case of Manila, while Yamashita pulled most of his army troops out of the city before it was surrounded, some 20,000 Japanese sailors under the command of Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi remained behind to destroy Manila’s harbor.
Although still technically under Yamashita’s command, Iwabuchi and his men didn’t see it that way. They vowed to make a stand, spending the weeks prior to the enemy’s arrival throwing up hasty fortifications, sowing landmines, constructing pillboxes and tank traps. When the Americans approached, the Japanese in the besieged capital opted to get drunk and fight to the death. 
And the atrocities began.
<div id="attachment_856963" style="width: 717px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856963" class="wp-image-856963 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-273406-707x576.jpeg" alt="Liberation of Manila, 1945. Stretcher party brings out a wounded U.S. soldier, following an attack by U.S. troops to liberate Filipino prisoners in the walled city, 23 February 1945. Note wrecked buildings. Catalog #: 80-G-273406. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command." width="707" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-273406-707x576.jpeg 707w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-273406-300x244.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-273406-768x626.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-273406.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 707px) 100vw, 707px" />Stretcher party brings out a wounded U.S. soldier, following an attack by U.S. troops to liberate Filipino prisoners in the walled city, 23 February 1945. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
In a mid-February letter to his wife, Gen. Eichelberger wrote with grim understatement, “I hear the big parade has been called off.” In fact, it would have been impossible to march down any Manila street as no thoroughfare would be free of debris and corpses, mostly civilians. By the time the last shot was fired, the Pearl of the Orient would be reduced to a smoldering heap of rubble, whose gutters ran red with the blood of innocents.
It is impossible to adequately describe the horrors the Filipinos endured. Men were bound and shot, bayoneted or mutilated en masse, while patients were strapped to hospital beds before the buildings were set ablaze. Females of every age were brutally gang-raped before being systematically murdered. Babies were tossed in the air and skewered on bayonets by sadistic Japanese who smeared the children’s eyeballs on walls like jelly.
Filipina survivor Carmen Guerrero Nakpil remembered: “It was like a scene from hell. We were running like rats. I saw my classmates dragged through the streets to be raped by the Japanese in the Bayview Hotel. I saw my neighbors cut down by sniper bullets. The killing was terrible.”
<div id="attachment_856917" style="width: 708px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856917" class="size-large wp-image-856917" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3139974-698x576.jpg" alt="20th March 1945: American soldiers watching as refugees pick their way through the debris of North Manila, after safely arriving in the American held part of the city while fighting continues elsewhere. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)" width="698" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3139974-698x576.jpg 698w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3139974-300x248.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3139974-768x634.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3139974.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 698px) 100vw, 698px" />20th March 1945: American soldiers watching as refugees pick their way through the debris of North Manila, after safely arriving in the American held part of the city while fighting continues elsewhere. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)</div>
When the Japanese burst into the LaSalle chapel, Jose and Juanita Carlos were hiding in the cellar with their children. Jose was dragged off and killed. Then they came back for the rest of the family. Sixteen-year-old Dionisia was bayoneted until unconscious. When she came too she looked for her family. She found her mother and nine-year-old sister and six-year-old brother bayoneted to death, and her nineteen-year-old sister shot dead.
Although it has been claimed that it was a spontaneous eruption of violence against the Filipinos upon whom rogue Imperial troops took out their rage for siding with the Americans (and fear as death closed in), captured Japanese records show that, as with Nanking, the massacre was officially sanctioned, even encouraged. One order went so far as to give explicit instructions on how to commit mass murder: “When Filipinos are to be killed, they must be gathered into one place and disposed of with the consideration that ammunition and manpower must not be used to excess. Because the disposal of dead bodies is a troublesome task, they should be gathered into houses which are scheduled to be burned or demolished. They should also be thrown into the river.”
And yet, throughout the carnage of what has been called the “Pacific Stalingrad”, courageous Filipinos risked their lives braving sniper fire and shell bursts to fill canteens and bring ammunition and food to the Americans hunkered down in the wreckage.
<div id="attachment_856915" style="width: 736px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856915" class="size-large wp-image-856915" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3241992-726x576.jpg" alt="February 1945: A Filipino guerrilla fighting Japanese forces of occupation in Manila. Lacking a tripod for his machine-gun, he has tied the weapon to a fire hydrant. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)" width="726" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3241992-726x576.jpg 726w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3241992-300x238.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3241992-768x609.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3241992.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 726px) 100vw, 726px" />February 1945: A Filipino guerrilla fighting Japanese forces of occupation in Manila. Lacking a tripod for his machine-gun, he has tied the weapon to a fire hydrant. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)</div>
Despite MacArthur’s repeated calls for the Japanese to surrender, they resisted with suicidal desperation while the American commander anguished over the destruction of the once beautiful city. GIs accustomed to fighting in jungles and beaches had to quickly learn the ways of deadly urban warfare, in which every floor of every building, every stairwell, even closets, were bitterly contested. It was a brutal, often hand-to-hand, form of combat the likes of which had not been seen in the Pacific before, made all the more difficult by the number of civilians.
The Americans, wielding rifles, grenades, satchel charges, flamethrowers, sometimes even rocks and spades, eventually cornered the remaining Japanese in the one-quarter-square-mile fortress of Intramuros, whose walls, twenty-five feet high and forty feet thick, had withstood maritime raiders and earthquakes since the 1570s. General Kenney wanted to bomb the citadel, but MacArthur, aware that many civilians were trapped within, denied his requests, especially the use of napalm. But he did allow the big guns to fire on the holdouts. (In the end, the shelling was so destructive it didn’t really matter.) Eventually the guns breached the walls and the Japanese, including the recalcitrant Iwabuchi, were wiped out or committed ritual suicide.
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With tactics in the capable hands of his field commanders, MacArthur set out to visit the liberated Santo Tomas and Bilibid prison camps. The conditions of the internees horrified him. He was especially moved by the military captives at Bilibid, who made pathetic attempts to stand at attention. In his memoirs he wrote: “Here was all that was left of my men of Bataan and Corregidor…As I passed slowly down the scrawny, suffering column, a murmur accompanied me as each man barely speaking above a whisper, said ‘You’re back,’ or ‘You made it’…I could only reply, ‘I’m a little late, but we finally came.’”
<div id="attachment_856923" style="width: 934px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856923" class="size-large wp-image-856923" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-563522359-924x576.jpg" alt="American soldiers who were part of the liberation of the Japanese Bilibid POW camp stop to talk with two internees who had been in the prison camp for two years, Manila, Philippines, February 11, 1945. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)" width="924" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-563522359-924x576.jpg 924w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-563522359-300x187.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-563522359-768x479.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-563522359.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px" />American soldiers who were part of the liberation of the Japanese Bilibid POW camp stop to talk with two internees who had been in the prison camp for two years, Manila, Philippines, February 11, 1945. (Photo by Underwood Archives/Getty Images)</div>
By the time the 29-day fight for Manila was over, and every last Japanese killed, the city had been utterly annihilated with some 11,000 buildings reduced to ruins and ash. 70% of the utilities, 75% of the factories, 80% of the southern residential district and the entire business district had been razed. Of all the Allied cities, only Nanking and Warsaw saw such destruction and civilian carnage. No one will ever know for sure but it is estimated that 100,000 Filipinos died at the hands of the enraged Japanese.
On March 4, 1945, Manila was officially declared secured. The smoking Philippine capital had been liberated, but at a horrific cost to the city and its bewildered inhabitants. CBS News correspondent Bill Dunn would reflect on the tragedy, summing up the horrible effects of war: “The Manila of 1941 was a unique Manila, a Manila that had never existed before, a Manila that would never exist again.”
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<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-1-climax-of-the-southwest-pacific-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 1: Climax Of The Southwest Pacific War</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-2-race-to-manila" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 2: Race To Manila</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-3-the-massacre-of-manila" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 3: The Massacre Of Manila</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-4-victory-and-aftermath" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 4: Victory And Aftermath</a></h3>
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Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id=55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id%3D55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K_WhJtiUZw7LF1PwSIHtH">books</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw02hy-lB4UuAlHo7FfD_FIQ">Substack</a> and <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/bschaeffer123&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0P6pRoAqcBhUQ1W0qwN5rH">X/Twitter</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Manila Harbour

The Battle Of Luzon, Part 3: The Massacre Of Manila

In planning the battle for Luzon, MacArthur would have liked to surprise his waiting opponent. But Yamashita understood that Lingayen Gulf offered the only approach to the central Luzon plain, on which U.S. tanks could maneuver most effectively. It also had the best road and rail networks approaching Manila. Although he initially stationed 36,000 troops to cover the 22 miles of landing beaches, Yamashita conceded that U.S. naval firepower would just scythe his men down on the shoreline. And despite his public bravura, the Japanese commander knew that, with Halsey’s and Kinkaid’s U.S. fleets now masters of the sea, and Kenney’s planes filling the skies, the best he could really hope for was a holding action through a defense in depth to give the home islands time to prepare for the inevitable invasion. 
So, in December 1944, he withdrew his men and headquarters, along with members of Tokyo’s puppet Philippine government, headed by the controversial President José Laurel, into the more defensible terrain around the Philippine summer capital of Baguio, 30 miles east of Lingayen and 150 miles north of Manila.
<div id="attachment_856493" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856493" class="size-large wp-image-856493" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-59525-740x576.jpg" alt="Battle line entering the Lingayen Gulf. The USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) leads the USS Colorado (BB-45), USS Louisville (CA-28), USS Portland (CA-33), and USS Columbia (CL-56) in a battle line entering the Lingayen Gulf preceding the landing off Luzon in the Philippines in January 1945. Catalog #: 80-G-59525. National Archives &amp; Records Administration." width="740" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-59525-740x576.jpg 740w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-59525-300x233.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-59525-768x598.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-59525.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />National Archives &amp; Records Administration.</div>
At dawn on January 9, 1945, code-named &#8220;S-Day,&#8221; the enormous U.S. fleet — the largest of any landings in the Pacific and equal to the American contingent at Normandy — lay to in Lingayen Gulf and over 800 anchors splashed into the unusually calm waters. It was an awesome display of U.S. industrial might. At 0700, the big guns of some 70 battleships and cruisers roared, sending shells of all calibers whistling down onto what turned out to be undefended beaches. Beginning at 0930, the first of 175,000 troops of Gen. Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army waded ashore while Gen. Robert Eichelberger’s smaller Eighth Army was held in reserve. 
<div id="attachment_856503" style="width: 722px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856503" class="size-large wp-image-856503" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-507339859-712x576.jpg" alt="Coast Guard-manned landing barges bringing troops to the beaches of Lingayen Gulf during World War Two, Luzon, Philippines, circa January 7th 1945. (Photo by US Coast Guard/Getty Images)" width="712" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-507339859-712x576.jpg 712w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-507339859-300x243.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-507339859-768x621.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-507339859.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px" />US Coast Guard/Getty Images</div>
By the end of the day, the GIs would push eight miles inland. Only the occasional Kamikaze air and even suicide boat attacks, with sporadic artillery rounds warbling in from distant enemy gun positions, disturbed the otherwise smooth operations.
Once four of Kruger’s divisions made it ashore and began to press inland, MacArthur left his headquarters on the light cruiser USS Boise and headed in. Filipino peasants waving U.S. and Philippine flags joyfully greeted the Americans, while others raced ahead to spread the word that after over 1,200 days of Japanese rule, MacArthur had returned as promised, and their deliverance was finally at hand.
<div id="attachment_856693" style="width: 725px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856693" class="wp-image-856693 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-304340-715x576.jpeg" alt="Lingayen Gulf Landings, 1945. General Douglas MacArthur and staff leaving USS BOISE (CL-47) on 9 January 1945 to go ashore on the Lingayen Gulf beaches, Luzon Philippine Islands. Catalog #: 80-G-304340. National Archive. Naval History and Heritage Command" width="715" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-304340-715x576.jpeg 715w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-304340-300x242.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-304340-768x619.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-304340.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 715px) 100vw, 715px" />Lingayen Gulf Landings, 1945. General Douglas MacArthur and staff leaving USS BOISE (CL-47) on 9 January 1945 to go ashore on the Lingayen Gulf beaches, Luzon Philippine Islands. National Archive. Naval History and Heritage Command</div>
The central Luzon plain, the amphitheater in which Krueger’s army would be maneuvering, was roughly 40 miles wide and ran some 110 miles due south from Lingayen to Manila Bay. It was walled in on each side by high, rugged peaks blanketed under a thick layer of jungle vegetation. It provided ideal terrain for flying columns to advance quickly down the fine roads leading to Manila.
MacArthur had earned the epithet “Dugout Dug” on this island in 1942 when he rarely ventured from his headquarters in Corregidor’s Malinta Tunnel to visit the front lines during the bitter struggle to hold Bataan. But now the General was, quite literally, often out in front leading the GIs and tankers in their advance south. No doubt invigorated by the prospect of reaching his beloved city of Manila, he raced around the battlefield in his five-star-studded Jeep like a man decades younger. At one moment he could be found perched on the turret of a tank ascertaining Japanese positions. Other times up in a B-17 watching a parachute jump. Once when confronted by an enemy roadblock and a Nambu machine gun opened up, a flummoxed lieutenant shouted to him, “We’re going after those fellows, but please, sir, get down; we’re under fire!” Another time, while inspecting the lines of the 161st Infantry regiment, they were suddenly attacked by Japanese tanks and the lines buckled. In conduct reminiscent of his days leading the Rainbow Division over the top in the First World War, the highest-ranking general in the Pacific Theater personally rallied the troops who beat back the assault, earning him his third Silver Star.
Although courageous to the point of being reckless, there most likely was a method to MacArthur’s madness. It was to goad the cautious Krueger to move faster as he suspected, correctly, that Yamashita had opted to withdraw into the rugged mountains east of Lingayen to let the Americans come to him in time. Thus, he saw no need for caution. But Krueger feared a screaming host of Japanese might come charging down from the mountains to puncture his left flank, cutting him off from the beachhead to his rear, and, in Romulo’s words, “slicing him up like a pie.” But for a frustrated MacArthur, who justifiably feared Japanese reprisals against POWs and Filipino civilians alike, speed was everything. “Get to Manila!” he exhorted his commanders. “Go around the Japs. Bounce off the Japs. Save your men, but get to Manila!”
<div id="attachment_856567" style="width: 733px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856567" class="wp-image-856567 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-258490-723x576.jpeg" alt="Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, USN, Commander Seventh Fleet, and Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, USA Commander Sixth Army, on board PT-525, off Leyte Island, the Philippines, 23 October 1944. The boat was taking General MacArthur ashore at the time. Catalog #: 80-G-258490. National Archives. Original Date: Mon, Oct 23, 1944. Naval History and Heritage Command." width="723" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-258490-723x576.jpeg 723w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-258490-300x239.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-258490-768x612.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-258490.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px" />Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, USN, Commander Seventh Fleet, and Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, USA Commander Sixth Army, on board PT-525, off Leyte Island, the Philippines, 23 October 1944. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
While Kruger was directing his Sixth Army in their fight to capture the enormous complex of runways and installations that made up Clark Field, his commander unleashed his reserves in a series of rapid thrusts elsewhere that confounded his Japanese opponent. Due to the Mindoro landing, Yamashita had to contend with the possibility of an attack from the south. So he sent part of his army to shore up defenses below Manila. As such, the landings in Lingayen caught every Japanese column in motion.
On January 31, MacArthur put a division of paratroopers from Eichelberger’s Eighth Army ashore at Nasugbu, 40 miles south of Manila. The landings were virtually unopposed as Col. Masatoshi Fujishige, upon whose shoulders the defense of the area had been entrusted, had placed his troops in defensive positions closer to Mindoro. In a scene reminiscent of the Allied advance through Holland, civilians cheered their American saviors, gifting them with food and spirits, and covering their vehicles in flowers until they resembled victorious Roman chariots.
Meanwhile, the General landed another corps at Subic Bay west of Manila above Bataan, and with minimal losses captured the valuable port of Olongapo while hitting the bewildered Yamashita with another regiment at Mariveles on the southern tip of the peninsula, trapping the Japanese troops in a double envelopment. Bataan, on which the Americans and Filipinos held out for months in 1942, fell in seven days. By the end of January, Manila was surrounded.
The most difficult Japanese nut to crack should have been the 5,000 Imperial soldiers stationed on the island bastion of Corregidor in the mouth of Manila Bay. With exquisite timing, paratroopers descended on the island’s “topside” while GIs stormed the “bottomside” beaches. After a week of fighting, the remaining defenders blew themselves up in the Malinta Tunnel. Although the Japanese lost twice their initial landing force taking the island in 1942, the Americans suffered fewer than 300 KIA (50 in the final explosion).
<div id="attachment_856583" style="width: 759px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856583" class="size-large wp-image-856583" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3225792-749x576.jpg" alt="16th February 1945: American paratroops of the 503rd Regiment (Parachute Regiment) drop on the bomb-shattered terrain of the island of Corregidor in the Philippines. The air warriors quickly seized batteries and defences, clearing the entrance to Manila Bay and opening the harbour to the Allied fleet. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="749" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3225792-749x576.jpg 749w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3225792-300x231.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3225792-768x590.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3225792.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 749px) 100vw, 749px" />Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images</div>
The landings and subsequent race to Manila from all sides had been a remarkable strategic enterprise, which earned the ardent praise of no less an astute observer than Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. George Marshall, who in his report would declare: “Yamashita’s inability to cope with MacArthur’s swift moves, and his desired reaction to the deception measures, combined to place the Japanese in an impossible situation.” The enemy, he went on, “was forced into a piecemeal commitment of his troops” which left the Agno River, a potential major defensive stronghold, lightly defended. MacArthur was able to neutralize Japanese numerical parity by compelling his opponent to split his forces and then scramble to attack with whatever units were in the zone of operations. The General himself would write in his memoirs with typical MacArthur braggadocio (though in this case justified) “Never had such large numbers of troops been so outmaneuvered…and left tactically impotent to take an active part in the final battle.”
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With Clark Field finally in the methodical Krueger’s hands after heavy fighting, as well as engineers clearing out booby traps the Japanese had sewn all over the installation, the Americans from both the north and south were poised to enter the capital.
It was now early February and the 1st Cavalry, the vanguard of 100,000 Americans pouring down Luzon’s main highways while the rest guarded the beachhead, had reached the suburbs of Manila. With the bulk of Yamashita’s forces nullified in the rugged terrain around Baguio, victory was in the air. The triumphant MacArthur, now at the threshold of all he’d been pushing towards for the past three years, was preparing a grand parade through Manila ala the Allies’ triumph down the Champs Élysées. The media celebrated. Newsweek reported: “Prize Of The Pacific, Manila, Fell To MacArthur Like A Ripened Plum!” Time magazine headlined its Philippine story “Victory! Mabuhay!” (Tagalog for “Hurrah!”).
But the headlines were shatteringly premature. In fact, before the fight for Luzon was over, the city of Manila would suffer one of the most cruel and heartbreaking tragedies of the Second World War.
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Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages of The Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge, and other outlets. He is the author of three <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id=55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id%3D55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K_WhJtiUZw7LF1PwSIHtH">books</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw02hy-lB4UuAlHo7FfD_FIQ">Substack</a> and <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/bschaeffer123&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0P6pRoAqcBhUQ1W0qwN5rH">X/Twitter</a>.
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Correction: And earlier version of this article contained a photo of General Douglas MacArthur returning to the Philippines, wading through the water. MacArthur&#8217;s famous return took place in 1944 not in January of 1945. The image has been removed.

80-G-59525

The Battle Of Luzon, Part 2: Race To Manila

Inside the imperial palace in Tokyo, Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki stood uneasily before his Emperor Hirohito and apologized for the catastrophe that had just befallen his majesty’s army and navy at the hands of the Americans on and around the Philippine island of Leyte. In the fierce land and sea combat that lasted from October 17 to December 24, 1944, the backbone of the Japanese fleet, as well as some 65,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft, were erased from the order of battle. When the Emperor reminded Koiso that he’d promised Leyte would be a repeat of Japan’s 1582 victory at Tennozan, the prime minister sheepishly mumbled that Luzon, not Leyte, would be the Kentai Kessen, “decisive battle,” that would once and for all destroy the Americans and their allies advancing ever closer to the home islands.
Luzon was the main island in the Philippines archipelago, and site of the nation’s capital city Manila. Slightly larger than Cuba, it stretches some 460 miles running north-to-south, and sits roughly equidistant between Japan and Australia. If Japan could not fight off the Americans here and regain the initiative then the sea lanes between the home islands and her vital raw materials in the Dutch East Indies, which had been severed when Leyte was lost, would be forever cut off. And should Luzon fall, only the island bastions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa stood between the Allies and Japan.
<div id="attachment_855787" style="width: 726px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855787" class="size-large wp-image-855787" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-289537-716x576.jpeg" alt="Leyte Invasion, October 1944. General Douglas Macarthur and Philippine president Sergio Osmena in a landing craft on their way to ceremonies proclaiming the liberation of Leyte, 23 October 1944. On the right is Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo. Catalog #: 80-G-289537. National Archives. Mon, Oct 23, 1944. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command." width="716" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-289537-716x576.jpeg 716w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-289537-300x241.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-289537-768x618.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-289537.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 716px) 100vw, 716px" />General Douglas MacArthur and Philippine president Sergio Osmena in a landing craft on their way to ceremonies proclaiming the liberation of Leyte, 23 October 1944. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
Bearing down on Luzon was an immense U.S. invasion force of over 800 ships, 3,000 landing craft — many just arrived from Normandy — and some 280,000 troops. This formidable army, fielding more men than Eisenhower landed at Sicily, was led by America’s most brilliant strategist, Five-Star General Douglas MacArthur. For two years this American Caesar had dazzled the Japanese with one victory upon the next in a relentless drive up New Guinea and the Bismarck Sea with the aim of recapturing the Philippines.
<div id="attachment_855769" style="width: 727px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855769" class="wp-image-855769 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-281338-717x576.jpeg" alt="Carrier Raids on Formosa, October 1944. Crewmen on USS Hancock (CV-19) move 3.5-inch rockets (with 5-inch diameter warheads) to planes, while preparing for strikes on Formosa, 12 October 1944. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.Catalog #: 80-G-281338. Naval History and Heritage Command. " width="717" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-281338-717x576.jpeg 717w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-281338-300x241.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-281338-768x617.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-281338.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 717px) 100vw, 717px" />Carrier Raids on Formosa, October 1944. Crewmen on USS Hancock (CV-19). National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
Beginning in November 1942 with a grinding, bloody fight for Buna on New Guinea’s northern coast, MacArthur’s advances steadily accelerated. Utilizing amphibious thrusts by coordinating land, sea, and air power — what Churchill described as “triphibious warfare” — the general leapfrogged from beachhead to beachhead in ever more audacious envelopments up the world’s second largest island. Indeed, by the time his landing force steamed towards Leyte in October 1944, the first of the Philippine islands targeted for assault, MacArthur had captured more territory while suffering fewer casualties than any commander in modern warfare — while inflicting ten times as many losses on the enemy.
MacArthur now set his determined sights on the ultimate prize, Luzon, 300 miles north of Leyte. Waiting for him, however, was a Japanese garrison numbering some 270,000 determined troops, the largest enemy contingent the Americans would confront in the Pacific War. Moreover, the Emperor’s forces would be under the overall command of a formidable general in his own right, Tomoyuki Yamashita, the “Tiger of Malaya.” On this most vital Philippine island, two gifted generals, each at the height of his power, would face off in the climactic battle of the Southwest Pacific campaign.
<div id="attachment_855827" style="width: 463px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855827" class="wp-image-855827 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3201763-453x576.jpg" alt="circa 1945: Japanese army general Tomoyuki Yamashita uses a cane while walking along a dirt road ahead of several soldiers. Yamashita was known as the 'Tiger of Malaya' for his leadership of the Japanese forces against the British troops in the Philippines. (Photo by US Army/Getty Images)" width="453" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3201763-453x576.jpg 453w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3201763-236x300.jpg 236w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3201763-768x977.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3201763.jpg 805w" sizes="(max-width: 453px) 100vw, 453px" />Japanese army general Tomoyuki Yamashita. US Army/Getty Images.</div>
Although the primary aim of seizing Leyte in the fall of 1944 was to provide MacArthur an aerodrome from which Allied planes could cover his Luzon campaign, as well as stage raids on Formosa and the Chinese mainland, the soil proved to be unstable during the rainy season, which had just begun (24 inches of rain fell in November alone). Although some air bases were eventually operational, due to the soggy runways as well as washed out roads in need of constant repair, MacArthur’s air chief, General George Kenney, was unable to utilize the bulk of the island’s airstrips for the upcoming operations. Still, even with this unexpected setback, the imaginative MacArthur saw an opportunity.
The island of Mindoro, a mere hour-and-a-half ferry ride from Luzon and just 200 miles from Manila, offered ideal ground for Kenney’s aircraft. Adm. Chester Nimitz, MacArthur’s naval counterpart, agreed to support an operation to seize the island, with Adm. William “Bull” Halsey’s carrier task force providing vital top cover until Mindoro could be seized and converted into a land-based aerodrome. But the approach was dangerous. So perilous, in fact, that MacArthur’s reliable naval head, Adm. Thomas Kinkaid, vehemently opposed the landings as he feared his transports would be exposed to attacks from land-based enemy aircraft — especially the deadly Kamikaze suicide planes that made their debut at Leyte and whose attacks were growing in number and lethality — as the vulnerable convoy wiggled its way through the narrow waters of the Surigao Strait and Sulu Sea. Furthermore, should there be a significant number of Japanese on Mindoro, the operation could be costly, even repulsed. The Joint Chiefs in Washington, DC were also alarmed; the Pentagon declared MacArthur’s plan “too daring in scope, too risky in execution.”
But MacArthur’s sixth sense told him Yamashita had no stomach for another Leyte, but was instead husbanding his strength for the defense of Luzon. He also might have assumed that, just as his subordinates had been frightened by the hazards facing any convoy on the narrow approach to Mindoro, Yamashita would figure no enemy would risk such a passage. MacArthur’s contrarian instincts proved correct.
<div id="attachment_855783" style="width: 712px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855783" class="size-large wp-image-855783" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-301022-702x576.jpeg" alt="Mindoro Operation, December 1944. Caption: Escort carriers of task group 77.12.7 getting under way from the Palau Islands, en route for the invasion of Mindoro, 10 December 1944. Photographed from USS KADASHAN BAY (CVE-76). Catalog #: 80-G-301022. National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command." width="702" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-301022-702x576.jpeg 702w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-301022-300x246.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-301022-768x630.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/80-G-301022.jpeg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px" />Mindoro Operation, December 1944. Photographed from USS KADASHAN BAY (CVE-76). National Archives. Naval History and Heritage Command.</div>
On December 16, 1944, 10,000 American troops raced from their Higgins boats and overwhelmed the barely 1,000 Japanese stationed on Mindoro; the GIs soon captured four abandoned airstrips. The U.S. suffered just 240 KIA (a mere 18 on the ground, the rest Naval losses from air attacks). And unlike Leyte, the ground here was solid. U.S. engineers went to work refurbishing the captured airfields and constructing two more. Overhead, Halsey’s pilots fended off waves of marauding Japanese fighters and suicide planes swooping down from Luzon. By New Years Day 1945, an ebullient Kenney declared Mindoro his main aerodrome, allowing MacArthur to once again operate under the protection of his land-based air force.
The capture of Mindoro, the last stepping stone to Luzon, also confronted Yamashita with the possibility that MacArthur could hit him from the south as well as the obvious landing spot in Lingayen Gulf 140 miles north of Manila. And he was now cut off from his garrisons in the southern Philippines.
<div id="attachment_855845" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855845" class="size-large wp-image-855845" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-864x576.jpg" alt="acprints. Getty Images." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-183023714-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />acprints. Getty Images.</div>
Yamashita’s motivations for defending the island were purely military. But for MacArthur, his return to the Philippines was a deeply personal crusade. He’d lived in the archipelago for many years and felt the U.S. had a solemn obligation to free a people over whom we’d assumed responsibility after wresting the islands from the Spanish in 1898. He had been in command of the joint US-Philippine army in December 1941 when the Japanese invaded. Abandoning the capital, he consolidated his forces on the Bataan Peninsula due west across Manila Bay, and the Island fortress of Corregidor covering the mouth of the inlet. The General had hoped to fight a holding action, anticipating a U.S. relief force would come to the rescue and save his command. 
In early 1942, however, Japan was at the zenith of its power while the U.S. was just getting on a war footing, and thus in no position to relieve the beleaguered defenders. In May 1942 a combined 75,000 ragged and malnourished American and Filipino troops surrendered. Although it had been a heroic if forlorn stand that upset the Japanese timetable, it was the largest capitulation of U.S. forces in history.
<div id="attachment_855835" style="width: 801px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855835" class="size-large wp-image-855835" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3272158-791x576.jpg" alt="May 1943: Premier Tojo arriving in Manila. He responds to the salute from General Waui Ehk of the Japanese Administration and the Commander of the Imperial Japanese Fleet (in the white uniform). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="791" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3272158-791x576.jpg 791w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3272158-300x219.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3272158-768x560.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-3272158.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 791px) 100vw, 791px" />May 1943: Premier Tojo arriving in Manila. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.</div>
MacArthur believed his government had abandoned not just the brave garrison, but also the 18 million inhabitants of his beloved islands to a cruel occupier in the dark days of the war’s opening rampage of Japanese conquest following Pearl Harbor. He also felt an individual obligation to return as he’d been ordered by FDR to leave his doomed garrison and escape to Australia before the inevitable defeat, where he would organize the island continent’s defenses and then lead the eventual Allied counter-offensive in the Southwest Pacific. For almost three years, while American and Filipino captives languished in brutal captivity* and civilians endured privations and repressions, the Japanese military ruled the American protectorate.
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But now, to the jubilation of the Filipinos, who’d feared their islands would be bypassed in favor of a U.S. landing on Formosa farther to the north, and thus abandoned a second time, the Americans were back.
Carlos Romulo, the Philippine writer and diplomat who had been with MacArthur on Corregidor, was one of the General’s confidants. When in October he descended from the transport John Land to join the landing party of brass, politicians and war correspondents onto the barge headed for the beaches of Leyte, MacArthur embraced his friend. “Carlos, my boy, how does it feel to be home?” Two months later, the elated Romulo found himself in Lingayen Gulf amidst a vast Allied armada whose ships stretched out to the horizon. Thirty-seven agonizing months before, it had been a Japanese landing force in these waters. He recalled his “cold horror” when Manila Radio announced the news of Japanese transports in Lingayen. But now, he wrote with satisfaction, “it is their turn to quake.”
Meanwhile, following an interview with Yamashita who promised, “I shall write a brilliant history of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere on the Philippine Islands”, Radio Tokyo confidently announced: “The battle for Luzon, in which 300,000 American officers and men are doomed to die, is about to begin.”
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<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-1-climax-of-the-southwest-pacific-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 1: Climax Of The Southwest Pacific War</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-2-race-to-manila" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 2: Race To Manila</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-3-the-massacre-of-manila" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 3: The Massacre Of Manila</a></h3>
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-battle-of-luzon-part-4-victory-and-aftermath" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RELATED: The Battle Of Luzon, Part 4: Victory And Aftermath</a></h3>
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities fund manager, author, and columnist whose articles have appeared on the pages Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, NY Post, NY Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, Zerohedge and other outlets. He is the author of three <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id=55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD?ccs_id%3D55112527-86f6-4c89-b82e-a96d6869abed&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3K_WhJtiUZw7LF1PwSIHtH">books</a>. Follow him on <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw02hy-lB4UuAlHo7FfD_FIQ">Substack</a> and <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://x.com/bschaeffer123&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1736518135479000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0P6pRoAqcBhUQ1W0qwN5rH">X/Twitter</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.
* * *
NOTES:
<ol>
<li>In World War II some 40% of U.S. POWs died at the hands of the Japanese, as opposed to only 1% of those captured by the Germans.</li>
</ol>

NH 44317

The Battle Of Luzon, Part 1: Climax Of The Southwest Pacific War

American History

In December 1914, an observer flying over Western Europe would have gazed down at a most striking, and sinister, topographical feature. Two chains of deep trenches and concertinas of barbed wire slithered in snake-like patterns as far as the eye could see from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps, slicing an unsightly laceration across the blasted out fields of northern France and Belgium.
Hunkered down within these subterranean troughs amid the stench of feces, urine, decaying flesh and gun smoke, squatted the great armies of the Western Front. They glared at each other across a moonscape of water-logged shell craters, trees blown into twisted matchsticks silhouetted against a bleak sky, and grotesquely decomposing bodies of friend and foe alike left to ignominiously rot out in the “no-man’s land” between the lines.
<div id="attachment_848779" style="width: 441px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-848779" class="size-large wp-image-848779" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3067223-431x576.jpg" alt="circa 1914: German soldiers in the trenches during WW I. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="431" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3067223-431x576.jpg 431w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3067223-224x300.jpg 224w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3067223.jpg 766w" sizes="(max-width: 431px) 100vw, 431px" />Circa 1914: German soldiers in the trenches during WW I. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)</div>
The big guns to the rear lobbed their deadly payloads down onto bewildered youths, many in their teens, just struggling to survive this eerily troglodytic existence; one that, considering their innocence of life just the year before, must have seemed like a nightmare from which they could not stir.
The war, just five months in, had begun as a conflict of mobility, when in August the Kaiser’s armies, distinct in their steel gray long coats and spiked pickelhaube helmets, confidently marched through Belgium to strike at the French in a drive towards Paris and victory. But the poilus and their British Expeditionary Force (BEF) allies rallied at the Marne, just 30 miles from the French capital, and threw the Germans back in a bloodletting that shocked the world.
A series of failed attempts to outflank the other sent casualties on both sides soaring, but no breakthroughs were made, and the front stabilized. In a very short time the troops settled in, burrowing deep into the ground to escape the killing power of the new technological age of machine guns and fast-firing artillery. And there they remained, stagnant, immobile, rain soaked, miserable.
And yet even in the trenches, the very monument to man’s savagery and folly, hopeful demonstrations of the better angels of our nature could occur. And so it was on Christmas 1914, that one of the most poignant scenes in the history of warfare took place.
While the men of the BEF settled into their trenches to try and celebrate the holiday as best they could, strange sounds began to drift over from the German lines. Singing. “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht / Alles schläft; einsam wacht …”
British Private Frank Sumter recalled: “And then we heard the Germans singing ‘Silent Night, Holy Night.’ And our boys said ‘Let’s join in.’ So we joined in with the song.” At first, the British sentries weren’t sure what to make of the German activity, which included lighting festive candles on the rim of their trenches. Nervous Tommies peeked their heads up over the parapets then quickly ducked back down for fear of snipers.
But no one shot.
<div id="attachment_848753" style="width: 756px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-848753" class="size-large wp-image-848753" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-506037221-746x576.jpg" alt="British and German meeting in No Man's Land during unofficial true Christmas 1914. Northumberland Hussars, 7th Division, Bridoux-Banks Sector. (Photo by: Robert Hunt/Windmill Books/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" width="746" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-506037221-746x576.jpg 746w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-506037221-300x232.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-506037221-768x593.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-506037221.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 746px) 100vw, 746px" />British and German meeting in No Man&#8217;s Land during unofficial true Christmas 1914. Northumberland Hussars, 7th Division, Bridoux-Banks Sector. (Photo by: Robert Hunt/Windmill Books/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)</div>
Pvt. Leslie Walkington remembered the extraordinary event that followed. “And then we saw a German standing up, waving his arms. And we didn’t shoot.” Instead of a battle cry, the Germans were calling out to their British Kameraden to have a truce and celebrate Christmas together. The men on both sides of the lines eventually overcame their suspicions and climbed out of their trenches. They met out in the open, offering enemies not the cold steel of thrusting bayonets, but rather the warm flesh of extended hands.
A German Lieutenant Neimann picked up his binoculars and to his surprise &#8220;saw the incredible sight of our soldiers exchanging cigarettes, schnapps and chocolate with the enemy!&#8221;
There is a commonality among soldiers that transcends national politics or flag. By this time in the war, both sides had shared the same experiences of chronic fear, physical misery and illness, filth, mourning lost friends, and homesickness. The truce extended to parts of the French sector as well. Gustave Berthier wrote to his parents, &#8220;On Christmas Day the Boches made a sign showing they wished to speak to us. They said they didn&#8217;t want to shoot. &#8230; They were tired of making war, they were married like me.&#8221;
A common legend of the Christmas Truce of 1914 has it that the enemy combatants engaged in impromptu games of football (soccer) in the “no-man’s land” but some historians dispute the legitimacy of such claims. Although, given the Christmas miracle that occurred right in the middle of a war so terrible that author William Manchester described it as “the worst thing that had ever happened” it is not out of the question.
One can imagine the words of Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Man He Killed” on the minds of every soldier no matter the uniform, on this most magical of Christmases at the front: 
 
Had he and I but met 
By some old ancient inn, 
We should have set us down to wet, 
Right many a nipperkin! 
 
But ranged as infantry 
And staring face to face, 
I shot at him as he at me 
And killed him in his place… 
 
Yes; quaint and curious a thing war is! 
You shoot a fellow down 
You’d treat if met where any bar is 
Or help to half-a-crown.
For nearly two and a half billion Christians of every race and nationality across the globe, Christmas is a joyous celebration of the birth of Our Lord, now two millennia in the past, and yet still so powerful in its meaning and presence in our lives. One hundred ten years ago, in the middle of a grisly battlefield, in the middle of a ghastly war, the love of Christ and the affection He wishes us to bestow upon each other was alive and well amidst a scene of unprecedented violence and suffering. Indeed, on this day, at this time, enemies could lay down their arms, exchange warm greetings and gifts, and, if for a short time, fulfill the Christmas promise of peace on earth and good will towards all mankind.
But Mars is not so benevolent a god; sadly, if inevitably, the truce didn’t last.
Irate officers on both sides put an end to what very well could have been considered treasonous fraternization with the enemy. Even a capital crime.
Pvt. Archibald Stanley remembered how one of his officers abruptly canceled the informal truce in his section of the trenches. There were still a few Germans out in the open when he approached Stanley and said, “You still got the armistice?”
The grim officer then picked up a rifle, took cold aim, and promptly shot one of the Germans dead. The rest leapt back into their dugouts, and returned fire. And so the war began again.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a fund manager and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three books</a>. His articles have appeared on the pages of Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, The Blaze, Breitbart, Zerohedge and other outlets. You can follow him on <a href="https://x.com/bschaeffer123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">X</a> and <a href="https://bradschaeffer.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Substack</a> 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

World War I Interrupted Card

Christmas Miracle On The Western Front, 1914

Christmas

Europe

France

Germany

Great Britain

Soldiers

United Kingdom

World War I

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tom-cruise">Tom Cruise</a> has received the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/u-s-navy">U.S. Navy</a>’s top civilian honor for “outstanding contributions to the Navy and the Marine Corps” thanks to his work on “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/top-gun">Top Gun</a>” and other military-themed films.
The 62-year-old actor was presented with the Distinguished Public Service Award by U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro in a ceremony at Longcross Studios near London on Tuesday, as the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tom-cruise-top-gun-navy-honor-britain-973f508e7d1359f5f473a6697c3e5984">Associated Press</a> reported. The honor came with a medal and certificate.
“I admire all of the servicemen and women,” Cruise said. “I know in life, something that is very true to me, is that is to lead is to serve. And I know that to my core. And I see that in the servicemen and women.”
The U.S. Navy credited the Hollywood star with “[increasing] public awareness and appreciation for our highly trained personnel and the sacrifices they make while in uniform.”
“Top Gun” (1986) depicts Cruise as Lieutenant Pete &#8220;Maverick&#8221; Mitchell, a naval aviator aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. He and LTJG Nick &#8220;Goose&#8221; Bradshaw go on to train at the US Navy&#8217;s Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar in San Diego.
The first film received mixed reviews but went on to become one of the most beloved action dramas of the time. “Top Gun” is a cult classic that earned $357 million worldwide after being produced for just $15 million. 
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A sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick,” was released in 2022 and absolutely dominated the box office, bringing in close to $1.5 billion worldwide and making it the highest-grossing film of Cruise’s career. 
The Navy said the “Top Gun” sequel “brought nostalgia to older audiences and reinvigorated the minds of newer audience members, effectively targeting a younger audience’s interest in the skill sets and opportunities the Navy can provide.”
Cruise was also recognized for other patriotic roles, including his parts in Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and A Few Good Men (1992). He has also starred in the Mission: Impossible franchise, with the next installment slated to be released in May 2025. 
“Top Gun 3” is in the early stages of being developed for Paramount Pictures.

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise Awarded Top U.S. Navy Civilian Award For ‘Top Gun,’ Other Military Films

Tom Cruise Awarded Top U.S. Navy Civilian Award For 'Top Gun,' Other Military Films

Celebrities

Entertainment

Top Gun

U.S.

On December 13, 1862, during the U.S. Civil War, the Union Army suffered its most calamitous and tragic defeat to date at the hands of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia on the frozen fields south of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
After taking over for the paradoxically arrogant yet timid Maj. Gen. George McClellan following the blood-letting at Antietam in September, the new Union Army commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was tasked by President Lincoln to vigorously pursue and destroy CSA Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army now encamped in the Shenandoah Valley in that state. Despite harboring doubts about his own abilities as an army commander, the affable and dapper Burnside concocted a plan to dash due south and lay a pontoon bridge over the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg. His aim was to get ahead of Lee’s army farther to the west and race for Richmond, the Southern Confederacy’s capital.
<div id="attachment_843789" style="width: 597px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-843789" class="size-large wp-image-843789" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-90001933-587x576.jpg" alt="UNITED STATES - CIRCA 1863: Warrenton, Virginia. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and staff officers (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)" width="587" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-90001933-587x576.jpg 587w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-90001933-300x294.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-90001933-768x754.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-90001933.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 587px) 100vw, 587px" />UNITED STATES &#8211; CIRCA 1863: Warrenton, Virginia. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside and staff officers (Photo by Buyenlarge/Getty Images)</div>
But Burnside&#8217;s plan that relied on speed and surprise almost immediately went awry. The pontoon bridges needed to affect the river crossing were delayed by ten days. By the time they arrived and construction began, Lee had marched his army to Fredericksburg. The Rebels took up a nearly impregnable position south of the town on a rise called Marye’s Heights that presented the defenders with a commanding view of the city and open ground before them.
<div id="attachment_843801" style="width: 837px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-843801" class="size-large wp-image-843801" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090033-827x576.jpg" alt="13th December 1862: Union troops attempting to cross the Rappahannock river during the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)" width="827" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090033-827x576.jpg 827w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090033-300x209.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090033-768x535.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090033.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 827px) 100vw, 827px" />13th December 1862: Union troops attempting to cross the Rappahannock river during the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)</div>
Despite his plan being foiled — his anxious engineers found themselves laying the pontoon bridges under fire from Rebel snipers who occupied the town along the river bank — the unimaginative Burnside pressed forward anyway. Following a bombardment that all but destroyed the little town, Yankee troops marched over the bridges and fought their way through the streets, whereupon many shamelessly looted the abandoned homes and shops until officers could corral them back into their ranks. The Yankees then formed up for the doomed assault against Lee’s lines.
What the Union troops faced was the suicidal prospect of crossing a half-mile of open, sloping ground to assault a solid line of veteran Rebel troops massed behind the protection of both a sunken road and high stone wall backed by artillery lined hub-to-hub along the crest of the hill before them. While watching the lines of Union blue forming up to make their attack, Lee’s First Corps commander on the Marye’s Heights sector of the line, Gen. James Longstreet, asked his young artillerist, Col. E.P. Alexander, if he thought the position was defensible. Alexander assured him: “General, a chicken can’t live in that field when we open up on it!”
<div id="attachment_843811" style="width: 765px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-843811" class="size-large wp-image-843811" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-103011593-755x576.jpg" alt="A Union Army battery makes final preparations on the day before the Battle of Fredericksburg, on Marye's Heights, Virginia, USA, December 1862. (Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)" width="755" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-103011593-755x576.jpg 755w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-103011593-300x229.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-103011593-768x586.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-103011593.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 755px) 100vw, 755px" />A Union Army battery makes final preparations on the day before the Battle of Fredericksburg, on Marye&#8217;s Heights, Virginia, USA, December 1862. (Photo by Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)</div>
And so began a series of ill-advised charges up the slopes of Marye’s Heights by a Union Army that proved itself to be as brave as any army in any field; but they were doomed nonetheless. The Confederate lines were so concentrated that for every man at the wall shooting down into the slowly approaching Union lines, two stood behind them with loaded and rammed rifles at the ready to hand the marksman one weapon after another, giving the stone wall’s rate of fire the effect of a machine gun — with the same grisly efficiency. As Alexander predicted, whirring, bouncing projectiles fired from his overheating guns tore into the compact blue formations, killing and maiming groups of men with each round. Thousands of Union troops totaling six divisions were fed into the Rebel meat grinder, one brigade at a time.
Watching the slaughter from his vantage point above the fighting, Gen. Lee, his stirred warrior blood struggling for equilibrium with his humanitarian nature, offered somberly: “It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.”
<div id="attachment_843805" style="width: 468px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-843805" class="size-large wp-image-843805" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090032-458x576.jpg" alt="7th November 1862: Confederate General Robert E Lee (1807 - 1870) at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Lee was offered the command of the Union Army but although personally opposed to both slavery and secession, his loyalty to Virginia led to his taking command of the Confederate forces. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)" width="458" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090032-458x576.jpg 458w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090032-239x300.jpg 239w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090032-768x965.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-3090032.jpg 815w" sizes="(max-width: 458px) 100vw, 458px" />7th November 1862: Confederate General Robert E Lee (1807 &#8211; 1870) at the battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)</div>
After fourteen assaults some 13,300 Union dead and wounded lay strewn in a veritable carpet of blue before the smoke-obscured Confederate lines (to the South&#8217;s 4,500, many of whom listed as &#8220;missing&#8221; had just slipped away to nearby homesteads for Christmas). Although he contemplated continuing the forlorn attack, Burnside was convinced by his corps commanders that any new assaults would be just as fruitless and bloody so he called the battle off. (Burnside actually wanted to lead a final charge himself, so distraught was he over the carnage he’d unnecessarily inflicted on an army he sincerely loved).
The Union attack against 2nd Corps Commander &#8220;Stonewall&#8221; Jackson&#8217;s more exposed lines east of Marye&#8217;s Heights situated in lower swampland on Lee&#8217;s right did actually make some progress, but this attack too was repulsed.
For two days in the bitter December cold, the shivering Union survivors trapped in the no-man&#8217;s land between the heights and the town, hunkered down on the frozen ground. Many shielded themselves from Rebels taking shots at them from behind the stone wall by piling up the bodies of their fallen comrades to act as macabre breastworks. Soldiers would always remember the sound of .566 rounds thudding into the stiff cadavers. At night the eerie lights of a rare Southern aurora borealis flashed overhead in the starry sky, which the Confederates took as a sign that God Himself was celebrating their astounding one-sided victory.
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The surviving Union troops eventually withdrew from the corpse-laden field and made it back through the town and across the Rappahannock to safety.
Col. Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine recounted the retreat under the shroud of night. &#8220;We had to pick our way over a field strewn with incongruous ruin; men born and broken and cut to pieces in every indescribable way, cannon dismounted, gun carriages smashed or overturned, ammunition chests flung wildly about, horses dead and half-dead still held in harness, accoutrements of every sort scattered as by whirlwinds. It was not good for the nerves, that ghastly march, in the lowering night!&#8221;
After one more botched offensive in late January, during which his plans were foiled by a torrential rainstorm rather than Rebel bullets (forever remembered to history as the &#8220;Mud March&#8221;) Gen. Burnside resigned as army commander. He was replaced by Gen. Joe Hooker — Lincoln’s fifth new commanding general in two years.
When the Confederates re-occupied the shattered and ransacked Virginia town, Lee asked Jackson how they could put an end to this terrible war and all its needless desolation. “Kill them,” Jackson said coldly while surveying the ruins. “Kill them all!”
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a fund manager and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07MQJBJSD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three books</a>. His articles have appeared on the pages of Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, The Blaze, Breitbart, Zerohedge and other outlets.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Mud March

‘It Is Well That War Is So Terrible’: The Battle Of Fredericksburg

'It Is Well That War Is So Terrible': The Battle Of Fredericksburg

Abraham Lincoln

Civil War

Confederacy

Robert E. Lee

Virginia

Defense expert Mackenzie Eaglen, the author of “Keeping Up with the Pacing Threat: Unveiling the True Size of Beijing’s Military Spending,” explained how the U.S. defense budget is inadequate, leaving the U.S. vulnerable to communist China.
Eaglen made her comments on the podcast “School of War” with host Aaron MacLean, published on Tuesday.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Most discussions of the defense budget don’t make you fear for your life—but here on <a href="https://twitter.com/schoolofwarpod?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@schoolofwarpod</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MEaglen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MEaglen</a> and I posit, maybe they should…<a href="https://t.co/UFMcbvZ6uV">https://t.co/UFMcbvZ6uV</a>
&mdash; Aaron MacLean (@AaronBMacLean) <a href="https://twitter.com/AaronBMacLean/status/1863932387907809627?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Eaglen dismissed the emphasis some critics of the Pentagon have put on the exorbitant costs of defense, saying, “If we’re just looking at our own investment in isolation and not accounting for the enemy  &#8230; or the competitor in this case, deterrence is expensive. &#8230; Just talking about what we’re spending and the fact of that doesn’t mean anything all by itself because is that enough relative to what?”
“I like to look at our spending relative to what we need to do with this tool of statecraft, which is as busy as it ever was,” she stated. “It matters what Beijing is spending&#8230;not only are they outpacing in output in defense investments, which is manifest all over the world; they have a blue water navy, full-stop; they are present in every single major waterway where we are, but of course, how is that changing the risk calculus for what they might do that we might disagree with to change the status quo, whether that’s the Philippines, Taiwan or somewhere else.”
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“And so I’m done with tired tropes like you are &#8230; what my research shows is that we don’t spend more than anyone else, actually, if you put us next to China’s budget on a relative basis,” she said.
MacLean quoted China stating that in 2022, the country spent $229 billion on defense. He recalled the U.S. spending “somewhere in the 700s.”
“You’re saying that the PLA and the Chinese Communist Party are lying?” he asked.
“Shocking, I know,” Eaglen responded. “So, once a year, through state media, Beijing puts out its annual defense budget expenditure, total figure, top-line number, and we’re supposed to just nod and take them at their word and move on. &#8230; Their missile production and capacity rate is absolutely astounding, and I’m mostly focused on conventional forces. If we were to talk nuclear &#8230; it gets even worse. The math and firepower, the size and strength of the Chinese military is overwhelming. &#8230; The Pentagon says Beijing omits several major categories of expenditures in actual military-related spending. &#8230; It would have been closer to a trillion that they’re really spending.”
Referring to China’s theft of intellectual; property, she stated, “That’s why so much of their aircraft, many of their ships, a lot of missiles, look like ours; it’s literally by stolen design. When you do it that way, it’s not going to be the perfect product,  it’s not as good as ours, at first, but you can rapidly iterate once you’ve stolen the IP and come up with a better product.”
“If they know if this ever got beyond competition to something with the use of violence, we don’t have that capacity to rapidly repair and resupply forward in Asia, and it’s a really long way home to sail and fly things. You see how Beijing’s starting to win without fighting,” she concluded.

CHINA-QINGDAO-PLA NAVY-70TH ANNIVERSARY-PARADE (CN)

‘Beijing’s Starting To Win Without Fighting’: Defense Expert Warns Of U.S. Weakness

China

Communist China

Military

Politics

On November 24, 1864, Union Lieutenant Samuel Nichols, 37th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, prepared for the nation’s first Thanksgiving Day, as the fourth Thursday of November had been officially declared a day of celebration by President Lincoln.
The morning, Nichols wrote, “dawned beautifully upon civilians and soldiers. Starting wildly from our slumbers at the unearthly sound of &#8216;Reveille&#8217;…we found ourselves with an appetite adequate for the occasion and fully equal to that usually demanded on that auspicious and chicken-stuffed day.”
Still encamped at Winchester, Virginia, where two months before his regiment helped lead the Union Army to victory and seize the town, Lt. Nichols appreciated that he and his comrades were enjoying relatively peaceful duty. However, soldiers are a wary lot, especially combat veterans. They understand that the tranquility of a clear, crisp November morning can be very quickly shattered by the unpredictable nature of war.
Most in the regiment, Nichols remembered, had opted to pass on breakfast so they could save their appetites for the much-anticipated Thanksgiving feast. But Nichols, being a veteran and used to having meals interrupted by the sudden call to action, wasn’t waiting until the official dinner time, which was 2:00 p.m. “At one o’clock, therefore, I dined in company with three of my companions. We all ate a sufficiency and had a good time.”
No sooner had he finished his meal than the Yankee lieutenant’s cautious instincts were vindicated. The regiment received an order to be “in readiness to move at a moment’s notice.” In about ten minutes, he recalled, “we were moving at quick step.” They reached the destination at 6:00 p.m. only to receive yet another order to countermarch back to Winchester, where the column didn’t return to their bivouac area until 9:00 p.m. For many in the regiment, Thanksgiving came and went with no meal or fanfare and at great disappointment.
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Such is army life, as any veteran will tell you. Besides the grind, the long periods of stifling boredom that are only occasionally broken up by the terrors of front line combat, perhaps the deepest sacrifice of national service beyond risking life and limb, is separation from loved ones for long tours of duty. The separation is especially felt during holidays like Thanksgiving. Even those troops not under fire know they are missing precious times with dear family and friends — times they can never truly reclaim.
But Nichols’ unit was lucky, even if most of them lacked the foresight of their hungry lieutenant. Some in the regiment missed out on a hardy meal, but they did not have the experience of their descendants in the U.S. Army hunkered down 80 years later in the wet and cold and endless shelling and artillery tree bursts of the Hürtgen Forest. For the members of the 121st Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, Thanksgiving Day, 1944 would be remembered as a preventable tragedy, courtesy of the high command’s misplaced attempt to bring a semblance of home to the men in the foxholes.
The regiment was on the very front lines, acting as the tip of the U.S. spear, one that had snagged itself into the stubborn ribs of the Hürtgen Forest’s determined German defenders dug in among the expansive woodland’s dense foliage and frozen ravines. When 1st Lt. Boesch, crouched down in his hole, picked up the phone from HQ he was astonished to hear a cheery rear echeloner’s voice on the line: “Happy Thanksgiving! We’ve got a hot turkey dinner here for every man in the outfit.” The staff officer informed the lieutenant that the food was on its way to his company.
Boesch couldn’t believe it. “Are you guys nuts?” he said with incredulity. “It’s almost dark and my carrying parties have already made the trip up the hill with rations and water. I can’t send them up there again. Besides, they can’t feed a hot meal in the positions they’re in now. Good God, they’re right on top of the Jerries!” 

Those were the orders, the staff officer said. And didn’t the men want a nice taste of home? Boesch shook his head in frustration before screaming into the handset, “I want to see them get three hot meals a day and a dry bed every night and a babe to sleep with, but let’s save the turkey until they can pull back where they can enjoy it!”
Despite expressing fears to the battalion commander that the kind gesture might get men killed when the Germans saw them bunching up for their meal, the orders stood. Hot turkey meals were delivered to the men right on the front lines. Those delivering the meals had only the lowering darkness as cover, otherwise they were in clear line of sight of the Germans.
As Boesch warned, German artillery and mortar shells soon rained down on the hapless GIs bunched around the turkey canisters to get their fill, killing many and wounding more.
In 1978, a retired Major William Freeman who was with the 121st caught an interview with Gen. Jim Gavin, in which the young general confesses that the high command didn’t know what the GIs were dealing with in the Hürtgen Forest. He informed the general of what happened next, thanks to the misplaced gesture from the top brass.
&#8220;Jerry turned all hell loose! Branded in my mind is position after position with men torn to shreds around busted up turkey canisters—as many as ten in one place.&#8221;
In the same letter Freeman tries to unburden himself.
&#8220;Hindsight says I could have stalled off the dinner and I doubt that the higher echelons would have known about it—but I didn’t. Granted that greater control could have been used all down the line… but dangle hot turkey to men in a cold, wet forest, that have had nothing but K rations, and it’s not that easy to keep them from bunching…
&#8220;For many, many years after the war I would go to one of my relations for Thanksgiving dinner, and before I could touch a bite I would get up and go to the back yard and cry like a baby, I passed up a helluva lot of turkey dinners.&#8221;
Two different American regiments, two different wars, two different enemies, two different Thanksgivings. The same sacrifice for country and each other. As the Holiday Season begins in earnest, let’s take a moment to reflect on those who walk the line so that we can enjoy one another without fear of enemies with malicious intent. 
Happy Thanksgiving to all who will be serving in dangerous, faraway places. We are thankful for you.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a fund manager and author of three books. His articles have appeared on the pages of Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, The Blaze, Breitbart, Zerohedge and other outlets. His best-selling novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1642939420">The Extraordinary</a>, tackles the subject of living with a veteran father with PTSD as told by his autistic teen son.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Soldiers of the 87th US Division line up for food, on their drive towards Laroche

Two Thanksgivings On Two Different War Fronts: Same Sacrifice

Thanksgiving

Four of the 60 living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor were presented with their awards by President-Elect Donald Trump during his first term in the White House.
The nation&#8217;s highest award for courage and valor in combat, only 3,538 have been awarded in total in the 150 years since its inception. Just under 20% of them were awarded posthumously. Nineteen of those recipients have been awarded twice.
Staff Sergeant David G. Bellavia was awarded the Medal of Honor on June 25, 2019, for actions he took on November 4, 2004, that likely saved the lives of others in his unit.
After finding insurgents in a building that they were attempting to clear, Bellavia laid down suppressive fire in order for his men to evacuate safely. Once they were all out, instead of making a quick escape, Bellavia went back into the building to take out the remaining enemy soldiers, stopping only when he was badly wounded.
Trump said during a White House ceremony that Bellavia &#8220;exemplifies the same warrior ethos that gave his grandfather and all the heroes of Normandy the strength to defeat evil exactly seventy-five years ago.&#8221;
&#8220;We don’t want war, but if you want war with the United States of America, there is one thing I can promise you, so help me God: someone else will raise your sons and daughters,&#8221; Bellavia said.
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Operation Phantom Fury, Fallujah Medal of Honor recipient: SSgt David Bellavia.
‘We don’t want war, but if you want war with the United States of America, there is one thing I can promise you, so help me God: someone else will raise your sons and daughters.’ 🔥🇺🇸🫡 <a href="https://t.co/HyRCoDf6ew">pic.twitter.com/HyRCoDf6ew</a>
&mdash; 𝕃𝕚𝕖𝕦𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕟𝕥 ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕝 ℙ 🪖 (@TheLtColUSMC) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLtColUSMC/status/1854648976357703735?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Sergeant First Class Thomas P. Payne was awarded his Medal of Honor on September 11, 2020, for his actions during a hostage rescue that took place on October 22 2015. Payne was instrumental in helping to liberate a number of hostages held in two buildings in Kirkuk Province, Iraq. He and the other members of his assault team took heavy fire as they attempted the mission, and one of the buildings was on fire by the time Payne was able to breach the main entrance. Despite the risk, Payne&#8217;s actions led to the successful rescue of 75 hostages and 20 enemies killed in action.
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On <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WarriorWednesday?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WarriorWednesday</a>, we recognize MOH recipient, U.S. Army SGM Thomas Payne. During Operation Inherent Resolve, he played an integral role rescuing 70 hostages from a burning building. Thank you, Thomas, for your service. We salute you! <a href="https://t.co/Iinvb1bmDd">pic.twitter.com/Iinvb1bmDd</a>
&mdash; GarySiniseFoundation (@GarySiniseFound) <a href="https://twitter.com/GarySiniseFound/status/1676652436948234241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2023</a></blockquote>
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U.S. Navy Senior Chief Britt Kelly Slabinski, a U.S. Navy SEAL who also participated in the highly publicized rescue of Army PFC Jessica Lynch on April 1, 2003, was awarded his Medal of Honor on May 24, 2018. A member of SEAL Team 4, Slabinski was recognized for his part in a March 4, 2002, daring mountaintop rescue mission at Takur-Ghar.
&#8220;Their insertion helicopter was suddenly riddled with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire from previously undetected enemy positions. The crippled helicopter lurched violently and ejected one teammate [Petty Officer First Class Neil Roberts] onto the mountain before the pilots were forced to crash land in the valley far below,&#8221; Slabinski&#8217;s citation reads in part.
Slabinski, along with Air Force Controller John Chapman, charged up the mountain under enemy fire to retrieve Roberts. Chapman was wounded and eventually killed in action, but Slabinski continued the mission in his absence.
&#8220;Proximity made air support impossible, and after several teammates became casualties, the situation became untenable. Senior Chief Slabinski maneuvered his team to a more defensible position, directed air strikes in very close proximity to his team’s position, and requested reinforcements,&#8221; the citation continued. &#8220;As daylight approached, accurate enemy mortar fire forced the team further down the sheer mountainside. Senior Chief Slabinski carried a seriously wounded teammate through deep snow and led a difficult trek across precipitous terrain while calling in fire on the enemy, which was engaging the team from the surrounding ridges. Throughout the next 14 hours, Senior Chief Slabinski stabilized the casualties and continued the fight against the enemy until the hill was secured and his team was extracted.&#8221;
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Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Britt Slabinski, U.S. Navy, Retired, represents the best of America. He risked his life in Afghanistan as he led his team on a rescue mission on a 10,000-foot mountain through arduous conditions. Take a moment to hear his story: <a href="https://t.co/E98m7Lsq40">pic.twitter.com/E98m7Lsq40</a>
&mdash; Vice President Mike Pence Archived (@VP45) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP45/status/999748091606544384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 24, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Sergeant Matthew O. Williams received his Medal of Honor on October 30, 2019, for actions that took place on April 6, 2008.
Williams was part of an assault team sent to engage an enemy on a mountain, but the forward group came under fire and several casualties were sustained. Williams led a team of mostly local fighters across dangerous terrain and under heavy fire in order to relieve those at the front who had been pinned down on the side of the mountain.
&#8220;He then assisted with moving the wounded down the near-vertical mountainside to the casualty collection point. Noting that the collection point was about to be overrun by enemy fighters, Sergeant Williams led the Afghan commandos in a counter-attack that lasted for several hours. When helicopters arrived to evacuate the wounded, Sergeant Williams again exposed himself to enemy fire, carrying and loading casualties onto the helicopters while continuing to direct commando firepower to suppress numerous insurgent positions,&#8221; his citation read. &#8220;His actions enabled the patrol to evacuate wounded and dead comrades without further casualties. Sergeant Williams’ complete disregard for his own safety and his concern for the safety of his teammates ensured the survival of four critically wounded soldiers and prevented the lead element of the assault force from being overrun by the enemy.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> presents the Medal of Honor to Army Master Sgt. Matthew O. Williams of Texas, a Green Beret. While in Afghanistan, Williams helped rescue several wounded soldiers during a April 2008 battle. <a href="https://t.co/u8FNl4sSa7">pic.twitter.com/u8FNl4sSa7</a>
&mdash; Fin Gómez (@finnygo) <a href="https://twitter.com/finnygo/status/1189665324339208194?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

Staff Sergeant David Bellavia Receives Medal Of Honor For Heroic Actions In Iraq

Meet The Four Living Medal Of Honor Recipients Given The Award By Donald Trump

These Four Living Medal Of Honor Recipients Were Awarded By Donald Trump

Afghanistan

Iraq

Terrorism

For those who have either fought in war, or, as in my case, have had loved ones who have, Veterans Day is not just a date on the calendar. It is a reminder that survivors of the battlefield — the most taxing and traumatic of any environment — have given so much of themselves to defend the liberties we all too often take for granted.
During an election year, Veterans Day takes on special significance. When we step into the voting booth and draw the curtain, we are acting out the answer to a fundamental question so many of those returning home from duty must ask themselves: “What, exactly, did I fight for?” The answer is they fight so their fellow Americans are free to choose their leaders and to decide their own fate. It is cliché, but veterans have, indeed, fought for our most basic freedoms, and to exercise our God-given rights without fear of the midnight pounding on the door.
At times, as in my father’s case, our troops have fought not for our freedom per se, but those of others. Entire nations like South Korea, as well as post-war Western Europe, owe American veterans a debt that can never be fully repaid. Many of the men and women would return home maimed, or psychologically broken. Yet, the sublimity of their sacrifice remains. Unfortunately, so do the wounds, the memories, the terrors.
My Marine dad was a rare breed. Unlike many combat veterans, my father would talk about it. I gave him a sounding board, a release valve for the memories that I now understand were assaulting him for three decades since leaving the horrors of Korea behind. He was wounded by Chinese mortars and almost lost his foot. He would tell stories of how the Chinese attacked in human waves, blowing bugles and clanging gongs; how the enemy once splayed the body of a dead Marine across barbed wire between the lines, daring his men to come get their comrade. Marine tradition is to not leave the dead behind, if at all possible. They did retrieve the body. He would share how the North Koreans taught kids to throw grenades at them, and how they’d have to shoot them down; Or how he once identified a man in his platoon by his head, which the aid station attendees in a moment of macabre caprice had laid on the man’s chest.
No doubt what 2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division experienced in Korea were the same feelings, if under different circumstances and topographies, of every veteran on every battlefield. The blood, the shrieks, the pleas for water, the crying out for mothers, and the gore are universal no matter what side the combatants find themselves on. Indeed, Wellington famously <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-waterloo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
<div id="attachment_827165" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-827165" class="size-large wp-image-827165" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-432x576.jpeg" alt="2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division, with Purple Heart. Credit: Brad Schaeffer" width="432" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-432x576.jpeg 432w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea.jpeg 1620w" sizes="(max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px" />2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division, with Purple Heart. Credit: Brad Schaeffer</div>
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), called “shell shock” in the First World War, and “battle fatigue” in the Second, is another consequence of the battlefield. As with any disorder of the mind, studies vary and exact figures are hard to come by as it manifests in so many different ways and to various degrees. <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2891773/#:~:text=The%20point%20prevalence%20of%20combat,returning%20UK%20Iraq%20War%20veterans.">One study</a> by the National Library of Medicine places combat-related PTSD in U.S. combat veterans to range from about 2–17%; and a lifetime prevalence of about 6–31%. These are broad ranges. And the low estimates seem just that. Even if we split the difference in a non-scientific way, almost one-in-five veterans are currently suffering from some form of PTSD. When you consider that <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2023/veterans-day.html#:~:text=16.2%20million,population%20age%2018%20and%20over." target="_blank" rel="noopener">16.2 million veterans</a> will be the subject of this month’s annual day of remembrance, then we may have some 3 million-plus veterans in need of counseling or medication/treatment out there.
These are not just statistics. These numbers represent veterans, our champions on the field of conflict, who struggle every day just to live normal lives while not dwelling too much upon all they have seen. But sometimes the horrors of battle can never be unseen. I remember looking at my dad and thinking: Do the ghosts return when you lie in bed at night? Can you compartmentalize it? How do you handle it?
Turns out, he couldn’t. After thirty years, he could no longer drink or talk away the war. The memories were assaulting him like those mass waves of Chinese soldiers long ago. His defenses crumbled. He was not alone. In 1990-2010 the national suicide rate among American males was 19.4 per 100,000, and 4.9 per 100,000 for females. According to the <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/suicide_ptsd.asp#:~:text=From%201999%2D2010%2C%20the%20suicide,12.8%20per%20100%2C000%20in%20females." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Veterans Affairs</a>, however, in the same time period the ratios for veterans were double for men at 38.3 per 100,000 and almost triple for women at 12.8 per 100,000. Clearly, veterans are a high-risk group, and we must be vigilant and watch for suicidal ideations among those we love who wore the uniform.
Like many mental illnesses, PTSD is insidious. It comes from within. How do you fight an illness in which your thoughts are the illness? People who’ve never suffered the midnight of clinical depression, PTSD, or other mental illnesses, have difficulty grasping that you cannot reason your way back into the happy dawn. You can’t just “snap out of it.” You may tell yourself, “Nothing warrants these terrible thoughts.” You know it’s irrational and it doesn’t matter. That’s what depression is. It’s knowing you shouldn’t feel this way, but feel it anyway.
And that doesn’t even include a depression caused by something you saw or, worse, something you did. Under normal circumstances, far from the chaos and adrenaline of a battlefield, you would never encounter the raw emotion and bloodlust of war. You would be repulsed by your actions. How could I, for example, who was only 16 when my father eventually took his life, possibly relate to a man who fought Chinese troops armed with spades, picks, and even his bare hands as well as bullets and bayonets, in the middle of the night in minus twenty-degree weather under the eerie luminescence of star shells? How can anyone but other veterans truly relate to a combat experience?
It’s tragic, but if my veteran father were alive today, he would have more support, both within his own veterans community and the public at large. And certainly access to more effective medications, without any taboo. But we were just starting to recognize veterans’ emotional as well as physical anguish. Vietnam was barely decades in the past. And as for Korea? It was called “the Forgotten War” for a reason. Forgetting the war and getting on with their lives was what Korea’s veterans were supposed to do. But Dad couldn’t.
And that really is the point. This Veterans Day, let’s take time out of our busy day to pause and reflect and pray for all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have seen the worst of humanity up close and personal, to spare us the horrors of what they took upon themselves in our stead. As the saying goes, “Free people sleep peaceably in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” My father was just such a rough man. And, like so many vets today, he did unspeakable violence on our behalf. But that violence comes with a cost that we may not always appreciate or even see, let alone understand.
My thoughts this Veterans Day travel to our warriors returning home from their own combat zones, with their own demons picking away at their souls. How do they get through the black nights, with their spouses sleeping quietly next to them, their children dreaming in their beds, blissfully unaware of the struggle of the mind taking place in the darkness down the hall?
In July 1983, 30 years almost to the day after the last shot of the Korean War was fired, my father became another casualty of that war. Yet from his suffering, I have learned a vital lesson that I hope I can impart to any veteran reading this who may feel like he or she is losing the fight with PTSD: Don’t let the demons win. We’ll help you. Just please choose life.
To the families of veterans, you must be forceful in offering your help, your support, and love. Warriors are a stubborn and proud lot. And to all the veterans now engaged in their final tour of duty, this time in the combat zone of the spirit, I implore you. Choose life. Get help if you need it. It is there for you.
Remember you are not forgotten. We owe our freedom, like the freedoms we all exercised on November 5, to you. And, in return, you are unconditionally loved and appreciated by family, friends, and your nation. So always choose life. It is worth living.
* * *
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to <a class="c-link" href="http://speakingofsuicide.com/resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources" data-sk="tooltip_parent">SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources</a> for a list of additional resources.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a fund manager and author of three books. His articles have appeared on the pages of Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, The Blaze, Breitbart, Zerohedge and other outlets. His best-selling novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1642939420" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Extraordinary</a>, tackles the subject of living with a veteran father with PTSD as told by his autistic teen son.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Happy Veterans Day concept. American flags against a dark stone  background. November 11.

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