I’m reading a book on JFK, “An Unfinished Life,” right now.
Kennedy had killed one engine and kept one one idling on standby, for which he has been criticized. But the tactic was one he had been taught to avoid detection by aircraft and to quiet the boat for night ops. In any case, most now believe that Kennedy’s boat being cut in half by the destroyer was simply a matter of really bad luck, and that he was actually being aggressive in attempting to find targets at night. Even if both engines had been at the ready, he had only 15 seconds from the time the destroyer appeared to get out of the way, so it probably didn’t matter.
The large scale attack mission that JFK was on that night is a dismal failure and is an exemplar as to why the PT Boat was largely a failure in attacking larger ships (though they were somewhat useful as “barge busters”). The plan was to ambush and hit a flotilla of 15 Japanese destroyers running supplies to garrisons on Guadalcanal. Unfortunately, only half the boats (of about 32 total) had radar and the communications was poor, making coordination and any real hope of a successful attack almost nil. The radar equipped PTs simply launched their ineffective, WWI-era torpedoes and fled, leaving the other boats blind and trolling for targets. I’d say JFK was blameless and I think can be said to have felt duped for joining a program, along with other elite officers, that was led by “con men” making unsubstantiated boasts and greatly overstating the effectiveness of the motor torpedo patrol boat program…
Kennedy would return to captain another modified PT boat (of which he helped redesign with more gun emplacements) in a more successful role - as an expensive, high performance gunboat shooting up Japanese supply barges…
Lincoln VS Kennedy
Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846
Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946
Lincoln was elected President in 1860
Kennedy was elected President in 1960
Lincoln wife lost a child while living in the White House
Kennedy wife also lost a child while living in the White House
Lincoln was directly concerned with Civil Rights
Kennedy also concerned with Civil Rights
Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who told him not to go to the theater
Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who told him not to go to Dallas
Lincoln was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife
Kennedy was shot in the back of the head in the presence of his wife
Lincoln shot in the Ford Theatre
Kennedy shot in a Lincoln, made by Ford
Lincoln was shot on a Friday
Kennedy also
Lincoln assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters
Kennedy assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was known by three names, comprised of fifteen letters
Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse
Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater
Booth was killed before being brought to trial
Oswald was killed before being brought to trial
There were theories that Booth was part of a greater conspiracy
There were theories that Oswald was part of a greater conspiracy
Lincoln’s successor was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808
Kennedy’s successor was Lyndon Johnson, born in 1908
That is too hard for me…Jesus lives man 
Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater
Im not so sure of that.
- the rifle Oswald had was a carcano Italian rifle. as rifles go, when investigators test shot the gun, by pros they said such a shooting was impossible.
- Oswald was a crappy shot. he used to belong in a hunting club but had to get somw game from friends because he was realy bad.
God that’s crazy, I looked that up to confirm it and it looks like its all true.
Major Walter Schmidt:yeah I also heard some theories from the shoot is coming another angle,or two assasin shooted Kennedy
I don’t beleive there has been any man that has served the Oval Office better than ABRAHAM LINCOLN…
A President that held together the Union in circumstances that would have cost many modern politicians everything…He certainly made the ultimate sacrifice.
In the election of 1864, Lincoln was re-elected principally by the votes of the very soldiers of the Army he was said to be destroying, particularly those votes garnered for the Republican cause by the Army of the Potomac, the body of troops that really did have the most to complain about when it came to Lincoln’s prosecution of the war.
His appointment of Ulysses Grant to command the same Army of the Potomac resulted in the Battle of the Wilderness…THE major turning point of the ACW (NOT Gettysburg as many historians would have us believe.) Lincoln also saved Grant’s career after post Shiloh journalism accused Grant of “drunkeness” and blamed him personally for Johnston’s Confederates achieving surprise…“bayonetted in their tents” was the phrase used by the press at the time, a claim that turned out to be journalistic hyperbole. Lincoln brushed this sordid critcism aside with the phrase, “I can’t spare this man…he FIGHTS!”…This single decision, by extension, probably saved the Union…
A man described by George Maclellan as “The Original Gorilla” came to be referred to as the Father of the Nation. The Lincoln memorial in Washington is STILL visited by more Americans than most of Washington D.C.'s other “attractions”. Modern people still use Lincoln’s speeches as a basis for temperence and a manifestation of all that a politician SHOULD be, an amazing achievement for a man of the 19th century.
The American Civil War was the defining conflict in shaping the American Century, and Abraham Lincoln justly revered as it’s best human product.
One phrase from the Gettysburg Address stands out from all the others…
"Government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people, SHALL NOT PERISH from this earth."
my favourite US president will be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, the land of opportunities! “I’ll be back” (-:
He’s the mayor of California…:rolleyes:
How an East German Steroid abuser who can’t speak English in a manner we all recognize ever became the Governer of one of the richest regions of the globe was and still remains a complete mystery to me…
Flamethrower DID say
“WILL be President…”
I sincerely hope his wish is not realised. I have no wish to see the most powerful executive office on the globe occupied by the same person that was responsible for “Kindergarten Cop”…
he is still “only” governour of course but who knows…? By the way he’s austrian not east-german which is even worse (-:
he applied he never used steroids, just hard training and eating all the loafs of bread he could eat…
reminds me of a joke about Austrians…
Q: What was Austria’s principal achievement after World War 2 ended?
A: Convincing absolutely everyone that Adolf Hitler was GERMAN!
AND YES…I am aware that Adolphus had to renounce his Austrian citizenship and become a German national to run for the Reichstag…
NO POWER ON EARTH can convince me that Arnold took no steroids whatsoever to achieve that mass of body sculpting…they ALL do it…the human body is simply not meant to look like that. You don’t ever see publicity shots of Arnold in the nude, do you? Simple reason for that…His genitalia SHRANK as it does for all steroid abusers…
BTW, my favourite american president is still Jefferson Davis.
BTW…RIFLEMAN’s “Patton” quote is a real hoot!
I had no idea that Georgie was into the textile trade…dying for his country…
I thought the quote from the movie (“Patton - Lust For Glory”) was a better interpretation…
“…Now I want you to remember…that no bastard…EVER…won a war…by dieing for his country.
He won it…by making the OTHER poor, dumb bastard die for HIS country…”
Yo, I never expected Arnies expressions of gaining muscles to be true in the first place, i did just qoute them because they definitely ARE funny.
Talking of “Old blood’n guts Patton”, my favourite qoute by him: “The germans are the only decent people in Europe anyway.” (-:
Sadly, people not born inside the US cannot become president.
If Bush said “The sky is blue.”, I would go outside and make sure, since he blatantly lied us into a war that should never have happened. And, of course, he dug the disastrous economic hole we are only now beginning to climb out of. Bush may be a nice, fairly intelligent and highly sociable guy, but he made tremendous mistakes that will haunt his presidency forever.
I always loved Kennedy’s remark at a dinner honoring American Nobel Prize winners at the White House: “This is the largest gathering of great minds in the White House except when Thomas Jefferson dined here alone.”
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The more part of U.S. citizens do not view that requirement as “sad” It exists for a very important reason. My favorite President is Teddy Roosevelt.
In my opinion, Reagan is wildly overrated. He loved to talk about “tax and spend” Liberals but he himself raised taxes 11 times during his tenure, and his spending was lavish and out of control. His role in the downfall of communism is overblown. A Russian general said after the fall, “When I saw that kids in American elementary school were receiving and using computers, I knew our time was nearly over.” People forget that before he was a Republican, he was a Democrat, a union leader and that Roosevelt was one of his heroes. As I said in an earlier post. he was amiable and a great raconteur.
Frankly, for me Lincoln was the greatest of them all. Unlike the craven idiots before him, he bit the bullet and called the South’s bluff and kept the Union together. The great sadness with Lincoln is that he was assassinated before he could put his program of reconstruction into effect. If he had lived, the American South might not have descended into the depths of hell until the passage of the civil rights act 100 years later. John Wilkes Booth did no one any favors. After Lincoln, I pick Franklin Roosevelt. Of the recent presidents, Clinton blows them all out of the water. And among the founders, my choice is Jefferson, the American renaissance man.