Posted on 02/10/2006 1:57:56 PM PST by llevrok
We don't need to honor any more rich white males
So says one member of the University of Washington Student Senate.
Gregory Pappy Boyington...graduate of the Univeristy of Washington (went to High School in Tacoma), winner of the medal of honor, shot down 28 enemy aircraft, was a prisoner of war for 20 months, and apparently does not - according to the student senate - deserve a memorial on campus. Apparently we are told that he "is not the type of person we want to honor" and some even went so far as to liken his duty in WW2 to murder. One of the biggest antagonists of the proposal was apparently the leader of the student Democratic Party. How sad.
This issue is particularly interesting to me because I personally knew Pappy Boyington, not so much as a friend, but as a regular visitor to the Chino Air Museum and Air Show. I met him on numerous occassions and thoroughly enjoyed his willingness to tell me stories about his experiences - and I must say it was HEAVEN to this young man who'd rather feel his way around a restored Corsair than hang out at the mall with his contemporaries.
Pappy was famous for once saying: "Just name a hero and I'll prove he's a bum." And he knew this from personal experience. Pappy's childhood wasn't easy and he and his mother had to work VERY hard to get him through school - he was no rich boy and neither did he live off government grants...personally I wonder if those students who "shot this memorial down" could remotely say the same? And he was a real human being who did not hide his faults, particularly with alcohol and marital problems. Like all heros, no one is a "super" hero. While Pappy could work hard, he could "play" hard too and landed himself in trouble from time to time. Here is a more detailed story...from the University of Washington oddly enough.
Also, clearly, the student who made the racist statement never met him because I will tell you that you could not mistake the Sioux in him. And while he did write a best-selling book (best selling authors are a dime a dozen), he was never really a rich man...rather he spent most of his last days wandering through Air Shows reliving the glory days, never in any grand luxury that I saw. He seemed a very nice man, who despite his personal problems did some extraordinary things to help defend freedom and defeat tyranny and injustice.
But, have our Washington youth revised history so much as this? To compare Boyington (or for that matter any of our WW2 vets) to murderers? What are these kids being taught today? They don't deserve those 20 months Pappy spent being tortured and beaten in a Japanese prison camp...they don't deserve any of what our grandfathers and grandmothers sacrificed to free Europe and the Pacific. Is it perhaps because those precious people are soon to be gone that we feel free to engage in leftist amnesia? I'm angry about this...how dare these snot nose, hemp-wearing, pot smoking, drum beating, dreadlock wearing, "gee when is the financial aid check going to arrive", brat kids diss Pappy Boyington?
Maybe REAL rich white guys ought to be offended (like Bill Gates and Paul Allen) and stop donating money to the UW and then the Student Senators will find they don't have the time to be in the student senate because they need to get themselves real jobs.
If any WW2 vets read this blog, please accept my apology on behalf of the University of Washington - and particularly thier ignorant student senate. We remember what you all have done. My kids will remember too.
yeah. Like he spent his youth in student senate meetings to earn the CMoH!
Just a note on something that hasn't been mentioned yet - Boyington was one of the Flying Tigers, and thus one of the first Americans to enter World War 2.
Whatever, he deserves our appreciation an honor for what he did.
I did not know he was a Tiger. The perfect outfit for a wild hair like Boyington.
Gen Chenault was military a genuis, IMHO.
This is what happens when American History
is no longer taught as a mandatory subject
high school/college, or even offered in the
battery of subjects
Hoppinjohn
I met Pappy Boyington once back in 1980 at an airshow down in Florida. Great guy! Personally I'd rather not have the Colonel's named dirtied by having it associated with a dirty little commie school like U Dub!
Medal of Honor Citation
BOYINGTON, GREGORY
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Marine Squadron 214. Place and date: Central Solomons area, from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Entered service at: Washington. Born: 4 December 1912, Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. Other Navy award: Navy Cross. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and valiant devotion to duty as commanding officer of Marine Fighting Squadron 214 in action against enemy Japanese forces in the Central Solomons area from 12 September 1943 to 3 January 1944. Consistently outnumbered throughout successive hazardous flights over heavily defended hostile territory, Maj. Boyington struck at the enemy with daring and courageous persistence, leading his squadron into combat with devastating results to Japanese shipping, shore installations, and aerial forces. Resolute in his efforts to inflict crippling damage on the enemy, Maj. Boyington led a formation of 24 fighters over Kahili on 17 October and, persistently circling the airdrome where 60 hostile aircraft were grounded, boldly challenged the Japanese to send up planes. Under his brilliant command, our fighters shot down 20 enemy craft in the ensuing action without the loss of a single ship. A superb airman and determined fighter against overwhelming odds, Maj. Boyington personally destroyed 26 of the many Japanese planes shot down by his squadron and, by his forceful leadership, developed the combat readiness in his command which was a distinctive factor in the Allied aerial achievements in this vitally strategic area
I drove through UW just today and thought nothing nice to myself.
It just so happens I came across Pappy's autographed picture the other day. Something that needs saved for the kids.
Semper Fi
Someone tell this moronic strumpet that without Col Boyington and others like him it's possible that the very place she sits could now be a wasteland caused by the Japanese fighting the Germans over the territory.
Yes! He was a B-29 pilot. Shot down over Tokyo. As I understand it, and he wouldn't talk much about it, they (he) were beaten quite badly by the Japs. He had scars on his head and back from the beatings. He lost a lot of weight as far as I could surmize. Here is a photo of POW's at the Omori POW camp upon learning of the end of the war:(From Hap Halloran)
Poor Ashley is as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside. Maybe she'll grow up to be a Rachel Corrie and try to stop a bulldozer. What a disgrace to the U.W.
Poor Ashley is as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside. Maybe she'll grow up to be a Rachel Corrie and try to stop a bulldozer. What a disgrace to the U.W.
The ignorance of the arrogant...
Got my vote. As far as I am concerned, the sooner we start, the better.
She would not be here.Her parents would have been either a lampshade or a bar of soap.
Contact Vice-President Ashley Miller at asuwvp@u.washington.edu
Maybe you can PING the WA list with her contact info.
I am so completely PISSED by this.
I can tell you where my sons WON'T be going to college!
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