Friday, June 03, 2011

The Council Has Spoken!! Watcher's Council Contest Results...


The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week, carved eternally in the records of cyberspace.

We had a tie in the Council this week,between The Razor's Occam's Razor Unnecessary To Cut Short Weiner and the Political Commentator's tribute, A Memorial Day story of unimaginable inspiration!

Accordingly, I had to break the tie, and as always, it wasn't easy.

This week's winner, The Political Commentator , chose to honor Memorial Day by relating the amazing story of his uncle, a Medal of Honor winner in his fine piece, A Memorial Day story of unimaginable inspiration! ..and indeed it is. Here's a slice:

Since job prospects for high school graduates in rural Pennsylvania in 1935 were poor, Mitch walked 200 miles to the nearest Marine Corp recruiting station and signed up. After basic training, he spent five years rotating between duty in China and the Philippines. When WWII broke out, he was a seasoned sergeant in charge of a machine gun platoon.

That put him on the beach in August, 1942, when the First Marine Division landed at Guadalcanal. When the Japanese counterattacked, Mitch was put in charge of four Browning 30 caliber water cooled machine guns and 36 men, dug in at trenches on a ridge above Henderson Field. The Japanese launched massive waves of suicide attackers all night long, frequently breaking through the lines and engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat.

If the position fell, the flank would have been broken, leading to a loss of the airfield, and possibly the entire island. After the first hour, all of Mitch’s men were either dead or severely wounded. So Mitch fired one gun until it was empty, then scurried over to the next, and then the next. In between waves, he ran back and reloaded all the guns.

When the Japanese launched their final assault, and then retreated, he picked up a 40 pound gun and ran down the hill after them, firing all the way, and burning all the skin off his left forearm where he cradled it. Mitch’s commanding officer, Col. Herman H. Hanneken, heard the guns firing all night from the field. He was shocked when he visited the position the next morning, finding Mitch alone in front of a twisted sea of 1,000 Japanese bodies.


It's fitting that our non-Council category winner, WarChick.Com's Twice In One Day, submitted by Rhymes with Right also dealt with a story of heroism, this time in the Korean War, the one they call The Forgotten One. WarChick tells a fascinating tale of a man to whom riches, fame and his own personal safety meant less than duty, country and what he felt was his responsibility. He was the living embodiment of John 15:13 "Greater love no man has than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" and WarChick uses this man's story to tell us a great deal about what she sees as the nature of war itself. Do read it.


Here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners



Non-Council Winners



See you next week!

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