The Reluctant Pilgrim

The year of 1943 was not a great year to be born in Europe which was in the midst of a cataclysmic war. Three months before my birth, July 1943, the Americans, British and allied forces stormed ashore in Sicily, devastating the small Mediterranean Island like previous invading armies had done before, such as the the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Byzantines, the Muslims in the eighth century AD, the French in the 12th Century and the Spanish after them. During the American/British invasion, my mother and my entire home town, Geraci Siculo, had to be evacuated, fearing allied bombing runs.  My mother recalls the day when a riderless mule suddenly appeared in town.  It was learned later that the rider was blown off his mule and killed by an allied bomb while he was crossing a bridge along Highway SS 286, a twisting mountain road, near the town of Castelbuono, while returning home.

Piano Caterineci

As a youngster in Sicily, I was a totally happy child; the environment suited me.  My dad was a shepherd and as soon as I could walk, he took me with him while tending his flock (outside of school days of course). By this time I had developed an emotional attachment to the land. Even though we were very poor, along with all the townspeople, I never knew it and was totally happy in my environment.

In the summer months, all the animal farmers would move their herds to distant lands for grazing.  Since Sicily is a heaven for wheat farming, most farmers would lease wheat field lands after the harvest. The animals would feed on the stubs that were left.  My dad joined several other shepherds, moving their herds about 60 kilometers east of Geraci in an area called Chibbò; an area of rolling hills and home to wheat fields as far as the eye could see.  Driving the animals there would take about three days.  We would sleep in the open sky, using nothing but a blanket under us and one over us.  To me it was heaven on earth.  I loved it.

Around 1954, when I was 10 years old, I learned that my parents were planning on leaving Geraci and moving to America.  For a long time I denied that this was the case.  I did not want to leave.  When my dad finally sold all his sheep and his other property, the reality hit me like a hammer.   When we finally left and before boarding the cruise ship, the Saturnia, in the Port of Palermo Sicily, I asked my mom if she would leave me behind.  I told her I could stay with one of my uncles, Uncle Domenico. She declined out of hand.  We all boarded the ship and landed in New York Harbor on March 23, 1956 after a stormy Atlantic crossing in the dead of winter.  From the harbor, we went straight to the train station for the trip to Los Angeles, where my dad's sister, Maria Santa, was waiting for us.

We arrived at Union Station, Los Angeles, on an overcast day three days later.   I recall that I'd never seen an overcast day.  In Geraci, it was either sunny, foggy, or rainy; never overcast.  My aunt, her husband Joe and two other fellow Geraci immigrants, met us at the station and drove us to a rented one-bedroom house in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles. My uncle had a beautiful 1947 De Soto.

What followed after our arrival could only be described as  a disaster for my parents.  My father's sister was a very hard and cold woman; very demanding and hyper critical.  The most unfriendly person I'd ever encountered. She despised my mother for reasons unknown to anyone.  In short, she made life miserable for them.  Despite all the personal travails that we experience, we were successful.  Our neighbors were very nice to us and we made friends quickly.  The school we kids attended, Angeles Mesa Elementary, was very welcoming and made our lives comfortable.  Both of my parents started work right away; my father at a cheese company in Compton and my mother as a seamstress in the Hyde Park area of Los Angeles.  Three years after arrival, my parents purchased their first house in Compton with 40% down.  Ours was an American immigrant success story.  Despite the odds we prevailed and advanced; we never retreated. The credit for this goes to my mom and dad.  They did the heavy lifting.  Both are my heroes.

Chasing the Wind: An Example of the Insanity of War

Whenever I visit my cousin Giovanni in Rome, Italy, we always discuss childhood stories from my home town of Geraci Siculo, Sicily.  Such stories are full of nostalgia, laughter and one of the best ways I know of having a great time.  One of the most poignant stories that Giovanni recalls is that of a young man ordered to war in 1940, at the start of World War II.  This young man, I'll call him Cesarè, has just been called into the Italian military and must leave Geraci, his family, his farm and his goat herd.  He  approaches Giovanni's father and ask him to take his herd while he leaves for war.  Not having the resources to take care of an additional herd of goats, Giovanni's father turns Cesarè down.  Unable to find anyone else, he knocks on Giovanni's father's door at 4:00 AM to beg him to take his heard, since he must leave that day.  Having pity on the young man Giovanni's father asks his 13 year-old son, Giovanni, if he would be willing to take on Cesarè's herd.  Giovanni says he can and the problem is solved.

Recently, a good friend asked me to read a book he had just read, The Red Horse, the tragic story of the Italian Army in Russia during World War II.  In 1941 the Italians committed 235,000 soldiers to the Russian campaign to aid the German invasion of Russia.  The Italians were joined by 200,000 Romanian and another 200,000 Hungarian troops.  This allied force protected the east flank for the Siege of Stalingrad.  All three armies were destroyed by vastly superior Russian forces, aided to a large extent, by the brutal Russian winter that killed more troops than did bullets.  Again, the Europeans failed to learn from history.  Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 with 500,000 troops and was defeated by the Russians, aided by the brutal Russian winter.  Only 5,000 of Napoleon's French troops survived. The same exact thing happened to the Germans, Italians, Romanians and Hungarians armies.  All of these men were basically condemned to death by incompetent and foolhardy despots at home who wanted personal glory at their expense. There never was any hope of military victory given the circumstances.

The Italian troops, and the Romanian and Hungarians were ill equipped, ill trained and ill led.  The Russians had tanks and Katyusha rockets.  The Italian and allied forces had nothing close to this.  They fought tanks with rifles and ineffective cannons.  The coup de grace was the Russian winter.  Italian and allied forces suffered from inadequate equipment such as vehicles, arms and fuel, with no hope of reinforcements.  The common soldier slept wherever he could in -26 C degree weather where your hands and feet would freeze if you exposed them to the weather.  Many battles took place at night where the Russian forces had the decided advantage.  If you were not killed by gunfire or by artillery, you were killed by starvation or the brutal winter weather. Wounded soldiers could not be aided and if they did not die from their wounds, they died from the immediate freezing of their bodies.  The Red Horse is a compelling story of men at war and men who were thrown into a war without any preparation, plans or the needed resources; in other words they were condemned to die as if you had lined them up against a wall and shot them.  Theirs was a hopeless cause.

This is the insanity and total futility of war. Here was a young farmer who just wanted to work his farm and feed his family.  All of the sudden, he's in Russia with people hunting him down as he were a rabid dog.  Additionally, he goes from a mild weather area, where the temperature never goes below 45 degrees to an area where the winters are the coldest in the world and where you not only have to worry about being killed by a bullet but also by the weather.  What were they fighting for?  Russia never attacked Italy.  They were sent there by the folly and insanity of their political leaders.  In the Italian case Benito Mussolini.  In the German case, the insanity of Adolf Hitler.

For those who feel like you want to praise soldiers or armies for their accomplishments, that is fine and fair, but to make jokes about an army that lost a war they could never win, no matter what?  That is a different matter.  Being Italian by birth, I was subjected to many ethnic jokes and especially jokes about the performance of the Italian Army in World War II. People I knew would tell me such sick jokes to my face.  If you are one of these naive people, I ask you to read The Red Horse and then see if the joke applies.  I expounded on this situation in my last post on this blog.

A Farewell to Arms

It was a hot, humid night in July 1968 in Nha Trang, South Vietnam.  Not far from my barracks was a huge U.S. Air Force Base, and a South Korean Army base.  Nha Trang was a seaside town that used to be a vacation spot during the French colonial period.  I was assigned to the First Field Force of II Corps. I had finally finished my 12 hour shift in the Personnel office and had gone to bed in my double bunk surrounded by my mosquito net.  Reading Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms had captured my intense attention.  No one ever wrote with such skill as Hemingway.  As I'm reading I could picture in my mind the horrors of war he was describing during World War I.  It all made sense.  I had now spent my first two months in a war zone.   I arrived in Vietnam  just after the Tet Offensive that started in February 1968.  As my Continental Airways passenger jet full of Army soldiers made its landing approach to Bien Hoa military airport, I first got a taste of the chaos of a war zone.  Looking to my right, I can seen the flash of artillery firing.  Upon landing we're loaded on a Isuzu bus and driven to the Cholon section of Saigon.  The sounds and noise of war was everywhere.

Upon arrival at the St. George Hotel in Saigon I could see that the front of the hotel was full of bullet holes.  I'm thinking that I had just landed in hell.  Helicopter gunships were circling the area, and the rat,tat, tat sounds of machine guns was everywhere. We were at the hotel awaiting our assignment in country.  After unloading my gear I see a fellow soldier holding out a recording device out of the window.  When I asked him what he was doing, he said that he was recording the sounds of the battle so he could send it home.  I asked him if he was kidding; he was not.  At the hotel bar I can see about six or seven Australian soldiers having a beer.  Before resting for the night I got the assignment of patrolling the perimeter of the hotel with my M-14 Rifle that I had trained with in Fort Ord, California.  I don't remember sleeping that night.  Having spent and entire year in a war zone, I think I can speak with experience that war is no party or no glory.  I will not spend any time defending the Vietnam war here; my purpose is a little different.

As an Italian immigrant to the United States,   I occasionally was asked were I was from, since I did not look like the typical blond, blue eyed Scandinavian looking fellow.  When I answered that I was from Sicily, Italy, I was often told idiotic Italian jokes about the Italian military (referring to World War II).  The most frequent quip was "what is the smallest book in the world?  A list of Italian military heroes."  Why a person would intentionally insult me to my face is beyond my understanding.  I suppose if I had been a tough hombre, I would have levelled the person with a left hook or  picked him up and tossed him into the freeway, or out of the building, but I did not.  I feigned a smile, unprepared for such idiocy. This did not happen once or twice but many, many times.  Happily I have not heard it in the last 10 or so years.

I've never been able to figure out the mentality of such insults.  Surely, people making these sick jokes have never been nor could they ever handle being in a war.   The intellectually challenged person making such jokes has never walked in another man's shoes.  The Vietnam veterans were betrayed by their own people when they returned home.  Here was a man who left home, left his parents, brothers and sisters, his girlfriend and all his friends to fight to the death in the Ia Drang Valley or Khe Sanh.  Or how about going to a war that you could not win because you were fighting with rules that put you in a box where you could not go out of.  A war that made no sense and the politicians refused to let you win.  If you survived and came home the people often spat at you and called you a killer.  The draft dodger that fled to Canada was considered the smart one, the brave soldier who died for his country was forgotten.

Where was the idiot who makes such jokes?  was he in the foxhole?  Was he thrown into a situation where it was hopeless to win or get out of?  As a history buff, I often watch military documentaries.  One of most poignant one is the documentary of the Siege of Leningrad during World War II where the entire German 6th Army, about 500,000 men, was condemned to die from war, cold or starvation because a lunatic such as Hitler had sent them there and then refused to let them withdraw when it was hopeless.  Would the idiot making such jokes have been to such a place?  I don't think so. 

A Very Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy: Oh How Things Have Changed

Immigration today is almost a daily news issue.  It was not always so.  Although the problem is illegal immigration, the main stream media, and liberal supporters of illegal immigration, call it simply "immigration."  It is no accident that they leave the "illegal" out of it.  If you're against illegal immigration, you're branded as "anti-immigrant" or in some cases a "racist."  This is quite a stretch of the truth and, in my opinion, a blatant lie meant to smear, and an ad hominem attack of the worst kind. Watch this video of a debate about illegal immigration between Michelle Malkin and Geraldo Rivera to see what I mean.

Since I'm a legal immigrant, I find these issues quite interesting, to say the least.  Let's step back from any emotional reaction and look at the facts.  It was not until 1924 that the United States began to limit immigration to the United States.  Before that it was open borders.  My own grand-father first came to the United States in 1905 and then returned to Italy in 1911.  After the passing of the "Immigration Act of 1924" limits were instituted on how many immigrants from each country could enter the U.S.  This law discriminated against southern European countries and favored northern European countries.  Northern Europeans were considered more favorably than those "inferior southerners," such as Italians, Greeks or Spaniards.  Today, of course, all we hear is how we should favor immigration without consideration to whether it's legal or illegal.  I don't have a problem with this if we decided, by law, to make the United States an open border country again, but only if the people voted for such a law.

The problem is that those who favor immigration without limits, usually liberals and some Hispanics, want to ignore the existing law.  This a very bad slippery slope.  If we can pick and choose which law we follow, who is to say that any law should be followed?  This is not just a rhetorical question.  I have one simple question for those who favor unlimited immigration:  Why do you not propose to change the law and make it legal?  If there is such great support for open borders why be afraid to put this to the people?

Let me give a personal example.  My parents legally immigrated to Los Angeles in 1956 from Italy.  At that time there were quotas.  My family waited three years before getting permission to immigrate.  Before being approved for immigration the entire family had to go through a thorough medical  and legal exam.  Additionally, each family had to have a sponsor, and have a job waiting for them when they got here.  In 1956 there were no illegal immigrants waiting on street corners looking for work.  As a matter of fact, I don't remember seeing any illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area waiting on street corners well past the 1980s.  Now, I don't have a problem with how the law was structured when my family immigrated, even though I believe that it was discriminatory against Southern Europeans.  I believe that each country has the right to determine their own policies.  Who is to tell country "A" that they should have the law any other way? In most countries in the world, you're arrested if you enter the country illegally.  Try entering Iran, for instance, illegally, or Mexico, for that matter.

Today the left will proclaim that anyone who does not favor illegal immigration like they do is either a racist or anti-immigrant.  This is pure demagoguery of the worst kind.  Disagree but be intellectually honest about it!  This leftist view has even taken over the church.  Just ask Cardinal  Mahoney of Los Angeles or his replacement and they will be for unfettered illegal immigration, even though it is currently illegal.  As I recall, the scriptures say (Matthew 22:21) that you should give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.

Why A Nations's Military is so Important

Show me a nation that is great and I'll show you a nation with a great military.  If you look at all the great nations or empires of the past you will see a common thread:  a great military.  No nation can call itself great without an efficient military.  Let's look as some examples:

1. The United States has been a world power since the late 19th century.  After the defeat of the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898 you had the beginning of a new world power.  World War I and II put a definite stamp on it.  There is no stronger power in the world than the United States.  There are many reasons for this, but a strong and efficient military is one of the biggest reasons.
2. Great Britain ruled the world through its empire for two hundred years.  One of its biggest assets was and still is the efficiency and prowess of its military forces.
3. Japan has been a strong nation on the world stage for the last hundred years. Japan's military was feared for its prowess.  They conquered most of China, Malaysia and the Korean peninsula prior to World War I, then they made a fatal mistake:  They dared challenge the strongest military power in the world:  The United States in World War II and were destroyed in the process.
4. Germany lost two world wars in the period of 20 years but no one will laugh at the German military for its efficiency and power.  For a small country, it nearly defeated the rest of the world.  the German military was next to none in efficiency and prowess. German soldiers in World Wars I & II were considered some of the best soldiers in the world.
5. The Ottoman Empire ruled a large part of the world from the Middle East to the borders of Russia to the north and North Africa to the south from the 14th Century to World War I. One of the strongest reason - the Ottomans had one of the best military in the world.

Let's look at some countries who do not have a strong or efficient military.  The military may not be the only reason why a nation is weak but it is one of the biggest reasons.

1. Italy has had a weak military since the unification of the country in 1860.  After 150 years it still has a weak military.  As a descendant of the great Roman Empire which ruled the world for nearly 1500 years, Italy has little to show for it now. The Romans defined military science and tactics.  Most modern militaries still use the Roman Army method of military structure.  Roman military tactics are still studied today in war colleges.  In World War I, the Italian military was less than stellar.  At the battle of Caporetto, Italian forces were defeated and many of them deserted.  A huge embarrassment for the country.  Although they managed to finish the war with their victorious allies, the Italian military failed to impress anyone. In World War II they were inept at best.  The Italian military did show some flair in their conquest of Ethiopia in 1935, but this was a very short lived exception. Today, Italy is not a significant player on the world stage militarily.  
2. France was a big military power starting in the Napoleonic period. Next to Germany, they still have the strongest military in Europe. With the huge cost of fighting World War II and then the Vietnam war which culminated with their loss at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, France began a decline as a military power.  The French fought brilliantly in Vietnam but lost for reasons other than their military efficiency.
3. Greece became a great empire before the Romans because of their military prowess. The Greeks defeated the greatest empire of their day, Persia.  Later on Alexander the Great conquered the known world all the way to India.  For hundreds of years Greece ruled the world.  When Jesus was born, Greek was the spoken language of commerce in the world.  Greece eventually declined.  First the Romans took over from them;  when the Romans declined, Greece was swallowed by the Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire.  The Byzantines were conquered by the Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453 and Greece became part of the Ottoman Empire. Greece finally got its freedom from the Ottomans in 1821.  To this day, Greece is still secondary to Turkish military prowess as evidenced by the 1974 Turkish conquest of the half of Cyprus.  To this day, half of Cyprus is still occupied by the Turks.  In 1922 Greece was defeated by the Turkish Army as it tried to conquer Turkey after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in World War I.  

A House Divided Cannot Stand: The Struggle Between Islam and Christianity

Islam has been on the march against Christianity since the death of Mohamed in 632 AD.  Two of the main goals of Mohammed's followers were to convert all infidels (non-Muslims), and conquer the world, not only to gain land but to win everybody else to Islam.  The Middle East and North Africa were the first areas to fall to the forces of Islam.  Once North Africa was taken, the Muslims set their sights on Europe.  They started with the conquest of Spain in 711 AD when the governor of Tangiers, Tariq ibn Ziyad landed in Gibraltar with 10,000 troops.  Within months the Muslims had taken most of the Iberian Peninsula.  It was not until the 11th century that the Spaniards started to drive the Muslims back, starting in Northern Spain and pushing south.  The final battle was won in 1492 when the Muslims were completely driven out of Spain by the forces of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

In 740 AD Sicily fell to the forces of Islam after a long struggle with the Byzantine Empire.  The Normans, led by a brilliant military commander, Roger de Houteville, drove out the Muslims from Sicily for good in 1071. De Houteville became Roger I, the first king of Sicily. If you go to the seacoast resort of Cefalù you will find a Cathedral there built by Roger II, the son of Roger I.

The Muslims became dominant, not only in the Middle East, but in Southern Europe. The Ottoman Turks created one of the greatest empires since Rome.  By the 15th century the Ottomans had conquered the eastern Roman Empire in 1453, known then, as the Byzantine Empire (modern day Turkey), with its capital in Constantinople.   Constantinople was then considered the center of Christianity.  The Byzantines made many pleas to fellow Christian nations around them but no one responded to help them. The Republic of Venice promised ships but none ever appeared. One exception was a private army of 7,000 troops led by the brilliant commander, Giovanni Giustiniani who was from Genoa. Giustiniani and his men fought bravely but were overwhelmed by the superior Turkish forces.   Click here for a map of Ottoman Empire at this time.  The Ottoman Empire reached from the Middle East, North Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Greece and the Balkan states.  A fine book on the history of the Byzantine Empire is Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth.

The Ottomans never stopped trying to conquer Europe by military force.  After the defeat of the Byzantine Empire, they set their eyes on the rest of Europe.  Soon, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and the Balkan countries fell to the Ottoman onslaught.  The Ottomans had the best trained, the most efficient, army in the world.  Brutality was their calling card.  The Ottoman Army had two sets of special forces which specialized in brutal tactics and sow fear in their enemies, the Tartars and the Janissaries. They spread fear everywhere they went. These troops fought to the death because they knew that if they failed they would suffer a brutal death themselves at the hands of their leaders.  On approaching a location, they would ask the people to surrender.  If they failed to surrender they would kill every man, woman, child and animal and then burn any city or village to the ground.  After slaughtering the locals, they would cut off the heads of the men and stick them up on poles along the road to sow fear among the rest of the territory who failed to surrender.  This is described in great detail in a book about the Ottoman siege of Vienna of 1683, titled, Enemy at the Gates by Andrew Wheatcroft, Most of what I describe here related to the Ottoman military is from this book.

Enemy at the Gates, chronicles the final siege of Vienna in 1683.  The Ottomans first attempted to conquer Vienna in 1521.  They were driven back and Europe was spared.  Between 1521 and 1683, the Ottomans constantly attacked Europe.  They had many successes and many defeats.  The Ottomans reached as far north as Poland and Russia before being driven back.  By 1683, the Ottomans had Vienna in their eye again.  They figured that if Vienna fell then the rest of Europe would be theirs.  They put all their resources to accomplishing this goal.  At the time Vienna was part of the Habsburg Empire, later called Austria-Hungary Empire. World War I started here, in the Austria-Hungary Empire.

The Ottomans were feared all over Europe.  Their wars were a combination of religious fervor and desire to dominate the world for Islam.  The Christians also saw this as a religious war on them.  Although most Europeans were Christian, they rarely ever cooperated or supported other European Christians under attack by the Muslim Ottomans.  When they did cooperate, as when they created a coalition with the Holy League, Venice, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and the Papal States for the purpose of stopping the Turks from attacking them.  On October 7, 1571 this coalition defeated an Ottoman fleet at Lepanto, in southern Greece.


The fact that the Christians failed to help each other had disastrous consequences.  The list is endless:  Byzantine Empire defeated in 1453; Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Armenia, to name a few all fell to the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks while their fellow Christians sat on their hands.  The Turks were so confident of success that in 1683 they attempted to conquer Vienna for the second time.  The Habsburg Empire was on their own. After months of a fierce siege, the Ottomans were close to victory when their neighbors, led by the king of Poland, John Sobieski  organized a relief army.  After gathering his forces Sobieski arrived just in time to save the exhausted and nearly beaten Viennese.  Without this help, most of Europe would have been Muslim then, and perhaps today.

The Ottoman army, led by a brilliant military commander, Kara Mustafa, performed incredibly well and the Habsburg troops fought brilliantly with heavy losses, however, they also inflicted very heavy casualties on the Turks.  After the Habsburgs were relieved by the coalition led by the King of Poland the Ottomans were finally defeated.  When the defeated Ottomans returned home, their commander was called in and told he had been condemned to death.  Wheatcroft, describes what happened:  "Kara Mustafa met his death with stoic Ottoman calm, as befitting a Koprulu.  First he removed his rich-trimmed robe, then his turban, then, with practiced ease, his executions flipped the soft cord over his head and tightened it around his neck, pulling steadily with all their strength." After his death they cut off his head. They continued to brutalize his body in detail that I'd rather leave off, because of its gruesomeness.  A man who had dedicated his life and talent to his country and was defeated through no fault of his own was rewarded by being executed like a common criminal.

The Failure to Learn From History

Economics can be complicated but there are plenty of historical data that is easy to follow; a second grader can understand it.  I'm referring to the historical facts about the failure of government spending and tax increases to solve economic troubles such what we're experiencing today.

It is a well-documented fact that all the government spending of the Great Depression of the 1930s failed to do any good.  Case in point:  The unemployment rate in 1932 was 23.6%.  After eight years of massive government spending the unemployment rate was 19%.  The great American economist, Thomas Sowell,  explains what happened in the Great Depression and how government spending had the opposite effect of what was intended.  Watch this four-minute YouTube video.

In a Wall Street Journal article of November 21, 2010 economists Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder describe the results of their study of what happens when there is a tax increase.  Most people believe this will solve the problem of deficits, or at least help.  What Vedder and Moore found was that from World War II to 2009 (a 66-year span), for every additional dollar increase in taxes, government spends $1.17.  Does raising taxes solve the problem?  No.  The answer has to be reducing out of control spending.  Why do we fail to learn from history?  Again, I'll go to one of my favorite philosophers, George Santayana:  "Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."  Case closed.