Book Reviews

While I was up in Newport last summer, the President of the Naval War College, RADM Wisecup, recommended a couple of books.  Since then, I've read two of the books he recommended, and both were excellent.

The first book I read was World War Z.  The admiral himself admitted he felt odd recommending a fiction novel about a future zombie war.  Apparently the story was good enough that the movie rights were purchased, and Brad Pitt is going to star in it.

From the title, I was expecting something of a gruesome horror flick of zombies grumbling, "braaaaaains" and reaching out to grab unsuspecting victims.  However, it was actually a very thought-provoking story.  It explored the concepts of how to manage the spread of a global disease and massive refugee migrations.  It highlighted how the military is always trained and equipped to fight "the last war," and how that training and equipment would be useless in a global pandemic scenario like this.  It also explored how the human race might adapt to meet their basic needs of food and shelter after a major world conflict had destroyed the "normal" methods of consumerism (farming, production, distribution and shopping).  Overall an excellent book and a page-turner. 

The second book I read was Execute Against Japan: The U.S. Decision to Conduct Unrestricted Submarine Warfare.  The author, Joel Ira Holwitt is actually an active duty submarine officer who earned a PhD in History from Ohio State University.

It reads very much like an academic paper such as a PhD dissertation or a masters thesis with many quotes and endnotes.  Holwitt makes some bold statements about the U.S. submarine force's campaign against the Japanese in WWII.  He falls victim to some logical fallacies in his reasoning, and I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions.  He makes statements that guess at the motives and intentions of key players in the President's cabinet, the Navy, and the State Department, and then claims that because he can't find any evidence to refute this, then his guess must be right.  He also doesn't have any evidence that conclusively proves his assumptions.

For example, he presumes that the Navy never asked the State Department for their opinion on a strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan, "since the State Department's reaction would undoubtedly be negative..."  (p. 129).  The book is riddled with words or phrases such as perhaps, probably, undoubtedly, no one recollected, could have been because, seems highly improbable, and seems probable.  Don't get me wrong.  They're pretty good guesses and he's probably right, but his conclusions are based on the absence of evidence to refute his opening arguments and assumptions. 

All that being said, it was a very interesting read.  The thing I enjoyed most about reading this book was the description of the isolationist sentiment in America prior to December 7th, 1941, and the dialogue over what America's strategy should be in the event of war both internal and external to the Department of the Navy.  I was aware of the isolationist bent of the general public at the time, but this book provided many specific examples of those sentiments from the neutrality laws, speeches, and letters.

Holwitt surprised me with some of the pre-decisional type documents he was able to find in various archives to illustrate how the leaders of the age were formulating their plans. We tend to take for granted our 20/20 hindsight of how things turned out in history and lose the perspective of how we got to the end result.  That's a big reason why I enjoy historically based fiction books that bring to life the active debates, public sentiments and fears of the people leading up to major events before they knew the outcome. 

Well, I'm very thankful to RADM Wisecup for the book recommendations.  Both were very good books.

For anyone who might wonder why I picked World War Z over Execute Against Japan to read first, that simply boiled down to which one was available on my Kindle.  I downloaded World War Z and started reading it on my Kindle while I was still in Newport.  Execute Against Japan is only available in hard-copy, so I had to wait for that one to come in the mail.

National Museum of the Marine Corps

We've heard multiple friends rave about the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and it's been on my to-do list for a while.  Last weekend, my friend Bob and I took the boys down to Quantico to visit the museum.  We went with pretty high expectations, and we weren't disappointed.

The exterior invokes the image of the Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima.

My youngest son under the F-4 Corsair

The museum is very well organized to take you through a chronological series of exhibits on everything from the Revolution through the War of 1812, the Mexian War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Cold War.

There was a LOT to see.  The exhibits were very high-tech, interactive multi-media type displays.

Then there was some goofy fun, too.

My youngest son (6 years old) brought his stuffed-animal dog, Waggy, and we have dozens of photos of Waggy from all over the museum.  My eldest son (9 years old) really liked the World War I exhibit since he's been doing a segment on World War I at school.

Amphibious landing craft used in the landings at Tarawa.

Bob and I especially enjoyed the World War II exhibit since we just finished watching The Pacific.  It was great to see some pictures of the real Marines who were portrayed in the HBO series, and videos of interviews with them, too. 

The first US flag flown over Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima.

In the Korean War section, we walked through a life-size diorama of the Chosin Reservoir with gunfire and mortars going off, tracers flying by, and they have the temperature in that room cranked down so you feel like you're freezing your butt off at the Chosin Reservoir.
 

The boys running down the ramp of the CH-46 into Vietnam.

You enter the Vietnam section through the fuselage of a CH-46 helicopter.  The inside of the helicopter really SMELLS like a military helicopter.  While in the helicopter, you listen to some radio dialogue between the pilot and the ground forces about landing in a hot LZ.  Then you run down the ramp into the diorama of Vietnam, and it's HOT and HUMID and there's a battle raging around you.

Harrier and helo

I was impressed to see so many Medals of Honor on display here.  Since it's illegal to reproduce or sell a Medal of Honor, you know the ones on display here in the museum are the real thing donated by the families of the brave Marines who earned them.

We arrived about 1 p.m., and they kicked us out at closing time at 5 p.m.  We had to drag the boys out against their will.  They were busy doing some interactive team problem-solving game when I had to drag them out because the museum was closing.  

Two peas in a pod.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps is essentially a museum of American History.  In every conflict our nation has ever fought, the Marines have been there and done that.  This was an extraordinarily good museum and a fun time for all of us.  

To top it all off, it's FREE!  And when I say free, I'm not saying Smithsonian it's-free-but-you've-gotta-pay-$14-to-park "free" (like the Udvar Hazy Center).  This is really no kidding FREE. 

Don't forget to check out the Lego Sculpture in the Gift Shop!

Valley Forge and Washington's Crossing - Vacation Part 1

On Wednesday morning, we loaded up the car to head out on a family vacation.

The boys were very excited.

So was Smokey the Fish. (Can't you tell?)

This is a practice run for our PCS move drive across country later.  The primary reason for driving across country being so we can bring the fish with us of course.

I don't think we brought enough stuffed animals.

First, we drove up to Valley Forge, PA to tour the National Historic Park.  It was awesome and totally worth the trip.

We arrived about 3 p.m. hoping to get the kids to join the Continental Army.  Unfortunately, both the walking tours and the kids join the Continental Army activities were canceled due to the heat.

Instead, we watched the 18 minute introductory video in the theater, and then we went on the 90-minute Trolley Tour, and it was totally worth it.

Our tour guide, Brianna, was a local college student, and she was really enthusiastic and excited to talk about the American Revolution.

We stopped to see the replicas of the winter quarters the Continental Army built along the outer line of defense.

My youngest thought it was pretty cool to see life-size Lincoln Logs.

The tour guide said this was just like sleeping on a submarine.  I think the racks on a submarine are more spacious and comfortable.

Park Rangers Ron and Scott gave us an awesome lesson on life in the Continental Army.  Ron said their uniforms looked white because they were linen, and the linen wouldn't hold dye.  The wool coats the Continental Army would hold dye though, so those were blue.  They also explained the differences between the French and the American muskets and the things the soldiers had to do to keep the muskets in working order.

Next, they demonstrated how the Continental Army's muskets worked.

BANG!

Then we went to see General Washington's Headquarters.  That's General Washington's flag in the grass in front of the HQ.

This is where LtCol Alexander Hamilton managed the day-to-day administration of the Continental Army, posting letters from Washington to congress about how inadequately supplied the army was.

That's the parade ground where Von Steuben drilled the 15,000-ish soldiers into a professional army.  Our tour guide pointed out a statue of Von Steuben and mentioned the fact it has been relocated to a less prominent storage location twice in history.  She asked if anyone knew why, and my Eldest chimed in that it was because he was German and they moved his statue during WWI and WWII.  Brianna said my son should come be a tour guide there.

You won't find any sort of Valley Forge National Cemetary since no battle took place there and nobody was killed in combat.  Those who got sick in camp were carted off to hospitals about thirty miles away from the camp so as not to spread the sickness in the camp.  Likewise, if someone did die in the camp, they took the body elsewhere.  Our tour guide told us that there are mass unmarked graves near those hospitals.

This monument is for the "unknown soldiers" who died during the winter at Valley Forge and ended up in those unmarked mass graves in other parts of the countryside.

This memorial was built in 1917 to remind America of the hardships endured by the Continental Army at Valley Forge while America endured the hardships of WWI.

At the visitor center, you can pick up a Junior Park Ranger activity booklet.  For younger kids, they have to finish 3 activities in the book, and older kids have to finish 4 activities in the book.  Both boys finished their activities and earned their Junior Park Ranger badges here like they did back at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens.

What I've provided above is a very brief glimpse of the things we saw at Valley Forge.  I learned a lot in our visit there and I'm very glad we went.  I highly recommend a visit and taking the trolley tour.

Continuing to test my theory that all breweries have good food, we went to the Rock Bottom Brewery in the King of Prussia Mall.  One of the park rangers recommended it to us as a favorite of the park rangers, and a quick check of Yelp found a comment, "I should pay rent here."  That's a sure sign of a place people go back to for a reason.  We weren't disappointed.  The food, beer, and service at Rock Bottom were extraordinarily good.

We stayed the night near Valley Forge before continuing our trek northbound.  Thursday we made a brief stop at the spot where Washington crossed the Delaware River.

Pretty Exciting, I know.  Try to contain your enthusiasm.

That's my family waiting for me back in the car.

Unfortunately, although the website claimed they just celebrated the reopening of the visitor's center, it was closed when we got there.  I understand there is another historic park and visitor center over on the New Jersey side of the river, but the bridge was closed for repairs and it wouldn't have been very a very quick or easy trip to get over to that side to check it out.  Maybe next time. 

We hit I-495 on the outskirts of Boston at just the WRONG time.  We spent a LONG time sitting here.  I took us 1 hour 45 minutes to travel 29 miles, and most of that was at a stand still here due to an accident blocking 2 of 3 lanes of traffic. Ugh.  

We have arrived safe and sound at our family place on Lake Winnipesaukee, thus opening a new chapter to our family's already long history here on the lake.  I look forward to updating my favorites list, navigating the buoy system, and getting out for a paddle around the lake.

Questions

On long car rides and paddling excursions, the boys like to play their version of 20-questions.  They just don't like limiting it to only twenty.  They prefer to keep asking questions until they figure out the answer.

Poor 6-year old YB's turn never lasts more than 3 questions.  He always picks something he saw immediately before playing the game.  For example:
[Eagle flies by.]
Me:  "Oh, look!  An eagle!"
YB:  "Okay, I'm ready."
ES:  "Is it an eagle?"
YB:  [exasperated]  "Yeeeees" [tone of voice interpretation:  how do you ALWAYS know what I'm thinking???]

ES has been throwing me for a loop lately.  During our Monocacy River kayaking trip on Saturday, he stumped me.  After what seemed like a hundred questions, I had figured out it was a previous ruler of Germany, but my level of knowledge of German history isn't all that great.  ES gave me a hint:  "Unification."  Still stumped, I finally gave up, and ES said, "Otto von Bismarck!"

Uhhhhh....

Dude...

You're 8 years old.

How on EARTH do you know ANYTHING about Otto von Bismarck???
 

ES likes to play the video game Civilization - a sort of grand-strategy, global domination simulation game.  I guess Otto von Bismarck is one of the characters / leaders you can choose to be in the game, and ES didn't know who that was, so he looked him up on Wikipedia and read about him. 

Who says video games aren't educational?

Evergreen Air & Space Museum (OR vacation part 4)

For our next adventure in Oregon sight-seeing, my dad and I took the boys out to the Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.

First the Good:

This place is GINORMOUS with an amazing collection of aircraft. It's on par with the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. There are three large buildings that make up the campus - the air museum, the space museum, and the IMAX theater.

Air Museum, IMAX Theater, and Space Museum

In front of the Air Museum

The air museum's central exhibit is the Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes' gargantuan flying boat transport plane that did one test flight near Long Beach, California in 1947 and then never flew again. Around it are dozens of static displays from Wright Brothers' Kitty Hawk and World War I replicas to World War II and onward to present day aircraft.

Panorama just inside the entrance (click on image to enlarge)

One thing I really liked about this museum, aside from the vast number and good condition of the aircraft on display, was the painting and story that went along with each aircraft. Next to each static display was a nice painting of the aircraft in action and a short (1 paragraph) story of the importance of that aircraft in its day and age.

Spitfire - Guardians of the Realm

F-4U Corsair

Messerschmidtt Bf-109

P-38 Lightning

There are several multi-media displays throughout the museum. Each multi-media display area has a row of commercial airliner seats in front of it to sit and watch. For example, the one I took the most interest in was their exhibit on the P-38 Lightnings that shot down Admiral Yamamoto over Bougainville.

They had this mock-up of Yamamoto's crashed plane, with informational panels and with a video monitor in the tail that told the story of the mission to shoot down Yamamoto.

The boys and I sit and watch the video about Yamamoto's demise.

Like any good museum does these days, this museum also has a section with hands-on activities for kids.

Grandpa and YB deliver air-dropped supplies to the mountains.

We thought the FLIR exhibit was so cool, we went back to it a second time to make goofy faces and see how the temperature in our mouths changed when we inhaled and exhaled. (Yes, that is the "geek" alarm you hear going off in the background.)

Space Museum

After a bite to eat (more on that at the end of this post), we headed over to the space museum on the other side of the parking lot. Again, the collection here was pretty impressive, even though there is a big empty spot that they have reserved for a space shuttle to someday call home. I didn't take as many pictures on the space side because I was feeling pressed for time to get home before the afternoon rush hour traffic started. They had nicely done exhibits about the V-1 and V-2 rockets and the space race. I was surprised that my 8 year old son actually sat in the commercial airliner seats and listened to all of President Kennedy's speech about sending men to the moon.

Titan II

The photo above was taken at the ground level. The Titan II actually went down two floors below that. You could take the stairs down and go into the mock-up of the Titan II launch center.

I've seen lots of space capsules on display in museums, but this was the first time to see one with the Sea King helicopter that pulled it out of the sea.

Self portrait with Titan IV

The highlight of the space museum for my boys was finding the escape pod used by R2D2 and C3PO. Okay, no it it's not really the escape pod used in Star Wars, but it sure looked like it to them.

Like the Smithsonian, they have an SR-71 Blackbird at the Evergreen museum. What I enjoyed seeing here that I didn't remember seeing at the Smithsonian was the remote sensing instruments. They had several of the Blackbird's sensor payloads on display next to the plane.

Backtrack to the Air Museum

We went back to the Air Museum because my eldest son really wanted to see the firearms exhibit on the second floor terrace. I was actually glad we went back. It was very well put together. Rather than just a bunch of glass cases with guns on display, they had several static displays of how the weapons were used in action.

Invasion of Normandy

Iwo Jima

San Juan Hill, Spanish-American War

Lewis & Clark Expedition

Alright, you knew this was coming because of the first paragraph heading way back at the top of this post, but it has to be said...

Now for the Bad:

The price of admission to this museum is astronomical. You'll be asked to sacrifice your first born child and take out a home equity loan before you can walk in the door.

Okay, I'm exaggerating just a bit. It's not quite that bad.

My sticker-shock was most likely induced by two factors and aggravated by a third.

First, after paying just $15 for the four of us to get into the Pearson Air Museum a couple of days ago, paying $92 to get into the Evergreen museum left a flaming hole in the back pocket of my blue jeans where my wallet used to be. Oh, and that's with the military discount. Second, coming from the Washington, D.C. area, we can go see the same stuff (except for the Spruce Goose) at the Smithsonian [cue Adam Sandler's voice in Bedtime Stories] for FREEEEEEEE.

My frustration over the smoking hole in the back of my jeans was aggravated by the vacuum they kept trying to stick in the hole as we walked around the museum. They added insult to injury with all the opportunities for you to shell out MORE money as you go through the museum.

Since the Spruce Goose is the main attraction and one of first things you see when you walk in the door, we almost immediately walked over to check it out. We climbed the stairs to go inside. We stepped through the door and found ourselves in a glass box about the size of my bathroom. From this glass box, you could see all the way from the nose cone to the tail cone inside the plane, but you couldn't go up the spiral stairs to see the cockpit / flight deck or walk around at all.

This is your $92 view of the inside of the Spruce Goose

You'd have to be blind to miss the multiple posters advertising having your picture taken in the cockpit... IF you pay for a VIP tour. **Cough, cough.** I'm sorry, but paying $92 at the front door didn't just make me a VIP??? I might be able to accept paying something like the Pearson museum's admission rate and then paying extra for things like going inside the Spruce Goose and the B-17, but to charge that much money at the front door and then expect to nickel and dime us inside the museum is just rude.

Considering the Smithsonian is free, and considering all the other free monuments and museums and things to see and do in DC, you might be better off spending your money on flying to DC than going to visit the Evergreen museum.

Now, there was one mitigating factor on the cost. If we were locals and could come back here on a regular basis, the annual family pass was $120, and that totally would have been worth it. As it was, we ran out of time and didn't get to check out all the exhibits. If you live anywhere near McMinnville, then I recommend buying the annual pass and plan to go spend one outing visiting the air museum and come back another day to see the space museum, and come back whenever you have friends or family come to visit.

A Footnote on Food

There are two places to eat here, a small concession stand in the air museum and the Cosmo Cafe in the space museum. In contrast to the price of admission to the museum, the Cosmo Cafe was very reasonably priced. The service was friendly, prompt, and professional, and the food was extraordinarily fresh and delicious - a hundred times better than the junk they sell in the cafes at the major attractions around Washington, D.C. The kids' meals were $3.50 (and they got a full adult-sized cheeseburger and really good french fries). I paid $7 for a really good reuben sandwich and fries, and that's a better deal than I normally get for lunch at work.

So hey, if you're just passing through McMinnville and looking for a place to eat, you can stop and eat at the Cosmo Cafe without paying admission to the museum. Enjoy the food and the background scenery that lies beyond the ticket counter and continue on your way. :-)

Two happy boys leaving the museum.
(I don't know if you can tell from the photo,
but the driveway is painted like a runway.)