Tom Blumer, You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!

i bet one of the pirates is an obama relative, at this moment being whisked onto our shores to violate our immigration laws!

614 – PIR-ATES

Shalom Eric,

This hostage crisis ended well with no loss of American lives. Once again the Seals proved they are the baddest motherfuckers in the valley.

I’m troubled though how the specter of Operation Eagle Claw and the tragedy at Desert One continues to haunt our nation 30 years later.

I was thrown back to that time this past week when I first heard that the USS Bainbridge was on the scene. I was there in 1979 on another Bainbridge and played my own minuscule role in our nation’s long nightmare.

President Jimmy Carter did everything right and I will call anyone who differs a fool and a liar to their face. President Carter’s first priority was to bring every hostage home safely and every last man and women did so.

He assembled the greatest naval armada since WW II in the Gulf of Oman and the leaders of Iran understood clearly that if a single hostage died the full terrible might of that floating mass violent death would fall upon Iran.

That Iran understood this can be seen by its release on 11 July 19080 of 28-year-old Vice Consul Richard I. Queen who was gravely ill. (He was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died on 14 August 2002.) They dared not risk his death under their care.

We made our best possible military effort in Operation Eagle Claw and the fates were just not with us. I am weary of chicken hawks who have never humped a ruck or held a sweating finger on a trigger second guessing leaders who are hesitant to throw American lives in harm’s way just to appease someone’s idea of swagger.

I am thankful this day that we have an adult who thinks in the White House and that those who came after me have upheld the finest traditions of the Navy.

B?shalom,

Jeff