Large Fierce Mammal

In its ascension, the organization known to the west as ISIS successfully branded itself an unstoppable juggernaut, defiance of which promised a terrible retribution that included such horrors as having your immolation or decapitation broadcast to the world in surprisingly professional “official” releases.

Take a nasty looking knife and cut a bound man’s head off with it, you and he may be the only ones who know it ever happened. Even he’ll probably forget about it pretty quickly. But if you’re a front man for an aspiring world power, and do it in a slickly shot and edited shit show made for worldwide distribution, all a bloodthirsty goblin need do is master an acting role that includes a convincingly tough sales pitch. The dick of your posse’s street cred gets longer, at least in the minds of those prone to soiling themselves in the face of a barking dog.

Right John?

Remember Jihadi John? Who doesn’t? He liked to talk tough while wearing a mask and beheading bound western hostages in carefully scripted and edited murder/torture porn vignettes that were supposed to make us all just surrender immediately because … what? The worst was yet to come? He was right. A drone blew his ass up in 2015, a death that came upon him sadly, too slow, too late, and not up close enough.

So now that the royal yacht of the ISIS “caliphate” remains afloat solely due to the steady lightening of its weight from the rats jumping off of it, Canada’s government ensures its place among the ranks of the touchy feely and forgetfully forgiving by wondering what to do about those among the rats now coming “home” in search of their safe space.

A CBC article from the present week includes:

“Complicating the problem is an ongoing disagreement over how many jihadi returnees are in Canada.

“Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told the House this week that ‘the number of returnees is in the order of 60.’ Others question why that number has remained the same for 18 months, rather than increasing as ISIS sinks and its foreign recruits jump ship.

“Goodale said fighters who return are not given a free pass but remain under surveillance if they are deemed a threat, and efforts are made to prosecute them if it can be proven they acted illegally.

“‘In almost every case we will want to be collecting evidence particularly from the battlefield to be able to prosecute, if that is possible under the criminal code,’ he told CBC News Network’s Power & Politics on Thursday.

“There are two things most experts can agree on however: There are too many people involved in jihadi ideology for all of them to be surveilled round the clock (emphasis added); and the government has been unable to piece together evidence for prosecutions in more than a fraction of cases.”

We recently spoke of Camp-X. The official website dedicated to preservation of its history contains this little Truth:

“The SOE knew that for every 100 missions scheduled to take place, only 5% would be successful. Should this be considered a failure? Not at all; just the fact that the Allies had so many agents working simultaneously behind enemy lines meant that the Germans had to devote entire departments of high ranking, intelligent, German officers dedicating their entire war effort to tracking down every single Allied Agent which of course was an impossibility.” ~ The History of Camp-X — What Was Camp-X?

An excellent and proven strategy to be sure, and taught right here by people who would have laughed themselves senseless at the mere thought of a nation whose security forces are taxed keeping track of “60” possibles. Even more so at the concept of voluntary “interventions” that seem modelled more on couple counselling than they are actions on behalf of national security.

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In the waning months of 1941, and  notwithstanding Hilter’s postponement of Operation Sea Lion in September of 1940, Britain was facing a continued threat of German invasion. In Europe and most every other bit of contested ground, as well as on the high seas, Allied forces were losing to the Axis on every front. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

British military intelligence of the time was called British Security Coordination (BSC), and operated under the direction of a Canadian, Sir William Stephenson, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Stephenson enjoyed an exceptionally close relationship with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and under his orders to create, “… the clenched fist that would provide the knockout blow …” to the enemy, set about the task with alacrity. An exceptionally successful component of his efforts is the subject of our gathering here today.

Special Training School 103, unofficially called Camp X, opened its heavily secured gates on 6 December 1941, the day before the attack on Pearl Harbour drew the United States into World War II in the role of an official combatant. Previously forbidden by an act of Congress from direct participation in the war, the United States was by this point an essential and vigorous host and supplier in support of the military endeavours of Britain and her Commonwealth. (more…)

To optimize battlefield effectiveness, the Soldier is trained to rely on his issue weapons, and of those, the rifle is Queen. An excellent example of this philosophy is the United States Marine Corps which states as an absolute that every Marine is a Rifleman, first, foremost, and always, notwithstanding operational specialty, and requires all of its recruits to memorize the Rifleman’s Creed:

(Click to enlarge.)

The Soldier’s training is carefully orchestrated to eliminate second guessing the efficacy of this fundamental tool by requiring that it be kept with him at all times, its use mastered, and that it be maintained with unflagging diligence. Beware the Man who shoots only one gun.

And then there are situations demanding of a different kind of Soldier. One who will operate alone or in small groups against a numerically superior and better equipped enemy, in decidedly non-permissive environments where uniforms and weapons like rifles cannot be borne openly, if at all. One whose principal weapon will be his or herself, augmented as deemed necessary by such force multipliers as may be, or come to be, in hand — some supplied through “official” channels, most harvested from the environs. Here is an example of the latter —

“According to legend, there was a young samurai who wandered the mountains of Japan one day and became lost, until he met an old man who invited him to his house.

“The youngster bragged about the excellence of his fighting skills, to which the elderly man responded with laughter. That angered the young samurai, and he attacked his host. However, the old man was swift to respond to the attack, demonstrating flawless ability. He supposedly fought only with a saucepan lid

“That is just one of the many stories that revolve around the name of Tsukhara Bokuden, perhaps one of the most prominent samurai in Japan, known to have fought over hundreds of battles and allegedly never losing a single one.” ~ A 450-year-old book advises young samurai how to prepare for combat, the secret to viewing death calmly–and what to name the baby

My purpose here today is not to speak of Samurai, Japan, nor specifically of Tsukhara Bokuden beyond his “flawless fighting ability” in successfully defending himself with a saucepan lid against an enemy armed with a sword. There lies the point, for though Tsukhara Bokuden was schooled in the sword, the message of the anecdote is that he had found on that path a personal excellence that transcended reliance on any specific weapon beyond himself, leaving him with no need to put down the saucepan lid in favour of anything else.

While at first blush, these examples may appear to leave their principals standing in harm’s way at a serious disadvantage, the reality is far from the Truth. In the three organizations and their associated training methodologies we will be looking at in the coming days, we will see some common ground with the reality exemplified by the Tsukhara Bokuden saucepan lid incident, and the philosophy of Socrates who said, “Better to do a little well, than a great deal badly.”

By way of his being trained to absolute reliance on his rifle, the “common” Soldier finds the survival of the Men on either side of him necessitates unconfused excellence with it on the battlefield — there are a lot of ways to kill a man son, here’s your way.

Training of the unconventional Soldier in the arts of war fighting eschews too many fancy ways of killing in favour of what finds its efficacy in decisively minimalist brutality — there are a lot of ways to kill a man son, here are two we want you to be exceptional at, and a third for those heavy days.

The crucible of World War II has much to teach everyone who has drawn breath since its last shot was fired. The value of simplicity in methodology coupled with individual excellence on the part of those who would wield it is not the least of them.

Camp-X when next we convene.

Comedy set against the decidedly unfunny backdrop of war isn’t anything new. To name a few examples, we have comedy in all its hues appearing in films like Kelly’s Heroes (WWII), Inglorious Basterds (WWII), Catch 22 (WWII), and MASH (Korean War). On television we have the examples of Hogan’s Heroes (WWII), McHale’s Navy (WSWII), MASH yet again, running longer than the war it portrayed, and the absolutely perfect Blackadder Goes Forth (WWI). (more…)

Original Case V-42 knife as issued to members of the First Special Service Force (Black Devils). Click the image to enlarge. Source: http://www.fairbairnsykesfightingknives.com/case-v-42.html

In lofty halls, forked tongues entwine the words of conflict,
At once invoking the name of War whilst insisting the Soldiery
Stand upon the field for reasons otherwise.
That a Soldier exists as the bloody finality of his Nation’s tolerance is forgotten.

~ Take the Fight to the Enemy ~

In a world at war, such as ours, those who speak loudest of their desire to visit violence upon others are rarely those who actually know how to do it. And then the Soldier returns from the field, bent and cracked in a few places, misunderstood and feared by the same people. The lessons of the past are either long forgotten, or “remembered” in a rebranded form, only to be viewed as through a glass, dumbly.

Things are spiraling toward a sharp period of adjustment, and if that’s not an inspiration for poetry, I don’t know what is.

In the early years of World War II, the forces of Nazi Germany had become punch drunk with success, having come to regard all resistance as little more than a speed bump on the road to world domination. The debacle of Dunkirk in 1940 left Great Britain bloodied and horribly weakened after the loss of so many trained men and their vital equipment, and Germany in a position to prepare for its next invasive foray, this time across the English Channel.

Into these dark times, when victory was but a glimmer of hope, came unorthodox and heretofore unthought of responses designed to maximize battlefield effectiveness with the minimal resources available, and as we wend our way through November of this year, I will be spotlighting three of them.

Here is but a taster.

I wrote of the First Special Service Force, AKA the Devil’s Brigade, AKA the “Black Devils”, on the Remembrance Day of 2015 with my poem Black Devils. Two days ago I read that poem to a client who happens to be a blood relative to a member of that force, and instrumental for many years in facilitating interconnection between long lost members, collecting the stories of members living and departed, and organizing reunions for living members and families of those on both sides of the veil. All so nothing these Men did will ever be forgotten, rebranded, or trivialized as little more than a glorification of war.

After hearing the poem, she asked permission to read it before the assemblage at the next reunion in Moncton, New Brunswick. With the greatest of honour and humility, my blessing was unreservedly granted, and a written copy provided.

With that in mind, here again is Black Devils. We’ll be talking about then again in the coming days.

Black Devils

By LFM

Six comrades sit beneath the moon,
Through anxious hours ere comes the sun.
Dawn will find but three that live –
We’ve taken every other one.

We find you where you seek repose,
We find you where you stand on guard,
We hunt you as you hunt for us,
And leave you with our calling card.

We Devils black who hunt by night,
You never see nor hear us come.
Your vanguard of the “master race”
Now lives despair, with fingers numb.

So any morn you see the sun –
It doesn’t mean we’ve dropped the fight.
That’s just because we let you live
To bleed for us another night.

Believe the grin from ear to ear
Your comrade wears ‘neath lips struck dumb,
And heed our mark upon his brow.
Believe – The worst is yet to come!

THE LFM’s in the Holy Land (Kejimkujik National Park) in this beauteous Autumn of 2017.

And so, another October, and another season of Dark Sentiments finds us here on the night whereon the veil between the corporeal and spirit worlds is at its thinnest, and Mrs. LFM and I celebrate the ninth anniversary of our marriage. Why Hallowe’en? Because when you’re getting married and a lot of the more important guests are dead, that’s really the only night to do it.

Tonight while the veil is so thin, we’ll be decanting all those dead Friends, relatives, and assorted voyeurs a healthy dose of spirits, ushering them all to the other side for a spell, pouring our boneless post trick or treat kids into their bunks, and while nobody’s watching, express some dark sentiments of our own.

Dead or alive, we look forward to seeing you next October. Thank you for coming.

Vincent Van Gogh was born 30 March 1853 and died 29 July 1890 in a French inn, two days after receiving a gun shot wound to the abdomen that he confessed on his death bed was self-inflicted. His intention has long been held to have been suicide, however in October of 2011, a 960 page biography was published by Pulitzer Prize winning authors Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith titled, Van Gogh: The Life, that made a very different, and highly controversial, alternative claim, “… that he had been shot, possibly accidentally, by a 16-year-old schoolboy.”

“The biography was compiled after 10 years of study by its authors and aired a startling theory. Mr Naifeh said: ‘The accepted understanding of what happened in Auvers among the people who knew him was that he was killed accidentally by a couple of boys and he decided to protect them by accepting the blame.’ American academic John Rewald had talked of hearing local rumours about such a theory in the 1930s.

“The biographers pointed to Gaston and Rene Secretan, students at a Paris lycee, as responsible. Renee was interviewed in 1957 about the artist and revealed that he owned a pistol that Van Gogh may have taken. The authors of the recent article said the interview, which the biography relied on heavily, did not substantiate the claims ‘in the slightest’.” ~ Did Vincent van Gogh commit suicide or was Dutch painter killed by an acquaintance?

Two researchers sent by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to investigate the claims concluded, “Truly nothing substantiates their argument for the train of events they construe, apart from a twentieth-century rumour arising from an authentic story of a trigger-happy brat in 1890, who merely claimed that Van Gogh probably stole the gun from him ….”

While this was certainly the last controversial violent interlude in Van Gogh’s life, in the public mind it is another that arises on hearing his name — the matter of his ear. (more…)

“The sagas tell two tales of Freydís – one that marks her as brave and admirable, the other much less so. But the sagas were written centuries after the events they describe, and as we know from reading incarnations of The Bible, influential literature can be depended upon to contain a healthy dose of axe grinding seasoned with the agenda of whoever wrote it. Add to this the fact that powerful, willful, and intelligent women have a poor record of being appreciated in European history, and you will not be surprised to find that the sagas sent Freydís into history as a conniving, spiteful, greedy, thieving, blood thirsty harpy ….

“The Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland contains life sized figures of people spoken of in the Sagas, among them our woman of the hour. The exhibit that deals with her story shows her in her moment of truth; alone, bare breasted, and ready to rumble in the face of a Skræling horde. It’s title: Freydís Eiríksdóttir – Heroine or Ogress?

“Whichever best describes reality, Freydís Eiríksdóttir was undoubtedly a woman of her times, and I suspect her truth lies somewhere between the two extremes portrayed here.” ~ Freydís Eiríksdóttir

So I once wrote of  Freydís Eiríksdóttir, daughter of Eirik the Red and, depending on which saga you choose to believe, either the sister or half-sister of Leif Eiriksson. I hold her up today as a reminder of a recurring theme, and for purposes of tonight’s Dark Sentiment, let us be mindful of how history treated Freydis as we move six centuries forward to another case. (more…)

This 700-year-old skeleton from Sozopol, Bulgaria, was found with its teeth removed and stabbed through the chest with an iron rod. Scholars suspect that townspeople did this to ward off vampires—a very real fear in Europe for hundreds of years. Photograph by Nikolay Doychinov, AFP/Getty Images — Caption and image source https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/vampires-europe-new-england-halloween-history/

Folklore comes from the same place as Human spirituality in that it springs from a need to understand the forces of the Universe by putting their obvious influences into some sort of context. On a human level, it is also crafted to convey time tested lessons of conduct to each succeeding generation. In this effort spirituality and folklore often make use of metaphorical monsters and assorted horrors. This could be everything from being eaten by a witch, abducted, birched, and enslaved by Krampus, to outright burning in Hell to make the point. In the face of the occasional Natural cataclysm, famine, war (a constant in some locales for generations), and plain old hateful people, the citizenry of any age could understand destructive influences, and the very tangible existence of evil incarnate, but then there was the sort of evil that transcended “acts of God” or Gods, and it is here that folklore shines.

“Tales abound with ingredients that torture the imagination of the susceptible, even long after the story has been read, heard, or watched. The effect is the same whether the tale comes from experience or fiction, for the imagination is a wondrous thing if taken in hand by someone who can play it like a harp.” ~ Dark Sentiments Season 8 — Day 25: Hags Assorted

From Algonquian tradition, we have the Wendigo — part morality play, part slaughter: (more…)

In face of the objection that fairy tales will frighten children, C. S. Lewis made some observations that I find particularly applicable to Fathercraft as I understand and practice it.

The first was,

“Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage . . . Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.”

And the second,

“I think it is possible that by confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones. . . It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing, or thinking he hears a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of the police.”

If you’ve spent much time here, you will have encountered, and might even recognize, a couple of my own poems that spring from both of these sentiments. In this preamble tonight, I’ll save you some time by reproducing them for review. (more…)