THE ‘NUTS!’ FIGHTING SPIRIT: It Helped Win World War II; Where Is It Now?
In WWII, according to various accounts from those present, when Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe was given a German message at Bastogne demanding surrender, he read it, crumpled it into a ball, threw it in a wastepaper basket and muttered, “Aw, nuts.” The officers in McAuliffe’s command post were trying and failed to come up with suitable language for an official reply when Lt. Col. Harry Kinnard suggested that McAuliffe’s first response summed up the situation pretty well and the others agreed. The official reply was typed and delivered by Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry to the German delegation. It was as follows:
To the German Commander.
NUTS!
The American Commander
Moving forward seventy years … it’s nice to know that the balls-to-the-wall spirit of “nuts” is still alive and well in our military’s leadership.
A friend of mine employed by our State Department assigned to the Middle East, aka camel country (my nickname.) On her return to America from her assignment she told me about a certain incident. Apparently, Karzi had demanded that our military bases not have chapels or Bibles. Our military command gave Karzi a WWII response and refused to consider Karzi’s anti-Christian demands. Karzi was forced to bow to us instead…aka “Nuts!”
BUT!… here is the compromise and clincher that some of us Americans may not be aware of: Having American bases in camel country means there are mosques on base. Not just one mosque – which is bad enough — but actually several dens of iniquity, disguised as mosques.
Here is an excerpt from a recent email with the sordid mosque details outlined by my 007 friend (base name altered.)
First, the US Government was required (as is the case in most Islamic countries) to provide on-compound mini mosques for the locally engaged workforce to use. How is that possible? There exists a dozen mini-mosques, or Muslim prayer rooms on our embassy and base grounds. This particular embassy – which shall remain nameless — is connected to our American Base and a multi-national base. There are multiple calls to prayer each day and devout Muslims must respond to all calls. At this particular base which is a huge compound — we had approximately a dozen mini-mosques (8X20 or 10×20 metal units equipped with directional signs and prayer rugs). If we – Americans — wanted to pray to other than allah, we only had a conference room for use.
My big issue however, was that there was NO worship facility for any other kind of religion, other than Islam. If we wished to practice our religion we had to get visiting chaplains, etc. to come hold services in a standard Embassy meeting room, or we had to go into the military compound. When I left, we were down to one option – The Chapel on the multi-national compound. Prior to that we could use the Chapel at Exxxx (which was a tent) but Exxxx is now shut down. There is one other compound church but it was off limits due to security issues with the travel between the two sites.
To make matters worse many people on compound believed that the mini-mosques were being used for purposes other than prayer calls. The doors were frequently locked (when occupied.) Sometimes the doors were open and you could see people chatting or napping. And sometimes when the men came out they would be zipping up their pants (ugh!) FYI Mosques are segregated so most of ours were men only.
Interesting…I thought the man-on-man kind of activity in Islam got its participants executed…or at least according to sharia law it does. Well, I guess it’s kind of a go-with-the-flow-religion for its followers. In this case it’s …you know…any port in the storm, wink, wink!
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