11-22-24

Last night I had a great time speaking to a group of military retirees at the monthly

local meeting of the Military Officers Association of America…..Such amazing

folks, many of whom I’ve known for years…..and I told them that I was proud to

know them, proud to be affiliated with them, and proud of the military that they

had all served in so selflessly over the years…..I told them about my own family

with consecutive generations of service from my Grandfather, father, myself and

now my son, all having served in the US Army…..and pretty much every head in

the room nodded in agreement when I said that I want our military back!.....I

do….I want for my grandson what my son saw in me, and I saw in my father and

grandfather…..despite the fact that Biden’s Secretary of the Army Christine

Wormuth announced that she wants to get away from what she called legacy

military families…..why? because Secretary Wormuth, who has never worn a

uniform said that she is concerned that by encouraging young Americans to follow

their Dads, Mom’s, Uncles, Cousins, into service would “develop a warrior caste”

and that we don’t need that…..I’ve got news….that is exactly what we need….we

need a military that is so empowering, so excellent, so unashamedly strong, so

feared and revered on the world stage, that the younger generation sees it and says

I want to be a part of that!.....but it will take new leadership….and it will take a

concerted effort to restore that which the Biden administration has so willfully and

recklessly torn down and stripped away…..

But I say all of that with the actual hope and belief that we are heading in that

direction…..and I believe culture will follow….or maybe it’s really that culture is

leading….maybe the people of American spoke louder than the narrow-minded

cultural progressive minority….maybe even Hollywood will get back to movies

like Top Gun: Maverick that just simply make us proud of our soldiers, sailors,

airmen and Marines……

What happened to Hollywood? Remember when Hollywood loved America? To

be sure there have always been detractors in the movie industry….its a free

country, with equal rights of speech and assembly to those who dig ditches, fight

wars, ….and make movies…..But there was an overt and active pro-America feel

in Hollywood until recently…..Lee Marvin, Kirk Douglas, David Niven, Jason

Robards, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman….all served in the military….Ronald

Reagan – service did not take him overseas but many are not aware that he had

enlisted 5 years before the war and was in a National Guard Cavalry Unit….Even

those who did not serve in uniform nonetheless loved and promoted American

military values and the warrior ethos…like John Wayne in movies like The Sands

of Iwo Jima and The Green Berets….Actors who did not agree with the national

sentiments or had opposing political views still did not seem intent on tearing

down the country…but too often today Hollywood awards shows are the all time

lowest in ratings with acceptance speeches serving as rants against the very

country that made the Hollywood elites rich and famous…..we hear of

Conservatives in Hollywood finding themselves blacklisted….although there are

notable exceptions like actors Jon Voight, Kevin Sorbo, Chris Pratt, Zachary Levi

But I want to tell you a bit today about one of my favorites……someone who was

nominated for five academy awards…..he’s old school…..a classic……from the

heyday of Hollywood…….black and white and technicolor…….he was a

patriot…..and until recent years I had no idea what he had personally done in

uniform…..I found a book a few years ago…..by accident…..but I had to buy it

and it was a great read: “Jimmy Stewart, Bomber Pilot”…..He didn’t write it about

himself……it was written by someone who witnessed something that they felt the rest of the world had to hear….Something Jimmy Stewart would not tell himself

because he was too humble….Stewart achieved moderate success as an actor in the

30’s and early 40’s….but then the world changed, and WWII became something

the United States realized it was going to have to join….Jimmy Stewart became

the first big American movie star to enlist in the US military (the Army, in his

case) to do his part in the war….. It wasn’t so much of a leap for him to make this

move. Both of his grandfathers were US Civil War veterans, and his father was a

veteran of both the Spanish-American War and WWI. Being in the military was

simply part of his family’s traditions……go figure….a warrior caste maybe?....

Upon first enlisting, Stewart was rejected from the military for being

underweight…. He could have walked away at that point….. He gained some

weight and successfully enlisted in February of 1941 and immediately applied to

receive an Army Air Corps commission both as a college graduate and as a

licensed commercial pilot….. This path worked for him, and Jimmy received a

commission as a second lieutenant in January of 1942 in the wake of Pearl

Harbor….but Jimmy was still under contract with MGM Studios. Because of this,

he was allowed to make public appearances during his military service, but they

were limited to Army Air Forces engagements….Stewart appeared in a short film

for the military called Winning Your Wings, which was made to help recruit more

men into the Air Corps….. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for

Best Documentary in 1942, the same year it was released in movie theaters

nationwide in the United States. The film is credited with winning 150,000 new

recruits for the Air Corps …..

But Stewart was not content to be out of the action of the war, ….Yet, he was

concerned that because he was already a celebrity, that status would mean the

military would keep him behind the …..At first, this was true, and Stewart was

tasked to a year-long assignment training pilots in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

….but then Jimmy Stewart went to his commander and asked service on the front

lines…..He was sent to England in November of 1943 as part of the

445 th  Bombardment Group to be a pilot for the B-24 Liberator…..and Hollywood

actor very quietly but firmly flew 20 combat missions as a B-24 bomber pilot to

include one of the most dangerous, deadly and famous bombing missions of the

war to bomb the Nazi industrial sites at Schweinfurt Germany in 1943…he later

became a squadron commander…..Stewart was awarded the Distinguished Flying

Cross award for his actions among other awards. …. In March of 1945, Jimmy

Stewart was promoted to Colonel, which made him one of only a small handful of

Americans to be promoted from private to Colonel in just a four year

period…..After the war, he came back States and was one of twelve founders of

the Air Force Association in October of 1945….but his love for the military did not

end….Stewart remained a Reserve Air Force officer…..and in 1959 Hollywood

actor Jimmy Stewart was meritoriously promoted to Brigadier General making him

the highest ranking actor in the history of the US military….he even did another

stint of active service in February of 1966, when he flew as a non-duty observer in

a B-52 plane on a bombing mission during the Vietnam War….

So yes, Brigadier General James Stewart spent a total of twenty-seven years in

official military service, while also making movies and being known as a beloved

American actor for most of this time. ….. When he retired in 1968 he was awarded

the United States Air Force Distinguished Service medal. ….Stewart rarely talked

about his service but he did love it….When Jimmy Stewart passed away in 1997,

he was buried with full military honors, befitting a man of his rank, position, and

service…..

They’re still out there…. There are people who match the pride and esprit de corps

of previous generations….. We need more of them….. And we need them to get

loud again…..but I have to wonder….what if Jimmy Stewart had not seen and

heard the stories of his father, and grandfathers, all of whom had served in the

military?…..would he have been as eager to put on a uniform?....would he have

been as quick to serve his nation as a true warrior if he had not had the examples of

his mentors in the generation before him?.....Contrary to what bureaucrat Army

Secretary Christine Wormuth believes we actually do need generational

warriors…..we need a military that is so empowering, so excellent, so

unashamedly strong, so feared and revered on the world stage, that the younger

generation sees it and says I want to be a part of that!....

Like Jimmy Stewart…..Bomber Pilot

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!