President's Day: 2012

In posts past I've highlighted some of our great nation's most bad-ass Presidents.  Those included Zachary Tyler, Andrew Jackson, and my all-time favorite, Theodore Roosevelt.  In honor of President's Day being today I'm going to highlight the life and times of another one of the leaders that has helped this country be so great, Harry S. Truman.

At the right angle he kind of resembles a bald eagle.

Harry S. Truman began his road to the Presidency by serving in the National Guard during World War I.  He was first declined due to his poor eyesight.  Saying, "Fuck that noise," he memorized the eye chart and gave the doctor the double middle finger as he walked away to get his uniform.

During the war he rose tot he rank of battery commander in a division that had some discipline issues.  During a sudden attack by Ze Germans his unit started to disperse.  Using a long string of cuss words that would make Yosemite Sam blush he ordered them into position.  The back bone fortifying lambasting worked and they made their way to safety.  Under Truman's command his division didn't lose a single man during the war.

Truman was devastated by the ending of the war.  He had a fever, and the only prescription was the blood of his enemies.  He said this at the war's end, "It's a shame we can't go in and devastate Germany and cut off a few of the Dutch kid's hands and feet and scalp a few of the old men."  God.  Damn.  That's some Colonel Kurtz-type blood lust right there.

Truman became president during the tail end of WWII when Franklin Roosevelt passed away.  The day he took office was the day he learned about America's secret mission to build and test atomic weapons known as The Manhattan Project.  This would lead to his most defining moment as President; whether or not to use the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man on Japan.

In early August of 1945 after Japan refused the terms of the Potsdam Conference he calmly took the con and made the call.  Japan was going down.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki were thusly devastated and the war was ended.

Boom.

To make the decision to kill almost 150,00 people, mostly non-combatants, is not a decision that I would want to make.  But to Truman it was a no-brainer.  "I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war...I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again."

There are people that say that his decision was immoral and unnecessary but those people probably have dreadlocks, eat shit loads of tofu, and smell like patchouli oil.  In other words, their opinions are meaningless as they more than likely hate freedom AND justice for all.

Warning: Not to be taken seriously.

During Truman's presidency he also oversaw the formation of the United Nations, got Congress to spend the cash needed to restart Europe's post-war economy, and took and hard line no-bullshit stance on Communism.  This was none more apparent than his approval of the Berlin Airlift which supplied the three Soviet blocked Western sectors of Berlin.  The airlift was a huge success and was even continued after road access was granted.  Democracy: 1; Pinko Communism: 0.

Truman was also a champion of Civil Rights in America.  This royally pissed off many Southern politicians but Truman gave not one single fuck stating, "...my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten."

Truman went triple dog dare right away and issued three Executive Orders, two in 1948 and one in 1951.  The first essentially desegregated the military, something that was a long time coming.  The second Order stated that those that were applying for civil service positions could not be discriminated against based on race.  The third created the Committee for the Government Contract Compliance which ensured defense contractors to the military couldn't discriminate a person for their race.

When Truman left office he had picked up a lot of haters on the way.  His approval rating was lower than Nixon's in Nixon's last month in office.  Over the passing decades though he has been looked at in a new light, consistently ranking in the top ten in polls on best presidents.  The Navy even named an aircraft carrier after him even though he sought to end the carrier arm of the Navy.  The ship even comes complete with one of the more bad ass battle flags around.  Not a bad way to be remembered at all.

Source:


Wikipedia


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Hail to the Chief

President's Day

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