Video site offers historical military films

By Seamus O’Connor - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 31, 2008 6:43:08 EDT

The military has used motion pictures for training and entertainment since the dawn of the medium. Now the age of YouTube has brought a Web site dedicated to the sharing and preservation of military films from World War I to the present.

Http://realmilitaryflix.com is the brainchild of retired Air Force Capt. John Corry, who served as a combat cameraman from 1986 to 1990. Corry was involved in the production of numerous military documentary shows for the History Channel after he left the service. In creating each show, Corry made copies of hundreds of old military films, transferring film reels and other former standards onto Beta SP tapes, the longtime broadcast standard.

“These are very engrossing to people that have never seen them before, especially the old ones, the World War II films,” Corry said. “They really take you right back.”

With the onset of widespread Internet access, Corry said, he began “fantasizing” about an online archive of all the films he had collected over the years, a conduit for sharing them with the world.

That dream became a reality Thursday with the launch of the site. Corry and a small staff in Los Angeles spent most of the last year converting the Beta tapes into digital files, then uploading them to the site.

There are about 650 films available on the site, and Corry says he has another 1,200 films digitized that he will upload as he’s able. The films are categorized by time period and subject matter, including a section of formerly classified materials. Some of the films are gory, including the execution of German Gen. Anton Dostler, while others are entertaining for their primitive perspectives on topics like sexual diseases and foreign cultures.

Corry said that the military continues to offer him its full cooperation, and he continues to add modern and historical films to his collection.

In its first day, Corry said, the site got about 1,000 hits, with viewers staying on for an average of 14 minutes.

“Ideally, we’d like to hook up with a bigger portal” like AOL as a future revenue source, Corry said. For the time being, he is counting on press releases and word of mouth to generate traffic for the site. Corry also hopes to allow for downloading and embedding of the movies on separate sites, but doesn’t yet have the bandwidth, he said.
Source

In league with the stones...

You know one of the things I have enjoyed so much about blogging is all the wonderful people I have come in contact with through this blog that I might have never know otherwise. I have made some great friends. Some I have met in person and some only via other blogs and email. I am blessed to know each one of them.

The following is from former WWII and Korean War Marine, Sgt Jim Baxter. He sent this beautiful and wise essay to me in an email and I am so honored that he has allowed me to share it here. God bless you Sgt Baxter! Thank you for your service. It is a privilege to correspond with you.

Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted "peaceniks" and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that "Peace is not a cause - it is an effect."

In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.

B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.

We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.

In August, the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima but the Japanese government refused to surrender. Three days later a second A-bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. The Imperial Japanese government finally surrendered.

Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." Indeed, they had. Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily where choice-making opportunities abound. America!

Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature's pit bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never know what they may invent!

As a newly assigned member of a U.S. Marine intelligence section, I had a unique opportunity to visit many major cities of Japan, including Tokyo and Hiroshima, within weeks of their destruction. For a full year I observed the beaches, weapons, and troops we would have assaulted had the A-bombs not been dropped. Yes, it would have been very destructive for all, but especially for the people of Japan.

When we landed in Japan, for what came to be the finest and most humane occupation of a defeated enemy in recorded history, it was with great appreciation, thanksgiving, and praise for the atomic bomb team, including the aircrew of the Enola Gay. A half million American homes had been spared the Gold Star flag, including, I'm sure, my own.

Whenever I hear the apologists expressing guilt and shame for A-bombing and ending the war Japan had started (they ignore the cause-effect relation between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki), I have noted that neither the effete critics nor the puff-adder politicians are among us in the assault landing-craft or the stinking rice paddies of their suggested alternative, "conventional" warfare. Stammering reluctance is obvious and continuous, but they do love to pontificate about the Rights that others, and the Bomb, have bought and preserved for them.

The vanities of ignorance and camouflaged cowardice abound as license for the assertion of virtuous "rights" purchased by the blood of others - those others who have borne the burden and physical expense of Rights whining apologists so casually and self-righteously claim.

At best, these fakers manifest a profound and cryptic ignorance of causal relations, myopic perception, and dull I.Q. At worst, there is a word and description in The Constitution defining those who love the enemy more than they love their own countrymen and their own posterity. Every Yankee Doodle Dandy knows what that word is.

In 1945, America was the only nation in the world with the Bomb and it behaved responsibly and respectfully. It remained so until two among us betrayed it to the Kremlin. Still, this American weapon system has been the prime deterrent to earth's latest model world- tyranny: Seventy years of Soviet collectivist definition, coercion, and domination of individual human beings.

The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth's choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature's beautiful blue planet and the natural premise of man's free institutions, environments, and respectful relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men choose, create, and progress - or die.

Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, "Know ye not that you are in league with the stones of the field?"

Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War