Killing Season was obviously too brutal for many Americans—even the critics

According to Box Office Mojo, Killing Season’s widest release was to 12 theaters for seven days and then it went to DVD. I think this decision was made because most film audiences in American prefer romance and fantasies—not the brutal, bloody reality of gory, brutal up close and personal hand-to-hand combat.

The film was released on July 11, 2013, and it was a flop at the box office earning a total of $39,881 in theaters. Peter Sobczynski reviewed the film and gave it less than one star. Sobczynski says, “The film is quite awful—badly written, ineptly staged, horribly acted, historically suspect and boring beyond belief—and fully deserving of its ignominious fate.”

Here’s the thing, I don’t agree with Sobczynski. I didn’t think it was a bad film—and was that because I have no taste, or because I’m a former U.S. Marine who fought in Vietnam?

To me, this film reveals rather brutally what combat does to two men, and how war might leave mental scars that run deep. In fact, similar brutality appears in my novel, “Running with the Enemy”. If you have a weak stomach and lose sleep easily over reading about or watching extreme violence, this film and my novel are not for you.

Here’s a brief plot summary without spoilers: In Belgrade, Serbia, former Scorpions soldier Emil Kovač (Travolta) meets an informant to retrieve a file on American military veteran and former NATO operative Colonel Benjamin Ford (De Niro). Ford has fled to a cabin retreat somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, to forget the war. Now a recluse, he meets Kovač, posing as a European tourist, during a hunting trip. The two men become friendly, until Kovač reveals his true identity. Intent on revenge for something Ford allegedly did in Serbia, he initiates a gory game of cat-and-mouse with Ford. The latter is badly injured but is quick to rebound.

I find it interesting that the film had 257 customer reviews on Amazon, and 132 were 4-and-5 star reviews—that’s 51%. Only 62 were 1-and-2 stars—that’s 24%. More than twice as many reviewers enjoyed the film, and I was one of them.

The Most Helpful Review said, “Killing Season is a movie that thrills and leaves you thinking. It is timely because the tension echoes many of the current situations going on in society. In their own right each of the two in the movie have their reasons (and justifications) for their points and places. In the end (sorry, no spoiler here) the stark realization of the view from the other side really brings home the powerful moral of this movie. De Niro is his usual amazing self and Travolta delivers a nearly convincing eastern bloc persona. Well worth seeing.”

I also scanned the 1-star reviews and the most detailed one I read ended with: “If you’ve ever wanted to see De Niro piss on his own leg to heal a gaping wound this is your chance. You won’t get another.”

I asked Google why it might have been a good idea for De Nrio to piss on his wound, and Wise Geek.org says, “As difficult as it might be for some to comprehend, the medical benefits of urine have been widely studied in many areas including, but not limited to, the effect of pee on wounds. Normal urine is not only pH balanced, it is non-toxic and is believed to contain many nutrients and healing compounds. Normal urine is both anti-viral and anti-bacterial, making it a potentially ideal treatment for cuts, abrasions, wounds, and skin infections of any kind.”

>>>Focus on the key word there: “normal” urine.<<<

I don’t know about you, but don’t expect me to pee on my wound if I was in the same situation. I’d rather use powdered cayenne. I keep some in the car, bathroom, kitchen and my wood shop. In fact, Earth Clinic.com says, “For stopping profuse bleeding, we eagerly recommend using powdered cayenne to speed up the coagulation process and close the wound.”

I learned about using powdered cayenne on wounds when I belonged to a wood-carving club. Every veteran wood carver in that club had some fine ground pepper/powdered cayenne stored in their tool box with their super-sharp carving knives—just don’t put powdered cayenne or black pepper in your eyes, mouth or nose. It burns really bad, but surprisingly doesn’t burn when sprinkled on cuts and gashes—at least that has been my experience.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

“The Patrol” is a film based on actual events in combat

I bought the DVD for The Patrol at Costco thinking it was about American special-forces troops in Afghanistan, but it wasn’t. It was about a British Army Patrol often under attack from an unseen enemy. The UK troops in the film return fire but have no way to know if they inflicted any casualties on the Taliban. I think we tend to forget that U.S. troops aren’t the only forces fighting in Afghanistan. To date, the UK has lost 453 troops in Afghanistan in addition to 2,116 wounded in action.

The Patrol takes place in 2006, in Helmand Province, as the British Army deploys into the Taliban heartland. In 2006, Britain led the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Helmand province in the south of the country with a 3,300-strong force after fresh outbreaks of violence. At its peak, in Helmand alone there were 137 UK bases and around 9,500 UK troops.

The Patrol has been called, “The British answer to The Hurt Locker and is just as depressing for its sense of reality. As in all war, there is no glory, and with casualties, morale suffers. Hollywood, the news and novels are where war is glorified. Rooted in reality, this film is not your average Hollywood epic. If you are interested in the reality of war, I suggest you ignore the average star rating on Amazon from customer reviews.

War is not combat all the time. The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. Now research is revealing that our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing over 310 days of combat—a day of combat is a day that you don’t know if you will live or die that day. – Our Warriors Today and “Combat Trauma”

The first-time, writer-director Tom Perch draws on his own life in the army to build a convincing low budget film of how troops lose faith in their leaders when they have lousy weapons and see no reason to keep risking their lives in combat that makes no sense.

What worked for me in this film was that the usual macho type heroes we see in most combat films were missing. There were no heroes here and no cowards either. Just troops doing the job they were trained to do—and obviously sent in to harm’s way by corrupt, bungling governments.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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U.S. Troops and the Prostitutes Who Service Them (Viewed as a Single Page)

“The sin we condemn — the sinner … we try to understand.” – Adam Michnik (1946 – )

It has been said that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. For instance, in 2400 B.C., the Sumerians listed prostitution in one the earliest lists of professions, and the practice of prostitution in ancient Rome was both legal and licensed, and even Roman men of the highest social status were free to engage prostitutes of either sex without incurring moral disapproval. In fact, rent from a brothel was considered a legitimate source of income in the Roman Empire.

In addition, Hammurabi’s Code (1780 B.C.) specifically mentioned the rights of a prostitute or the child of a prostitute.

And in 600 B.C. China, brothels were legal, while in Greece (594 BC) state brothels were founded and a prostitute’s earnings were taxed. Source: Historical Timeline – Prostitution

In fact, historically, “where there are soldiers, there are women who exist for them. In some ways, military prostitution (prostitution catering to, and sometimes organized by, the military) has been so commonplace that people rarely stop to think about how and why it is created, sustained, and incorporated into military life and warfare.” Source: The Asia Pacific Journal

That leads to when I was a 20-year old U.S. Marine in Okinawa on my way to fight in one of America’s endless wars, and I arrived a virgin who desperately didn’t want to be one. And when I left Okinawa for Vietnam, I had achieved a goal that hundreds-of-thousand—and maybe millions—in the US military have achieved both during peace time and war.

When I joined the US Marines, I was a high school graduate and an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy. I was not an intellectual—instead, I was a walking libido filled to overflowing with testosterone like so many of my fellow Marines.

I turned twenty-one in Vietnam, and up to that time Vietnam veterans were the best educated force the United States has ever sent into combat—79% had a high school education or better. Two-thirds of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers, and 86 percent of those who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, and 1.2% were from other ethnic/racial groups.

If I had gone straight to Vietnam instead of spending a few weeks in Okinawa for additional training, I could have died a virgin—having never known what it was like to be sexually intimate with a woman.

And that reminds me of Mrs. Henderson Presents staring Judi Dench as Mrs. Laura Henderson who opens a theater in London during World War Two with an all-nude female review for the allied troops, because her son had died in combat a virgin, and she didn’t want these young men to die without having at least seen a young, nude woman at least once.

Before I shipped out to Vietnam, I never received any classes, lectures, in services or workshops on Southeast Asian culture and at that age—without a college education—I wasn’t curious or interested.

We were US Marines trained to kill. We weren’t there to study the culture. The only workshop I remember was one on how to avoid getting an STD and how dangerous one strain of syphilis/gonorrhea was in Vietnam.

We were told that if we were careless with a Vietnamese woman, it could be a very painful death sentence from a viral form of an STD that no drugs could cure.

In fact, I didn’t know anyone in my unit who expressed the slightest bit of interest in Vietnam’s culture or history. When we went on five days of R&R during our tour of combat—for example to Hong Kong, Thailand, Okinawa, Japan, or the Philippians—most of us were interested in only one thing: getting drunk and getting laid.

And the hundreds of thousands of US troops who felt the same way were not alone in history.

“According to Beth Bailey and David Farber, during the Second World War a large number of prostitutes in Hawaii, each servicing upward of 100 men a day, made a fiscal killing. Shackjobs, or long-term, paid relationships with women of Hawaiian or Filipino descent were also common among military personnel stationed in Hawaii (as they were later in Vietnam).”

And “during the war in Indochina, U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and Sunday Times of London correspondent Murray Sayle maintained, independently of one another, that U.S. forces in South Vietnam had turned Saigon into a “brothel”—a reference to the estimated 500,000 Vietnamese prostitutes who served an approximately equal number of GI’s. John Brown University

“There were 20,000 prostitutes in Thailand in 1957; by 1964, after the United States established seven bases in the country, that number had skyrocketed to 400,000.” Prostitution in Thailand and Southeast Asia

“At the height of the US presence in the Philippines, for example, more than 60,000 women and children were employed in bars, night clubs and massage parlors around the Subic Bay and Clark Naval bases alone. Estimates of the total numbers of Filipina women and girls engaged in prostitution and other sex-based industries range between 300,000 and 600,000.” PeaceNews.info – Command and control: the economies of militarized prostitution

And if you think times have changed, read this: “As recently as 2002, a brothel in Australia closed their doors when a group of 5,500 U.S. Sailors coming back from a war zone stopped off in Australia. From the article: Mary-Anne Kenworthy said she was forced to close the doors of her famous Langtrees brothel for only the third time ever yesterday because her prostitutes were so worn out they could no longer provide a quality service.” Cause of Liberty – Prostitution

Do you condemn those who sinned—if it was a sin—or is it wrong to send a young virgin off to possibly die for his country while denying him the pleasure of a woman even if a prostitute was his only choice? What do you think?

_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

Where to Buy

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I was never a POW but what about the next American War?

Two things happened in the last few days. First, I was shopping at Wholefoods and while waiting in line to buy dinner, I saw the cover of a May 2014 Economist Magazine with an Eagle sitting on a desktop globe and the banner headline asked: What Would America Fight For? The question haunting its allies

In that cover piece, The Economist said, “A survey last autumn by the Pew Research Centre suggests that 52% (of Americans) want the United States to ‘mind its own business internationally’, the highest figure in five decades of polling.”

After reading that, I laughed and thought: Americans may not have any say about the next war just like they had no real say in Vietnam or the 2nd Iraq War because they were lied to.

That leads me to mention one of my favorite quotes from President Abraham Lincoln: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

You see, the reason I laughed is because all Congress and the President has to do is come up with a lie that fools more than half of all adult Americans to have the okay from the people to start the next war—and when that happens will probably be decided by those who profit the most from war.

It wasn’t that difficult to discover the corporations that benefit the most from death. I Googled: “who profits the most in the United States from wars” and discovered from USA Today that the business of war is profitable. In 2011, the 100 largest contractors sold $410 billion in arms and military services. Just 10 of those companies sold over $208 billion. Based on a list of the top 100 arms-producing and military services companies in 2011 compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 companies with the most military sales worldwide.”

The top five were:

Lockheed Martin with arms sales of $36.3 billion in 2011—total sales were $46.5 billion
Boeing with arms sales of $31.8 billion—total sales were $68.7 billion
BAE Systems with arms sales of $29.2 billion—total sales were $30.7 billion
General Dynamics with arms sales of $23.8 billion—total sales were $32.7 billion
And Raytheon with $22.5 billion in arms sales and $24.9 billion in total sales

What happens to individual fortunes and lost jobs when 78% of Lockheed Martin’s income comes from arms sales; 46% of Boeing’s; 95% for BAE Systems; almost 73% for General Dynamics, and more than 90% for Raytheon?

If you’re curious how much the defense (arms) industry spends to lobby Congress, all you have to do is visit Open Secrets.org to discover that 978 lobbyists who worked for this industry in 2011 spent/donated $138,182,721 to influence elected representatives to make sure the federal government continued to spend heavily on defense and of course the best way to justify this much spending is to start another war, and who will the U.S. attack next?

Then Sunday Morning (May 11), I went to the theater to see “The Railroad Man”, and the horror of war hit home hard. I think this is a film that every adult American should see—especially the CEOs of the arms industry, the lobbyists who work for that industry, Congress and the President. “The Railroad Man” was based on a powerful, real story of British troops who became POWs in Singapore during World War II. The main character, Eric Lomax played by Colin Firth, survived the war but came back with a severe, traumatic case of PTSD that makes what I brought home from Vietnam seem tame in comparison, but I was never a prisoner of war—water boarded and tortured.

Let’s look at the cost of two recent wars: the Vietnam War (1965-1975) cost $738 Billion with 58,209 U.S. deaths and 153,303 wounded, and the 2nd Iraq War (2003-2010) cost $785 Billion with 4,800 U.S. deaths and 31,965 wounded—according to a report issued June 29, 2010 by the Congressional Research Service.

The reason I mention only these two wars was because both were started based on lies fed to America through the corporate owned media so enough Americans would be fooled long enough to support the wars.

What do you think the next lie will be, and where will that war be fought?

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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A rare and close look at what war is really like through China Beach

There’s no fantasy, hero worship or fake humor in this TV series. Everyone is flawed and injured from the war—even Americans who never served in Vietnam or wore a uniform.

“China Beach” was a TV series from 1988 to 1991, and I didn’t view it until recently after I first heard about it and bought a copy of the series on DVD at Costco. I didn’t buy the complete series that comes with almost 60 hours of run time. I bought Seasons 1 + 2 with about 22 hours.

And I think I know why this excellent TV series was cancelled after four seasons—although the series has more than 249 reviews on Amazon with 4.8 of 5 stars, most Americans can’t deal with the harsh reality of war. After all, less than 7% of Americans are veterans and even fewer have served in combat.

“China Beach” is set in a combat hospital during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. The title refers to My Khe beach in the city of Da Nang, which was nicknamed “China Beach” in English by American and Australian troops during the war.

The main character is first lieutenant Colleen McMurphy who is a triage nurse dealing with often severely wounded troops. The directors focused on reality and there were real combat nurses who were consultants. There’s a bonus DVD with this set where we get to meet some of the nurses who served in Vietnam.

The fictional nurse, McMurphy, takes her job saving lives seriously and when she loses wounded troops, she takes the loss personally and is emotionally injured. Her PTSD is visible from the beginning. At times the suffering and drama were so intense, my eyes filled with tears from my own memories.

If you want a close look at the reality of combat and the price the troops and civilians pay, I highly recommend this series. You’ll have a safe front row seat to watch these characters become friends, lovers and then suffer loses that would break most people and scar them for life as it must have scarred the real nurses who served there.

You may question my opinion of this series so it may help to know that I’m a Vietnam combat vet who was a field radio operator in the U.S. Marines. And I was fortunate to never have to be medevaced to a combat hospital although some of the Marines in my unit were.

Now I’m thinking about the seasons of “China Beach” I haven’t seen.

_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

What happens if Russia starts a war in Europe? You decide

The Daily Beast reported, “The Pentagon Isn’t Ready for a New Cold War.”

I read the Daily Beast’s post and burst out laughing. The first thing I thought was the Pentagon is addicted to massive budgets. This is a ploy to stir up fear in Americans (again—it’s worked so well in the past. I’m thinking Vietnam and Iraq.) who’ll demand that Congress and the President increases the shrinking defense budget.

Let’s look at some numbers to see if Russia really wants to start a war with the United States and NATO.

First: The US has the third largest population in the world at 316.6 million, and 120 million are considered fit to serve in the military if we needed to call them up. There are 1.4 million active military with an active (trained) reserve of an addition 850+ thousand. In addition, the European Union (the EU is mostly made of NATO nations) has more than 1.5 million in its military and a total population of more than 500 million.

How about Russia? It has a total population of 145.5 million (Less than half of the US not counting the EU). Russia only has 46.8 million considered fit to serve; its active military numbers 766,000 with an active reserve of about 2.48 million (you can bet that they aren’t as well trained as the US reserves).

Second: The US has the largest manufacturing sector in the world. No matter how much we hear about the US losing jobs to China, China is only number two. If you doubt that, check out what Carpe Diem has to say: If Separate, America’s Manufacturing Sector Would Rank as the Tenth Largest Economy in the World

Compared to other countries, Russia only ranks 9^th—a fraction of America’s manufacturing ability.

Carpe Diem also says, “American manufacturing is alive and well and poised for even greater growth in the future. Flush with record-level profits, the manufacturing sector has never been financially healthier than it is today and the future of American manufacturing has never looked brighter.” In fact, jobs are starting to come back from foreign countries.

Third: the US has ten active nuclear powered Nimitz-class super carriers. No other country in the world has even one carrier with the capability of any one of these ten. In addition, the US is building three Ford class super carriers that will be even more advanced and lethal. The US has a naval fleet of 473 ships. In addition, the European Union has 543 more naval ships.

What about Russia? It has one active aircraft carrier that’s about half the size of a Nimitz and it isn’t nuclear powered. Russia has 352 ships in its naval fleet.

According to Global Fire Power, the US has 13,683 total military aircraft and 6,012 helicopters. In addition, the EU adds another 2,037 fighter aircraft.

What about Russia? Total military aircraft of 3,082 in addition to 973 choppers.

What about tanks? The US has 8,325 tanks (several thousand are already in Europe). The European Union has another 6,510 tanks. Russia has 15,500 but only 1,667+ are its latest main battle tank—most are outdated (see embedded video). All of America’s tanks are the latest version.

The stupidest thing Putin could do is to pick a war with the European Union and the United States. Of course national leaders aren’t known to think rationally, but I’d place my money on the fact that Putin is bluffing, Obama may have blinked, and the US Pentagon is using this as an excuse to drum up support for bigger budgets.

Why is Putin bluffing? Because Americans are war weary after more than a decade of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s gambling that public opinion in the US will hold back NATO, Obama and Congress from acting boldly to push Russia back with a show of force that Russia couldn’t match in its wildest dreams.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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Using music to fight wars instead of bullets and bombs

Who do you think would win a war between Russia and the United States if it were fought between army choirs?

Russian Army Choir singing at the 2014 Winter Olympics

Of course, the second video with the MADtvMarine Choir was for fun. Now, in all seriousness, here’s the U.S. Army Choir

It’s only fair that we compare the Russian Army Choir to the U.S. Army Choir, in the 3^rd video.

In addition, the 4th video is from The Vocal Majority – [US] Armed Forces medley.

Next time we fight a war, let military choirs compete on a battle field filled with the sound of music. Maybe through song, we might find peace. Do you think the Taliban or al Qaeda might have a choir?

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

Saving Art Treasures from the Nasty Nazis

I listened to the abridged audio version of The Monuments Men and learned something I didn’t know about World War II—something that has only happened once in history where a dedicated military team was organized [thanks to President F. D. Roosevelt] by the allies in World War II to save as much of the art looted by the Nazis as possible.

I first heard of The Monuments Men at the theater during all those [soon-to-appear] movie trailers before you get to watch the film you paid to see. Because I usually see a film at the local theater at least once a week, I’ve seen The Monuments Men trailer a number of times, and I admit that I’m eager to see the film.

Overview lifted from Barnes and Noble

“At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe. The Fuehrer had begun cataloguing the art he planned to collect as well as the art he would destroy: ‘degenerate’ works he despised.

“In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture. Focusing on the eleven-month period between D-Day and V-E Day, this fascinating account follows six Monuments Men and their impossible mission to save the world’s great art from the Nazis.” (Barnes and Noble: Overview)

The film is scheduled to release February 7, 2014. Thanks to Costco—where I bought the audio book—I ended up listening to the book first. As I was listening, I thought I’d be ready to recognize when Hollywood’s version drifted from the facts—but maybe not. In case you didn’t know, Hollywood’s famous for revising history and true stories.

When I bought the CD’s at Costco, I had no idea it was an abridged version only 7.5 hours long. I usually avoid abridged versions but the fact that it was abridged wasn’t printed anywhere I could easily find. Publishers must know this and they are getting tricky just like Monsanto wants to hide the fact that the food we eat might be genetically modified by them. (Truth-Out.org)

I wanted to know how much I may have missed and discovered that audiobooks usually run 150-160 words per minute, the range people comfortably hear and vocalize words. I then dragged a few hardcover books off the bookshelf and came up with about 400 words a page. That means the 512 page Monuments Men hardcover probably has at least 205,000 words—equal to about 21 hours for an audio book.

Wow, that was a lot of story to miss out on, and I was disappointed.

But I did listen to the 7.5 hours and still enjoyed the story. The only full length audio version I found was sold by Barnes & Noble.

I guess it depends on what you want. If you’re willing to settle for the abridged audio version and miss two-thirds of the story, it’s probably worth the cost.

The full-length audio version at Barnes & Noble.com was listed at $19.08 when I checked (with a 17% price reduction from the original $22.99). I checked Amazon and they’re asking $6.89 for the Kindle; $22.37 for the Hardcover and $9.85 for the paperback.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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The war to take over America’s public Schools

Make no mistake, there’s a war being fought in America. It started about thirty years ago; when G. W. Bush was president that war heated up—with Obama it just got hotter. There are a number of key players with goals to take over America’s democratically run public schools. These billionaires will spend millions on propaganda spreading lies to deceive.

On December 4, 2013, a New York Times headline shouted: “Shanghai Students Again Top Global Test”, and once again, America’s critics of the U.S. Public Schools called for more reform.

Not so fast. In fact, maybe not at all.

In China, the first nine years of education is compulsory starting before age 7. Primary school takes the first six of those nine years; then there’s middle school for grades 7, 8, and 9.

Fifteen is the age of students who take the international PISA test—and in China [so-called] compulsory education ends at the age of fifteen and students who decide to stay in school have a choice between a vocational or academic senior high school track. That’s where the choice ends because in China the senior high schools pick students based on merit.

To explain how this works, the CCP has acknowledged a “9-6-3 rule”. This means that nine of ten children began primary school between the ages of 6 and 7; six complete the first five years and three graduate from sixth grade with good performance.

By the time a student reaches senior high school—grades 10, 11, and 12—most enrollment is in the cities and not in rural China. Most rural Chinese don’t value education as much as urban Chinese do. And many of the migrant urban workers from rural China still have some family back in the village where they often leave their younger children. And many migrant workers, when they retire from factory work, return to the village and the family home.

The United States, by comparison, keeps most kids in school until the end of high school at age 17/18. About 75% graduate on time and another 15% earn their high school diploma or equivalent GED by age 24—all on an academic track because there is no vocational public schools k to 12 in the U.S.

In addition, in China there is the Zhongkao, the Senior High School Entrance Examination, held annually to distinguish the top students who then are admitted to the highest performing senior high schools. This means that if the highest rated high school in Shanghai has 1,000 openings for 10th graders, the students who earn the top 1,000 scores on the Zhongkao get in and then the second highest rated high school takes the next batch of kids until the lowest rated senior high school in Shanghai gets the kids with the bottom scores on the Zhongkao.

Maybe actual numbers will help clarify what this means:

In 2010, 121 million children attended China’s primary schools with 78.4 million in junior and senior secondary schools. The total is 199.4 million kids.

According to World Education News & Reviews: “In 2010, senior high schools [in China] accommodated 46.8 million students (23.4% of the 199.5 million). But about 52 percent or only 40.8 million were enrolled in general senior high school, and 48 percent of those students were attending vocational senior high schools.”

That leaves 21.2 million enrolled in the senior high school academic track designed to prep kids for college—that’s 10.6% of the total. Then consider that Shanghai’s public schools are considered the best in China. This means that the fifteen-year-old students who take the international PISA in China are the elite of the elite attending China’s best public schools.

For a fair comparison—not what we’ll hear from the critics of public education in the United States—the Economic Policy Institute reports: “The U.S. administration of the most recent international (PISA) test resulted in students from the most disadvantaged schools being over-represented in the overall U.S. test-taker sample. This error further depressed the reported average U.S. test score. … But U.S. students from advantaged social class backgrounds perform better relative to their social class peers in the top-scoring countries [Canada, Finland, South Korea, France, Germany and the U.K.]” and “U.S. students from disadvantaged social class backgrounds perform better relative to their social class peers in the three similar post-industrial countries.”

In fact, “On average—for almost every social class group, U.S. students do relatively better in reading than in math, compared to students in both the top-scoring and the similar post-industrial countries.”

A good site to discover the major players behind the war to take over America’s democratic public schools and follow the battles being fought across America may be found at Diane Ravitch.org.

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine, Vietnam Veteran and English-journalism teacher.

His latest novel is the multi-award winning Running with the Enemy that started life as a memoir and then became a fictional suspense thriller. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

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What’s the Public’s Image of PTSD?

Are we all crazy? Does PTSD ever go away? I’m sure that most members of the US military have a much better understanding of PTSD than the general public.

There are currently about 1.4 million active troops serving in the U.S. military and 21.5 million military veterans. But the U.S. population has more than 317 million people. That means 0.44% are serving in the active military and 6.7% are veterans leaving 93.15% of the population mostly clueless.

So, where does the general population acquire its perception of PTSD?

To answer that, we must ask how many Hollywood movies have painted a positive picture of combat veterans compared to movies that show veterans as angry, violent, dangerous drug users and/or alcoholics (mostly brought on by PTSD).

Three Vietnam Veterans have run for President of the United States—all three lost. One was a Republican and two were Democrats.

Al Gore served in Vietnam as a reporter/journalist for five months. He was stationed with the 20th Engineer Brigade in Bien Hoa and was a journalist with The Castle Courier. He received an honorable discharge from the Army in May 1971.

Gore said, “I don’t pretend that my own military experience matches in any way what others here have been through … I didn’t do the most, or run the gravest danger. But I was proud to wear my country’s uniform. And my own experiences gave me strong beliefs about America’s obligation to keep our national defenses strong.”

John Kerry reported for duty at Coastal Squadron 1 in Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam on November 17, 1968. In his role as an officer in charge of swift boats, Kerry led five-man crews on a number of patrols into enemy-controlled areas.

John McCain requested a combat assignment, and was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal flying A-4 Skyhawks. His combat duty began when he was thirty, in mid-1967.

John McCain became a prisoner of war on October 26, 1967. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when his aircraft was shot down by a missile over Hanoi.

What is your opinion about the public image of combat veterans? Do you think these three men lost the White House because of that image?

Discover A Prisoner of War for Life

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

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The Soulful Veteran's Blog

Living with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and surviving.

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What’s the Public’s Image of PTSD?