Category: Military

Author’s note: During the last few days I have come to know and develop a deep respect for a man I have never met. I do family history as a hobby and have been doing research on Frank’s uncle, …. What follows is what I have discovered, and what has brought me to tears a few times while collecting it all, here, for Memorial Day.
Lawrence Edward Webber, USMC, MIA – POW – KIA
Lawrence Edward Webber was born in 1920, in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Frank Webber and Elizabeth Benson. He was the youngest of four children. He had one brother, Frank Webber (long-time local businessman and owner of Ocean Beach Camera, in the Newport Avenue area) and two sisters, Mildred and Dorothea (mother of our own editor, Frank Gormlie).

As a young man Lawrence moved to San Diego, where his siblings also lived, and enlisted in the Marine Corps on May 2, 1939 at the age of 19. He was stationed in San Diego until December 1939 when he was transported to Shanghai, China.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

On May 9 the US Naval Institute reported, “Due to provocative behavior from Iran and new intelligence…US National Security Advisor John Bolton cited {but did not identify}a “number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

Subsequently the US Central Command ordered the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln strike force from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, belly up with Iran.

The Navy report also mentioned that the Lincoln, stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, is “set to arrive at its new homeport of San Diego later this year.”

For years, animal rights advocates have waged war against the US Navy for its use of dolphins in warfare and research. Is a resolution possible?

by Lina Zeldovich / Hakai Magazine / February 5, 2019

1. The Great Divide

Michele Bollo stood on Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge, close to the US Navy base in Point Loma, San Diego, looking through a video camera trained on a network of pens in the water below. The nine-by-nine-meter ocean corrals held 70 dolphins and 30 sea lions belonging to the US Navy Marine Mammal Program (NMMP). Bollo was there to document how the navy treated the animals.

One animal, a 46-year-old bottlenose dolphin named Makai, once deployed to find mines in the Persian Gulf during the 2003 Iraq War, was sick and unable to swim.

By David Helvarg / San Francisco Chronicle / Jan. 2, 2019

It’s time to call in the Marines, and also the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard to respond to the growing number of climate-linked natural disasters.

When it comes to national security, no threat compares to our changing climate and its intensification of hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves and other natural disasters. If the rise of Nazi Germany and the nuclear balance of terror with the Soviet Union were the major strategic threats to overcome in the last century, climate change is the major challenge of this one.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

US Navy warships based in San Diego are moving towards North Korean waters as tensions rise across the region.

Led by the USS aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, whose homeport is North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego harbor, this “strike group” had been heading towards Australia after taking part in “routine” military exercises off the Korean peninsula when it was suddenly ordered back following the US cruise missile attack in Syria recently.

President Obama has commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who leaked American military and diplomatic activities in 2010, and who had become a cause celebre over those years. This act likely saved her life.

According to the New York Times:

It’s been nearly two years since the disappearance of Elizabeth Sullivan, a young Navy wife from Point Loma. There was quite an extensive search for her by both authorities and family.

The search came to a final and tragic end on October 6th this year, when her body was found in Bay waters off the 2600 block of Farragut Road. Police announced today – Dec. 7th – that her identity has been confirmed. Police have re-opened their investigation of Sullivan.

Elizabeth Sullivan was a 31-year-old Navy wife and mother of two young girls – and much more.

Here’s our coverage from October21, 2014:

OBcean Bob Edwards joined a handful of other former anti-Vietnam war activists at a commemoration of a photo exhibit at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art on Tuesday, October 11th. An exhibit by photographer Fred Lonidier, entitled, “29 Arrests” was on display – as Fred had taken Edwards’ photo at the time of his arrest on May 4, 1972 in front of the 11th Naval District headquarters.

Way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were very active social movements stirring in San Diego – and across the country. Here in San Diego, there was always this one guy -the “movement photographer” on the scene – Fred Lonidier, with his long-lens camera dangling from his neck, always there to record it all.

There was one particular and historic event in May of 1972 where 88 students and supporters were arrested for peacefully sitting down in front of the local Naval District HQ in protest of the Vietnam war. Fred Lonidier was also there – but he only had 29 shots remaining in his camera. So, he took 29 photos of those being arrested that day.

And now those 29 photos are part of a larger exhibit, called The Uses of Photography, currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla.

Campaign Announced In Response to Crisis of Deported Veterans

By Joe Armenta

The injustice faced by hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. military veterans who are being and have been deported was the focus of a campaign announced Tuesday, September 20th by a broad coalition of leaders including representatives of the veterans community, elected officials, business, labor and immigrant reform communities.

The coalition pledged to drive change for currently deported veterans and those who are facing deportation. Marine Corps veteran and former California Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher has agreed to serve as Chair of the group and stated the following –

“If you were willing to give your life for your country, your country should be willing to give you citizenship.”

Debi Baker at San Diego U-T wrote:

Dozens of Native American Indians staged a protest Wednesday [Aug.31] morning over the building of Naval Base Coronado’s new SEAL training center on what they say is a native burial ground.

The 12 tribes that make up the Kumeyaay Nation want the $1 billion project south of Silver Strand State Beach to be moved a short distance so as not to desecrate what members call a sacred site, said Cynthia Parada, a councilwoman with the La Posta Band of Mission Indians.

The 60-acre campus will add 1.5 million square feet of buildings to the base that includes spaces for SEAL Teams, logistical support buildings, training facilities, classrooms and more.

IIn 2002, human remains of a young boy said to be 7,000 years old were found in the area south of Silver Strand State Beach, Parada said.

Editor: The following piece by Dave Patterson ran in the Op-Ed pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune, August 18, 2016.

By Dave Patterson

Given our quagmire in the Middle East it’s high time that we gave some thought to how our politicians and military contractors promote war as the answer to our problems. In San Diego the promotion of war is anchored in the annual Miramar Air Show.

According to the air show Web page, it’s the largest in the world, with as many as 500,000 people attending. What they don’t tell us is that the air show is designed to appeal to our senses, not our intellect, and when we participate we get an adrenaline high and exciting memories to take home. We also take home the potential burden of our military people and civilians being injured or killed just to provide us those thrills. We also forget that the very nature of war is about death and destruction, not fun and games.