In the beginning...
Rotarians of Ojai slipped into the St. Thomas fellowship hall with the sparkling sun at their backs on a spectacular late fall day. Taking their lucre was the inimitable Dave Brubaker, while the room had been aptly and caringly adorned by Bill Prather and Sean McDermott. Greeting the wanderers-in was Kevin Davis.
Leading the pledge was new member Bret Nighman, while Wendy Barker gave a Veterans Day invocation about the cost of sacrifice and the trauma endured by our veterans. It was from an article written by retired U.S. Marine Christopher Walker:
“Vets don’t ask to be held above everyone else or given special treatment for serving. They just don’t want to be taken for granted or for everything that they sacrificed to be forgotten. The greatest tragedy for a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine is for their struggles to have been in vain. For their stories to fade away and all the sweat, pain, fear, hope, and hard work to be reduced to a dusty photo on the wall that people eventually stop looking at. Then all of those lessons learned in war are forgotten and the wounds of war are hidden, doomed to be repeated.
After much schmoozing and walking and talking, the assemblage formed a line of sorts and partake of the sumptuous repast.
Marty Babayco, flying solo without co-president Kay, hammered the gavel and so the meeting proper commenced with his thanking Wendy for her invocation, with a reflection on his own father, who was a Staff Sergeant in the World War II fighting with Gen. Mark Clark and others from the boot heel of Italy to liberate the country from Mussolini’s clutches. After the war, and what trauma he endured, he struggled, eventually dying of alcoholism at age 48.
Visiting Rotarians and Guests
Visiti
ng Rotarians include Kern Lewis and Sue Weaver of the Rotary Club eWorld.
Visitors included Brian Schalk, a guest of Tony Thacher, joined us, as did Dr. Sean Christian, taking over Dr. Watson’s dental practice. Larry Kennedy was also checking us out, despite his friendship with Jack Jacobs that began when they both entered Boy Scouts at age 11.
Marty gave a shoutout to Sid Cohn, and how great it was see him.
COMMITTEE MEETINGS:
Prez Marty said there were many: including the 75th Anniversary committee led by Tony and Cheree Edwards, directly after the regular meeting.
The Rotary Club of Ojai Education Foundation was meeting Wednesday, also at St. Thomas in their reading room, at 8 a.m.
And the club’s monthly board meeting was taking place Thursday morning but at 7:30. a.m, also in the reading room. Marty invited one and all to check it out, but warned to dress warmly as it gets cold.
ROTARY DISTRICT CONFERENCE
Will be held Nov. 18-20 in Santa Barbara. There’s still time to attend, Marty reminded people.
POINSETTIA SALE
Betsy Watson is heading that up with order forms on hand. Act quick, time is running out for this important fund-raising holiday item.
Cindy Frings and Sue Gilbreth, the viral duo of club goodwill spreaders, said that the first $5,000 sponsor had been secured, from Christine Fenn at The Gables.
HOLIDAY PARTY
Cindy and Sue then performed a clever rhyming skit to announce that the club’s Holiday Party will take place on Friday, Dec. 9th from 5 to 8 p.m. at Soule Park.
ROTARY SHIRTS
Fern Barishman was taking orders for Rotary shirts, which will have the club logo as well as little embossed tangerine for that Ojai “drip.” The shirts will cost $25-30 each and Marty urged the club to buy the shirts for club events and occasions to help us build awareness and so “we don’t have to wonder what to wear.”
INTERACT CLUB
Our Interact Club is in the middle of their annual food drive, and club members are urged to bring non-perishable food items to the next meeting.
FINING
Tessa Turner made her solo debut as a finemaster. First, she took confessions from …
- Kevin Davis: he and his wife share a birthday, and had a big celebration to mark the occasion last week. He also urged the club to support the Kviv Independent, far and away the best source of English-language news in Ukraine.
- Terry Beckett confessed that he recently returned from a three-week trip to New Mexico and Colorado where he learned a lot about the fascinating Anazazi culture.
- Bob Davis confessed his feelings of impostership when awards were handed out for Desert Storm in 1991, the year he retired from the Air Force, after spending the bulk of his thirty year career in the less-than-warzone of San Pedro.
- Bill Prather confessed his pride in having so many veteran family members, including his father, who was a trainer for WWII pilots, his father- and mother-in-law, as well as his mother who considered her tour as a dancer in the USO to be more dangerous than many front lines.
- Fern Barishman confessed her pride in her father who was a medic in Italy during WWII.
- Bill Hatch recently returned from Eastern Europe, and also noted that his great-grandfather (within living memory) was a veteran of the Civil War.
Tessa, with time running low, did a group fine with Kevin Davis, Rod Owen, Fred Farkhani, and Dr. Gross. She asked them to guess how many veterans were in the room. Guesses varied, and it appeared that only one guessed correctly. There were 22 veterans attending that day. Which did not count another two - your humble scribe and Dr. Frank Finck, who were attending via zoom.
PROGRAM
Tony introduced Keith Nightingale, Colonel, US Army (Retired) with a slide packed with relevant details of his distinguished career, which included work both on active duty and as a highly placed contractor. Keith was an Ojai homeboy, growing up here and executing many legendary shenanigans (including getting a calf to the top of the Post Office tower). Tony also said that Keith transported a care package of Ojai citrus to Ukraine, and also showed us a cavalcade of Rotary ambulances heading to Kviv.
Among his credentials: Colonel (Ret) Nightingale is a member of the 82nd Airborne and Ranger Hall of Fame. He holds the French Legion of Honor, Officer Class (Legion d’honneur, Officier). His books, ranging on topics from Normandy to Vietnam to the present day, are available in bookstores and on Amazon. He still resides in Ojai’s East End, where he grows limes and kills gophers.
Keith started off with a slide of his rifle company from Vietnam: “Every Thanksgiving I give thanks. They were drafted - they could not avoid it. They served with honor, respect and dedication. They were hippies and anti-war to the core, but hellacious in combat. “I was always moved by the photo, it really does demonstrate what America is all about. Not one of those people wanted to be where they were.”
Nightingale’s grandfather was ambassador to Argentina in 1915 and was enraged that American did not join World War I (until 1917, three years after the conflict started). “So he went to France, beginning of what was American Expeditionary Ambulance Corps. He would drive from Paris to Verdun and return with the wounded and casualties. For a year and a half,” he said. Sadly, post-war he became a violent alcoholic. "All vets carry something with them, there’s a good and bad that they carry with them.”
Then he took us on a quick tour of the Ukraine war. Including a moment to reflect on their great victory, retaking Kherson on Wednesday. “No war in our memory has such an effect on us,” he said. He reminded us that the Ukraine is the size of Texas - it takes two days to get across. Ukraine is an agricultural country, “the breadbasket of Europe and Africa. But it is their industrial sector in the east being occupied.” He said it was a vision of what future wars will look like. “No event or conflict in our recent history is having such a profound effect on our military and industrial complex as the war going on today.”
He said the early days of the invasion, the Russians expected to roll up the entire country in three days or less. “The Russians demonstrated incredible ineptness. They had a huge overwhelming force - and it basically collapsed into chaos and confusion.” He said the Ukrainians had 8 years to prepare for the invasion after fighting in the breakaway regions in the east, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, and restructured their military as a result, to build a more flexible, mobile and resilient fighting force.
Vladimir Putin’s goal in invading Ukraine was to take advantage of what he saw as NATO’s weakness, with right-wing nationalists on the rise and bickering among allies, he expected to splinter the organization. But instead the opposite happened. "Sweden and Finland - famously neutral countries - are joining NATO. No one has united NATO to a better degree than what Putin has been able to do."
He said that there are three components to Ukraine defense forces. First the NATO trained tanks and artillery divisions. Then the National Guard reservists, also proven very effective. But the surprise has been the volunteers that formed what he called “street squads - all the civilians who went to the police station and grabbed AK(47s). They have proven extremely effective in these urban neighborhoods, with these backdoor guerrilla situations. It relieves the traditional military so then pull back and take stock and operate with greater efficiency. “
The war has also proven to be a “test bed for weapons situations” The accuracy of the new artillery is profound: "One round, one hit. It makes an extreme difference. You can’t get away with traditional massed force … one soldier with a Javelin missile can wipe out a Russian armored column.”
He talked about the primacy of “couch potatoes,” the operators of the drones, and social media recruitment and psychological operations (psyops) at which Ukrainian youth have excelled, often using simple, off-the-shelf commercial systems. With “cyber warfare,” Nightingale said, “a bunch of teenagers in basement somewhere can shut down a battalion in a heartbeat.” The battlefield medical techniques have also improved dramatically.
And the logistics, the heart of warfare, has also been streamlined through neighboring Poland, Germany and Romania. They can train and equip Ukraine’s soldiers and get fresh artillery pieces to the combat front in ten days.
The war has also caused NATO to get out of its sclerotic routines, clearing out reserve stocks and ammunition and Soviet-era equipment. So far, the U.S. has sent $120 billion worth of gear, followed by the UK and other European countries, a truly global conflict being fought on local battlefields. The microchips which run many of the systems are hard to get, though, and the Americans and other countries are ramping up production as they realize what strategic assets they are. The contacting process is getting streamlined as well.
The Russians face structural challenges from their top-down leadership. When a general is killed (and 12 have been so far) it results in chaos on the battlefield because no one knows what to do, unlike western military which relies heavily on decentralized NCOs and junior officers to make split-second decisions. “If you kill a general, you can stop an entire division in its tracks. The Russians are poorly led, there is corruption and desertions. A lot of the gear is siphoned off, sold in Africa, Middle East,” Nightingale said. The troops are only given “two weeks of training, half the normal kit, then shipped off to front lines.
So far, the Russians have lost 100,000 men, the Ukrainians 50,000. The largest supplier of armor to the Ukrainians - 67 percent of it? Russia, as the troops abandon equipment, often without a fight.
The Ukrainians turned the tide of battle with HIMARS rockets, which have a range of 75 miles and incredible accuracy. They learned that Russians stockpile gear at railheads, and “boom, there it goes.” The Iron Dome system is also coming into play, as seen in Israel. “It’s highly effective against cruise missiles and the Iranian drones that are starting to show up."
He also talked about the Mozart Group - retired military leaders from the West, training all the international volunteers who show up on the border. “The Mozart Group meets you and evaluates you, makes sure they are useful to UKR. They’ve got camps along Poland and the borders, and sort sthem out by competent technology and capability."
Putin is hoping Winter will bring an end to sanctions, as Europe needs that the natural gas for heating and industry. "Will NATO hang? That is the question.” Despite the conflict taking a decided turn in Ukraine’s favor, Nightingale warned that it “is going to be a long drawn-out affair. There’s no incentive for negotiation. They will hunker down for a long conflict."
FINAL THOUGHTS:
LIFE HACKS: Marty concluded the gathering with this advice:
"Don’t be the best, be the only."
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