GEKOKUJO

I learned a new word the other day reading a book about an obscure battle fought between the Japanese and Russians on the eve of World War II—gekokujo. There had been a long-festering border dispute between Japan and Russia over an area near a place called Nomonhan. Japan’s Kwantung Army thought that the honorable thing to do was attack the Russians and drive them from the disputed land. Japan’s “Pentagon” said no. The Kwantung Army had been given a dishonorable order, so what did they do? They disobeyed it and attacked the Russians anyway. They had exercised the Japanese “prerogative” of gekokujo, or honorable insubordination. The Kwantung Army got clobbered by the Russians under the leadership of Georgy Zhukov, one of the few generals whom Stalin hadn’t killed in a recent purge.

There is a time and a place for gekokujo. Unfortunately for the Kwantung Army 1939 at Nomonhan was neither the time nor the place. In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Lt. Laz Ojeda of the Coral Springs Fire Department demonstrated the proper time and place for the exercise of gekokujo. Ordered to take a seriously injured shooting victim to a hospital 30 miles away, Ojeda didn’t think the victim would survive the trip. There was another hospital just 10 miles distant. He disobeyed the order to take the victim to the faraway hospital and took her to the nearby hospital. Attending physicians say that decision saved her life. SEE THE ARTICLE HERE.

There are now reports that the four deputies who did not enter the school during the shooting were obeying orders. They were told not to go into the scene unless they were wearing body cameras. SEE THE ARTICLE HERE. I don’t know if these reports are true or not. Time will tell. Assuming for the sake of argument that they were ordered not to enter the building while the shooting was going on, I think this would have been an excellent situation for the application of the Imperial Japanese Army’s principle of gekokujo.

I recall another mass shooting that occurred in Austin Texas the year I graduated from high school. Charles Whitman climbed to the top of a tower at the University of Texas at Austin and started shooting people on the campus. Two uniformed officers, Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez met at the foot of the tower. Acting without orders, they climbed it. Arriving at the top of the tower, they engaged the still-active gunman and killed him. Who knows what might have happened if they had checked with higher authorities before entering the tower. Might they have been told to stand down? Might they have disobeyed because they felt that in so doing they could save lives?

MORE ON TRANSCRIBING THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING CASE

I'm between books right now, just having finished revising my latest manuscript, Six Capsules: The Carlyle Harris Murder Case. This has given me time to work on a few other projects, including the transcribing of the 4,000 pages of testimony from the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case. Here are links to my most recent transcriptions:

WITNESS 15: JOSEPH ANTHONY PERRONE

WITNESS 16: JAMES J. O'BRIEN

WITNESS 17: MILTON GAGLIO

WITNESS 18: MAX ROSENHAIN

I'm coming up on a very important witness, John F. Condon (Witness 20), who served as the go-between for the delivery of the ransom from Lindbergh to "Cemetery John." Readers should find his testimony both interesting and entertaining. He was a real character.

AMAZON REVIEWS OF "PRAIRIE DEFENDER"

Here are two recent reviews of my book Prairie Defender: The Murder Trials of Abraham Lincoln that were posted on Amazon:

✭✭✭✭✭ LINCOLN'S MURDER TRIALS by R. Bull
George R. Dekle, Sr. relates all the stories about Lincoln's murder trials with the understanding of a seasoned attorney. HIs thirty years as an assistant state attorney of the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida gives him experience few can match. His research is thorough and his writing skills are top notch. He gives the reader the background quarrels that ended in tragedy and as much of the course of the trails as it is possible to know. An excellent book.

✭✭✭✭✭ I'VE READ A COUPLE OF HUNDRED LINCOLN BOOKS, AND THIS ... by Old Fart
I've read a couple hundred Lincoln books, and this one deserves a space on the bookshelf of every Lincoln scholar. It is well written enough to be of interest to the casual history reader and detailed and documented for those of us who want the citations. Most refreshing is the range of views of the skills of Lincoln as a lawyer, from mediocre to hagiography, and the integration of Lincoln's law practice, especially capital cases, in his political development.

TRANSCRIBING THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING CASE

In my continuing effort to transcribe all the testimony of all the witnesses in the Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, I am up to Witness # 14. Here's the transcript of the testimony of JOHN J. SWEENY. 

Here is an index to the testimony of all the currently transcribed witnesses: INDEX.

ROBOCALLS FROM "ACCOUNT SERVICES"

I got a call this morning from what looked like a private number. I missed it and tried to call back. I couldn't get through, but I got a call back from the private number. There was a young man on the phone wanting to know why I called him. I told him I was returning his call. The young man said he had never called me and didn't know how his number showed up on my caller ID. I had a suspicion which I shared with him.

Later in the day, I got another call which said it was from the same gentleman. I answered the call and got a pre-recorded message from somebody or other at "Account Services." The call assured me that I wasn't in trouble, but it was urgent that I stay on the line to learn how I could consolidate my credit card debt. I hung up. I don't have any credit card debt because I pay any charges off in full every month. I could be wrong, but I believe the name "Credit Card Services" is just as bogus as the camouflage phone number they used.

This little scenario has repeated itself several times recently when I received calls from "Account Services" but caller ID displayed a private number. Once or twice when I concluded that "Account Services" was using a fake number to trick me into answering the phone, I called the legitimate owner of the phone number to let them know that I believed a scammer had hijacked their number to use as a disguise. (I don't answer calls from 800 numbers. 90%+ of them are robocalls, and the legitimate callers leave messages which I promptly return).

A couple of times I have waited through "Account Services'" pre-recorded spiel and spoken to a live person. When I cut their sales pitch off and tell them that I want to be put on their DO NOT CALL list, the live person immediately hangs up. I don't think that they put my number on the DO NOT CALL list, because "Account Services" keeps on calling. There's no use reporting this to the authorities because they want to know who was calling and the number they called from. They can't go very far with a fake number and a fake identity. It's frustrating, especially when the calls are burning up my cellphone minutes.

President Trump recently made a scatological reference to countries from which he didn't want immigrants. Although I wouldn't dream of applying such a description to people trying to better their lives by moving to America, I think Trump's term perfectly fits the tactics of "Account Services." I certainly wish that the 5H17holes at "Account Services" would quit calling me.

CORRECTION: When I wrote this I was so angry about the recent call that I misremembered the name of the alleged scammer. It's "Account Services," not "Credit Card Services." I no sooner got through posting this blog than I got another call from "Account Services."