#military demonstration

[tenth-sentence]

But after the first two bombs had been dropped on the centre of the town of Hiroshima and on Nagasaki most of the 69 voters explained that they had taken 'a military demonstration in Japan' to mean an attack on purely military objectives, not on targets occupied also, in fact mainly, by civilians.

"Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists" - Robert Jungk, translated by James Cleugh

[nocternalrandomness]

US Navy Blue Angels over the Gulf of Mexico

[zukkaoru]

i do think there's a fascinating parallel between teruko and fukuzawa here. fukuzawa can't do what needs to be done because of his love for fukuchi; teruko does what she has to despite her love for fukuchi.

fukuzawa doesn't have the military mindset that teruko does. his one wish was to be able to protect those he cared about. fukuzawa is a good person, but there are certain people he values above the rest of the world, and when he's forced to make the choice between saving someone he cares about and saving the world, he can't do it. there's a reason he doesn't like organizations and a reason he refused to join the army with fukuchi; he's literally not cut out for it. and because of this, he really isn't cut out to lead the army of mankind either. if he can't kill fukuchi, who nearly destroyed the world, why should he be given the one order?

teruko, on the other hand, can put her feelings aside and make the hard choice and do what has to be done. arguably, she would be far more suited to lead the army of mankind because of this. fukuchi needed fukuzawa to kill him to fully prove himself capable of using the one order and leading the world's army. but he didn't. he didn't want that anyway, and it's not a role he's cut out for, even though fukuchi so desperately wanted him to be. fukuchi was banking on the fact that fukuzawa would be worthy of the role he gave him. and teruko knows that. teruko knows fukuzawa needed to be the one to kill fukuchi. and she knew that he couldn't do it, but she could, and she could give him the credit so they are the only two who know the truth. so the rest of the world will follow fukuchi's plan out after his death and decide fukuzawa is capable and worthy of a role he never wanted, and a role he shouldn't have

[libraryofva]

Recent Acquisition - Photograph Collection

Original May 1933 caption: "An air view of the Bonus Army Camp at Fort Hunt, VA. where the vanguard of the new Bonus Expeditionary Force has already arrived and established headquarters. Troops from Fort Meade have equipped the camp, a deserted Army post, with 843 tents and accommodations for 6613 men."

[freckledsokka]

thinking a lot about uncle sokka being such an important influence for bumi as a fellow nonbender and assuaging a lot of the guilt and fear of not being Enough and also encouraging bumi's creative mind

i imagine bumi was probably a mean little shit about it at first because no he's gonna be the best bender there ever was he's not like dumb uncle sokka, you'll see

and of course sokka doesn't take offense to this because bumi is just a kid with the weight of the future of the entire air nation on his shoulders and he knows what it means to need to prove yourself to your dad, but at the same time he sees so much of himself in bumi and it hurts to see that spiral of anxiety and shame twisting itself in such a young kid, hurts even more to see the budding self-loathing for not being Special that took sokka so long to untangle, so he tries to get ahead of it by gently suggesting that being a nonbender isn't so bad, trying to show him all the cool and practical things you can do without bending, and reminding him katara and aang will still love him no matter what — but bumi is so resistant to the idea because it's unfathomable for him, as the only child (at this point) of the avatar and the greatest waterbending master alive, to be anything other than a prodigy

so bumi tries and tries and fails and fails and this goes on for years — he meditates (boring, he can't sit still that long), he learns bending forms (but he's never good at remembering them, always messing them up bc he wants to do it his Own Way), he trains and trains and trains (maybe he's actually an earthbender or a firebender like uncle zuko, his dad's the avatar, he could be anything!) — until his baby sister kya shows early signs of being a bender and bumi's whole world comes crashing down around him. he thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't alone, if kya was Like Him (but he still won't admit it to himself, that he's Normal, that he'll never live up to all those expectations), but as soon as kya makes water so much as ripple bumi panics out of fear of rejection

maybe he even runs away because he's so scared his parents won't want him now that they have their bender, that they don't need him because he's not like kya and probably never will be, that they never wanted him because why else would they want another kid if not because he wasn't what they expected? so he takes off on appa (so much like his own father in ways he doesn't even realize, only he isn't running away from perceived destiny but rather perceived lack thereof) and doesn't look back. maybe if he goes to the southern air temple he can find that Thing in himself to become a bender, to be just like his dad, and surely appa just Knows the way there right?

but like everything else in his life, he can't even do this one thing right, he can't even run away without failing — aang and katara got the whole gaang back together to look for him, and bumi only made it as far as the east coast of the fire nation bc he failed to realize appa can't just fly forever. everyone is so relieved to find him safe and while aang and katara are sort of baffled as to why bumi felt like he had to run away bc of course they love him and will always love him where did he get the idea that they don't want him, sokka is like Ah. I See. It's Happening.

(sokka, i think, was rightfully concerned that aang and katara might not have seriously considered what it would mean to raise a nonbender bc that simply isn't their experience and they were probably also operating under the assumption that having a nonbender child would be a statistical impossibility between the two of them despite sokka probably having actual real data to suggest that bending, actually, is the anomalous factor regardless of if one of you is bending georg the avatar [who is, for the record, the definition of a statistical outlier], and there is probably a pretty big i told you so moment around this time)

because of course sokka Gets It, he understood before bumi even accepted the fact that he'll never be the next airbender, and he's there when bumi feels like he's drowning in disappointment, he's there for basically the five stages of grief for the person bumi desperately thought he was and will never be, he's there to remind bumi that he still has an Identity even if it's not the one he was hoping for, he's there to tell bumi stories about all the amazing things he's accomplished in his own life and all the amazing things his grandfather accomplished, both of them nonbenders, and that there's more to life than just weird powers

bumi never really picks up on the more scientific stuff sokka tries to teach him, but in a sense he's sort of like bumi's piandao and teaches him what it means to be a warrior and a leader and is there to nurture all the wacky shenanigans bumi gets into and praises him for always thinking outside the box — and getting to train with sokka makes it hurt a little less that kya gets to train with katara and tenzin gets to train with aang (which is a sore spot he's never been able to fully articulate, this jealousy of tenzin being the thing bumi should've been). training with sokka and seeing his own potential makes bumi feel like maybe he is worth something and can be someone, even if he still feels like he needs to come up with crazier and crazier shit to get his parents to notice him (sometimes, of course, to the point of exaggeration) and thinks that being rambunctious and ridiculous are his only redeeming personality traits

and when bumi is old enough, sokka takes him ice dodging and for the first time in his life, bumi finally feels that profound sense of accomplishment and belonging he was always looking for when he thought he still might be a bender — and, just like sokka before him, he receives the mark of the wise for demonstrating creativity and ingenuity during his trial. his methods might have been unorthodox, but so were sokka's, and while bumi may not physically be an airbender, he knows how to think like one, and sokka is so so proud to see him come into his own as a strategist and a leader, to finally see that true confidence shine, to see bumi determinedly forge his own path in making the world a better place, even if some of bumi's ideas are borderline insane

there's probably also a lot of complex feelings happening when bumi eventually does become an airbender after harmonic convergence, because on one hand, this is the one thing he's always wanted, right? he can finally live up to all those expectations and prove to his dad that he's not a failure (despite all his accomplishments in the united forces). but on the other hand, it feels almost like a cruel joke bc he spent so much of his life accepting who he was as a nonbender and now he gets the weird powers after all that work to be content with who he was? and the only person who ever understood is gone, so who does he even turn to? (would sokka be happy for him? disappointed? proud? upset? freaked out? he'll never know)

anyway i just think. bumi and sokka. are very important.

[dark0ta]

Canadian SkyHawks ft. the Patriots Parachute demo Taken: 7/26/24

[fedoranon]

Rewatching Gundam Wing because it's my comfort War Is Bad™ and you know I've never paid enough attention to what a little fuckin psycho (affectionate) Relena is.

It's like episode 10 and this guy has threatened (tried? I've been watching over a few days, and also I'm not sure what he's doing counts lmao) to kill her over seeing his face but she's gone totally ride or die for his ass based PURELY on her own curiosity in episode 1, goaded him multiple times about how he still needs to kill her in order to snap him out of a suicidal funk, then FOLLOWED HIM to a different school presumably in a different country or different part of the country just to make small(?) talk(?)

She justifies this to her father's ghost (good sign) by saying that Heero's the comfort she needs by her side in order to get over daddy's death like??? Being sad because you're dad's dead and his last words to you were to tell you that you're adopted is apparently justification to stalk people often enough that their classmates (in, again, completely different area from where you hang) tell you when those people move, because they recognize you, the person who's always coming to their school just to talk to their random transfer student classmate.

LADY!!! At this point in the story, the least awful he's been to you was A) cover to get close to you to try to kill you (which you knew because he told you as much), B) ignoring you, and C) not letting you die (against his stated goals = mixed signals), which could as much be about him being uncomfortable killing an innocent civilian kid as about any affection toward you. (At this point in the narrative, I think that's a more likely read on Heero than attraction/affection. He'll get there, I remember the broad strokes of the plot, but at episode 10? I really don't think so.)

Yandere ass behavior honest to fuck. What a queen 👑

[une-sanz-pluis]

If 1416 had seen members of the dynasty achieving successes – it was notable how Sigismund had been met by all three of Henry’s brothers in their order of seniority as he progressed from Dover to London to meet the king himself when he arrived in May – the year 1417 provided the best example of how much Henry owed to his close male relatives, two of whom, Clarence and Gloucester, accompanied him on his second invasion of Normandy. His choice was interesting. Was it, as already suggested, because he wanted to act in close unison with him and to supervise his activities personally that Henry ordered Clarence to accompany him? And was it to give him further experience of war, in particular of siege warfare and of the use of the new artillery, that he chose Gloucester to take command of part of the army? In both cases, but for rather different reasons, Henry may have felt that he would prefer to have these two men under his orders. Two things are notable. The first is that both men remained in Normandy under Henry for at least two years, each loyally committing his life at this time to the fulfilment of Henry’s ambition, making it almost the ambition of the dynasty. The second is the extent to which these two men, in their contrasting military ‘styles’, assisted Henry in his conquest of Normandy. Clarence was the man of flamboyant action seen, for instance, in his scaling of the wall at Caen and his cry ‘A Clarans, A Clarans’ recorded by the chronicler, and in the manner in which he and a small force of men captured Pontoise in a daring dawn raid on 30 July 1419. Such notable actions achieved success, and were duly recorded by the chroniclers who still wrote in a chivalric vein whenever the opportunity occurred. Those very same chroniclers were also interested in the relatively new techniques of war which developments in artillery presented. They thus admired Gloucester’s contribution to the war, his rapid conquest of northwestern Normandy in the spring of 1418 when towns and castles surrendered in quick succession to his army. Most of all, they noted his successful completion of the six-month siege of Cherbourg, carried out by a man with relatively little practical experience of war behind him, but with an interest in siege warfare and in particular the advantages which the use of artillery was now giving the attacker. Nor should we think of Gloucester as a man who preferred to win success from the comparative safety of an artillery emplacement. Like all his brothers, he was no coward; the Brut records that, at the siege of Rouen to which he went after he had taken Cherbourg, Gloucester deliberately pitched his encampment closer to that city’s wall – and hence closer to danger — than did any other commander. The important point to underline is that Clarence and Gloucester presented Henry with useful contrasts in military style; one was ready for dramatic action when required, while the other preferred to use the new weaponry to achieve less dramatic but equally lasting results.

Christopher Allmand, Henry V (Yale Monarchs, 1992)

[stairset]

Love the idea here that the other rebels' problem with Saw is just that he blows shit up and not the whole "torturing prisoners and endangering civilians" thing

[shinobicyrus]

We are joined by Antony Loewenstein — author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World — to discuss his extensive reporting on the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the policing tactics and surveillance technologies that are tested on Palestinians before sold as part of lucrative global export industry, and how the dynamics of occupation never stay within their cordoned zones but always expand to capture increasingly more people and places.

This came out five months ago, so before the current conflict. It was very enlightening and shattered a lot of the perceptions I had grown up with around Israel. Particularly, Israel's history of coopering with brutal regimes and their selling their skills and technology to the highest bidder. Oftentimes as a middle-man for the United States.

[nocternalrandomness]

USAF Thunderbirds arriving at Luke AFB, Arizona

[tanksandbeyond]

Hi everyone, this is a brochure from the South African Reumech OMC company for their TTD, or Tank Technology Demonstrator. This unfortunately did not go beyond testing and its advertising campaign, but is an important vehicle in South African armored history. The vehicle brochure is fairly self explanatory, so I'll just leave you to read it!

[irhabiya]

egyptians (nasserists (my dad)) will swear up and down that they hate the military but will refuse to acknowledge june 30th for what it is, a counterrevolution lol

[shywhumpauthor]

🪴 ANON THAT QUESTIOM IS SO GOOD AND I HAVE A PERFECT ANSWER FOR IT BUT I HAVENT ACTUALLY WRITTEN THE SCENE OR POSTED IT OR DONE ANYTHING TO WVEN KINDA BUILD UP TO IT YET

SERIOUSLY what I have in mind would fit so well, but the series needs to grow a little bit before I can really fit it in. I suppose I could make it into a drabble, but I don’t think I can because it wouldn’t really make sense, and it’d be coming out of nowhere

It would fit best in the arc after part 13, where declan was basically like “you lost”, and Noah’s role switched from “hiding information” to “wtf do I do with you now”

I’ve talked about this before, so I feel fine sharing a bit more even though I originally wanted it to be a surprise, but basically when Declan no longer needs Noah for his information, he’s going to like—I don’t know how to word this sophisticatedly word this—force Noah to continue working for him

Back before Noah was discovered, the jobs he was given were pretty mild, mostly technical stuff and details, because Declan knew how he was uncomfortable working with the weapon demonstrations and that stuff (which uses live human targets. Usually prisoners) Afterwards, let’s just say that Declan is much more manipulative of this.