On the occasion of my birthday I send you all greetings. To quote my father, "if I had thought that I would live this long, I would have taken better care of myself…" pl
RSS- Why We Fight* – TTG
- Mick Ryan on the coming Ukrainian offensive – TTG
- “It’s 7 a.m. in Tel Aviv after a night of protests. Here’s what you need to know about Israel’s political crisis” – TTG
- Russia to base nuclear warheads in Belarus… so what? – TTG
- “Drone strike kills US contractor in Syria; US retaliates” – TTG
- “Ukrainian troops impress US trainers as they rapidly get up to speed on Patriot missile system” – TTG
- “Russia hauls 1950s-era tanks out of storage to join battlefield” – TTG
- “Terran 1 | Good Luck, Have Fun” – TTG
- ISW take on the Xi – Putin meeting – TTG
- Russian defensive lines: screwing the pooch once again – TTG
Charlottesville, Virginia
31 May 2008
Sir;
Happy Birthday. Unfortunately the only present I can offer is my enduring gratitude for providing this space where I have been able to learn so much from you and the others that post here.
Your most humble servant,
SubKommander Dred
Best wishes on your birthday. Your Dad and Mum should be right proud of all your achievements and on this blog readers part thank you for the great forum you maintain.
A very Happy Birthday to you, Col. Lang and many happy returns.
Happy Birthday, dear brother. Since I can’t be there to help you celebrate, thought I might send you a classic Python entree to go with that birthday cake:
Monty Python- Spam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE
Have a wonderful day today!
Simply Thanks for sharing.
Happy B-day Pat, be sure to have a brewsky to celebrate, notice i said ‘a’ as in singular/one, lol. Again, best wishes for your B-day.
Very many happy returns– stick around, we need you!
And thanks for all your great work here.
Happy B’day. Time — ’tis the strangest dimension of them all.
But like Qoheleth says, the essence of life is to enjoy the moment. So I certainly raise a glass to celebrate Col. Lang’s B’day, SST and, of course, the 2007 NIE.
And to see how fortunate we are, I say take another look at Col. Lang’s remarks about Scott McClellan and his new book. In a few short paragraphs, Col. Lang interwove the following allusions, topped off with one image:
1. Quote by Cardinal Wolsey (“If I had served my God as diligently…”)
2. Quote by General Robert E. Lee (“Duty is the most sublime…”)
3. Reference to Ruritania
4. Reference to the Southern novelist Thomas Wolf (“can’t go home again”)
5. Reference to Rothko chapel
6. Use of the word “Ziocon”
7. A play on the image of Johnny Depp’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”
And you, WaPo?
Happy Birthday!
My wife and I raised a glass, to wish you and your wife good health.
And may your fighting spirit continue undimmed, for many years to come.
This old Airman would like to wish a Happy Birthday to an old Soldier, to thank him for his service to our country in and out of uniform.
Happy Birthday, Colonel. I’m continually impressed by the range and utility of your current activities. I think the worst curse would be to suffer Machiavelli’s complaint. In 1513 he first mentioned writing “The Prince” as the ultimate Insider condemned to live out his remaining days as an Outsider:
“I am going to waste. I cannot go on this way for long without becoming contemptible in my poverty. Besides, there is my wish that these Medici lords would begin to use me, even if they were to start by setting me to roll a stone, for if I should then fail to win their confidence I could only blame myself. Having read this thing [The Prince], one will see that I did not sleep or gamble away the fifteen years I was engaged in the study of statecraft, and anyone ought to value the services of a man who has become richly experienced at another’s expense….”
Ah, but we do, we do, Sir.
Best wishes Pat! And may you have many more birthdays in great health and spirit.
Glad to see you reach the 1/2 way point Pat!
Happy Birthday!
Bill
My best wishes to you, sir, on your birthday. Here’s hoping you enjoy the day to the fullest, surrounded by loved ones, with finest health in the many long years to follow.
Have a wonderful day, Colonel.
Thank you for your blog.
Happy Birthday, Colonel!
And may you have many, many more…
Happy birthday Pat, many happy returns. This page is a tremendous present to us all, so kudos to you, and our thanks to your parents. Now you celebrate while I go and find out what the heck the Qoheleth is. . .
Happy birthday Col.,
A selection of Dave Barry
quotes:
Nothing is ever really buried in a meeting. An idea may *look* dead, but it will always reappear at another meeting later on. If you have ever seen the movie _Night of the Living Dead_, you have a rough idea how modern corporations and organizations operate, with projects and proposals that everybody thought were killed constantly rising from their graves to stagger back into meetings and eat the brains of the living.
No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.
There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
In the past decade or so, the women’s magazines have taken to running home-handyperson articles suggesting that women can learn to fix things just as well as men. These articles are apparently based on the ludicrous assumption that men know how to fix things, when in fact all they know how to do is look at things in a certain squinty-eyed manner, which they learned in Wood Shop; eventually, when enough things in the home are broken, they take a job requiring them to transfer to another home.
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
Women often ask, “What do men *really* want, deep in their souls?” The best answer — based on in-depth analysis of the complex and subtle interplay of thought, instinct, and emotion that constitutes the male psyche — is that, deep in their souls, men want to watch stuff go “bang.”
Congratulations, Colonel, on your splendid and continuing victory over the entropy demon.
And also to your resident Middle East expert who, I imagine, may sometimes be a silent partner in this little coven of well informed grumps you’ve lashed together.
In parts of Newfoundland they used to (and may still) celebrate the birthdays of folk who are no longer perpendicular (“How old is Uncled X?” “135.” “Oh…”) and they did something similar a couple of years ago for what would have been John Betjeman’s centenary (do people know him in the US?) — http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/5292350.stm
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/reviews/story/0,,1871426,00.html
http://rehanqayoom.blogspot.com/2007/10/battle-of-camel-pira-betjeman-birthday_707.html
http://www.johnbetjeman.com/
It is possible that you may suffer the same fate — and have already achieved a kind of immortality (the best kind?) in the minds and hearts of those of us you have touched.
Having cleared that up, may I share one of the strangest Betjeman poems? (He was easy to underestimate.)
A Shropshire Lad
The gas was on in the Institute,
The flare was up in the gym,
A man was running a mineral line,
A lass was singing a hymn,
When Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Came swimming along the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley,
Swimming along, swimming along,
Swimming along from Severn,
And paying a call at Dawley Bank
While swimming along to Heaven.
The sun shone low on the railway line
And over the bricks and stacks,
And in at the upstairs windows
Of the Dawley houses’ backs,
When we saw the ghost of Captain Webb,
Webb in a water sheeting,
Come dripping along in a bathing dress
To the Saturday evening meeting.
Dripping along, dripping along,
To the Congregational Hall;
Dripping and still he rose over the sill
And faded away in a wall.
There wasn’t a man in Oakengates
That hadn’t got hold of the tale,
And over the valley in Ironbridge,
And round by Coalbrookdale,
How Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Rose rigid and dead from the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley,
Rigid and dead, rigid and dead,
To the Saturday congregation,
And paying a call at Dawley Bank
On his way to his destination.
Happy birthday, Colonel. You are the vital center of good sense, in most things.
Bodo
Dear Colonel,
My very best wishes and many happy returns. And I once again thank you for your insight
Happy Birthday Colonel Lang. May this year be your best year ever and may your blog spread truth to many many more people. This at times sad old world needs many more people like you. Thank you.
Best wishes on your birthday, Colonel. Eat, drink and be merry. I’ll join you in a wee dram. I’m due for a drop.
Birthday salutions back at ya. Happy Birthday.
Dear Colonel Lang,
May God bless you on your birthday.
V/R
Fr John
I enjoy your blog. Happy B-Day. How old are you?
Herzlichen Glückwunsch Pat!
Many more of the best for you, especially if there’s some more fiction involved.
COL
Happy Birthday, well deserved.
M
Mark Pyruz
I am working on keeping all your brains tuned up.
Figure it out from the post. pl
Anna Missed
I am working on the second volume of the trilogy that I have “decided” to call “Strike the Tent.” I am making progress but am a little blocked at the moment by the enormity of the problem of sufficiently depicting the action of the Overland Campaign while staying true to my task of dealing with the problems of humans in such situations.
Have you read “The Raid” and “Carolina in the Mornin’?” pl
happy birthday pl!
and thank you for the time and effort you put into this blog
Mazeltov! And many more, I’m quite sure. Thank you for including us in a small aspect of your life and work.
It looks like a 1940 Plymouth sedan to me… so let’s say 68 years young?
Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday. May you turn into an old geezer like me. One of the great benefits of geezerhood is that you can say or do anything without fear of embarrasment or retribution.
Happy Birthday.
I hope you continue to observe and shape the interesting time we live in. I for one intend to live long enough until Mars colonization.
Happy belated Birthday,Col.
Happy belated B-day Col Lang. Best wishes.
A belated happy birthday greeting from me too, Col. Lang — may you and your clarities prosper.
Happy (belated) Birthday! I hope you had the opportunity to do something fun.