Music Spotlight: Remembering the Rose Garden Marines

Country music legend Lynn Anderson became the U.S. Marines’ unofficial ambassador 50 years ago when they used her award-winning song, “I Beg Your Pardon (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden),” in a recruitment ad campaign.

The term “rose garden” is an ironic reference that led to one of the most memorable recruitment campaigns in the Marine Corps history, forever linking country music superstar Anderson with the Marines.

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Commentary: Remembering Nixon’s Legacy 30 Years After His Death

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died 30 years ago this week—on April 22, 1994. And while it may be hard to remember a Republican the left despised more than Donald J. Trump—Nixon probably takes the cake.

It was not so much how the former California Congressman and two-term Vice President governed or his introverted personality but rather his adversarial relationship with a hostile media, his sheer determination, intelligence, lawyerly command of the facts, exceptional understanding of both foreign and domestic policy, and his effectiveness as commander in chief that caused the left to view Nixon as persona non grata.

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Analysis: The First Gulf War Validated Five Major Weapon Systems, All-Volunteer Military

The First Gulf War, or Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was a strategic failure, but an operational success came to an end Feb. 28, 1991 with President George H.W. Bush calling a halt to combat operations after the 100 hours of combined land and air offensive.

It was the culmination of months Desert Shield’s diplomacy and military build-up beginning Aug. 7, 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded and conquered its neighbor Kuwait. Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991 with a ferocious air campaign that prepared the battlefield for the last 100 hours.

It is important to record operations success in the ledger of a war whose memory has become awkward and difficult.

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Commentary: Who Killed the Anti-War Democrats?

After three generations the anti-war tendency within America’s oldest political party has been thoroughly alienated from its leadership and rendered impotent. The absence of this political failsafe means that America’s destructive overseas interventionism is less accountable than ever.

As the 1968 presidential election cycle kicked off there was little reason to suspect that Lyndon Johnson would not continue to serve as president. He had succeeded to the office following the much loved and mourned John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963 and won in such a landslide in 1964 that he was immediately able to undertake a raft of ambitious new programs known as the Great Society. 

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