We will hopefully witness a renewal of American greatness and a renaissance in national life.
During our continuing visit to Los Angeles, we made our way down to Long Beach and the USS Iowa. Those who refurbished and maintain her and sister battleships and aircraft carriers deserve our respect and thanks for keeping such important pieces of American history alive. As I strode the decks, I tried to imagine life onboard for the thousands of sailors and marines. The ship has two general periods—the 1940s, which included the Korean War, and the 1980s, which saw the addition of Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles, as well as Phalanx anti-missile systems. The ship is impressive, as are its massive nine 16-inch guns. With the advent of air power during World War II, the Montana class of battleships was scrubbed, and the Iowa class was the last of such ships in the US Navy fleet.
As we made our way to the bridge, I thought about how the Iowa represented America's strength and prowess. It dawned on me that the Japanese had the biggest battleship in the Yamato with 18 inch guns, and no ships were feared as much as Germany's Bismarck and Tirpitz. Many countries had battleships in the day. What made the Iowa special? As we continued along, we came face-to-face with a swivel chair that had the three-star flag of Admiral William "Bull" Halsey embroidered on it. His five-star flag stood nearby. My knees almost gave out. I was first introduced to Bull Halsey in Herman Wouk's World War II trilogy. He described the late admiral as one who "shaved with a blow torch." As time went on, I learned more about one of America's best fighting admirals. The Iowa was for a time his flagship. And then I realized that the greatness of America comes from those individuals produced by all that the U.S. has to offer. Admiral Halsey was in a rare group of five-star officers that included Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur. Since 1950, there has been no new five star flag officer, though some tried to get General Curtis LeMay promoted to this rank.
The greatness of America goes beyond its amazing people, its resources, and its technical accomplishments. The greatness of America is often found in unique individuals who changed the course of American history through their commitment to the great Republic founded nearly 250 years ago. When Donald Trump formally announced that he planned to have Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy run a government efficiency department, he reminded me of two other people who made an enormous impact on the U.S. and its future 80 years ago. President Trump even termed the efforts that these two men will undertake as a "Manhattan Project" of our time.
Everyone knows the outsized roles of Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves in making a working atomic bomb in a few short years. But there were two other individuals without whom there would have been no success in Los Alamos. Vannevar Bush and James Conant were world-class scientists and leaders at MIT and Harvard, respectively. Like Musk and Ramaswamy, they took significant time away from their formal obligations in order to make sure that the Manhattan Project would succeed. These two men and their associates kept direct communication between Groves and the White House, provided whatever men and material were needed for the project, and made sure that the program had the top priority in the government and military. Similarly, the two tech billionaires will be the ones providing Donald Trump and his inner circle with the information and tools needed to make the U.S. government functional and responsive again. Government agencies keep growing and adding more regulation. It's true in the U.S. and it's the same almost everywhere. Every few decades, one needs a Javier Milei, one who simply tears down the edifice and returns it to a functioning core that existed long ago. The US government is ripe for such treatment, and if these two men can create a lean and functional bureaucracy, they—like Bush and Conant—will have contributed to the future success of their country for years to come.
How desperately does the U.S. government need an overhaul as promised by Musk, Ramaswamy, and Bobby Kennedy, Jr.? It was revealed this week that Costco ordered a recall of 80,000 pounds of butter because the packaging did not state that the product was made from milk. The Costco announcement gave instructions on how to return the product or dispose of it. Is there a sentient human being that does not know that butter is produced from milk? I know that BrightSource, Inc. spent $55 million to buy land in California so as to move turtles off of the site where they built their solar energy field. Regulation is out of control, and the government only gets bigger and more sclerotic. The time has come for Musk and Ramaswamy to add their names to the great Americans of the past who pushed the country forward to a better future.
One cannot overstate the importance of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. X today is the best site for getting unfiltered news. Are there antisemitism and other problems on X? Yes, but the alternative is Jack Dorsey shutting down any account that dared to share an honest NY Post report on Hunter Biden's laptop. I think that it is fair to say that without an open X, Donald Trump would not have won the election. X was the site where Trump and others could honestly present news and information and successfully counter the lies of mainstream media that gave up all pretenses of impartiality in order to get Kamala Harris elected. We owe Elon Musk our gratitude for buying Twitter and opening up the platform to all ideas, and not just those officially approved by the left. I joined the site after he bought it.
If Donald Trump and his associates can clean up the FBI, straighten out the Department of Justice, get the Pentagon back into fighting shape and use the new department for government efficiency to make the bureaucracy smaller and more responsive, then they really should be planning for a fifth presidential visage on Mount Rushmore. President Trump has been moving quickly to announce his appointments and seems poised to use his second, delayed term to make America succeed again. In every generation, there are individuals who contribute to the U.S. beyond that which was required of them. While we no longer have five-star officers, we still have great Americans who through their example, time, effort and money push the U.S. into a brighter future.
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