People From Virginia

"The Medal of Honor is often given for one act of valor, but service members can also earn it for many acts over time. One of the more prominent names to have done that was World War II Marine Corps Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, whose command during the Guadalcanal campaign in the South Pacific led to a critical U.S. victory. Vandegrift was born March 13, 1887, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He went to the University of Virginia before being commissioned into the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant in 1909. Vandegrift didn't see combat during World War I, but he did serve overseas later in Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti and China. By 1942, when the U.S. had entered World War II, he had risen to the rank of major general. That summer, U.S. military leaders had learned that the Japanese were building an airfield on Guadalcanal, an obscure island in the Solomon Islands chain. It marked Japan's furthest advance toward the eastern half of the South Pacific, which was a great concern to the Allies. If Japan remained in control of the island, it could have imperiled vital U.S. supply lines to Australia and isolated that Allied nation. So, Guadalcanal became the focus of the first major U.S. offensive against the Japanese. For six months, Marines, sailors and soldiers took part in Operation Watchtower. Marines accounted for the largest part of the fighting force."

"Vandegrift commanded the 1st Marine Division -- the only trained amphibious assault troops available in the Pacific at the time. On Aug. 7, 1942, U.S. naval forces fired on a surprised enemy, driving the Japanese away from the airfield they were building and allowing Vandegrift's men an easy landing. U.S. Marines finished building the airfield and, on Aug. 20, the first Allied air units landed there. Over the next few months, Marines and U.S. soldiers held their position against repeated enemy attacks, despite low supplies, malnutrition and malaria. By November, the Allied land, air and sea assault had crushed the Japanese forces. On Dec. 9, Vandegrift turned over command of the forces to Maj. Gen. Alexander M. Patch. With that, the 1st Marine Division was relieved. The Japanese remained on Guadalcanal for another two months, pretending to bring reinforcements when they were actually evacuating surviving troops, according to the U.S. Department of Education. But the damage was done. Japan officially surrendered the island on Feb. 8, 1943. The U.S. victory set the stage for the ultimate defeat of the Japanese Imperial Navy. Vandegrift's tenacity, courage and resourcefulness were crucial in keeping his troops' spirits up during those months of fighting. For his inspiring leadership, he was given the Medal of Honor on Feb. 5, 1943, at a ceremony at the White House. Vandegrift is one of only three men to earn the Medal of Honor during the Guadalcanal campaign; Capt. Joe Foss and Gunnery Sgt. John Basilone also received it. Vandegrift was also the first Marine to earn both the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross."

"I could not have felt more strongly about this subject. One day an aide, Buddy Masters, came to me. "General," he said, "I'm worried about your eyesight which is getting worse. You read all day here in the office and then you take a couple of hundred Purple Heart certificates home, sign them at night and read some more. I have found a way to ease this." "How?" "The other day over at the Navy I saw a new machine bought for the Secretary. It writes his signature automatically, and it only costs a few hundred dollars." "Save the money," I told him. "If those boys can get wounded, I can find time to sign my name on their Purple Hearts.""

"We met in my cabin on the Argonne on the night of October 20- Maj. Gen. A.Archer Vandegrift, commanding the 1st Marine Division; Maj. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, who later commanded the Army troops that took over from the Marines; and Maj. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, the senior Army officer in the South Pacific. Also present, in addition to my skeleton staff and Ghormley's subordinate commanders, were Lt. Gen. Thomas Holcomb, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, who happened to be in Nouméa on an inspection tour, and Maj. Gen. C. Barney Vogel, who had just arrived as Commander of the I Marine Amphibious Corps. Archie Vandegrift and "Miff" Harmon told their bitter stories. It was quite late when we finished. I asked, "Are we going to evacuate or hold?" Archie answered, "I can hold, but I've got to have more active support than I've been getting." Rear Adm. Kelley Turner, commanding the Amphibious Forces Pacific, protested that the Navy was already doing its utmost. He correctly pointed out that the few bottoms we had were becoming fewer almost daily; we did not have the warships to protect them; there were no bases at Guadalcanal where they could shelter, no open water permitting evasive tactics; and enemy submarines were thick and active. When Kelley had finished, Archie looked at me, waiting. What Kelley had said was of course true. It was also true that Guadalcanal had to be held. I told Archie, "All right. Go on back. I'll promise you everything I've got.""

"CINCUS to Vandegrift for his flyers- Many happy returns Sunday and congratulations- Keep knocking them off."

"In November 1943, Vandegrift commanded the 1st Marine Amphibious Corps in Bougainville, another battle in the Solomon Islands. When he returned in January 1944, he became the 18th Marine commandant. During that time, he rose to the rank of four-star general, making him the first four-star general to be commandant while still on active duty. Vandegrift retired in 1948 after serving in the Marine Corps for nearly 40 years. In his retirement, he co-authored a book about his experiences during World War II. Vandegrift died on May 8, 1973, in Bethesda, Maryland, after a long illness. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The general's service to our nation continues to be honored. In 1982, the Navy frigate USS Vandegrift was named after him. The main street running through Camp Pendleton, California, also bears his name."

"I was in two minds about leaving because that is only human if you have served something you love for forty years. In those years I saw my Corps expand for service in World War I. I saw it wither away during the doldrums after. I saw it grow to nearly half a million men during World War II. I had since fought its demise. I was proud to command some of the finest troops the world has ever seen. My men came from every walk of life, almost every race and creed. Welded together, organized into splendid regiments, divisions and corps, filled with the esprit traditional to the Marines, these young men who fought in Pacific campaigns from Guadalcanal to Okinawa left a rich heritage for their Corps and for their country. A grateful nation should never forget what they did. To the names of Valley Forge, Lexington, Concord, Gettysburg, Shiloh, San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, St.-Mihiel and the Argonne they added Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Guam, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. These proud names spelled sublime sacrifice. To those who fought so splendidly, to those who fell and to the scarred survivors, I can only speak the immortal words of John: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.""

"Heather Heyer was a fat, disgusting Communist. Communists have killed 94 million. Looks like it was payback time"

"Like Black Lives Matter, militant Islam exists as a call to action for the violent rage some minorities feel towards the white majority."

"Our entire country would be better off if the South had won the Civil War."

"White people are being denied the ability to organize in political organizations the way other groups do, free of harassment, to face the issues important to us."

"I'm not a white supremacist. I'm not even a white nationalist. I consider myself a civil and human rights advocate focusing on the underrepresented Caucasian demographic. I've publicly stated numerous times that I do not want neo-Nazis at my rally, and they're not welcome."

"I think the alt-right thinks I am a cuck and not extreme enough and [liberals] think I am a white supremacist. None are true."

"Some questions should be dissolved rather than solved. That's what Wittgenstein said. (That's right, we're dragging Ludwig into this!) Sometimes the only way to answer a question is to realize you're asking the wrong question."

"I feel like trans culture is just so obsessed with reassuring ourselves that we’re valid, that we sometimes forget that the end goal of a political movement is not validity, it’s equality."

"Existential angst is often a disease of privilege. If you're actually being oppressed you have a struggle. You have something to fight for, and therefore a purpose, but for a lot of men their lack of purpose puts them in search of a struggle."

"Children, if I have to crawl off the goddamn floor on the morning of November 4th, brush aside the empty wine bottles and pick up my phone to discover that Caligula Jackson is President For Life; I am going to chew my way through the bathroom tile and I will not stop until I reach the gates of Hell. [...] Don't make me eat my bathroom tile, children. There's probably asbestos in that tile, because America's so great even the floor is made of poison."

"Do we have a theory on why people are gay? No. They just are. The only reason we even feel like we need a theory about trans people is that society is so unaccepting of us that it’s constantly demanding we justify our own reality."

"So when you reduce bigotry to a caricature of pure hatred you obscure that bigotry is a deeply human problem. [...] I believe that understanding bigots is the best defense against becoming one yourself because when you dehumanize the villains you become unable to recognize the villain within."

"We say "Look, toxic masculinity is the reason you don't have room to express your feelings, and it's the reason you feel lonely and inadequate". So, while feminism tells women "You hate your body and you're constantly doubting yourself because society did this to you and needs to change", we kinda just tell men "You're lonely and suicidal because you're toxic. Stop it!" We tell them that they're broken without really telling them how to fix themselves."

"To be a famous woman is to constantly have every part of your body and soul subjected to endless critique. You know, if you're one pound overweight they call you "fatty". If you're one pound underweight they say you have an eating disorder. And if you're exactly the right weight? They call you a fatty with an eating disorder!"

"Why does Donald Trump’s apartment look like Liberace married a Turkmenistani dictator and moved into a Cheesecake Factory? Well, because he’s trying to send a message, maybe to the world, maybe to himself."

"When I try to psychoanalyze myself, I find that my desires to look female, to look feminine, and to look beautiful are not exactly the same, but they're woven together so tightly that it's kind of difficult to untangle them."

"What about YouTubers? Which side of the revolution are we on? I’m just trying to figure out where I stand here, ‘cause if the revolution starts on Twitter, my head is definitely going in the basket, and then I’ll have no choice but to do the conservative talk show circuit, you know, like most people whose brains are detached from their bodies."

"I really don't want to shame men for feeling anxious about dating trans women because I mean, I was anxious too in the other direction, but I do want to shame men for treating trans women like their dirty little secrets. And I do wanna shame men for dehumanizing us and voting away our rights by day, while jerking off to "shemale" porn by night. And I do wanna shame men for refusing to date us because they're not strong enough to shoulder one hundredth of the burden of stigma that every trans woman carries every moment of every day. I do wanna shame men for attacking their trans girlfriends because they couldn't stand being treated like a gay man for five minutes. That is pathetic! If you're so worried about proving you're a man, why don't you start by standing up for the women you love, you chickenshit cowards?"

"It's boring and immature, like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy but it's not the darkness. The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire."

"Where I can see an escape from my particular doom spiral is in style as an alternative ideal to beauty. You can be stylish at any age. You can be stylish whether you pass or not. Style is a way of cultivating a personal aesthetic that you have complete control over. It's like art in that originality is a virtue. Style is an individual aesthetic, unlike the collective aesthetic of beauty standards."

"I really wish people would pay less attention to the tweets I spend 30 seconds writing and a little more attention to the video that I spent, you know, hundreds of hours making."

"As trans women we have little influence in society. The people who lead the conversations about us are bigger and stronger than we are. So we're like a jogger racing against a car. The only way to win is to hijack the car. And so this video is my attempt to hijack the conversation that straight men are having about us. As always my aspiration is to derive a woke conclusion from edgy premises, to shitpost my way to the moral high ground."

"Real acceptance has to be built on real understanding."

"The idea of heterosexuality includes much more than just sex between a man and a woman. It actually encompasses a complex series of rituals that must be performed by people who are playing the correct roles. So if a man deviates from his assigned part in the approved bedroom activities, then according to this very fragile view of heterosexuality, he ceases to be straight."

"I feel that retributive justice is still spiritually akin to revenge. It scratches the same emotional itch. It's basically revenge by proxy. If revenge is “wild justice” then retributive justice is domesticated revenge."

"Do you think you can purchase acceptance through conformity? Because that is not freedom. [...] That is simply adding another cell to the prison."

"Men often slut-shame because they want to control female sexuality. And by female sexuality, I do mean male sexuality. Because often what they're really struggling to control is their own desire."

"Political dissent begins with the vaguest feeling that something is wrong and a lot of people have that feeling but the problem with vague feelings is they can be channelled in any direction. The same vague angst can drive people to Communism or Fascism or anything in between."

"We all consent to be governed because it is in our own interest. Except it's really hypothetical consent more than anything, because no one actually asks you and you can't say no."

"I think it's heartwarming gibberish but there is also, I think, a legitimate role in the discourse for heartwarming gibberish. Sometimes you have to explain what being trans is to a person who believes that dogs go to heaven and, in most circumstances, saying "I'm a female soul in a male body" gets the point across."

"To fascists, the pursuit of individual happiness must be subservient to the health and success of the race. So in a sense, traditionalism is a much more collectivistic philosophy than Communism, which only demands communal ownership of the means of production. At least in theory, Communism doesn’t tell you what gender to be, or who and how to fuck."

"This means that if someone acts like a fascist, has fascist beliefs, repeats fascist talking points, and hangs out with other fascists, the fact that they publicly denounce fascism should be worth absolutely nothing to you, and shouldn’t even enter into your consideration of whether they’re a fascist. After all, “I’m not a fascist” is exactly what a fascist would say."

"That's the difference between me and the fascists. I want a society where people like me are simply allowed to exist, and - this is the important part - where people who are not like me are simply allowed to exist. Fascists want a society where only people like them are allowed to exist. The queer quest is to survive. The fascist quest is to be the only survivor."

"Hail mortals! I come to thee from my fairy grove to bring thee tidings of great woe. Western culture is being destroyed by cucks, and by genderbending, intoxication and sodomy. You know, things that have never happened in Europe."

"The most absurd thing about Roosh is that he doesn’t really seem to like sex very much. [...] It’s pretty clear that Roosh is not a hedonist. He is not pursuing pleasure. There’s an important distinction between a genuine voluptuary - someone like Casanova, who actually seems to like women and enjoy spending time with them - and a mere list-making maniac like Roosh or Don Giovanni."

"This catalogue aria [from Mozart’s Don Giovanni] is what a boring white weirdo named Kierkegaard called the most epic moment of the opera. It’s the moment that we learn that Don Giovanni is not just a predator, but that he’s actually fucking insane. He doesn’t care whether the women are young or old, beautiful or ugly, rich or poor, he seduces them all the same, just to satisfy his manic urge to add them to the list. In the 21st century there are men who are really like this. They’re called Pick-Up Artists, and they want you to buy their erotic memoirs."

"For your sake, stop counting how many people you’ve slept with. Women all seem to mysteriously have no idea how many people they’ve fucked. This is charming and adorable and men should emulate it because, in the real world, a Don Giovanni is a pretty unhappy thing to be."

"I look inside myself and ask, do I feel like a man, or a woman, and the answer is that I feel like shit."

"What is the connection between alpha and racism? Well, here's one idea. Calling yourself "alpha" basically means that you fetishize male dominance, which likely means that you're extremely anti-feminist, and extreme anti-feminism is often coupled with racism because these beliefs are not as separate as they seem. In fact they form two parts of the white nationalist world-view where the third part is anti-Semitism. The anti-Semitism is important because it helps explain why the supposedly naturally dominant white males are losing power to women and minorities. See, the core of the white nationalist world-view is concerned for the purity of white women. This leads to anti-feminism on the one hand because feminism is seen as a threat to traditional gender roles, that make white women subservient and loyal to white men. Non-white races are viewed as a threat to the purity of white women because they're often viewed as barbaric, dangerous, unclean and brutish. This is why xenophobes place so much emphasis on the sexual danger non-white immigrants pose to white women and it's why you'll see endless discussion of news events that validate this fear in white nationalist circles. But notice that this world-view is in need of an explanation for why the supposedly inferior races pose such a serious threat to the supposedly superior whites. Well, this is where the Jews come in. Anti-Semitism is different from other forms of racism in that, instead of being resented for being supposedly brutish and stupid, the Jews are resented for being smart, but in an evil duplicitous cunning sort of way. So the idea is that a Jewish elite is poisoning white society with ideas like multiculturalism, feminism and "Cultural Marxism", thereby leaving it vulnerable to the so-called third world invasion and it seems to me that this world-view is becoming increasingly common which is worrying since, funny though it may be on the fringe, with the wrong mix of power and desperation, the conclusion of these peoples' world view is genocide."

"Maybe all critique itself can do is allow you to sketch the bars of your own prison."

"Once bigotry or self-loathing permeate a given community, it is only a matter of time before deep metaphysical significance is assigned to the shape of human skulls."

"This is an aesthetic century. In history, there are ages of reason and ages of spectacle, and it's important to know which you’re in. Our America, our internet, is not ancient Athens - it's Rome. And your problem is you think you're in the forum, when you’re really in the circus."

"We have a psychological incentive to believe that people whom we envy are immoral monsters because then we get to label our hatred and violence towards them "justice"."