A Redleg's Perspective

Going off the air

2005-12-16T09:50:00.000-05:00

In hopes of helping out my good friend OPSEC, Operational security.

I've been thinking about this for a while and have decided to take the plunge. So I will still be out there, but I won't be posting anymore. I have met a lot of good blog brothers and sisters out there so stay hearty and blog worthy. I've got other things to do and can't worry about giving too much of what we do away to the enemy through OSINT-- Open Source Intelligence. That's what this is. I haven't given anything away nor have I been told to do this. I just feel that it's time.

Much thanks to Kat, Ala, AF Sis, AB, Frosty and all the rest out there. I will still be floating around.

ATW

Airborne

A friend WIA in Iraq

2005-11-28T05:33:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine was wounded in Iraq a few days ago by an IED.

He is all right, lost a lot of skin on one leg and the tendons in his left leg were exposed. He was the only soldier injured in the explosion and his XO has taken command of his battalion. He is on his way back home to rehabilitate.

What sucks is he had just gotten over there, but it could have been much worse.

I ask for your prayers and good thoughts for a good soldie, officer, and friend. LTC Jamie Inman. 3-320 FAR, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

A great essay

2005-10-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

This was written by the sister of one of our paratroopers, KIA in Iraq in 2004. She wrote it for Veteran's Day, November 11th. Formerly Armistice Day for you History buffs out there. It's a long but a great read.

She's a junior in high school and she gets it, like so many of our citizens do not. I thank god for the youth of this nation. They look and sometimes act like they don't get it, but they do.

Remember SGT Cory Mracek and his sacrifice.

FREEDOM IS RED, WHITE, AND BLUE
By
Heather Mracek

The dictionary defines the word freedom as the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without restraints. My definition of freedom is a broken heart draped in RED, WHITE, and BLUE. I define freedom this way because freedom is not free.

Freedom is not free. Freedom is dressed in red, white, and blue. Thomas Jefferson said it best when he said, “The trees of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the bloodshed of patriots and tyrants.” How many of us really understand or believe that statement. Do you know what it is like to sleep alone? To be cold? To miss your family? To be unappreciated by your country? Do you know what it is like to lose a loved one or a friend who fought and died for the freedoms that you enjoy every day?

And how many have received an American flag; followed by a 21-gun salute, followed by TAPS? I know that freedom is dressed in RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

We have five guaranteed freedoms in the First Amendment. They are freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and association, and the freedom to petition. Each and every day, I awake in this wonderful land, the United States of America, and I am free. I can go out of the house and not worry about someone killing my family or me because we disagree with our government or a dictator. I can go to school and speak my mind without worrying about getting thrown in jail. Each and every day, we take our freedom for granted unless our freedom has been dressed in red, white, and blue. Then we understand exactly what it means to be truly free.

It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is a right, but that does not mean that there are not responsibilities that go with it.
Reporters must report information accurately and fairly. Too often reporters only report a part of the story, only the part they want you to know. It may make the story entirely different that it is meant to be. The media has freedom of press, but we have the freedom to check the facts and form our own opinions.

It is the soldier, not the poet who has given us freedom of speech. Poems add a lot to our lives, but in some countries authors are not allowed to express their views. I thank God for our soldiers that we may read poetry as it is written and we may either agree or disagree with different views.

It is the soldier, not the organizer who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. Freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights that we enjoy. The United States, more than any other nation, has recognized the importance of this freedom, to safeguard democracy and allow us to grow as a nation. It is also a dangerous right because it means that we can disagree with your government and we may desire to change it. Some people think this freedom gives them the right to vandalize other people’s property and hurt the public. Our freedoms do not mean that we can do anything we want. We must still respect laws and other citizen’s rights

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protesters to burn the flag. Freedom is RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

According to USA Today that published a poll of high school students, 1 in 3 high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them. The survey of 112, 003 students found that 36% believe newspapers should get government approval of stories, 51% say they should be able to publish freely, 13% had no opinion. What this survey confirms is that kids aren’t learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics, or English classes. It also says much for adults’ attitudes. “ It’s part of our constitution, so it should be part of formal education,” says Jack Dvorak, director of High School Journalism Institute of Indiana University. It also is scary that so many think that this freedom should be lost. True, media sources need to show responsibility in their reporting, but we cannot allow it to be shut down.

The United States Supreme Court in 1989 ruled that burning or defacing the flag is protected free speech. A large majority of students in the USA Today poll surveyed believed that musicians and others should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, but 74% said people shouldn’t be allowed to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement, 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal. I personally do not want to see anyone burn or deface our flag as it means so much to my family, but to take away the freedom to do so would dishonor that casket that came home draped in RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

Everyone has the right to religious freedom. This includes the right of thought, conscience, and religion; this includes our right to change our religion or belief. Freedoms of religion allow us to teach, worship, and observe as we please. The First Amendment to the Constitution says Congress shall make respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Nowhere in the first amendment does it say that there should be separation of church and state. Every time I go to church, I think of some of the religious freedoms we are losing because of the zealots who think that separation of church and state is written in the constitution. I want to be able to say under God in the Pledge of Allegiance. I want to pray with a group of friends in school. I want to sing Christmas carols, and I want to pray at graduation. Please remember that coffin draped in RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

Freedom is taken for granted by most of us, spit upon by some of us, and cherished by a few. Some of those who cherish freedom are willing to come together to promise to protect this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This is a dream of freedom and the right to preserve it. One such person was my brother, Sergeant Cory Ryan Mracek. Cory loved his country. He was a soldier who was proud, had honor and courage. He joined the Army after high school and did his four years. He returned to his home but after September 11, 2001, he knew that his country needed him. He wanted to help in the fight against terror. He was one who joined to accept the price, the calling of having to leave behind everything he loved, to go to a country where people hated him, and all he stood for. He is draped in RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

Fallen Hero by M. Doris Fuller

I saw your Mother on television today.
Her face was sad as her tears flowed.
I have never met you or heard your name,
But you’re someone I wish I could know.

It seems hero’s lives may be too short,
But your death will help others be free. They say you died doing what you love
Because you love all Americans like me.

As I watch the bombs blast that desert city,
I know there are many young people like you
Who answered the call to the freedom fight?
I shall pray they not be a fallen hero too.

Your Dad’s face was unhappy and drawn,
As your casket his body was draped.
In his hands he was clutching “Old Glory,”
While praying his sorrow he couldn’t escape.

You gave everything you had to your country,
To your convictions you were forever true.
Fallen hero today you, America must honor
A soldier killed defending the RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

We have an obligation to stand up strongly in a society where freedom is taken for granted. We have a responsibility to the armed forces, to all the men and women who have lost their lives and to those that are still fighting, we need to support them. The armed forces protect our lives and the lives of our friends. We have the right to choose who we want to be in office. Along with that right comes the responsibility to be informed and educated in our opinions. We should use our freedom to vote to make sure that we elect people who care about our freedom are in office to protect us. We have a duty to that coffin draped in RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

Fear sometimes makes us lose sight of the freedoms we enjoy. Are we willing to trade some of our freedom for personal security? Is it too much to ask to open our bags when we get on an airplane so that they can check for weapons? Does it impose too much of our time? Should they check our bags when we get on the subway or a train? This does take away some of our freedom, but wouldn’t we rather be alive when we get to our final destination on that trip? Does freedom of the press mean that we should allow the media to be beside our soldiers at all times, even though it means that they are now in more danger because of it? Where is their freedom to do their jobs as they need to be done. Is our right to know more important than their safety and security? Where is the fair reporting that shows all the good things that are happening in Iraq? These are some hard questions. I personally do not believe that our soldiers should have to deal with the media every day. I am willing to give up that freedom to save their lives. In a poll taken in 2002, many Americans view some fundamental freedoms as possible obstacles to the war on terror. When President Bush addressed the nation in September, he cautioned us “freedom and fear are at war.” He noted that the terrorists targeted the United States because we embrace liberty. “The terrorists hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote, and assemble and disagree with each other,” the President said. The Iraqi’s now have some of the freedoms we enjoy. They have had several elections; they can speak their minds without worrying about being killed or having their hands cut off. Saddam Hussein is now on trial. I am sure that most of the Iraqi’s would like to take him and kill him, like he did to so many of them, but they are learning about rights and freedom. They will hold his trial and give him that right. The terrorists are so afraid of these freedoms that they kill their own people. They try to scare their own citizen’s from something that is so important to almost all Iraqi’s. They will prevail and Sgt. Cory Mracek will not have died in vain. He was so proud of the RED, WHITE, and BLUE.

The Red, White, and Blue by Jess Witherow

When I look at the flag what do I see?
The men and women who have died for me.
When I see the red,
I think of all the blood,
They have shed.
When I see the white,
I think of how hard they have to fight.
When I see the blue so bright,
I think of all the lonely nights.
When I see the flag,
I think of the freedom
Throughout this great land!

I found the Pledge of Allegiance as recited by Red Skeleton on his television show and thought it was worth repeating:
“I’ve been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you. If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word

I—me, an individual, a committee of one

Pledge—dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.

Allegiance---my love and my devotion.

To the flag---our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves, there’s respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody’s job.

United---that means that we have all come together.

States---individual communities that have united into 48 great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose: all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and that’s love for country.

And to the republic---a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and it’s from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.

For which it stands, one nation—one nation, meaning, “so blessed by God”

Indivisible—incapable of being divided

With liberty---which is freedom—the right of power to live one’s own life without threats, fear or some sort of retaliation.

And Justice—the principal or quality of dealing fairly with others.

For all---which means boy and girls, its as much your country as it is mine.

Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country
And two words have been added to the pledge of Allegiance
UNDER GOD
Wouldn’t it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too?
God Bless America”

Red Skeleton was a comedian. He died many years ago, but now someone is trying to take the words under God from our schools. Wouldn’t it be a pity to lose sight of the RED, WHITE, and BLUE?

The challenges for all of us, especially in these trying times, is to truly hold in our arms and fight for the freedoms we have and to recognize that sometimes for safety we must understand that even freedom has some boundaries.

FREEDOM IS A RIGHT WE HAVE BUT FREEDOM IS NOT FREE
MY BROTHER PLUS A WHOLE LOT MOREDIED FOR YOU AND ME.

I KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO HEAR
THAT 21-GUN SALUTE
THE SOUND OF TAPS SO NEAR
THE FLAG SO NEATLY FOLDED UP

THE PURPLE HEART, THE BRONZE STAR,
THE TEARS, THE PRIDE, THE PAIN
THE 82ND AIRBORNE CAME THIS FAR
MY BROKEN HEART DRAPED IN RED, WHITE, AND BLUE.

Freedom is not free because of you, my big brother
SGT Cory Mracek
I love you and miss you!

Why I Love My Army

2005-08-29T11:20:00.000-05:00

WILMA

It’s why I love my Army. I do, every day. Some days she’s a fickle mistress. I hate her sometimes. I still love her despite that. She will use you to fulfill her mission, all day, every day, every month and every year until you retire or you die in your country's service. But you should have known that coming in. And I love her still. The Army has taught me about all kinds of assorted and asymmetric things. I want to lay a few of those things out for you today. This isn’t a complete list and you should feel free to add you own in the comments.

But these are the things that have kept me going for 19 years and probably keep me going for a few more years at the very least.

It has taught me:

How to get along with anybody, in all circumstances and sometimes great stress. Even and perhaps, especially when they are assholes.

That sometimes just doing your job means pissing people off.

The best leadership technique in the Army today is the “just wandering around” theory. Getting out and seeing your equipment, battery and soldiers. Knowing the standards, asking questions and holding leaders accountable. Good leaders don't, can't sit in their office.

How to find the humor in any situation. If you can laugh your ass off in the frozen mud in an ice storm, wet, cold, and miserable, you can survive anything.

How to appreciate the great youth that comprise America’s armed forces. If you wanted to know what the latest incarnation of the greatest generation is, look to your soldiers. It’s them. They have the same spirit of our fathers and grandfathers in WWII and Korea. They know what freedom is worth and know that they are defending the Constitution and the freedom of the greatest nation on earth. Baggy pants and bad music notwithstanding.

How not to take youth for granted.

How to outrun at 38 an 18 year old with no conception of what heart is.

How to train that 18 year old to get and recognize heart.

How to seperate those 18 year olds and older who don't have heart and will never get it.

How it feels to show up at your 20th High School reunion in shape and fit (even after breaking an ankle on a night jump) and knowing for what your life has been lived. Knowing you did not wander through life and found yourself in a career you never envisioned at 19. Knowing you have seen and done things that most won’t or can’t understand. Knowing that you chose this life and this life chose you.

That knowing the previous does not make me smarter or a better person. It just makes me a soldier.

How to argue my position forcefully and with respect with superiors and then salute and execute legal orders I don’t necessarily agree with to the best of my ability. “Sir, I think that’s fucking stupid, and I reserve the right to tell you I told you so, but we will execute.”

That what you train on for years may not be the way you actually fight a war. After spending years training to fight a Soviet style enemy and learning how to identify and destroy Soviet style vehicles my first combat convoy was riding behind a Romanian BTR-70 (they called it an APC 77) with huge American and Romanian flags. Supported by Romanian 82mm mortars. Go figure.

That life ain’t fair. If you have any doubts about this go to just the first phase of ranger school.

That sometimes the enemy is smarter than you.

That sometimes I am smarter than the enemy.

That there is no way to tell the difference until it is too late.

That sometimes I am fighting the wrong enemy altogether and the greatest operational distracters can come from us

That life is at its best when it is at its most absurd.

That I can accomplish any given mission given a reasonable amount of like minded soldiers who want to get the job done.

That life sucks sometimes and you still got to do the job. Like on the 3rd day of an operation at 0300 without any sleep and still making it happen. It isn’t pretty and it isn’t perfect but it better than what most could do.

That being cold sucks.

That being hot sucks.

The previous things are absolutely true but not as much as being cold and wet at the same time.
That you should appreciate chow of all kinds and sleep of all kinds whenever you get the chance to get some of them.

How to sleep in any kind of military vehicle or aircraft in any situation. Even in combat.

That all you get after 65 jumps is hurt. And that life is good when you are the number one jumper.

To always carry a map and know where the hell you are.

To always have a filled radio that I know works.

That having an M4 is nice and an M9 is also nice. But it is better to have both, and an ample supply of ammunition.

That the greatest military on the face of the earth can’t deliver fresh bread and eggs without KBR.

That I would not now be as well educated (2 Masters degrees) nor as world experienced without the knowing complicity of my Army.

That few things were as nice as getting married in an Army chapel in my dress blues at Fort Campbell by a military chaplain and riding in a horse drawn carriage to the O'Club for the reception.

How to wait on line for everything. It’s what I am doing right now.

How to wait and like it.

That paperwork and email has it's place. And the paperwork gods must be appeased. And that a firm and cool knowledge of what paperwork must get routed where can expedite impossible problems.

That email does not constitute proper staff work. An action passed is not an action complete.

That incompetence you can depend on is better than technology you can’t.

To always check the batteries in my GPS, NODS, radio and M68. And take spares.

How to tell someone that he is full of shit while smiling in his face.

UPDATE:

For every action there is an equal and opposite overreaction

That’s all for now. Share your own.

National Airborne Day

2005-08-20T13:00:00.000-05:00

Have a jump on us!

And seriously I jumped for the first time since my broken ankle on Thursday on a sweet jump on St Mere Eglise DZ at Fort Bragg on Thursday.

CASA212 aircraft...ramp exit with a steerable MC1-1D parachute.

Nice exit and a soft landing, with a long walk in on the DZ on a humid day.

Great to be back jumping again, but my first one back was a softball pitch, but good enough for pay.

ATW

Happy Birthday to the 82nd Airborne Division

2005-08-15T09:25:00.000-05:00

Put on your boots, boots, boots
and parachutes, chutes, chutes
We're going up, up, up
and coming down, down, down

We're All American and Proud to be
For we are soldiers of liberty
Some ride their gliders to the enemy
Others are sky paratroopers

63 years and going strong

Did a nice Division run this morning-- Longstreet filled with paratroops

Makes you proud to be an American

Thank you from C Battery

2005-07-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

I asked Subsunk if I could post this. He and his friends have sent packages to my old battalion in Afghanistan. 1SG Robinson kindly wrote back:

Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 7:53 AM
Subject: Thank You

Mark,
I want to take this opportunity to thank you, Lucinda & the gals at First State Home Loans, John and of course all the other great Texans that contributed to this package. Thank you.

Quite a few of Soldier's here are from Texas. You obviously know my name already but I'll tell you a little about myself and where we're located. I'm a First Sergeant in an Airborne Field Artillery Battery from Fort Bragg, NC. We're part of the All American 82nd Airborne Division, "America's Guard of Honor". I have 75 Soldier's in country and we are currently located at Forward Operating Base Salerno, which is in southeast Afghanistan near the town of Khowst, which is not far from the Pakistan Border.

We've been in country now for about 3 months and plan on spending another 9 months. I have some really great Soldier's that are well trained and motivated and totally understand why we are here. A large portion of my Soldiers have served here before and some, like me, have served in Iraq. My Soldier's and I really appreciate what you and many more Americans like you do for us and the support you give us. Thanks.

Please always remember that these are the sons and daughters of America and that they are doing exactly what their country asked of them, not always because they want to but because their country asked them.

Again Mark thanks for everything, it was all shared with my Soldiers and your sons and daughters. I've enclosed a couple of pictures for you.Mark please tell your brother Frosty that I wanted to email him a thank you for the package but I did not have his email address and by the time I realized it I had already burned his address on the box. (Prevents the locals from getting the addresses) Tell him Thank You and the Soldier's enjoyed the package and the movies.

Airborne, All the Way!!
1SG Robinson
C-Btry 3-319th AFAR

a Paratrooper and the Media

2005-07-23T12:54:00.000-05:00

edited slightly for the home team

News Anchor Dan Rather and Peter Jennings, NPR Reporter Cokie Roberts and a U.S. paratrooper were hiking through the desert one day when they were captured by Iraqi insurgents. They were tied up, led to the village and brought before the leader.

The leader said, "I am familiar with your western custom of granting the condemned a last wish. Before we kill and dismember you, do you have any last requests?"

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowl of hot, spicy chili."The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Peter Jennings said "I am Canadian; so I'd like to eat some pure maple syrup on a plate of pancakes one last time". The leader nodded to a terrorist who left and then shortly returned with pure maple syrup and some pancakes. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.

Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end." The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. Yankee Pirate Paratrooper, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the trooper."

"What?" asked the leader. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the airborne soldier.

So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass. The trooper went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9mm pistol from inside his DCUs, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his assault pack, pulled out his M4 carbine, and calmly shot the insurgents down. In a flash, they were dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the soldier was untying Rather, Jennings and Roberts, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass first?

"What!?" said the trooper, "And have you three assholes call ME the aggressor?"

This one has got to be a joke. No paratrooper I know of would be alone with 3 reporters. And then untying them at the end? Sounds fishy.

Firearms refresher

2005-07-16T10:57:00.000-05:00

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

and remember in my rusty latin-- Sic Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you wish peace, prepare for war....)

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Glock: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights reserved.

11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and liberals.

15. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.

16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.

19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them..

22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we have, don't make more.

24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

26. "...A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

Female MP wins Silver Star

2005-06-17T14:39:00.000-05:00

My Father in law sent this to me, he is a retired MP with 29 and a half years in so if this impressed him, it surely does impress me

Look into the face of valor and what do you see....

Could you have done what she did? Or what the other 2 soldiers also decorated did? I hope I can say yes if the time ever comes, but no one knows for sure until the rounds start flying. I am awed at what our soldiers, any of our soldiers, can do. I used to worry about them, if they had the mettle, the character to stand up to the fire. Now I know, and I was wrong to worry about them. All I have to do is train them and give them the resources to do their jobs. And they will excel.

Woman Soldier Receives Silver Star for Valor in Iraq

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 16, 2005 – For the first time since World War II, a woman soldier was awarded the Silver Star Medal today in Iraq.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, vehicle commander, 617th Military Police Company, Richmond, Ky., stands at attention before receiving the Silver Star at an awards ceremony at Camp Liberty, Iraq, June 16. Hester is the first woman soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star. Photo by Spc. Jeremy D. Crisp, USA (high-resolution image available). Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, a National Guard unit out of Richmond, Ky., received the Silver Star, along with two other members of her unit, Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein and Spc. Jason Mike, for their actions during an enemy ambush on their convoy. Other members of the unit also received awards.

Hester's squad was shadowing a supply convoy March 20 when anti-Iraqi fighters ambushed the convoy. The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route. Hester led her team through the "kill zone" and into a flanking position, where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 grenade-launcher rounds. She and Nein, her squad leader, then cleared two trenches, at which time she killed three insurgents with her rifle.

When the fight was over, 27 insurgents were dead, six were wounded, and one was captured.
Hester, 23, who was born in Bowling Green, Ky., and later moved to Nashville, Tenn., said she was surprised when she heard she was being considered for the Silver Star.

"I'm honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal," she said.

Being the first woman soldier since World War II to receive the medal is significant to Hester. But, she said, she doesn't dwell on the fact. "It really doesn't have anything to do with being a female," she said. "It's about the duties I performed that day as a soldier."

Hester, who has been in the National Guard since April 2001, said she didn't have time to be scared when the fight started, and she didn't realize the impact of what had happened until much later.

"Your training kicks in and the soldier kicks in," she said. "It's your life or theirs. ... You've got a job to do -- protecting yourself and your fellow comrades."

Nein, who is on his second deployment to Iraq, praised Hester and his other soldiers for their actions that day. "It's due to their dedication and their ability to stay there and back me up that we were able to do what we did that day," he said.

Hester and her fellow soldiers were awarded their medals at Camp Liberty, Iraq, by Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, Multinational Corps Iraq commanding general. In his speech, Vines commended the soldiers for their bravery and their contribution to the international war on terror.

"My heroes don't play in the (National Basketball Association) and don't play in the U.S. Open (golf tournament) at Pinehurst," Vines said. "They're standing in front of me today. These are American heroes."

Three soldiers of the 617th were wounded in the ambush. Hester said she and the other squad members are thinking about them, and she is very thankful to have made it through unscathed. The firefight, along with the entire deployment, has had a lasting effect on her, Hester said.

"I think about it every day, and probably will for the rest of my life," she said.

D-Day 2005 redux

2005-06-01T19:12:00.000-05:00

HOW THE D-DAY INVASION WOULD BE REPORTED BY TODAY'S PRESS:

NORMANDY, FRANCE (June 6, 1944)

Three hundred French civilians were killed and thousands more were wounded today in the first hours of America's invasion of continental Europe. Casualties were heaviest among women and children. Most of the French casualties were the result of artillery fire from American ships attempting to knock out German fortifications prior to the landing of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. Reports from a makeshift hospital in the French town of St. Mere Eglise said the carnage was far worse than the French had anticipated, and that reaction against the American invasion was running high. "We are dying for no reason, "said a Frenchman speaking on condition of anonymity. "Americans can't even shoot straight. I never thought I'd say this, but life was better under Adolph Hitler." The invasion also caused severe environmental damage. American troops, tanks, trucks and machinery destroyed miles of pristine shoreline and thousands of acres of ecologically sensitive wetlands. It was believed that the habitat of the spineless French crab was completely wiped out, thus threatening the species with extinction. A representative of Greenpeace said his organization, which had tried to stall the invasion for over a year, was appalled at the destruction, but not surprised. "This is just another example of how the military destroys the environment without a second thought," said Christine Moanmore. "And it's all about corporate greed."

Contacted at his Manhattan condo, a member of the French government-in- exile who abandoned Paris when Hitler invaded, said the invasion was based solely on American financial interests. "Everyone knows that President Roosevelt has ties to 'big beer'," said Pierre LeWimp. "Once the German beer industry is conquered, Roosevelt's beer cronies will control the world market and make a fortune."

Administration supporters said America's aggressive actions were based in part on the assertions of controversial scientist Albert Einstein, who sent a letter to Roosevelt speculating that the Germans were developing a secret weapon -- a so-called "atomic bomb". Such a weapon could produce casualties on a scale never seen before, and cause environmental damage that could last for thousands of years. Hitler has denied having such a weapon and international inspectors were unable to locate such weapons even after spending two long weekends in Germany.

Shortly after the invasion began, reports surfaced that German prisoners had been abused by American soldiers. Mistreatment of Jews by Germans at their so-called "concentration camps" has been rumored, but so far this remains unproven.

Several thousand Americans died during the first hours of the invasion, and French officials are concerned that the uncollected corpses will pose a public-health risk. "The Americans should have planned for this in advance," they said. "It's their mess, and we don't intend to help clean it up."

Do you want to support the troops?

2005-05-31T04:41:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: I am going to keep this post on top for a little while. So support some troops.

Here's how.

If you support the troops or have been wondering how to do it—check these links out
If you like what they do, donate or help them out. I cannot tell you how much good you do when you're downrange and you get a package in the mail from someone who cares back home. A book, a can of Barbasol, a pine cone. It means a lot. The books you send overseas get read, and I would collect this stuff and send it out to my guys on the firebases to use. No political messages…just we support you. Also some great things for R&R and family members.

You will need your Soldier’s address with APO/FPO and when he/she is expected to return from overseas

Let me know if any of these are not what they seem to be and I will remove them but a cursory link to each one seems legit.

Links to “free” stuff for troops:

http://www.operationhomelink.org/ - Free computers for spouses/parents of deployed soldier in ranks E1 – E5.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/2/prweb106818.htm - free mail/gifts sent to children of deployed soldiers.

https://www.operationuplink.org/ - Free phone cards.

http://anysoldier.com/ForSoldiersOnly.cfm - To sign up for sponsoring soldier care packages for theater.

http://www.appreciateourtroops.org/forourtroops.shtml - To have commander sign up for mugs for unit troops.

http://www.operationshoebox.com/ - free shoebox care package.
.
http://bluestarmoms.org/airfare.html - lowest airfare available.

http://bluestarmoms.org/care.html - free care packages.

http://66.241.249.83/ - free air conditioners/heaters.

http://www.heromiles.org/ free air travel for Emergency Leave, and for the family members of injured soldiers to travel to Medical facility.

http://www.bluestarmothers.org/airlinespecials.php - Airline discounts for R & R.

http://www.booksforsoldiers.com/forum/index.php - free books, DVD’s, CD’s.

http://prayercentral.net/engage/militaryprayer/daily.php - daily prayer and scriptures.

http://www.militarymoms.net/sot.html - free care packages (your family member signs up to have sent to you).

http://operationmilitarypride.org/smsignup.html - free care packages.

http://www.soldiersangels.org/heroes/submit_a_soldier.php - get adopted to receive stuff.

https://www.treatsfortroops.com/registration/index.php - free gifts and care packages.

http://www.emilitary.org/forums/index.php?s=c200230df4b511793b37d9fa7072b056&showtopic=354&pid=664&st=0&#entry664 - free bible, Christian video, and book for spouse/family members of deployed troop.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2004/n11232004_2004112312.html - free shipping/packing materials for shipping to troops.

Copy the link into your browser and go from there. I have now checked out all of these links and they are good to go, as in they are what they appear to be. Check them out.

Efficiency Report Phrases

2005-05-12T17:57:00.000-05:00

Oh, how I wish we could write it like it really is.

Like a young Lieutenant running a hand grenade range who fell asleep while the range was hot "This officer has truly explosive potential."

Enjoy

- Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and started to dig.

- His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.

- I would not allow this employee to breed.

- This associate is really not so much of a has-been but more of definitely won't be.

- Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.

- When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change whichever foot was previously in there.

- He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.

- This young lady has delusions of adequacy.

- He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.

- This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

- This employee should go far; and the sooner he starts, the better.

- Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

- Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't looking.

- A room temperature IQ.

- Got a full six pack but lacks the plastic thing to hold it all together.

- Gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.

- A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on.

- A prime candidate for natural deselection.

- Bright as Alaska in December.

- Donated his body to science before he was done using it.

- One celled organisms outscore him on an IQ test.

- Fell out of the family tree.

- Has two brains; one is lost and the other is looking for it.

- Gates are down, the lights are on, but the train isn't coming.

- He is so dense light bends around him.

- If brains were taxed, she would get a rebate.

- If you stand too close to him you will hear the ocean.

- One neuron short of a synapse.

- Some drank from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.

- Takes him 1 ½ hours to watch 60 minutes.

- The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.

SFC Smith. Medal of Honor

2005-04-01T05:58:00.000-05:00

SFC Paul Ray Smith - Medal of Honor Recipient
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/battlescape/presentation.html

Remember him and what he lived for

Dear Civilians

2005-04-01T05:40:00.000-05:00

THis was too good to pass up, I had to post it. Some of you have read this before.

Dear Civilians,

We know that the current state of affairs in our great nation have many civilians up in arms and excited to join the military.

For those of you who can't join, you can still lend a hand.

Here are a few of the areas where we would like your assistance

1) The next time you see an adult talking (or wearing a hat) during the playing of the National Anthem---kick their ass.

2) When you witness, firsthand, someone burning the American Flag in protest---kick their ass.

3) Regardless of the rank they held while they served, pay the highest amount of respect to all veterans. If you see anyone doing otherwise, quietly pull them aside and explain how these veterans fought for the very freedom they bask in every second. Enlighten them on the manysacrifices these veterans made to make this Nation great. Then hold them down while a disabled veteran kicks their ass.

4) (GUYS) If you were never in the military, DO NOT pretend that you were. Wearing battle dress uniforms (BDUs), telling others that you used to be"Special Forces," and collecting GI Joe memorabilia, might have been okay when you were seven years old. Now, it will only make you look stupid and get your ass kicked.

5) Next time you come across an Air Force member, do not ask them, "Do you fly a jet?" Not everyone in the Air Force is a pilot. Such ignorance deserves an ass-kicking (children are exempt.

6) If you witness someone calling the US Coast Guard 'non-military, inform them of their mistake---and kick their ass.

7) Roseanne Barr's singing of the National Anthem is not a blooper---it was a disgrace and disrespectful. Laugh, and sooner or later, your ass will be kicked.

8) Next time Old Glory (the US flag) prances by during a parade, get on your damn feet and pay homage to her by placing your hand over your heart. Quietly thank the military member or veteran lucky enough to be carrying her---of course, failure to do either of those could earn you a severe ass-kicking.

9) What Jane Fonda Did during the Vietnam War makes her the enemy! The proper word to describe her is "traitor." Just mention her nomination for"Woman of the Year" and get your ass kicked!

10) Don't try to discuss politics with a military member or a veteran. We are Americans and we all bleed the same, regardless of our individual party affiliations. Our Chain of Command starts at the President, also regardless of political party, who is our Commander-In-Chief (for those who didn't know. We have no inside track on what happens inside those big important buildings where all those representatives meet. All we know is that when those civilian representatives screw up the situation, they call upon the military to go straighten it out. If you keep asking us the same stupid questions repeatedly, you will get your ass kicked!

11) 'Your mama wears combat boots' never made sense to me---stop saying it! If she did, she would most likely be a vet and therefore, could kick yourass!

12) Bin Laden and the Taliban are not Communists, so stop saying 'Let's go kill those Commie's!' And stop asking us where he is! Crystal balls are not standard issue in the military. That reminds me---if you see anyone calling those damn psychic phone numbers, let me know, so I can go kicktheir ass.

13) 'Flyboy' or 'Zoomie' (Air Force), 'Jarhead' (Marines), 'Grunt'(Army), 'Squid'(Navy), 'Shallow water sailor' (Coast Guard), etc., are terms of endearment we use describing each other. Unless you are a service member or vet, you have not earned the right to use them. That could get your ass kicked.

14) Last, but not least, whether or not you become a member of themilitary, support our troops and their families. Every Easter,Thanksgiving, and religious holiday that you enjoy with family and friends, please remember that there are literally thousands of sailors and troops far from home wishing they could be with their families. Thank God for our military and the sacrifices they make every day. Without them, our country would get its ass kicked.

It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of thepress.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag,

who serves beneath the flag,

and whose coffin is draped by the flag,

who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Authored by Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC

Please pass this on so I won't have to kick your ass!

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

If you are reading it in English, thank a veteran.

Ahh scotch...

2005-03-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

Single malt scotch

I will miss single malt highland scotch very muchly

Blackfive’s post about scotch

And check out the rest of Blackfive too. He is one hell of a paratrooper.

Did you know?

2005-03-12T07:46:00.000-05:00

What's up with Iraq?

DID YOU KNOW THIS?

Did you know that 47 countries have reestablished their embassies in Iraq?

Did you know that 3100 schools have been renovated,
364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?

Did you know that Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers?

Did you know that 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2004 for the reestablished Fulbright program?

Did you know that the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have 5- 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels and a navel infantry regiment.

Did you know that Iraq's Air Force consists of three operation squadrons, 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft which operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 bell jet rangers?

Did you know that Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?

Did you know that the Iraqi Police Service has over
55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

Did you know that there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3500 new officers each 8 weeks?

Did you know there are more than 1100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools,
67 public clinics, 15 hospitals, 83 railroad stations,
22 oil facilities, 93 water facilities and 69 electrical facilities.

Did you know that 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

Did you know that 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?

Did you know that there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?

Did you know that Iraq has an independent media that consist of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations?

Did you know that the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

Did you know that 2 candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a recent televised debate in their country recently?

OF COURSE WE DIDN?T KNOW!

WHY DIDN'T WE KNOW? OUR MEDIA WOULDN?T TELL US!

Because a Bush- hating media and Democratic Party would rather see the world blow up than lose their power.

Instead of shouting these accomplishments from every rooftop, they would rather show photo?s of what a few perverted malcontent soldiers have done in prisons in many cases never disclosing the circumstances surrounding the events.

Instead of showing our love for our country, we get photos of flag burning incidents at Abu Ghraib and people throwing snowballs at presidential motorcades.

The lack of accentuating the positive in Iraq serves only one purpose. It undermines the world's perception of the United States and our soldiers.

I AM ASHAMED OF MY FELLOW AMERICANS WHO WOULD RATHER SEE TERRORISM SUCCEED THAN A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT

Nothing is worse than war?

2005-03-09T05:58:00.000-05:00

Read this

Nothing is worse than war…

TWD, you might find this one interesting too

Man, it sucks to be right..part two

2005-03-09T04:40:00.000-05:00

This one has to hurtWashington Times
March 9, 2005
Pg. 1

Bush Foes Admit Benefits Of Iraq Policy

By James G. Lakely, The Washington Times

Some of the harshest Democratic critics of President Bush's Iraq policy have grudgingly admitted that it has helped spark a growing desire for democracy in the Middle East.

Democrats aren't taking to the Senate floor to praise Mr. Bush's role in the spectacle of Lebanese protesters demanding independence from Syrian control, or the elections in Iraq, or the news that Saudi Arabia and Egypt have committed to freer elections.

But many critics of the war -- which Lebanese democrats cite as a turning point in their cause -- are slowly admitting that the president may have done the right thing in quickly taking out Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who delivered a famous "chicken hawk" speech deriding the war advocates in the Bush administration and voted against funding the war, said yesterday that recent developments in Lebanon and Syria suggest the war was a force for good.

"The war gave the Lebanese the spine they needed," Mr. Lautenberg said yesterday. "It told them, 'We can get rid of these vultures.'Â"

Sen Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that Mr. Bush deserves some credit for the positive developments in the still volatile region.

"What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive," Mr. Kennedy said. "It's a reflection the president has been involved."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he didn't hear Mr. Bush's speech yesterday on spreading freedom in the Middle East, but "if there were ever a place in the world where we need democracy, it's in the Middle East."

"Any breakthrough we get there, whether it's in Lebanon or Egypt, is a step in the right direction and I support the president in that regard," Mr. Reid said.

Asked whether Mr. Bush deserved credit for those developments, Mr. Reid said "we'll just have to wait and see."

But Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, whose criticism of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy did not translate into a presidential victory in November, said Mr. Bush deserves no credit for recent developments in the Middle East.

"An assassination made this happen," Mr. Kerry said, referring to the car bomb that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last month. The killing has been blamed on Syria.

Mr. Kerry said any good that comes from the Iraq war does not make it the right decision.

"This was not the reason we went to war, but it's a very good outcome," Mr. Kerry said.

A senior Democratic Senate aide acknowledged that many in his party were surprised by recent developments in the Middle East and realized that attacking the president on the war would have less bite.

"You have to give the guy a modicum of credit," the senior aide said. "There's no denying that the Iraq vote could be a catalyst for change in the region. Everyone up here, Democrats and Republicans, want to see peace in that region."

Such conciliatory comments, however, contrast sharply with the heated anti-war rhetoric of just six weeks ago. Mr. Kennedy was the most vocal, calling the entire Iraqi operation a "failure" and demanding immediate U.S. withdrawal.

"Our military and the insurgents are fighting for the same thing -- the hearts and minds of the people -- and that is a battle we are not winning," Mr. Kennedy said in a speech at Johns Hopkins University just three days before Iraq's first free election in decades.

Mr. Kennedy also called Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam" in a Jan. 12 speech at the National Press Club, insisting Mr. Bush "has bogged America down in an endless quagmire."

Another Democratic Senate aide said he doesn't expect to hear much of that kind of talk in the future.

"Even if things start to go south, I think we all agree that ripping Bush over this is not very constructive," he said. "And nobody wants to be on the wrong side of this if it continues to go well, either."

Mark Steyn

2005-03-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

A very good read. And TWD if you're still trolling around you might want to read this one too.

Syria starting to get a little edgy these days. But Iraq had nothing to do with that.

Quote: ''You don't invade Iraq in order to invade everywhere else, you invade Iraq so you don't have to invade everywhere else.''

telling, but the end makes it even more biting. Please read it all.

Mark Steyn Election validates Bush

Hat tip to: Vodkapundit

Blonde Jokes

2005-03-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry Ala, but I had to do it. And I'm married to a blonde.

A brunette is trying to get across a river and suddenly she spots a blonde on the other side. She yells over to the blonde "Hey, excuse me! How do I get over to the other side?" And after a quick survey of the river, the blonde calls back "You ARE on the other side!"

A blonde is speaking to her psychiatrist. "I'm on the road a lot, and my clients are complaining that they can never reach me."
Psychiatrist: "Don't you have a phone in your car?"
Blonde: "That was a little too expensive, so I did the nextbest thing. I put a mailbox in my car."
Psychiatrist: "Uh ... How's that working?"
Blonde: "Actually, I haven't gotten any letters yet."
Psychiatrist: "And why do you think that is?"
Blonde: "I figure it's because when I'm driving around, my zip code keeps changing."

Blonde Inventions
1. The water-proof towel
2. Solar powered flashlight
3. Submarine screen door
4. A book on how to read
5. Inflatable dart board
6. A dictionary index
7. Ejector seat in a helicopter
8. Powdered water
9. Pedal-powered wheel chair
10. Water-proof tea bag

A blonde calls Delta Airlines and asks, "Can you tell me how long it'll take to fly from San Francisco to New York City?" The agent replies, "Just a minute..." "Thank you," the blonde says, and hangs up.

To get into heaven you had to walk up 100 stairs but on each stair god asks you a joke if you laugh you go to HELL. So the brunette gets to the 56th stair and bursts out laughing and gets sent to hell. Then red-head gets to the 97th stair and bursts out laughing and gets sent to hell. Then the blonde gets into heaven and bursts out laughing then god asked her "why are you laughing?" the blonde replied "I just got the first one!"

During a rock climbing expedition, an accident occurred, as some of the grappling hooks gave way. This left the eleven climbers clinging precariously to the wildly swinging rope suspended from a crumbling outcropping on the Mountain. Ten were blonde, one was a brunette. As a group they decided that one of the party should let go. If that didn't happen the weight on the rope would cause more of the hooks to give way and everyone would perish. For an agonizing few moments no one volunteered. Finally the brunette gave a truly touching speech saying she would sacrifice herself to save the lives of the others. All ten blondes applauded.

A blonde buys a ticket and wins the lottery. He goes to lottery headquarters to claim it and the man verifies his ticket number. The blonde says, "I want my $20 million." The man replied, "No, sorry lady. It doesn't work that way. We give you a million today and then you'll get the rest spread out for the next 19 years." The blonde said, "Oh, no. I want all my money right now! I won it and I want it." Again, the man explain that he would only get a million that day and the rest during the next 19 years. The blonde, furious with the man, screams out, "Look, I want my money! If you're not going to give me my $20 million right now, then I want my dollar back!"

A blonde buys a box of laundry detergent, and it says on the box, "20 uses". A day later, the blonde calls the laundry detergent company and says" I bought your product and the box says '20 uses', but all it does is my laundry!

A blonde walks into a library and says, "Can I have a burger and fries?" The librarian says, "I'm sorry, this is a library." So the blonde whispers, "Can I have a burger and fries?"

A plane is on its way to Montreal when a blonde in Economy Class gets up and moves to the First Class section and sits down. The flight attendant watches her do this and asks to see her ticket. She then tells the blonde that she paid for economy and that she will have go sit in the back.The blonde replies "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, I'm going to Montreal and I'm staying right here!" The flight attendant goes into the cockpit and tells the pilot and co-pilot that there is some blonde bimbo sitting in First Class that belongs in Economy and won't move back to her seat.The co-pilot goes back to the blonde and tries to explain that because she only paid for Economy she will have to leave and return to her seat. The blonde replies, "I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, I'm going to Montreal and I'm staying right here!" The co-pilot tells the pilot that he probably should have the police waiting when they land to arrest this blonde woman that won't listen to reason.The pilot says "I'll handle this. I'm married to a blonde and I have learned to speak 'blonde'!" He goes back to the blonde, whispers in her ear, and without question she gets up and moves back to her seat in the Economy section. The flight attendant and co-pilot are amazed and ask him what he said to make her move without any fuss. "I told her First Class isn't going to Montreal."

A blonde decided to redecorate her bedroom. She wasn't sure how many rolls of wallpaper she would need, but she knew that her friend blonde friend from next door had recently done the same job and the two rooms were identical in size. "Buffy," she said, "how many rolls of wallpaper did you buy for your bedroom?" "Ten," said Buffy. So the blonde bought the ten rolls of paper and did the job, but she had 2 rolls leftover. "Buffy," she said. "I bought ten rolls of wallpaper for the bedroom, but I've got 2 leftover!" "Yes," said Buffy. "So did I."

A blonde women started to work at a school as a teacher. It came to break time, and while she was on duty she noticed a girl standing on her own and thought nothing of it. Later in the day when lunch time came she noticed the same girl on her own again, while other children were enjoying a game of football. She decided to go over to the girl and asked her if she was alright, the girl replied "Yes" and the teacher said "Why are you always on your own here?" to which the girl replied "Because I'm the goalie!"

There was three blondes at the University of Texas. The Dean gave them the job of measuring the height of the new flagpole. So they put the flag pole in the base and are then on ladders trying to measure the flagpole. Finally an architect walks by and sees they are having trouble so he takes the pole out of the ground and lays it down and pulls out his tape measure and measures the pole. He writes the measurement on a piece of paper and walks away. The blondes look at each other and say "Just like those damn architects give us length when we wanted height.

Man it sucks to be wrong

2005-03-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

And then to wake up and discover that you were in fact actually wrong all along. A couple years late but I'm glad some of the Dems are waking up at last.

When a majority of the them decide to wake up and become a coherant party again a two party systems becomes viable. Until then they will just keep losing elections. This is a bright bit of hope that some of them are processing reality again.

A must read Bush as the Greatest President, oh no…. It is good to wake up sometimes, isn’t it. A nice cup of shut the f%@k up.

Hat tip to: Brian Tiemann’s Peeve Farm

To the field.....

2005-02-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

For a certification exercise

No booze, no real life, just me, Holland Drop Zone and 3000 of my closest friends.

Living in tents together. Cool.

Time is dribbling away from us again. Less than a month left and all my gear shipped. And still fiddling around in the field at Fort Bragg. Love it. Absolutely love it.

Blogging, might or might not be light. Connectivity is supposedly established. I've heard that one before. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm bringing cigars and I've started chewing tobacco again. There is no single malt scotch in Afghanistan, I've seen.

And BTW the Makarov shoots great. Put about 100 rounds through it on Sunday instead of going to church. More fun than church.

Fair is fair: why handguns are better than men

2005-02-17T08:33:00.000-05:00

Equality, equality. This is why I love this country.

1. You are guaranteed satisfacation with a handgun.

2. You are likely to be satisfied more than once.

3. It's okay if handguns are small.

4. Average size of a handgun is more than 5 inches.

5. Handguns don't roll over and go to sleep.

6. A handgun still fires after more than one round.

7. A handgun can be hidden away when you are tired of dealing with it.

8. A handgun doesn't needlessly compete with other handguns for matters of the ego.

9. Handguns don't complain when you want to go shopping.

10. Handguns don't complain when you want to watch a chick flick.

11. A handgun won't come home drunk at night.

12. Handguns don't leave the toilet seat up.

13. You can still play with a handgun during your period. In fact, you might even enjoy it more than usual.

14. It's not a problem to share your gun with your girlfriends.

15. Handguns aren't intimidated by assertive, intelligent women.

16. Handguns don't suffer from barrel envy.

17. You don't have to worry about whether your hair and makeup are done for a handgun.

18. Handguns don't mind if you wrap your hands around another one.

Hat tip to The Bitch Girls

TOP 10 REASONS WHY MOST MEN FAVOR HANDGUNS OVER WOMEN:

2005-02-16T17:37:00.000-05:00

#10 - YOU CAN TRADE AN OLD 44 FOR A NEW 22.

#09 - YOU CAN KEEP ONE HANDGUN AT HOME, AND HAVE ANOTHER FOR WHEN YOU'RE ON THE ROAD.

#08 - IF YOU ADMIRE A FRIEND'S HANDGUN, AND TELL HIM SO, HE WILL PROBABLY LET YOU TRY IT OUT A FEW TIMES.

#07 - YOUR PRIMARY HANDGUN DOESN'T MIND IF YOU KEEP ANOTHER HANDGUN FOR A BACK UP.

#06 - YOUR HANDGUN WILL STAY WITH YOU EVEN IF YOU RUN OUT OF AMMO.

#05 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T TAKE UP A LOT OF CLOSET SPACE.

#04 - HANDGUNS FUNCTION NORMALLY EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH.

#03 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T ASK, "DO THESE NEW GRIPS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?"

#02 - A HANDGUN DOESN'T MIND IF YOU GO TO SLEEP AFTER YOU USE IT.

AND, THE NUMBER ONE REASON A HANDGUN IS FAVORED OVER A WOMAN...

#01 - YOU CAN BUY A SILENCER FOR A HANDGUN!

heh-heh, no offence ladies, really

Ralph Peters on the USAF

2005-02-15T06:10:00.000-05:00

Peters is a retired Army LTC who is a prolific writer and considered by some, to be an expert in terrorists and the ways to kill them. Usually he shoots at the Army, looks like he has bagged his limit and moving to another hunt stand. also, he was sitting next to Marine LTG Mattis last week when he made comments about killing Talibanis. Peters wrote a piece in support of what Mattis said.

Interesting comments and painfully on the mark for the USAF. I'm not certain and Army or Marine General is right for Air Force Secretary, but maybe a a Special Operations Air Force General or a retired Colonel who can purge the establishment and bring them in line with the transformation of the rest of the military.

SAVING THE U.S. AIR FORCE

By RALPH PETERS

February 11, 2005 -- We need to save the United States Air Force -
from itself. This critical component of our national security has
become corrupt, wasteful and increasingly irrelevant. The problem
doesn't lie with the front-line pilots or ground crews. The cancer is at the top, in the Department of the Air Force and on the Air Force Staff.

Consider just a few recent problems: Former Air Force Secretary James G. Roche, who resigned last month to evade a corruption investigation, has just been cited for ethics violations in dealing with the defense industry. The service's top acquisition official, Darleen Druyun, is in prison for her role in a corrupt tanker-leasing deal. The scam had been a top priority under Roche. The Air Force's top lawyer got the boot for sexual shenanigans with subordinates. The service continues to demand the nearly useless, $300-million-per-copy F/ A-22 fighter, a Cold-War legacy system wildly out of sync with our security needs. The Air Force's "shock and awe" effort that opened Operation Iraqi Freedom was a complete bust. The sound-and-light show over Baghdad was supposed to prove that we no longer needed ground troops to win wars.

The reverse proved true. In our current operations in Iraq, the Air
Force's procurement choices have left it searching for missions to
prove its relevance. Recently, one Army division commander shook his
head and told me, "I had aircraft stacked up, begging for missions so the pilots could get combat credit. But I just couldn't use them."

America needs a strong Air Force, but we have the wrong Air Force. The service's leadership, military and civilian, displays greater loyalty to the defense industry than to our national defense (the contractors who supply the Air Force teem with retired generals). Today's Air Force clings to a fight-the-Soviets (or at least the Chinese) model with greater passion than yesteryear's Army clung to the horse cavalry. And Air Force leaders lie. Last year, in war games with the Indian air force, our blue-suiters suffered embarrassing defeats. Our guys were arrogant and failed to think innovatively. We also had crucial high-tech gear turned off. The Indians used imaginative tactics - and overwhelmed us with numbers.

Our Air Force's response?

To insist the humiliation "proved" the need for the F/ A-22. Yet
purchasing that gold-plated piece of junk means that we could afford
still fewer aircraft in the future - we could be swarmed by other
countries with lower-tech, affordable planes, just as the Indians did it. Numbers matter. The Air Force doesn't need fewer, "more capable" aircraft. It needs more metal. But not the junk the contractors want to foist on the taxpayer and that ethically challenged senior officers want to buy. We need: A revitalized transport fleet: We rely on the workhorse C-130 for tactical lift, but the design is nearly a half-century old. The Army and Marines are told to make tomorrow's combat vehicles fit into the C- 130's tight hold. That's backward.

Next generation combat vehicles will be so systems rich that no amount of miniaturization will let them fit in a C-130. We need to design the fighting systems we need, then build planes to lift them. An affordable replacement for the great, but aging B-52 bomber: Those magnificent craft continue to outperform later, platinum-priced bombers, such as the Rube-Goldberg B-1 and the fragile B-2. We need a new, cost-efficient and robust bomber to replace B-52s nearly twice as old as their crews. A no-nonsense ground-attack aircraft to replace that splendid killing machine, the A-10. Ground-attack operations - especially in urban environments - are the wave of the future. The Air Force needs to stop dreaming of the missions it wants and face the missions we've got. A multi-role-fighter fleet that rejects Cold-War-era designs and starts afresh. Billions already spent are no reason to waste billions more on yesterday's concepts. Don't throw good money after bad. Our Air Force needs fresh thinking, adequate funding and an increase in the numbers of airplanes we can launch.

Instead, we get old thinking, massive waste and a shrinking fleet. The Air Force has been Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's darling. The Army and Marines were supposed to shrivel to free up more funding for Air Force whistles and bells. Rumsfeld was so happy with the state of affairs in our disintegrating Air Force that he actually tried to move arch-scoundrel Roche over to become Secretary of the Army.

Fortunately, Sen. John McCain put a stop to that. Now Rumsfeld is
fighting to prevent desperately needed permanent increases in the size of our ground forces, while struggling to preserve disgraceful Air Force legacy buys. It's time for the Senate to call him on the carpet. The Air Force badly needs reform. Our men and women in uniform deserve it.

For a start, the service needs a secretary chosen from the ranks of
retired Marine or Army four-stars, a man with joint experience who can do what a series of corporate- America secretaries could not: Hold the Air Force's renegade generals to account.

Second, the senior Air Force generals need to be purged. Instead of
intellectual relics with fighter or bomber backgrounds, Air Force
special-operations commanders - men who know what postmodern warfare
means - should be given the service's top jobs. With the mission of making the Air Force relevant to the 21st century.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and
Peace."

Family and Friends

2005-02-12T12:39:00.000-05:00

I just received this today. Joan

I hope you are having a great Sunday morning where ever you may be in America. I want to thank each of you for the pride you feel for America and for the support you extend to those of us who serve her. Today I may be the proudest I have ever been of being and American Soldier. As I walked the streets of Sadr City today, I saw the best the human spirit has to offer. Despite the many cultural and religious differences between our soldiers and the local people, I saw men, women, and children genuinely ecstatic and thankful because they had tasted the first morsel of freedom. Don't believe any negativity that may be in the news today. There were a few very isolated incidents in which Iraqi patriots lost their lives, but freedom and democracy moved forward despite it. You may have seen on the news that there was a rocket attack in Sadr City today. That was in our area of operations and I went there after the incident. The rocket hit about 40 meters from a polling station and killed 3 Adults and a child, destroyed 7 vehicles and damaged buildings. Despite that, the people cleaned up the mess and continued to flood into the polling center to vote. While neighborhood members mopped the blood into the gutter, others continued to enter the station to take advantage of their new found freedom. The mother of the dead child voted, despite her grief. Elsewhere in our brigade's sector two suicide bombers attacked polling stations. People were killed and injured, but the polling stations remained open.

I walked with my patrol today throughout Sadr City, down the very same street on which I was almost killed on the 7th of September, and the people thanked us for providing them the security they needed to see this day through. It was heartwarming, it made me full of pride for our soldiers and their efforts, not just this week but since this all began. It convinced me, maybe for the first time, that this is genuinely worth it. It absolutely convinced me that David Heath, Brandon Titus, Henry Risner, Yoe Aneiros, David Waters, Mark Stubenhofer, and the over 1000 others did not die in vain. It convinced me that SGT Mendoza lost both of his legs in the pursuit of a higher purpose. I am assured that the 91 soldiers from this task force that have bled in the streets of this city did so in order to make this day a reality. Today exceeded my wildest expectations, and while much remains to be done, a seed is planted, and I don't believe any amount of tyranny and terror can thwart its growth. Today as I watched men and woman swell with joy and pride as they showed me the indelible ink on their finger that proved they had voted, I developed new hope for the future. It took today, made possible by nearly two years worth of blood, sweat, and tears of both Iraqis and coalition forces, to make the hope for freedom a reality and paint genuine hope for the future in both the minds of our soldiers and that of the people of Iraq. I don't know if deep down, anyone ever thought today could happen. IT DID!

There will be more violence and deaths, and there is so much more work to do here that on any given day it seems overwhelming. Today convinced us who witnessed it, beyond any doubt, that the cause is just and the cost and effort are worth it. Today was an amazing day for Iraq, for America and her allies, and for the world. As I type this I am nearly brought to tears by the pride I feel for the flag that adorns my right sleeve, and for all that it stands for. God Bless you all, God bless the seeds of freedom, and God Bless America!

Maj. John Vermeesch

S-3, 1 / 41 Inf

Tower Talk

2005-02-12T12:32:00.000-05:00

Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"
==========================================

"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."

"Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

"Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"
==========================================

From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: "I'm
f...ing bored!"

Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"

Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"
==========================================

O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."

United 239: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this...I've got the little Fokker in sight."
==========================================

A DC-10 had come in a little fast and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.

San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadalupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."
==========================================

There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked." Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind an eight-engined B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah," the fighter pilot remarked, "the dreaded seven-engine approach."
==========================================

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent) "Because you lost the bloody war."
==========================================

Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"

Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."

Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"

Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger...and yes, we copied Eastern. We've already notified our caterers."
==========================================

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, "What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."
==========================================

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I didn't land."
==========================================

While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.

An irate female ATC ground controller lashed out at the US Air
crew, screaming:

"US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to
turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"

Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically:

"God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to
sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"

"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.

Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.

Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:

"Wasn't I married to you once?"
================

Intimate Killing

2005-02-12T07:17:00.000-05:00

BG Mattis came to speak to us at Marine Command and Staff at Quantico in '02, shortly after he had returned from the initial stages of OEF. A very frank and direct Marine. He speaks the truth as he sees it.

"If you are offended by these emotions, then seriously consider joining an Army or Marine infantry unit so that you can demonstrate how to kill an enemy in a more humane and politically correct manner."

Washington Times
February 7, 2005
Pg. 19
'Intimate Killing'
Close combat and the art of war
By Robert H. Scales

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on the future of warfare. Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis was one of the panelists. During his remarks he made a statement about the pleasure that young soldiers and marines feel when killing in close combat, a statement that seems to have gotten him in trouble with the fourth estate — prompting an apology and some counseling by the Marine Corps Commandant.

First, a confession: I know Gen. Mattis. He is a central figure in the book I coauthored with Williamson Murray, "The Iraq War: A Military History." For those of you who might have the image of a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, let me assure you that he is one of the most urbane and polished men I have known. He can quote Homer as well as Sun Tzu and has over 7,000 books in his personal library.

Jim is the product of three decades of schooling and practice in the art of war. No one on active duty knows more about the subject. He is an infantryman, a close-combat Marine. He is one of those very few who willingly practices the art of what social scientists term "intimate killing." Those of us who have engaged in the act understand what he was trying to explain to an audience of defense technologists and contractors.

Intimate killing is a primal aspect of warfare unchanged since the beginning of civilization. It involves a clash of two warriors, one on one, armed with virtually identical weapons. The decision goes to the soldier with the right stuff, the one with the greater cunning, strength, guile, ruthlessness and will to win.

For a moment put yourself in the place of a young soldier or Marine fighting house to house in the mean streets of Fallujah. Burdened with over 60 pounds of gear, sweat dripping constantly into your face, you can't stop shaking from the fear of what the enemy has in store for you around the next corner. Just ahead is a darkened house with doors and windows closed and shuttered. The only sound is the crunching of your boots on the trash and broken glass as you move in slow motion to surround the dwelling. You watch as the sergeant signals you to cover a side entrance. Through the faint haze you can see your buddy kick in the door and immediately come face to face with an insurgent who greets him with a burst of AK-47 fire that tears a hole in his chest. Your buddy doesn't die. The terrorist wants him to live just long enough for his buddies to rush in for a rescue and become additional trophies to be laid at the altar of heaven.

Now, it's your turn. You use your superior discipline and skill to approach the insurgent such that you're detected just at the last second. Both of you raise your weapons simultaneously and open fire in a crushing tear of bullets that scatter and ricochet wildly across the room. One bullet finds the bad guy and he falls in a bloody lump just inches from your boots.What exactly do you "feel" at this moment? Relief, to be sure, but also something else that cannot be explained to anyone who hasn't committed an act of intimate killing. It's not joy, exactly, more like exhilaration and an enormous sense of self-satisfaction that in one of the most primal challenges — where all the satellites, planes, ships and smart weapons are of no use whatever — you prevailed, one on one, over a diabolically evil enemy.

Who should be offended by the emotions of "joy" or whatever one feels at the moment of a successful kill? It's a fair fight, you win and the bad guy loses. It's that simple. One more terrorist will not threaten your unit or your buddies. Remember, this isn't a reality show. There are no retakes. Donald Trump doesn't fire you and the price for second place is death.

My point simply is this: We must celebrate the fact that we have men like Jim Mattis willing to devote (and give) their lives when necessary to commit an act that most of those in our society would be horrified to even contemplate. If you are offended by these emotions, then seriously consider joining an Army or Marine infantry unit so that you can demonstrate how to kill an enemy in a more humane and politically correct manner.

Until such an unlikely day occurs, we must all remember that leaders like Gen. Mattis and the men he commands are the rarest commodities that a protected society like ours can produce. All they want is the opportunity to serve a country that truly appreciates the difficulty and dangers inherent in the duties they perform, duties that very few are willing even to contemplate.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales is a former commander of the Army War College

We should all be thankful we have men like these. I support them with forward observers and liberal amounts of HE. What have you done for them today?

GI Tips

2005-02-12T07:13:00.000-05:00

Sometimes referred to as Murphy's Laws of Combat http://www.megazone.org/Random/murphy.shtml

"WHEN THE PIN IS PULLED, MR. GRENADE IS NOT OUR FRIEND" - US Marine Corps

"CLUSTER BOMBING FROM B-52s IS VERY, VERY ACCURATE. THE BOMBS ARE GUARANTEED TO ALWAYS HIT THE GROUND." - USAF Ammo Troop.

"IF THE ENEMY IS IN RANGE, SO ARE YOU." - Infantry Journal

"A SLIPPING GEAR COULD LET YOUR M203 GRENADE LAUNCHER FIRE WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. THAT WOULD MAKE YOU QUITE UNPOPULAR IN WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR UNIT." - Army's magazine of prevention maintenance

"IT IS GENERALLY INADVISABLE TO EJECT DIRECTLY OVER THE AREA YOU JUST BOMBED." - US. Air Force manual

"TRY TO LOOK UNIMPORTANT; THE ENEMY MAY BE LOW ON AMMO." - Infantry Journal

"TRACERS WORK BOTH WAYS." - U.S. Army Ordnance

"FIVE-SECOND FUSES ONLY LAST THREE SECONDS." - Infantry Journal

"BRAVERY IS BEING THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS YOU'RE AFRAID" - David Hackworth

"IF YOUR ATTACK IS GOING TOO WELL, YOU'RE WALKING INTO AN AMBUSH." - Infantry Journal

"NO COMBAT-READY UNIT HAS EVER PASSED INSPECTION." - Joe Gay

"ANY SHIP CAN BE A MINESWEEPER...ONCE." - Anonymous

"NEVER TELL THE PLATOON SERGEANT YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO." - Unknown Marine Recruit

"DON'T DRAW FIRE; IT IRRITATES THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU." - Infantry Journal

"IF YOU SEE A BOMB TECHNICIAN RUNNING, TRY TO KEEP UP WITH HIM." - USAF Ammo Troop

I owe my Mother

2005-02-12T07:09:00.000-05:00

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
"If you're going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning."

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
"You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

3. My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.
"If you don't straighten up, I'm go ing to knock you into the middle of next week!"

4. My mother taught me LOGIC.
" Because I said so, that's why."

5. My mother taught me MORE LOGIC.
"If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

6. My mother taught me FORESIGHT.
"Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."

7. My mother taught me IRONY.
"Keep crying, and I'll give you something to cry about."

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.
"Shut your mouth and eat your supper."

9. My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.
"Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
"You'll sit there until all that spinach is gone."

11. My mother taught me about WEATHER.
"This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it."

12. My mother taught me about HYPOCRISY.
"If I told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate!"

13. My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
"Stop acting like your father!"

15. My mother taught me about ENVY.
"There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don't have wonderful parents like you do."

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
"Just wait until we get home."

17. My mother taught me about RECEIVING.
"You are going to get it when you get home!"

18. My mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE.
"If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way."

19. My mother taught me ESP.
"Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you are cold?"

20. My mother taught me HUMOR.
"When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me."

21.My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.
"If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up."

22. My mother taught me GENETICS.
"You're just like your father."

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
"Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?"

24. My mother taught me WISDOM.
"When you get to be my age, you'll understand."

25. And my favorite: My mother taught me about JUSTICE.
"One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!"

Very good reading....

2005-02-12T07:04:00.000-05:00

Evil but good

WOMAN'S PERFECT BREAKFAST
She's sitting at the table with her gourmet coffee.
Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box.
Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week.
Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl.
And her husband is on the back of the milk carton.

WOMEN'S REVENGE
"Cash, check or charge?" I asked, after folding items the
woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet
I noticed a remote control for a television set in her
purse. "So, do you always carry your TV remote?" I asked.

"No," she replied, " but my husband refused to come
shopping with me, and I figured this was the most
evil thing I could do to him legally."

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN
(A MAN'S PERSPECTIVE)
I know I'm not going to understand women.
I'll never understand how you can take boiling hot wax
pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root,

and still be afraid of a spider.

MARRIAGE SEMINAR
While attending a Marriage Seminar dealing with
communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the
instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know
the things that are important to each other."
He addressed the man,
"Can you describe your wife's favorite flower?"
Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and
whispered, "It's Pillsbury, isn't it?
The rest of the story gets rather ugly, so I'll stop right
here.

CIGARETTES AND TAMPONS
A man walks into a pharmacy and wanders up and down
the aisles. The sales girl notices him and asks him if she
can
help him. He answers that he is looking for a box of
tampons for his wife. She directs him down the correct
aisle. A few minutes later, he deposits a huge bag of
cotton
balls and a ball of string on the counter.
She says, confused, "Sir, I thought you were looking for
some tampons for your wife? He answers,
" You see, it's like this, yesterday,
I sent my wife to the store to get me a carton of
cigarettes,
and she came back with a tin of tobacco and some rolling
papers; cause it's sooo-ooo--oo-ooo much cheaper.

So, I figure if I have to roll my own
........... so does she.

(I figure this guy is the one on the milk carton!)

WIFE VS. HUSBAND
A couple drove down a country road for several miles,
not saying a word. An earlier discussion had led to an
argument and neither of them wanted to concede their
position As they passed a barnyard of mules, goats,
and pigs, the husband asked sarcastically, "Relatives of
yours?"

"Yep," the wife replied, "in-laws."

WORDS
A husband read an article to his wife about how many
words women use a day... 30,000 to a man's 15,000.
The wife replied, "The reason has to be because we
have to repeat everything to men...
The husband then turned to his wife and asked, "What?"

CREATION
A man said to his wife one day, "I don't know how you
can be so stupid and so beautiful all at the same time.
"The wife responded, "Allow me to explain. God made
me beautiful so you would be attracted to me;
God made me stupid so I would be attracted to you!

WHO DOES WHAT
A man and his wife were having an argument about who
should brew the coffee each morning.
The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up
first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our
coffee."
The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking
around here and you should do it, because that is your
job, and I can just wait for my coffee."
Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it
is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me."
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New
Testament and showed him at the top of several pages,
that it indeed says.......... "HEBREWS"

The Final Inspection

2005-02-10T05:02:00.000-05:00

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgement of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."

A good one. And I'm not even religious.

Right Thinking Girl

2005-02-09T08:02:00.000-05:00

Very good. While I don't agree with everything she says, a very thoughful post. But liberals won't think so.

Right Thinking Girl

And wish her luck on training for the marathon. Even if I think she's carzy for doing it. Running for fun? Ugh.

MARINE'S THOUGHTS ABOUT DAN RATHER

2005-02-08T05:14:00.000-05:00

This one is a little late and my father in law forwarded it to me.

This was passed from one of my Coast Guard friends. The message below had been forwarded from a Marine friend of his in Iraq. Interesting to all except Rather.

Hope everyone is well. Elections right around the corner here.
Everything is going very well (except for the visit we just had from Dan Rather and his freakin' entourage.). A more pompous (but scared and nervous) bunch of individuals I have never met before. Actually, keep your eyes out for Rather's report on our company in Lutufiyah (Golf Company, 2nd Bn, 24th Marines from Madison, Wisconsin). Should be
interesting. The report should air on 60 Minutes II on Wednesday night your time, if somebody could tape it for me. I would really like to see what they keep in the report and what they edit out. Rather, that lowlife clown, kept trying to bait my young Marines with loaded questions and they kept putting it right back in his face. Best part
was when he asked one of the Marines why they don't like the media.

The answer he got was, "that you idiots make the terrorists look like giants whenever they explode a bomb. They're not
they're nothing but a bunch of cowards. But they do know that you guys in the press will eventually beat down public opinion with your constant focus on only the negative." Rather just looked at these guys with a scrunched up face, and did not give an answer back. I think he was ready to leave the "Mad Ghosts" area as soon as he could. Funny part, none of
us were really sad to see him and his traveling circus hit the road.

Bottom line on this whole thing is that on Sunday, we will be involved in an historic event of immense proportion. A democratic election in Muslim country has never before taken place in this region. These people, over the ages, decades, and centuries of their existence, have always lived under the direct rule of one monarch type of leader or another. This
is a momentous occasion, to say the least.

Sincerely and Best Regards,
I Remain, As Always, Semper Fidelis,
Nick Sass

Major Sass, N.J., United States Marine Corps
S-3/Battle Officer (Mayhem Forward)
Callsign: "Snapshot"
Task Force 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines "The Mad Ghosts"
24th Marine Expeditionary Unit
1st Marine Division
Mahmudiyah, Iraq
"MAYHEM FROM THE HEARTLAND"

Ouch Dan, Ouch

Don't Forget What I Died For

2005-02-07T05:59:00.000-05:00

Read this now.

Don’t Forget What I Died For…

Hat tip to Tim Blair

Remember we are not sending our soldiers out there to die. We are sending them out there to make the other bastard die for his country/cause. Remember them and their sacrifice.

New Sisyphus

2005-02-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

Excellent analysis of the SOTU

Very far reaching analysis and a great interpretation of President Bush's speech on the 2nd of February.

Payday activites here and prepping ourselves for movement. A beautiful if chilly day which was far better than the miserably chilly and rainy yesterday. Truly infantry weather yesterdiddy.

I am very disappointed in the short range thinking of some of my higher headquarters as a Brigade loads out for war. Incredibly frustrating thinking from combat seasoned professionals but in the end my soldiers found a solution. Sadly my higher leadership did not help them in this mission. Being deliberately vague on purpose here so bear with me. Which leads me to my next point.

I am not disappointed in the exceptional young men I have serving with me. Young officers learning their jobs by feel and doing great work by dint of intelligence, agility and great initiative. Because I can't always be there to give guidance or even sometimes to know the right thing to do. And yet these young men, officers, sergeants and privates are out there getting it done every day. These lessons on how to do their jobs right, the first time, every time without someone looking over their shoulder is what got us through Afghanistan the last time. And they will do it again. I know that, but why?

Because I have faith in them. I, a very simple man myself, who has never been able to find religious faith in anything (a true agnostic- I like to sleep in on Sundays), has the utmost belief in my fellow soldier. They can do it, any mission, as long as I give them the tools and the intent behind the goal. They have never failed me unless I failed them first or didn't lead them correctly. The widely disparate firebases and FOBs of Afghanistan will make them rely on themselves and each other to get the mission done...whatever it is.

And so it irritates me when my team refuses to let them have the tools to do that job to the best of their ability. To deliberately choose to do nothing because it is easier than saying "yes". No is the start point for all negotiation, it has recently been told to me. And we start to get it done. And we will. But sometimes I wish we were smarter about it.

A great NCO once told me, quoted below too, "I can teach him how to make a better decision. I can't teach him how to make a decision." Truer words never spoken this day.

Thank goodness I am not wearing greens today. Too close to this to wear a tie today. Must have beer soon, or a scotch.

I hope my Makarov parts have arrived to let me vent my frustration this day.

Let me tell you what I think...

2005-02-04T05:23:00.000-05:00

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin...

Schadenfreude

How do you really feel? Don't sugar coat it for me now.

Incredible stuff

2005-02-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

at least one on the left can reevaluate his position. Read for yourself. Fascinating, and this guy is a dyed in the wool leftist.

and I am not lying…

Will wonders ever cease?

A little bit of pessimism from the left? Or ignoring reality? Oh No, can't be...

2005-02-02T07:33:00.000-05:00

http://wheels128.blogspot.com/2005/02/left-side-of-blogosphere.html/

this speaks for itself

Brigadier General Jones on the Iraqi vote

2005-02-02T05:13:00.000-05:00

got this from my father in law who says he has good sources, but it has not yet been verified. Please take it for it's worth. BG Jones is one of the ADCs (Assistant Division Commanders) for the First Cavalry Division. A good guy by all accounts and great leader.

ATW

Dear Friends,

It isn't over yet, but today there was a resounding victory for freedom and democracy here in Baghdad. Having been here for a while now, many of us have grown weary of the hand-wringers, worriers, pessimists, whiners, and host of others who have been telling us for so long that all is lost in Iraq. Today we witnessed just how courageous the Iraqi people can be and how much they love their new-found freedom.

After listening to the pundits tell us how terrible the Iraqi Security Forces are, today I watched the Iraqi Security Forces stand tall. They protected 1,188 polling sites in Baghdad. Although there were a number of suicide bombers who attacked today, not a single one penetrated the perimeter of a polling site. There were several Iraqi policemen, and several Iraqi soldiers who lost their lives today. But they did not lose their honor or their courage; none of the 30,000 plus Iraqi Security Forces on duty in Baghdad ran away from danger today.

At the site of our first suicide bombing of the day, voters did not lose their courage either. They quickly lined back up at the same site, spitting on the body of the suicide bomber as they passed by in line to vote. A woman came out of line and took the shoe of the bomber and put it on his face- a great insult to an Arab. The same was true at any polling site that had violence. Voters immediately lined up again to cast their vote. How many Americans value their privilege to vote enough to show that kind of courage?

We have listened to many experts talk about how the Sunnis would not participate in the election. Polling sites in Abu Guyreb were moved to Gasaliya because the Iraqi Election Commission was concerned about security in Abu Guyrb. We watched thousands walk down the highway- Sunni Moslems- on the 7 mile round trip to the polling sites so they could vote. All under the threat that terrorists had been making that they would kill anyone who voted. How many Americans would do that?

All over Baghdad the story was the same and I could tell a dozen stories of great courage and determination. Despite the enemy's campaign of terror, despite danger, threats, intimidation, and the sporadic incidents of violence and terror today, Iraqis turned out in determined, large numbers to vote. The excitement was moving. Even though the terrorists have said they will kill anyone with a "marked finger" (when you voted your finger was dipped in ink to keep people from voting a second time), voters paraded down the street holding their fingers up in joy and overwhelming pride.

When I told one Iraqi I was sorry that people had died or been wounded today, he just said "freedom has a price, and this is the price that we must pay". And every Iraqi I talked to said thank you to the United States for this opportunity, for this freedom, and how grateful they were for our help.

I am sure it will only be hours until you start hearing all the "experts", most of which have never been to Iraq, start trying to convince us that today was flawed, failed, or somehow less than a wonderful day and a blow for freedom. They are the same people who say we are failing here, that you couldn't do an election on the 30th of January, and on and on. It is true we haven't "won" here yet. It is not predetermined that we will win, and it will take continued sacrifice and determination on our part. Those who hate freedom and democracy will still fight, many to the death, to try to stop this march to freedom and prosperity by the Iraqis with our help. They are terrified of the thought of a free and democratic Iraq that leads this whole region to a democratic future.

But despite this, I encourage you from here in Baghdad, for at least one day, to ignore the pundits and experts, to enjoy a day where a blow for freedom was struck. Know that somewhere in the world, because of the sacrifice of your friends, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and countrymen, good won over evil, freedom over terror, and democracy over despotism.

Last June 30, Iraq was given their sovereignty. Today, they earned their freedom. And we should all be joyful for that.

All the Best,

Mike

Read VDH....

2005-02-01T08:06:00.000-05:00

Now. You will feel smarter is just a few short moments. Even you TWD.

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson012905.html

The ultimate Dear John letter

2005-01-31T05:08:00.000-05:00

Very squared away. Just like the Iraqi elections this weekend. Dear John

The ultimate response to a Dear John letter...
You gotta love a man like this,

A Marine was deployed to Afghanistan. While he was there he received a letter from his girlfriend.

In the letter she explained that she had slept with two guys while he had been gone and she wanted to break up with him. AND, she wanted pictures of herself back.

So the Marine did what any squared-away Marine would do. He went around to his buddies and collected all the unwanted photos of women he could find. He
then mailed about 25 pictures of women (with clothes and without) to his girlfriend with the following note:

"I don't remember which one you are. Please remove your picture and send the rest back."

Priceless

2005-01-27T05:33:00.000-05:00

good satire is hard to find.

http://www.rightwingnews.com/archives/week_2005_01_23.PHP#003383

Fox News, biased?

2005-01-26T07:31:00.001-05:00

A recent commenter ranted to me that the CBS fiasco was justified in light of the flagrant lies and bias of Fox News. I think he said something like 2 sides of a lie. So I found this at Sisyphus...please read

very enlightening

http://newsisyphus.blogspot.com/2005/01/fox-news-fair-and-balanced.html

More studies of bias are out there, I will publish them when I find the time

Interesting poll from Blackfive

2005-01-26T07:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/01/blackfives_sold.html#comments

I don't agree with the entire poll but that is not the point. He raise some very valid issues. Read onward...

Good news from Iraq? Can't be...

2005-01-26T05:15:00.000-05:00

And CNN caught it, despite insurmountable odds...

Read Captain's Quarters

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/003641.php#comments

Good News from the 'Stan

2005-01-25T07:32:00.000-05:00

European Stars and Stripes
January 24, 2005

U.S. Medics Go The Extra Mile To Help Sick Children In Afghanistan

By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man cradling a sickly child in his arms and walking for a couple of hours to get help makes for a powerful image.

Perhaps just as inspiring is the willingness of people half a world away to step forward and save the little guy with a bad heart from certain death.

The outpouring of support “has been just amazing,” said Capt. Mike Roscoe, a physician assistant with the 76th Infantry Brigade, Indiana National Guard.

By late February, the benefactors who have rallied to the aid of Qudrat Ullah hope to fly the 1-year-old to the United States for a heart operation.

“He will die without the surgery,” said Lt. Col. Terry Snow, the brigade’s civil military affairs officer.

During an October visit to a refugee camp near Kabul, a brigade medical staff evaluated Qudrat, one of many kids examined that day. It confirmed an earlier diagnosis by a Pakistani doctor that Qudrat has a hole in his heart, inhibiting the flow of blood through his body.

But due to a lack of adequate equipment on hand and certain policies, the medical team couldn’t move him. Two days later, the boy’s father, Hakim Gul, walked to Camp Phoenix with his only child in his arms.

Thus began a tedious effort by the guard unit to get Qudrat to Riley’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. It involved coordinating with doctors and organizations, fund-raising and plenty of paperwork, such as visas.

“Every time we turned around there seemed to be a roadblock,” Snow said.

Doctors at the hospital have offered to perform the surgery, estimated to cost at least $50,000, free of charge, Roscoe said. In addition, the Rotary Club of Greenfield, Ind., of which Snow is a member, has agreed to cover many of the out-of-pocket expenses during the estimated 30-day stay.

“We are just waiting for the military to OK his flight,” Roscoe said. “Everything is ready. Our end is pretty much done.”

Meanwhile, another effort is under way to send a 5-year-old Afghan boy stateside for surgery to repair his arms, chest and back, which were burned in a house fire. The fire killed his mother and a couple of siblings.

Soldiers at Camp Phoenix said Wednesday they raised enough money to help him and his father obtain travel visas.

“He’s a tough cookie,” said Sgt. Patrick Thibeault, a medic in Herat who, while assigned to Camp Phoenix, treated the boy. “If he could get the operation, he’ll be back to normal in a couple of years.”

Joint Resolution to use force in Iraq

2005-01-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

A little bit of history but nice to read. What do you know, I guess it wasn't all about WMDs.Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

Just a little light reading for you

Should the Iraqi Elections be postponed?

2005-01-16T03:05:00.000-05:00

This a good question for us all, but I would think no. Ralph Peters wrote a pretty good editorial on this one yesterday or the day before. Postpone elections, no matter how flawed (some might say as flawed as American elections perhaps) and you postpone democracy and Iraqis taking responsibility for their future.

Perhaps this is why the insurgents and terrorists are so terrified of this. And why they have gone into remission in Afghanistan after the successful and bloodless elections there (2 feet of snow in the passes helps this as well). A successful election in Iraq would be a disaster for terrorists everywhere. One more sanctuary gone.

And many liberals absolutely want the elections postponed for some reason. Perhaps the same reasons, I don't know but these days I get the feeling many Democrats are actively rooting for our failure in the Middle East. The news media surely is on the enemies side based on their objective reporting.

I would say let the elections come and let the Iraqi people choose. It is time. Please comment if you have a mind to.

SIlent Visitors

2005-01-05T05:37:00.000-05:00

JOE HODGES writes:

They came in single file, about 50 of them. Silent ambassadors, to tell us who they were. They moved at a slow pace, passing us for over 20 minutes. Some walked, while others pushed their wheelchairs as best they could. Some were helped along on crutches by their wives or sweethearts.

They were escorted front and rear by U.S. Marines in dress blue uniform. I have never seen prouder Marines. The Amputee Ward from Walter Reed Army Medical Center visited the Pentagon today. I was there.

Some wore looks of resolution, pride, or dignity. Many had prosthetic devices where limbs used to be. All of them wore looks of surprise. We, the 26,000 employees of the Pentagon, lined both sides of the A ring (the inner ring of the Pentagon) to watch them pass and welcome them with thunderous applause. Half a mile they walked through a gauntlet of grateful fellow citizens two and three deep, who reached out to shake the hands of the remaining good arms, or grasp the remaining fingers of hands that have given ultimate service. They walked through us to the main concourse, where they were met by the Army Band and color guard playing martial music for them, and where the mall was filled with additional people who swelled the applause. Many of us just called out loudly, Thank
You, because we didn't know what else could be said; thank you for your service to us. The applause never stopped.

None of them spoke. They just cried. So did we.

It was the closest I have been to Christmas in a long time.

Feminine Humor

2005-01-03T13:33:00.000-05:00

Got this from my father in law. I laughed. I did.

1. Q. What should you do if you see your ex-husband rolling around in pain on the ground? A. Shoot him again.

2. Q. How can you tell when a man is well-hung? A. When you can just barely slip your finger in between his neck & the noose.

3. Q. Why do little boys whine? A. Because they're practicing to be men.

4. Q How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. One - he just holds it up there & waits for the world to revolve around him, or three - one to screw in the bulb, two to listen to him brag about the screwing part.

5. Q. What do you call a handcuffed man? A. Trustworthy.

6. Q. What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath & calling your name? A. You didn't hold the pillow down long enough.

7. Q. Why does it take 100,000,000 sperm to fertilize one egg? A. Because not one will stop and ask directions.

8. Q. Why do female black widow spiders kill their males after mating? A. To stop the snoring before it starts.

9. Q: Why do men whistle when they're sitting on the toilet? A: Because it helps them remember which end they need to wipe.

10. Q: What is the difference between men and women? A: A woman wants one man to satisfy her every need. A man wants every woman to satisfy his one need.

11. Q: How does a man keep his youth? A: By giving her money, furs and diamonds.

12. Q: How do you keep your husband from reading your e-mail? A: Rename the mail folder to "instruction manuals"

Idiot Awards

2005-01-03T13:32:00.000-05:00

Nothing like dumb people

ANNUAL IDIOT AWARDS.

Number One Idiot of 2004 I am a medical student currently doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. Today, this woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. I quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. She calmed down and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. I told her that she better bring her daughter into the emergency room right away.

Here's your sign, lady. Wear it with pride. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Number Two Idiot of 2004 Early this year, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. Shortly after they took it for a float on the river, they noticed a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.

Here's your sign, guys. Don't get it wet; the paint might run. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Number Three Idiot of 2004 A true story out of San Francisco: A man, wanting to rob a downtown Bank of America, walked into the branch and wrote "this iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag." While standing in line, waiting to give his note to the teller, he began to worry that someone had seen him write the note and might call the police before he reached the teller's window. So he left the Bank of America and crossed the street to Wells Fargo. After waiting a few minutes in line, he handed his note to the Wells Fargo teller. She read it and, surmising from his spelling errors that he wasn't the brightest light in the harbor, told him that she could not accept his stickup note because it was written on a Bank of America deposit slip and that he would either have to fill out a Wells Fargo deposit slip or go back to Bank of America. Looking somewhat defeated, the man said, "OK" and left. He was arrested a few minutes later, as he was waiting in line back at Bank of America.

Don't bother with this guy's sign. He probably couldn't read it anyway ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Number Four Idiot of 2004 A guy walked into a little corner store with a shotgun and demanded all of the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of Scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but the cashier refused and said, because I don't believe you are over 21. " The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didn't believe him At that point, the robber took his driver's license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the Scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.

This guy definitely needs a sign! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idiot Number Five of 2004 A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him. This guy doesn't need a sign, he probably figured it out himself. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idiot Number Six of 2004 Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. It seems the liquor store window was made of plexiglass. The whole event was caught on videotape. Oh, that smarts.

Give him his sign. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idiot Number Seven of 2004 Ann Arbor: The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 12:50 A. M., flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

Sign please. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please note that all of the above people are allowed to vote.

ed- and probably for democrats

Veteran's Bar

2004-12-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

A little jab at the USAF...take it in good humor guys

Four retired Army vets are walking down the street window shopping.

Then they turn a corner and see a sign that says "Veterans Bar" over the doorway of an entry into an establishment that doesn't look all that well kept up. They look at each other then go in. On the inside, they realize in this case, they could judge the 'book by it's cover'.
The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, "Come on in and let me pour one for you! What'll it be, gentlemen?" There seems to be a fully stocked bar so the men all ask for a martini. In short time the bartender serves up 4 iced martinis - shaken not stirred and says, "That'll be 40 cents for the round, please."

The four men stare at the bartender for a moment then look at each other-they can't believe their good luck. They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis and order another round. Again, four excellent martinis are produced with the bartender again saying, "That's 40 more cents, please." They pay the 40 cents but their curiosity is more than they can stand. They've each had two martinis and so far they've spent less than a dollar. Finally one of the men says, "How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a dime a piece?"

The bartender replies, "No doubt you've noticed the decor in here. And the outside ain't nothin' to write home about. I don't waste money on that stuff. But, here's my story. I'm a retired Master Sergeant and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the lottery for $45 million and decided to open this place for real veterans. Every drink costs a dime, wine, liquor, beer, all the same."

"Wow. That's quite a story." says one of the men. The four of them sipped at their martinis and couldn't help but notice three other guys at the end of the bar who didn't have a drink in front of them and hadn't ordered anything the wh ole time they were there. One man finished his martini and, gestured at the three at the end of the bar without drinks and asks the bartender, "What's with them?"

The bartender says, "Oh, those are retired Air Force Colonels. They're waiting for happy hour."

Europe thy name is cowardice

2004-12-28T13:10:00.000-05:00

Somebody over there gets the message!!

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE

(Commentary by Mathias Döpfner)
Matthias Döpfner, Chief Executive of German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in the daily WELT against the cowardice of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat. Hartmut Lau translated the article for us.

A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo and we Europeans debated and debated until the Americans came in and did our work for us. Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.

Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore 300,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, to issue bad grades to George Bush.

A particularly grotesque form of appeasement is reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere by suggesting that we should really have a Muslim holiday in Germany. What else has to happen before the European public and its political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians and directed against our free, open Western societies.

It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than the great military conflicts of the last century-a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannotbe tamed by tolerance and accommodation but only spurred on by such gestures which will be mistaken for signs of weakness.

Two recent American presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush. Reagan ended the Cold War and Bush, supported only by the social democrat Blair acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic fight against democracy. His place in history will have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed. In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural corner instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China.

On the contrary-we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to the intolerant, as world champions in tolerance, which even (Germany's InteriorMinister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why? Because we're so moral? I fear it's more because we're so materialistic. For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt and a massive and persistent burden on the American economy-because everything is at stake. While the alleged capitalistic robber barons in American know their priorities, we timidly defend our social welfare systems. Stay out of it! It could get expensive. We'd rather discuss the 35-hour workweek or our dental health plan coverage. Or listen to TV pastors preach about "reaching out to murderers." These days, Europe reminds me of an elderly aunt who hides her last pieces of jewelry with shaking hands when she notices a robber has broken into a neighbor's house.

Europe, thy name is cowardice.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

2004-12-02T05:17:00.000-05:00

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,

HE LIVED ALL ALONE,

IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF

PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY

WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,

AND TO SEE JUST WHO

IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,

A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,

NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,

NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,

JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,

ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES

OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,

AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,

A SOBER THOUGHT

CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,

IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,

I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,

ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,

SILENT, ALONE,

CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR

IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,

THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,

NOT HOW I PICTURED

A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO

OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?

CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,

THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

I REALIZED THE FAMILIES

THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,

OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS

WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD,

THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,

AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE

A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM

EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,

BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,

LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER

HOW MANY LAY ALONE,

ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE

IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT

BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,

I DROPPED TO MY KNEES

AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED

AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,

"SANTA DON'T CRY,

THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,

I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,

MY LIFE IS MY GOD,

MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER

AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,

I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,

I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,

SO SILENT AND STILL

AND WE BOTH SHIVERED

FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL.

I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE

ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,

THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR

SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,

WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,

WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,

IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,

AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.

"MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND,

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."

A Letter to Dad

2004-11-22T07:11:00.000-05:00

From LTCOL Dave Bellon to his Dad, about FallujahDear Dad -

Just came out of the city and I honestly do not know where to start. I am afraid that whatever I send you will not do sufficient honor to the men who fought and took Fallujah.

Shortly before the attack, Task Force Fallujah was built. It consisted of Regimental Combat Team 1 built around 1st Marine Regiment and Regimental Combat Team 7 built around 7th Marine Regiment. Each Regiment consisted of two Marine Rifle Battalions reinforced and one Army mechanized infantry battalion.

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) consisted of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (3rd LAR), 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5); 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1)and 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry (2/7). RCT-7 was slightly less weighted but still a formidable force. Cutting a swath around the city was an Army Brigade known as Blackjack. The Marine RCT's were to assault the city while Blackjack kept the enemy off of the backs of the assault force.

The night prior to the actual invasion, we all moved out into the desert just north of the city. It was something to see. You could just feel the intensity in the Marines and Soldiers. It was all business. As the day cleared, the Task Force began striking targets and moving into final attack positions. As the invasion force commenced its movement into attack positions, 3rd LAR led off RCT-1's offensive with an attack up a peninsula formed by the Euphrates River on the west side of the city. Their mission was to secure the Fallujah Hospital and the two bridges leading out of the city. They executed there tasks like clockwork and smashed the enemy resistance holding the bridges. Simultaneous to all of this, Blackjack sealed the escape routes to the south of the city. As invasion day dawned, the net was around the city and the Marines and Soldiers knew that the enemy that failed to escape was now sealed.

3/5 began the actual attack on the city by taking an apartment complex on the northwest corner of the city. It was key terrain as the elevated positions allowed the command to look down into the attack lanes. The Marines took the apartments quickly and moved to the rooftops and began engaging enemy that were trying to move into their fighting positions. The scene on the rooftop was surreal. Machine gun teams were running boxes of ammo up 8 flights of stairs in full body armor and carrying up machine guns while snipers engaged enemy shooters. The whole time the enemy was firing mortars and rockets at the apartments. Honest to God, I don't think I saw a single Marine even distracted by the enemy fire. Their squad leaders, and platoon commanders had them prepared and they were executing their assigned tasks.

As mentioned, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry joined the Regiment just prior to the fight. In fact, they started showing up for planning a couple of weeks in advance. There is always a professional rivalry between the Army and the Marine Corps but it was obvious from the outset that these guys were the real deal. They had fought in Najaf and were eager to fight with the Regiment in Fallujah. They are exceptionally well led and supremely confident.

2/7 became our wedge. In short, they worked with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. We were limited in the amount of prep fires that we were allowed to fire on the city prior to the invasion. This was a point of some consternation to the forces actually taking the city. Our compensation was to turn to 2/7 and ask them to slash into the city and create as much turbulence as possible for 3/1 to follow. Because of the political reality, the Marine Corps was also under pressure to "get it done quickly." For this reason, 2/7 and 3/1 became the penetration force into the city.

Immediately following 3/5's attack on the apartment buildings, 3/1 took the train station on the north end of the city. While the engineers blew a breach through the train trestle, the Cavalry soldiers poured through with their tanks and Bradley's and chewed an opening in the enemy defense. 3/1 followed them through until they reached a phase[line deep into the northern half of the city. The Marine infantry along with a few tanks then turned to the right and attacked the heart of the enemy defense. The fighting was tough as the enemy had the area dialed in with mortars. 3/5 then attacked into the northwest corner of the city. This fight continued as both Marine rifle battalions clawed their way into the city on different axis.

There is an image burned into my brain that I hope I never forget. We came up behind 3/5 one day as the lead squads were working down the Byzantine streets of the Jolan area. An assault team of two Marines ran out from behind cover and put a rocket into a wall of an enemy strongpoint. Before the smoke cleared the squad behind them was up and moving through the hole and clearing the house. Just down the block another squad was doing the same thing. The house was cleared quickly and the Marines were running down the street to the next contact. Even in the midst of that mayhem, it was an awesome site.

The fighting has been incredibly close inside the city. The enemy is willing to die and is literally waiting until they see the whites of the eyes of the Marines before they open up. Just two days ago, as a firefight raged in close quarters, one of the interpreters yelled for the enemy in the house to surrender. The enemy yelled back that it was better to die and go to heaven than to surrender to infidels. This exchange is a graphic window into the world that the Marines and Soldiers have been fighting in these last 10 days.

I could go on and on about how the city was taken but one of the most amazing aspects to the fighting was that we saw virtually no civilians during the battle. Only after the fighting had passed did a few come out of their homes. They were provided food and water and most were evacuated out of the city. At least 90-95% of the people were gone from the city when we attacked.

I will end with a couple of stories of individual heroism that you may not have heard yet. I was told about both of these incidents shortly after they occurred. No doubt some of the facts will change slightly but I am confident that the meat is correct.

The first is a Marine from 3/5. His name is Corporal Yeager (Chuck Yeager's grandson). As the Marines cleared and apartment building, they got to the top floor and the point man kicked in the door. As he did so, an enemy grenade and a burst of gunfire came out. The explosion and enemy fire took off the point man's leg. He was then immediately shot in the arm as he lay in the doorway. Corporal Yeager tossed a grenade in the room and ran into the doorway and into the enemy fire in order to pull his buddy back to cover. As he was dragging the wounded Marine to cover, his own grenade came back through the doorway. Without pausing, he reached down and threw the grenade back through the door while he heaved his buddy to safety. The grenade went off inside the room and Cpl Yeager threw another in. He immediately entered the room following the second explosion. He gunned down three enemy all within three feet of where he stood and then let fly a third grenade as he backed out of the room to complete the evacuation of the wounded Marine. You have to understand that a grenade goes off within 5 seconds of having the pin pulled. Marines usually let them "cook off" for a second or two before tossing them in. Therefore, this entire episode took place in less than 30 seconds.

The second example comes from 3/1. Cpl Mitchell is a squad leader. He was wounded as his squad was clearing a house when some enemy threw pineapple grenades down on top of them. As he was getting triaged, the doctor told him that he had been shot through the arm. Cpl Mitchell told the doctor that he had actually been shot "a couple of days ago" and had given himself self aide on the wound. When the doctor got on him about not coming off the line, he firmly told the doctor that he was a squad leader and did not have time to get treated as his men were still fighting. There are a number of Marines who have been wounded multiple times but refuse to leave their fellow Marines.

It is incredibly humbling to walk among such men. They fought as hard as any Marines in history and deserve to be remembered as such. The enemy they fought burrowed into houses and fired through mouse holes cut in walls, lured them into houses rigged with explosives and detonated the houses on pursuing Marines, and actually hid behind surrender flags only to engage the Marines with small arms fire once they perceived that the Marines had let their guard down. I know of several instances where near dead enemy rolled grenades out on Marines who were preparing to render them aid. It was a fight to the finish in every sense and the Marines delivered.

I have called the enemy cowards many times in the past because they have never really held their ground and fought but these guys in the city did. We can call them many things but they were not cowards.

My whole life I have read about the greatest generation and sat in wonder at their accomplishments. For the first time, as I watch these Marines and Soldiers, I am eager for the future as this is just the beginning for them. Perhaps the most amazing characteristic of all is that the morale of the men is sky high. They hurt for the wounded and the dead but they are eager to continue to attack. Further, not one of them would be comfortable with being called a hero even though they clearly are.

By now the Marines and Soldiers have killed well over a thousand enemy. These were not peasants or rabble. They were reasonably well trained and entirely fanatical. Most of the enemy we have seen have chest rigs full of ammunition and are well armed are willing to fight to the death. The Marines and Soldiers are eager to close with them and the fighting at the end is inevitably close.

I will write you more the next time I come in about what we have found inside the city. All I can say is that even with everything that I knew and expected from the last nine months, the brutality and fanaticism of the enemy surprised me. The beheadings were even more common place than we thought but so were torture and summary executions. Even though it is an exaggeration, it seems as though every block in the northern part of the city has a torture chamber or execution site. There are hundreds of tons of munitions and tens of thousands of weapons that our Regiment alone has recovered. The Marines and Soldiers of the Regiment have also found over 400 IEDs already wired and ready to detonate. No doubt these numbers will grow in the days ahead.

In closing, I want to share with you a vignette about when the Marines secured the Old Bridge (the one where the Americans were mutilated and hung on March 31) this week. After the Marines had done all the work and secured the bridge, we walked across to meet up with 3rd LAR on the other side. On the Fallujah side of the bridge where the Americans were hung there is some Arabic writing on the bridge. An interpreter translated it for me as we walked through. It read: "Long Live the Mujahadeen. Fallujah is the Graveyard for Americans and the end of the Marine Corps."

As I came back across the bridge there was a squad sitting in their Amtrac smoking and watching the show. The Marines had written their own message below the enemy's. It is not something that Mom would appreciate but it fit the moment to a T. Not far from the vehicle were two dead enemy laying where they died. The Marines were sick of watching the "Dog and Pony show" and wanted to get back to work.

Dave

A Letter from Herbert Meyer

2004-11-21T21:23:00.000-05:00

I kind of like this guy...

Letter from Herbert E. Meyer

Hi. Are you nuts?

Forgive me for being so blunt, but your reaction to our reelection of President Bush has been so outrageous that I'm wondering if you have quite literally lost your minds. One of Britain's largest newspapers ran a headline asking "How Can 59 Million Americans Be So Dumb?", and commentators in France all seemed to use the same word bizarre -- to explain the election's outcome to their readers. In Germany the editors of Die Tageszeitung responded to our vote by writing that ³"ush belongs at a war tribunal not in the White House." And on a London radio talk show last week one Jeremy Hardy described our President and those of us who voted for him as "stupid, crazy, ignorant, bellicose Christian fundamentalists." Of course, you are entitled to whatever views about us that you care to hold. (And lucky for you we Americans aren't like so many of the Muslims on your own continent; as the late Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh just discovered, make one nasty crack about them and you¹re likely to get six bullets pumped into your head and a knife plunged into your chest.)

But before you write us off as just a bunch of sweaty, hairy-chested, Bible-thumping morons who are more likely to break their fast by dipping a Krispy Kreme into a diet cola than a biscotti into an espresso and who inexplicably have won more Nobel prizes than all other countries combined, host 25 or 30 of the world's finest universities and five or six of the world's best symphonies, produce wines that win prizes at your own tasting competitions, have built the world's most vibrant economy, are the world's only military superpower and, so to speak in our spare time, have landed on the moon and sent our robots to Mars may I suggest you stop frothing at the mouth long enough to consider just what are these ideas we hold that you find so silly and repugnant?

We believe that church and state should be separate, but that religion should remain at the center of life. We are a Judeo-Christian culture, which means we consider those ten things on a tablet to be commandments, not suggestions. We believe that individuals are more important than groups, that families are more important than governments, that children should be raised by their parents rather than by the State, and that marriage should take place only between a man and a woman. We believe that rights must be balanced by responsibilities, that personal freedom is a privilege we must be careful not to abuse, and that the rule of law cannot be set aside when it becomes inconvenient. We believe in economic liberty, and in the right of purposeful and industrious entrepreneurs to run their businesses and thus create jobs with a minimum of government interference. We recognize that other people see things differently, and we are tolerant of their views. But we believe that our country is worth defending, and if anyone decides that killing us is an okay thing to do we will go after them with everything we've got. If these beliefs seem strange to you, they shouldn't. For these are precisely the beliefs that powered Western Europe you -- from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance, on to the Enlightenment, and forward into the modern world. They are the beliefs that made Europe itself the glory of Western civilization and not coincidentally ignited the greatest outpouring of art, literature, music and scientific discovery the world has ever known including Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Issac Newton and Descartes.

Europe is Dying

It is your abandonment of these beliefs that has created the gap between Europe and the United States. You have ceased to be a Judeo-Christian culture, and have become instead a secular culture. And a secular culture quickly goes from being "un-religious" to anti-religious. Indeed, your hostility to the basic concepts of Judaism and Christianity has literally been written into your new European Union constitution, despite the Pope's heroic efforts to the contrary. Your rate of marriage is at an all-time low, and the number of abortions in Europe is at an all-time high. Indeed, your birth rates are so far below replacement levels that in 30 years or so there will be 70 million fewer Europeans alive than are alive today. Europe is literally dying. And of the children you do manage to produce, all too few will be raised in stable, two-parent households. Your economy is stagnant because your government regulators make it just about impossible for your entrepreneurs to succeed, except by fleeing to the United States, where we welcome them and celebrate their success. And your armed forces are a joke. With the notable exception of Great Britain, you no longer have the military strength to defend yourselves. Alas, you no longer have the will to defend yourselves. What worries me even more than all this is your willful blindness. You refuse to see that it is you, not we Americans, who have abandoned Western Civilization. It's worrisome because, to tell you the truth, we need each other. Western Civilization today is under siege, from radical Islam on the outside and from our own selfish hedonism within. It's going to take all of our effort, our talent, our creativity and, above all, our will to pull through. So take a good, hard look at yourselves and see what your own future will be if you don't change course. And please, stop sneering at America long enough to understand it. After all, Western Civilization was your gift to us, and you ought to be proud of what we Americans have made of it.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council.

A young Marine's experience.

2004-11-21T21:16:00.000-05:00

Really think on this one before you second-guess a young man's instincts in battle.

A Young Marines' Real Experience

This is one story of many that people normally don't hear, and one that everyone does.This is just one most don't hear:

A young Marine and his cover man cautiously enter a room just recently filled with insurgents armed with Ak-47's and RPG's. There are three dead, another wailing in pain. The insurgent can be heard saying, "Mister, mister! Diktoor, diktoor(doctor)!" He is badly wounded, lying in a pool of his own blood. The Marine and his cover man slowly walk toward the injured man, scanning to make sure no enemies come from behind. In a split second, the pressure in the room greatly exceeds that of the outside, and the concussion seems to be felt before the blast is heard. Marines outside rush to the room, and look in horror as the dust gradually settles. The result is a room filled with the barely recognizable remains of the deceased, caused by an insurgent setting off several pounds of explosives.

The Marines' remains are gathered by teary eyed comrades, brothers in arms, and shipped home in a box. The families can only mourn over a casket and a picture of their loved one, a life cut short by someone who hid behind a white flag. But no one hears these stories, except those who have lived to carry remains of a friend, and the families who loved the dead. No one hears this, so no one cares.

This is the story everyone hears:
A young Marine and his fire team cautiously enter a room just recently filled with insurgents armed with AK-47's and RPG's. There are three dead, another wailing in pain. The insurgent can be heard saying, "Mister, mister! Diktoor, diktoor(doctor)!" He is badly wounded. Suddenly, he pulls from under his bloody clothes a grenade, without the pin. The explosion rocks the room, killing one Marine, wounding the others. The young Marine catches shrapnel in the face. The next day, same Marine, same type of situation, a different story. The young Marine and his cover man enter a room with two wounded insurgents. One lies on the floor in puddle of blood, another against the wall. A reporter and his camera survey the wreckage inside, and in the background can be heard the voice of a Marine, "He's moving, he's moving!" The pop of a rifle is heard, and the insurgent against the wall is now dead.Minutes, hours later, the scene is aired on national television, and the Marine is being held for committing a war crime. Unlawful killing.

And now, another Marine has the possibility of being burned at the stake for protecting the life of his brethren. His family now wrings their hands in grief, tears streaming down their face. Brother, should I have been in your boots, I too would have done the same. For those of you who don't know, we Marines, Band of Brothers, Jarheads, Leathernecks, etc., do not fight because we think it is right, or think it is wrong. We are here for the man to our left, and the man to our right. We choose to give our lives so that the man or woman next to us can go home and see their husbands, wives, children, friends and families.For those of you who sit on your couches in front of your television, and choose to condemn this man's actions, I have but one thing to say to you. Get out of you recliner, lace up my boots, pick up a rifle, leave your family behind and join me. See what I've seen, walk where I have walked.

To those of you who support us, my sincerest gratitude. You keep us alive. I am a Marine currently doing his second tour in Iraq. These are my opinions and mine alone. They do not represent those of the Marine Corps or of the US military, or any other.

Sincerely, LCPL SchmidtUSMC

Quiet time for reflection

2004-11-20T02:43:00.000-05:00

Ah, rested now, but it is after 2 in the morning. Times zones are a bitch.

A blisteringly fast (relatively speaking of course) trip into the 'Stan this time. Much has improved but there are endless details that will need attending to before we can RIP. And in a few months time everything can change. A few thoughts, thrown together in no particular order:

* Security and stability are the key issues there right now- very few incidents at all after the election and it seems like the enemy is licking his wounds and waiting for the parlamentary elections. Construction is everywhere in downtown Kandahar, Bagram and all bases. Cell phones advertised. DVDs hawked. A Textile plant going up. Real progress. A real sense of permanence. We are here to stay until Afghanistan gets back up on it's feet.

* Most people are happy that the coalition forces are there. Went on a patrol with some MPs in downtown Kandahar and kids ran to see us....the thumbs up evident everywhere. We are not seen as the oppressor. The roads are now paved, unlike when I was last here, and people notice. A few kids throwing rocks, but not bad overall. Just remember, Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban. Mullah Omar, eat your heart out. And 6 hours in an uparmor HMMWV sucks, even with air conditioning. I like to feel the wind in my face, armor or no. I went 300km in an unarmored HMMWV on convoys twice last tour. No freedom in an uparmor. You can't taste the enviornment, you're not connected to it. Armor is more prevalent now than last tour, but it is mostly not needed. It is nice to have though.

*A better effort at integrating the civil reconstruction and combat operations is going on. More work needs to be done so we are truly "gung-ho" or striving towards harmony. But it is getting better, and money is available. As a military we are reaching out towards any populace available as long as we can provide the correct forces and proper security. A lot of land and too few of those forces. The 'Stan is the a black hole for military forces. I could dump the entire US Army in there and we would still find more to do. Rest assured we are doing the best with what we have and it will be enough.

*ANA. Afghan National Army. The surprise hit of the season. The locals love them and with some good trainers they are heading down the right path. Last time I was here we had a couple companies and none down south. Now they have several battalions worth down south and growing every day. A drive through Kandahar on the 16 Nov showed no weapons in the hands of anyone other than ANA or police. Definately progress. The warlords, as long as they are rolled into the money and power scheme provide some tense moments but nothing terrible. When shown superior (or even not so superior) force they back down. Counter-drug will be the next big effort.

* Drug eradication. Karzai has said drugs ar illegal and they will wipe them out. This will cause most of the big unrest in the next couple of years. The ANA will have to do it, and this is an issue because it is a cash crop. Drug lords will not be happy. We must find some crop or industry to take the place of opium or this could be a black hole. The Afghan people want to survive and they want an economy- they just can't base it on drugs. Subsidize the opium crop for a few years and then replace it with something else we subsidize I suppose. We shall see. The Taliban/AQ could take advantage of this and the upcoming national assembly elections. They are mostly punks, but this could give them some leverage.

All told a very useful trip but I devolve now into endless numbers of niggling little details preparing our paratroopers to train for their individual and section missions. No high speed romance or glamor for me this tour (or last tour come to think of it). I must plan to establish a headquarters and get systems in place to fiX howitzers and HMMWVs, and feed mail, and howitzer ammunition to our boys. As our president says, it will be hard work and often unappreciated. But no US Artillery unit has ever run out of ammunition, and none will while I am responsible for it. We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. Busy now. The frustrations I feel are normal to make sure we get this right. Because we have to. It is too important to fail.

Rest assured we are succeeding. Afghanistan is improving. But they cannot be left on their own right now. Thw work we do is important and our Soldiers and Marines are important in doing that mission. Please take the time to remember them. You can even give a few thanks to the USAF Movement Control Teams whose Chinese Fire Drill attempts at move people by strategic and intra-theater air are probably well intentioned if a bit misguided.

I leave you with a little John Stuart Mill (1806-1873):
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made so and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Kicking Ass and Taking Names

2004-11-10T14:51:00.000-05:00

Want to know why we are doing so well in Fallujah? Training friends, training. Or watching Fox News from Germany. Pray for our boys in the fight. Pray for clean deaths for the godless terrorists who want to kill them and us.

But is still very hard. Always very hard. And good men die even when you are doing it right. Because the enemy wants to live too.

From USA today.

http:\\www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-11-08-urban-warfare_x?POE=click-refer

that is all for now

It's in your hands

2004-11-02T04:46:00.000-05:00

Election day. I don't care who you vote for but go out and vote. It is your right and it is your duty to do so. Do so wisely and with all the thought and education you possess.

You owe it to your country to go out and vote if you have the right to do so.

Whatever the outcome I hope it is decided tonight. It would be a fine thing after the polls close tonight if both candidates decided to accept the final results gracefully instead of putting the country through what it went through in the aftermath of 2000. No one was better for that, and it robbed President Bush of the potential unity of mind that absolute legitimacy bestows. We'll see. I believe one of the candidate possesses the breadth of character to do so, I don't think the other has that quality in his makeup.

Myself, I will be having a single malt scotch in front of the TV tonight seeing history happen for good or ill.

Tschuss

Fair and Balanced on Kerry

2004-10-18T06:15:00.000-05:00

To be fair- this was in the Washington Times:

I still don't like the guy, but he was discharged honorably and to say otherwise flies in the face of reason and honesty. There is more than enough dirt on him to start picking apart discrepancies in administrative paperwork from 35 years ago.

Washington Times
October 18, 2004
Pg. 9

Records Indicate Kerry Did His Duty

By Rowan Scarborough, The Washington Times

The Navy records posted on Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign Web site have stirred suspicion of wrongdoing among Internet bloggers, but authoritative sources say the documents show that the ex-Navy officer fulfilled his duty.

One gap that remains is the Democratic presidential nominee's failure to sign a government Standard Form 180. It would authorize the Navy to release any personnel or medical record. At this point, it is thought that the remaining unpublished documents are limited to medical and college records.

A Kerry spokesman did not return phone calls seeking an answer to whether the candidate would sign such a waiver. Spokesmen previously have said Mr. Kerry has posted all records from his personnel file.

President Bush has ordered the Pentagon to release all records — his personnel file as well as any other document — that deal with his Texas Air National Guard service.

The White House has released hundreds of pages of such documents, including physical exams.

Navy officials say any documents that might pertain to Mr. Kerry's four months in Vietnam, such as after-action reports, are not personnel records and thus not subject to SF-180.

Those papers can be found in archives or sought by reporters via Freedom of Information Act requests. Some have been located by reporters and authors.

Some veterans, including those who served with him, are angered by Mr. Kerry's anti-war stances and his statements denigrating the military after he left active duty in 1970. Here are some of the charges brought by Internet bloggers and veterans opposed to Mr. Kerry:

*Mr. Kerry did not receive an honorable discharge. "My guess is that he was discharged in the '70s but not honorably," said one blogger in a widely circulated e-mail.

This accusation is refuted by Mr. Kerry's DD214, a separation-from-active-duty document. It was provided to him by the Navy and posted on his Web site, JohnKerry.com.

Mr. Kerry joined the Navy in 1966, completed officer training and served nearly four years on active duty. He requested an early separation in December 1969, which was granted a month later.

The Navy issued the DD214 that January 1970 that lists his "character of service" as "honorable."

*A second charge is that Mr. Kerry did not successfully fulfill his time in the Reserves, so a special board had to be convened to determine what type of discharge he should receive.

Navy documents show that in 1978, he received an "honorable discharge certificate" after a board of officers convened and reviewed his record.

Navy officials say today that the board was standard operating procedure at that time for all reservists and does not indicate Mr. Kerry did anything wrong.

After service just short of four years on active duty, Mr. Kerry transferred to the Ready Reserve and then in 1972 to the standby Reserve. He was not required to attend drills under those two designations, says a Navy official who asked not to be named.

*A third charge: Mr. Kerry got his Vietnam War medal citations reissued in the 1980s because he was stripped of them for misconduct.

Navy officials say that there is no evidence that Mr. Kerry's Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts were ever rescinded and that there is no evidence of misconduct in his records.

He did receive new medal citations in the mid-1980s. Officials say the Navy receives scores, and perhaps hundreds, of such requests each year from veterans who want a second copy or have lost the originals.

The citations are simply put through a machine that implants the signature of the current Navy secretary. John Lehman's signature, via a machine, appears on Mr. Kerry's new citation for his Silver Star.

Although Navy officials say Mr. Kerry's personnel papers are in order, some of the men who served with him in river patrol boat units in Vietnam say he exaggerated his war record and demeaned the military as an anti-war protester.

The best-selling "Unfit for Command" by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi makes this charge: "John Kerry would like many people today to view his service in Vietnam as one of honor and courage. But the real John Kerry of Vietnam was a man who filed false operating reports, who faked Purple Hearts, and who took a fast pass through the combat zones."

Gotta Love Zell

2004-10-12T07:03:00.000-05:00

Washington Times
October 12, 2004
Pg. 19

Iwo Jima, If Covered By Media Today

Battlefields are no place for political correctness

By Zell Miller

What if today's reporters had covered the Marines landing on Iwo Jima, a small island in the far away Pacific Ocean, in the same way they're covering the war in Iraq? Here's how it might have looked:

DAY 1

With the aid of satellite technology, Cutie Cudley interviews Marine Pfc. John Doe, who earlier came ashore with 30,000 other Marines.

Cutie: "John, we have been told by the administration that this island has great strategic importance because if you're successful, it could become a fueling stop for our bombers on the way to Japan. But, as you know, we can't be sure this is the truth. What do you think?"

Pfc. Doe: "Well, I've been pinned down by enemy fire almost ever since I got here and have had a couple of buddies killed right beside me. I'm a Marine and I go where they send me. One thing's for sure, they are putting up a fight not to give up this island."

Cutie: "Our military analysts tell us that the Japanese are holed up in caves and miles of connecting tunnels they've built over the years. How will you ever get them out?"

Pfc. Doe: "With flame throwers, ma'am."

Cutie (incredulously): "Flame throwers? You'll burn them alive?"

Pfc. Doe: "Yes ma'am, we'll fry their asses. Excuse me, I shouldn't have said that on TV."

Cutie (audible gasp): "How horrible!"

Pfc. Doe (obviously wanting to move on): "We're at war ma'am."

(A Marine sergeant watching nearby yells, "Ask her what does she want us to do — sing to them, 'Come out, come out, wherever you are. Pretty please.' "

Cutie: "Pfc. Doe, what's that mountain in the background? Is that the one they say is impregnable?"

Pfc. Doe: "I don't know what that word means, ma'am, but that's Mt. Suribachi, and we're going to put a flag right up on top of it just as soon as we can. I gotta go."

Cutie to camera: "No one has yet really confirmed why this particular battle in this particular place is even being waged. Already, on the first day, at least 500 Marines have been killed and a thousand wounded. For this? (Camera pans to a map with a speck of an island in the Pacific. Then a close up of nothing but black volcanic ash). For this? For this?" (Cutie's sweet voice becomes more strident as it fades out.)

DAY 2

At 7 a.m., Cutie's morning show opens with a shot of hundreds of dead bodies bobbing in the water's edge. Others are piled on top of each other on shore. After a few seconds, one can see Marines digging graves to bury the dead.

Cutie: "There is no way the Marines could have expected this. Someone got it all wrong. No one predicted this. This has been a horrible 24 hours for our country. This is a slaughterhouse. After all this fighting, Marines control only about a mile and a half of beach and the casualties are now over 3,500 and rising rapidly. We'd like to know what you think. Call the number on the bottom of the screen. Give us your opinions on these three questions:

1. Were the Marines properly trained?

2. Is this nothing of an island worth all these lives?

3. Has the president once again misled the American people?

"After the break, we'll ask our own Democratic and Republican analysts, both shouting at the same time, of course, what they have to yell about all this. It should make for a very shrill, provocative morning.

"But before we leave this horrible — some will say needless — scene, let us give you one more look at this Godforsaken place where these young Americans are dying. Volcanic ash, cold, wet miserable Marines just thankful to be alive. And still no flag that we had been promised on that mountain. Things have gone from bad to worse in this obviously misguided military operation. One thing is certain, there should be and there will be a high-partisan — make that bi-partisan — congressional inquiry into this."

DAY 3

Cutie: "Marines continue to be locked in a life-or-death struggle over this worthless piece of real estate in the middle of the Pacific. The word 'quagmire' is being used in the U.S. Senate, a body very familiar with quagmires. Senator Blowhard has called it 'a colossal military blunder.' And Senator Bombast maintains it was a fraudulent scheme hatched while the president was on his sixth vacation at the Little White House in Georgia.

"The recently organized Senate Squeakers Group may ask for the president to resign. They maintain that politics should not stop at the waters edge in times of war, calling that tradition an old-fashioned idea that has no place in the new century of dysfunctional government. Over forty special interest groups concurred and all issued identical news releases."

"We now turn to our politicalanalyst,James Crankville."

(James):"Cutie,the overnight poll numbers have hit this president right between the eyes. Nationwide, an overwhelming 98 percent said that if possible, they would like to see this country fight a war without a single American casualty. That is nearly the same percentage we saw three days ago when the American public said they would be in favor of going to war if we could win without firing a shot. So, you can see there is a trend developing here that spells trouble for this administration."

"That this president is going ahead with this war is just unbelievable. The witty New York Times columnist, Myscream Loud, wrote in her inimitable fashion that 'The president's policy is as crippled as his legs.' (giggle) Last week she said he had reached the point where no one will 'Fala' him. F-A-L-A, his dog, get it (more giggles)? Has that woman got a way with words! Go girl."

DAY 4

Cutie (holds up front page of the New York Times): "This morning, the New York Times had this photo on the front page. As you can see, the Marines have finally raised a flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. The fighting is still going on but it looks like this battle is over. We tried to find Pfc. Doe, the young Marine I interviewed that terrible first day, but he was unavailable. Here is Corporal Smith though. (With girlish enthusiasm). "Well, we see that flag flying. It's pretty much over isn't it?"

Cpl. Smith: "Oh, no ma'am, it's not over by any means. We've got weeks of fighting and dying to go yet. This place is a long ways from being secured. But we did get that flag up there and it sure makes us all proud."

Cutie: "I can't tell much from the photo. Their faces are not even visible, making it impossible for us to descend upon any of their families. Corporal Smith, do you know any of the flag raisers? And do you know who ordered it put up there? Did the order come directly from the president for political reasons?"

Cpl. Smith: "All I know is that I heard some colonel put the word out that he wanted 'a flag put up there where every son of a bitch on this island could see it.' Excuse me, ma'am."

Cutie: "We know you've been in the heat of battle so,..."

Cpl. Smith: "Still am, ma'am."

Cutie: "Yes, of course, but it's all over. (Nervous giggle). Except here on Capitol Hill, of course. Corporal Smith, I wonder if you know the gender, race and ethnicity of the group that put the flag up. In other words, did that group 'look like America?' "

Corporal Smith: "Look like America? They are Americans, ma'am. United States Marines."

Cutie: "Any females?"

Cpl. Smith: "No, ma'am."

Cutie: "Any African Americans?"

Cpl. Smith: "I don't know, ma'am. But there is an Indian in Easy Company."

Cutie: "You mean Native American?"

Cpl. Smith: "Whatever, ma'am, I've got to cut out. My outfit is moving on and we've got a lot to do."

Cutie: "And we've got a lot to do here too. Spring training has started and the sun is shining brightly in Florida. But first this word from our sponsors."

Historical note: In one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, when it was said "uncommon courage was a common virtue," 6,000 Marines were killed and 18,000 wounded. Some 21,000 Japanese were killed. The island itself is still barren and only a handful of people live on it. But after it was secured by the Marines, B-29s made over 2,200 emergency landings on it, saving the lives of more than 24,000 crewmen. AP photographer Joe Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize for the flag-raising photo. Of the six men in the photo, three were buried in that black volcanic ash, one came out on a stretcher. Only two walked off the island.

Zell Miller is a Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia.

A post by Bill Whittle over at www.ejectejecteject.com

2004-10-07T07:07:00.000-05:00

I found it very enlightening and post it in its entirety here because I can't figger out how to link or href or anything else

This man is really smart. I like him.

DETERRENCE (part 1)
Watching the Presidential debates of October 1st, and the subsequent reactions to them, has left me once again with the sad realization that there are many millions of people who prefer a man who says the wrong things well over one who says the right things badly – and in the case of the first debates we are talking about saying very, very stupid things well and intelligent things very, very badly.

Now I don’t mean stupid in a bad way. I fully credit John Kerry with the intelligence needed to analyze, dissect, and evaluate a position and without mechanical aid quickly and accurately use advanced trigonomic functions to determine the most popular position on a wide range of complex issues – a feat that requires a very quick mind indeed.

So it’s not dumb stupid, those statements he made in the first debate. It’s more of an entirely understandable, eminently defensible, very common fossilized kind of stupid that we saw from the Senator. It was the stupid of a man claiming to have new ideas and new plans based on shared assumptions and models that no longer apply to reality.

President Bush seemed stupid in comparison because he seems to only know three things in all the world – and it is our great good fortune that he is right about all three.

In a moment, we’ll look at what both men said, and through a very specific filter: not their Aggregate Presidentiality, or their respective Molar Charm Ratio. We’re going to look at what both men believe in respect to deterrence: whether their positions increase or decrease the likelihood of further attacks on the US.

That’s it. That’s all. That’s the sum total of this election for me. We’ve survived boobs and crooks and idiots and charlatans of all stripes and colors, struggled through booms and recessions, surpluses and deficits, and wars on poverty and drugs and crime and General Public Lasciviousness and come through just fine, and we will again.

But the nuclear destruction of the heart of Manhattan, or Long Beach Harbor, or the Capital mall – these things are serious business and as Sam Johnson once said, the prospect of being hanged in the morning tends to focus the mind.

As I have been willing to accept that George W. Bush is no longer a hard-drinking frat boy but rather a sober and responsible adult, then so too am I willing to allow that John Kerry has matured since his secret meetings with enemy leaders during a time of war. I myself cast my first presidential vote for Walter Mondale. There is no decent excuse for any of these behaviors; and I only wish that my own lapses of judgment had been less embarrassing and more explainable… cannibalism, say, or something of that nature.

So I am willing to put the Moonbat and Wingnut nonsense aside for the moment. and grant that both men – and their supporters -- have in mind the same objective when they talk about national security.

We both look at this:

And we both want to make sure that it – or worse – does not happen again.

We don’t want it to happen again.

We want to deter it from happening again.

And all of this rage and fury and spitting and tearing up of signs, all of these insults and spinmeisters and forgeries and all the rest, seem to come down to the fact that about half the country thinks you deter this sort of thing by being nice, while the other half thinks you deter this by being mean.

It’s really just that simple.

Now if sociology were a real science, we could set up experiments. We could, in fact, do what just about every one of us – Liberal or Conservative -- has, in our heart of hearts, secretly wanted to do: send that 50% of idiots on the other side packing – I mean, really packing, as in, out of the country, for good -- and let history show we were right after all.

We imagine an America made up exclusively of tough-minded Conservatives would be a far better, a safer and stronger place, than an America composed of nothing but compassion-filled Liberals.

They, of course, think precisely the opposite. And I have, over the past two years, determined that internet comment threads do not hold the answer to this predicament. Theirs, and ours, are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.

We can’t, alas, deport all the left wingers and they cannot, damn it, silence all the right wingers. We are stuck with each other. Each sees the press as biased toward the other, and each gapes in awe and amazement that the other side could possibly feel the same way.

And although we can not run an experiment to look into the alternate futures to glean the best result, to determine the relative benefits of being nice or being mean – for those, ultimately, are the choices, believe it or not – we can at least look back to see which seems to have produced the best results in the laboratory of history.

It all comes down to carrots (liberals) or sticks (conservatives). By the way: if you’re in a rush and need to run, here’s the spoiler: You can offer a carrot. Not everybody likes carrots. Some people may hate your carrot. Your carrot may offend people who worship the rutabaga. But no one likes being poked in the eye with a stick. That’s universal.

I’m a stick man. I wish it were different. But part of growing up – in fact, the essential part of growing up – is realizing that wishing does not make it so.

Folks, it’s time to reach down deep and get in touch with our inner adult.

I used to be a carrot man. Like most larval liberals, I grew up in a life that would be unrecognizable to all but the thinnest sliver of humans that ever lived on this great rock in space – that thin, thin sliver being everyone and everything you and I know and take for granted.

Reality – meaning the wolves – have never been so far from the door as they are today. So believing in the power of goodwill and friendship, of handshakes and agreement and compromise, of trusting to the good and noble in mankind was easy for me, for the consequences of being wrong in that belief cost me nothing at all. I’d never been robbed, raped, beaten or victimized in any way. That belief in goodwill, compromise, concession and trust grew as a result of being surrounded by decent people in a well-ordered, lawful society, with a long history of compromise and cooperation.

I can remember saying, in college, that if someone broke in to my house and stole my television, well that was fundamentally just, because after all, I was white, male, educated and could make enough money to afford an endless line of televisions.

This view of the world was tempered somewhat, when, a few months later, I awoke to the sound of my window being opened and the sight of the upper torso of a man climbing in over the sill. By the way, it was only later that I realized that it wasn’t my TV he was there to steal. He was there to steal my dad’s TV – he paid for it, not me. Once I had to go to work and earn money to pay for things my mood changed somewhat. I put in forty hours of misery, boredom and early mornings for that TV, and some yayhoo just walks right in and takes it? Screw that! You want a TV? The McDonald’s on 13th and University is hiring.

Folks, some people who steal and rob are not fundamentally bad people. Some of them are desperate, some of them are stupid, and some of them are just plain lazy. Some of them, though, are psychopaths who’d kill you for a nickel and think nothing more about it – they’d trade your life, and the welfare of your spouse and children, for two hours of getting high and it would not bother them in the least.

Nations are governed by people. People are noble and base, honest and corrupt, brutal and gentle and all the adjectives in between. Yes, even Americans! The success of democracy, it seems to me, is that there is always a counterweight to the most mendacious and the most harebrained of human activities. It’s harder to fool all the people all the time.

Dictatorships, on the other hand – well, you’re down to the limits of one man’s sanity, ego, vanity and judgment. And when you consider the kind of person it takes to rule absolutely and totally the lives of millions of others – many of them more intelligent, educated and capable – then what you are left with is a giant, enormous, destructive Iron Giant – a state – with a tiny, desperate, paranoid, perpetually fearful psychopath pulling the levers. Dictatorships put the power of millions, the muscle and capability of entire nations, behind the guy with the gun in that dark alley.

It is a prospect to make sane people shake with fear. Surely we can agree on this much. Surely we can agree, no matter our political persuasion, that there are mean, bad, violent people who care nothing for inflicting violence on the innocent in order to get what they want. And since those people exist, we should also be able to agree that such people can – even in the heart of people as civilized as the Germans – ride to power and employ that hatred and reckless disregard for human happiness multiplied by a hundred million.

That’s reality. It’s undeniable. I wish it were not true…but wishing does not make it so. Paging the Inner Adult…white courtesy telephone, please.

It would be nice to live in a world full of liberals. I say that as a staunch conservative. It would be nice to live in a world that behaved like a Hollywood party or a university campus, filled with kind, educated people with lots to lose, who cherish reason and responsibility and are incapable of brutal, violent acts. If all the world were filled with decent, compassionate, rational people, life would be a bouquet.

But it’s not. There are bad people who do bad things, and there are bad countries run by bad people who do bad things who eat the kind and gentle people for breakfast. There is no denying this. Therefore, liberals are insane. I speak from experience here.

It’s a damn shame, it really is.

Reasonable people can take the most cursory look into the world – the Western world, anyway -- and see successes everywhere, but perfection no where to be found at any price.

Because I try to be a reasonable person. I don’t fault the government for not preventing 9/11 only because ultimately the government is made up of ordinary people, and ordinary people, like me, could not fully imagine or grasp what we were seeing that day even while we were seeing it.

I tuned in when the first tower had just gone down. The first images I saw that morning were of one tower and a cloud of smoke. Funny, I remember thinking, I thought there were two World Trade Center towers. I was sure I had remembered wrong. I didn’t see the tower go down. Skyscrapers don’t just disappear.

Vapor lock.

When I saw the replay of the first plane hit, the first words I said that weren’t mumbled, awestruck and unpublishable were simply these:

There’s no way airline pilots did that. Those were not our pilots.

That was the only coherent thought I had for six hours.

We like to say that the world changed that day. What a ridiculous, self-centered thought. The world didn’t change. Our illusions about the world changed. The scales had (mostly) fallen from my eyes in the years leading up to that morning. But many, many conservatives (as I define myself) were born precisely at 9:17 am EDT, when United 175 flew past the burning North Tower – an accident? – and exploded through the second, on the morning of September the 11th, 2001.

And everything we thought we knew about deterrence changed at 9:17 too – although I am sorry to say it hasn’t fully sunk in on certain people.

Nineteen people – some barely literate -- killed almost three thousand of the most highly skilled and productive citizens on the planet. I told my Dad that morning I just saw our Pearl Harbor. He immediately replied, “No you didn’t. After Pearl Harbor we knew who to attack.”

He was right. That’s the point of terrorism, of course. Deniability. 9/11 was an attack on the US by Islamicist fanatics, orchestrated by Egyptian strategists, staffed with Jihadists recruited from around the Arab world, and paid for largely by Saudi religious zealots. So why not launch an attack with elements of the Egyptian and Saudi air forces? Because within six hours there would have been no more Egyptian and Saudi air forces, and within six weeks, no Egyptian and Saudi governments, either. Our deterrence against conventional attack, or even nuclear attack from a nation-state, is so credible and muscular that such a thing has become literally unthinkable.

But how do we deter people who want to die? How do we deter people who need only the skill and the means to push a button on a briefcase, or open a box cutter and be prepared to do bloody work with it? How do we deter the assassin lost in the crowd at the Superbowl? How do we deter enemies who are so dispersed, so ethereal and fragmentary, that hostile governments can arm and shelter them knowing full well that we will not retaliate with a nuclear attack against millions of genuine innocents in Cairo, or Tehran, or Riyadh?

If a suitcase nuke detonates in Times Square, or Long Beach harbor, or outside the Capitol building, what do we do? Nuke Mecca? Incinerate Damascus? Because – so help me God, I tremble to say it – that is exactly the response our enemies would hope for. They care not a whit about their own people because they have no allegiance to anyone but themselves and their vision of a vengeful and bloodthirsty Allah. A million, ten million innocents under American mushroom clouds are just that many more martyrs gone to paradise. It is they, not we, who dream of a clash of civilizations, with its promised sweeping away of the decadent and godless by the blood and faith of the Believer.

We might yet be able to stop this on the cheap. If we do not, I fear the day will come when 3000 civilians and 1000 American soldiers will look like a very, very small bill to pay.

What we learned on 9/11 is that there are people out there who are not deterrable. Given the chance – given the weapons – these people will strike without any regard to consequences. The ultimate horror of a world enveloped in nuclear fire is just peachy keen with them if it will bring about the New Caliphate. We love death the way you Americans love life, they say. They are not kidding. They are serious. You can pretend otherwise, but that will not make it change. There are people who are determined to kill us for who we are and what we believe. They can not be deterred.

But they can be defeated. And the people they depend on for survival can be deterred.

I initially had many doubts about George W. Bush. Actually, that’s not quite fair. The truth is, I despised the man. But then something happened.

I was walking across the studio lot to my car on the night of September 20th, 2001. I ignored the NOT A WALKWAY! signs in the grip and lighting department: cutting through the building saved me having to go around three giant sound stages to get to my car. Barricades had been put up on the back gate, and security guards were checking our trunks for explosives and running a mirror under every vehicle that drove onto the lot. And you couldn’t hear a jet fly over without wondering... what if? What now?

You may remember those days. I do.

It was getting dark as I walked down that narrow corridor, flanked by enormous movie lights and innumerable c-stands. And there, at the desk, was a group of six or seven grips watching a small color television in perfect silence: an ancient TV, the greens and oranges radioactive and bleeding --- the Acid Channel.

I watched George W. Bush give the best speech I have ever heard: better, by far, than FDR’s Pearl Harbor address. Better, even, than the tinny, lilting, lisping sound of Churchill’s immortal call to fight them on the beaches.

As I watched that speech unwind, I knew, instantly and unequivocally, that this President understood what we were up against, the moment he said:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

Yes, precisely: not desperately aggrieved parties, not freedom fighters, not anything more than thugs and murderers who want to impose their way of life on the world. Fascists. Ruthless, fanatical bastards sworn to our destruction.

Then, three paragraphs later, this:

Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

This line, this doctrine – either you’re with us or the terrorists – has drawn derision and scorn from the nuanced sophisticates from around the world. What they refuse to see is that in one brilliant stroke it cuts the camouflage away from terror, and in effect neutralizes the very lever that makes International Terror so effective a tool: deniability. More on this in a moment.

I sat amazed at the confidence and the vision President Bush outlined in that speech. I remember saying out loud, to no one in particular, “I was wrong about this man.” A few of the grips nodded in silence. None of us took our eyes off the TV screen.

It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal. We'll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good. Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day, and to whom it happened. We'll remember the moment the news came -- where we were and what we were doing. Some will remember an image of a fire, or a story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever.

And I will carry this: It is the police shield of a man named George Howard, who died at the World Trade Center trying to save others. It was given to me by his mom, Arlene, as a proud memorial to her son. This is my reminder of lives that ended, and a task that does not end.

I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it. I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.

And there stood a man I had not seen before – and sadly, have not seen often since – holding the shield of a dead hero in his hand, promising not to tire, or falter, or fail, until this vague and mysterious war was won. And I swore to myself, right then and there, that I would support this President, come what may. And in the intervening years, as the criticisms and hysteria rose in pitch to the point where only dogs can hear, I have stood by him and his policies, and I do so proudly, to this day.

But time and again I have wished and hoped to hear that music again, that calm, unruffled, determined voice. By now so many small people have carried so many lies so far –BushHitler! Halliburton! Yellowcake! No Blood for Oil! AWOL! -- that we awake as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice to find the broom shards have filled the cellars with an ocean of poison to debunk and to drain.

During the past two years I have been angry with the President; angry that common amateurs in their pajamas (I favor a smoking jacket, fez and calabash pipe when I dash off these little gems) have to rise and defend the policies that we wholeheartedly agree with but which have been appallingly poorly defined and defended by the White House.

And then I had a bit of a revelation. Like Col. Kurtz, I felt I had been shot through the forehead with a diamond bullet. This happened last night.

I tried to enlist on September 12th, 2001. I knew a little about airplanes; maybe the Air Force would trust me to wash them or something so as to free up useful people. They asked how old I was, thanked me, and told me they’d give me a call if they needed me.

So here I am: feeling useless. But President Bush warned that this was going to be a different war – something unlike anything we had ever seen. The front line now, at this critical time, is in the hearts and minds of our own people. That’s where the real battle is now. That is our weakest point, our breach, our point of failure. We have not made the case to enough people and time is running out.

So maybe now, at this absurd point in this new kind of war, we’re the crack troops, we old and useless pajama patriots reduced to printing up pamphlets to sell war bonds to the weary, to make the case for holding on to an unglamorous, uninspiring, relentless grind because that – not Normandy and Midway – is the face of war in this gilded age of luxury and safety and plenty.

Maybe that’s our job. Maybe we can help cover some small gap in the lines.

We’ll see. But for now, I will take up the sword of the pajamahadeen, and rise up: just another citizen-wordsmith, trying to put words and ideas where they are needed: into the stumbling gaps, exasperated expressions and defensiveness of a brave and exhausted man under a lot of pressure.

John Kerry has spoken now in front of the nation. We have, at last, a position that can be analyzed. I could use exerpts from their first debate to show that he is better spoken, or nicer, or taller than President Bush. I care about none of that. I am interested in one thing only from these two men: who will best deter the enemy? Who will best be able to stop a thousand 9/11’s in a millisecond of religious ecstasy? That’s all I care about.

We’ll review the debate in the order in which it occurred.

Let’s roll.

[Part 2 continues below]

Posted by Bill Whittle at 03:02 AM
DETERRENCE (part 2)
SENATOR KERRY: I can make American safer than President Bush has made us.

And I believe President Bush and I both love our country equally. But we just have a different set of convictions about how you make America safe.
I believe America is safest and strongest when we are leading the world and we are leading strong alliances.

I'll never give a veto to any country over our security. But I also know how to lead those alliances.

This president has left them in shatters across the globe, and we're now 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq and 90 percent of the costs.

I think that's wrong, and I think we can do better.

Four years ago, I would have voted for this policy in a heartbeat. This is what I mean by not stupid in a dumb way. But it is stupid in an ignorant way.

It’s stupid because it is a precise example of how to fight the last war. We are in a World War right now. It is being fought all across the globe and the consequences of winning or losing this war will effect every person on the planet. It is World War IV. If you can’t see that then you are either not paying attention, or are mollified by our spectacular successes over the past three years.

I credit John Kerry with the genuine desire to protect this nation, because the alternative is the back alley short-cut to insanity. He has, in mind, precisely the correct formula used protect the ideals of Liberal Democracy and ensure its victory in WWI, WWII and the long twilight fight of WWIII.

Allies and alliances defined the Great War. After four years of mind-shattering horror, the European powers had fought themselves to utter stalemate – and those trenches might yet today mark the borders between Germany, Belgium and France were it not for the arrivals of the American allies. Don’t misunderstand me – we did not win that war on the battlefield. That credit goes to the British and the French. But the endless supply of American troops disembarking, full of confidence and optimism and raw heroism, convinced Hindenberg and Ludendorf to desperately roll the dice on the spring 1918 offensives before they faced a million fresh American troops, full of fight. But defense was king in that war, and the Ludendorf Offensives failed. The counterattacks succeeded. The alliance won that war.

The alliance won World War II – that is beyond dispute. Without Britain hanging on during the lonely and dark opening years, where would the Western invasion have come from? Soviet Russia defeated almost 70% of the strength of Nazi Germany, and the United States defeated Japan single-handedly at sea, and with a great deal of help from the British and Australians and New Zealanders in brutal island jungles. An Alliance won that war – not us. Not us alone.

For almost fifty years, the most successful alliance in history had the guts and the commitment to put American cities on the line in order to prevent Soviet tanks from crashing through the Fulda gap. American, and to a deteriorating degree, European taxpayers built and maintained the armed forces needed to keep half of Europe free while the other half slowly rotted under the weight of an ideology so corrupt that it can now only thrive in the hothouse environment of the western coffee shop or faculty lounge. That, too, was an alliance victory.

If John Kerry were running for president in 1916, or 1940, or even 1976, he would have my enthusiastic vote, for the alliance of the US and the European powers is what saved Europe and the world not once, or twice, but three times in a single lifespan. One might expect some gratitude and respect for this, but as I say, the scales fell from my eyes some time ago.

But this is not 1916, or 1940, or 1976. Europe, ruler of the world in the first war, had become a military freeloader by the end of the third. Europe was not able to muster the military muscle or political will to extinguish a genocide within Europe – and things have gotten worse since then. The French nuclear carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, returned from her sea trials with a reactor room flooded with five times the allowable level of radiation and with one of her propellers at the bottom of the Atlantic. She borrowed a screw from her predecessor, the Foch – which was faster – and now sits in port making impressive appearances during national holidays and furthermore showing that if God exists he has both a sense of justice and a sense of humor.

The Germans cannot deploy an effective force beyond her own borders. The Russians – the mighty Russians -- could not call up so much as one decent ten-man special ops squad when she and her children needed them the most. Japan has constitutional restraints – drafted in American English – preventing her from deploying her defense forces overseas: a fact that has given me many nights peaceful sleep. And as for China… even if she decided, out of the kindness of her heart, to commit her forces to help her arch-rival…who do you think, Senator, would benefit the most from us sharing our weapons, tactics, logistics and intelligence with China?

An alliance would be nice – if the allies could shoulder some of the burden. But the sad, inconvenient, disappointing fact is that there is only one army on the face of the earth that can fight on the same battlefield with the United States; whose forces, technology and training rival ours in quality if not in scale, and whose trust has been forged by three world wars when we have stood alone, together. That country is Great Britain, one of the members of the “trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted.”

The sad fact, the unpleasant reality of 2004 is that there is only one nation in the world that is of any strategic value on the battlefield, and that ally is with us as she has always been, a staunch friend through many dark nights who deserves something better, I perceive, than slander from a man proclaiming himself the greatest diplomat since.. well, since himself. I will say this for John Kerry: he is a man unrivaled in his own esteem.

An alliance of European powers is a chimera that no longer holds any significant value. That is a critical point. It is an essential point of delusion embedded in Senator Kerry’s world view. He waits for rescue from a knight long dead and moldering, sitting beneath a withered oak tree in rusted armor.

That’s point one.

Second, you cannot even throw the cloak of wishful thinking over Senator Kerry’s strategic nakedness, because as those of us in pajamas are well aware, the governments of the Grand Rescue Alliance – that is, Germany and France – have both announced publicly and in the most clear language available that regardless of who wins the election in November, they are not coming to Iraq.

That is not my opinion, that is not a product of the Republican Smear Machine…that is an official statement from the governments of the nations in question, stating unequivocally that they are not going to be a part of a coalition that is against their interests even if it is lead by an American who went to Swiss schools and speaks fluent French.

Is it possible to put this any more plainly? They do not have any meaningful capability, and they are publicly pledging that their lack of meaningful capability is…not…coming.

As a final thought on this essential issue, consider this, from your own personal experience: I have found that the only thing worse than doing a hard, dirty, thankless job by yourself is depending on help from someone who will not be there when you need them. We have a few good friends in this fight: Britain, the Aussies, God bless them, the Poles and the Italians and a few others – 4am friends who will drive 300 miles in a snowstorm to help us when we are broken down on the side of the road. Those are friends. Those are the people we need in a tough and dirty fight. Those people deserve gratitude and honor, not scorn and mockery.

Senator Kerry, your powerful allies don’t exist, and even if they did, they have plainly told you they are not coming. Welcome to 2004, John. It sucks, I know. That’s just what we’re dealt.

SENATOR KERRY: I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence, by going after the financing more authoritatively, by doing what we need to do to rebuild the alliances, by reaching out to the Muslim world, which the president has almost not done, and beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them isolate the United States of America.

I’d consider voting for this policy. But John Kerry has a 20 year record of having voted against every significant weapons system the US has deployed during his term in office. This is an assertion on the Senator’s part; words from a man who has been steadfast, constant and consistent in his ability to say what he thinks his audience wants to hear. His voting record – the put your money where your mouth is record -- is the polar opposite of this assertion. I’m taking the walk over the talk on this one.

Now, assume for a moment, that you are one of the Islamicist enemies of this nation. President Kerry has outlined a plan to reach out to the Muslim world and isolate you. President Bush, on the other hand, predicates his reelection on the premise that he will

…pursue(d) al Qaeda wherever al Qaeda tries to hide. Seventy-five percent of known al Qaeda leaders have been brought to justice. The rest of them know we're after them.

By the way, for about seventy of that seventy-five percent, you can go ahead and substitute the word “killed” in place of the more delicate “brought to justice.”

As a deterrent, I honestly and regretfully don’t think our terrorist enemies are much deterred by the thought of dying. I think they are fully ready to die. People who are fully ready to die in order to kill you and your family, who are undeterred by death, are likely not to be terribly concerned by the thought of being isolated in a more sensitive approach to John Kerry’s sworn mission to hunt down, and isolate, chastise and severely reprimand terrorists.

Terrorists don’t seem to be too afraid of stern language. But I do notice, that while the fear of death does not seem to deter these people, the fact of being dead does significantly decrease their operational effectiveness. That’s a casual observation on my part – no real Harvard study to back it up. More of a hunch, really.

75% of known pre-9/11 al Qaeda killed in three years. Where’s my calculator…? 75% divided by three equals uh…25% a year. Well I’ll be a blue-blooded socialite! Why, at the rate of 25% a year, I calculate that ol’ Dubya will have bagged the whole lot of em in …one more year!

I say let’s give him the chance.

Quagmire! Quagmire!

No, not this season’s fashionable entry: I was referring to last seasons’ quagmire, Afghanistan.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Ten million citizens have registered to vote. It's a phenomenal statistic. They're given a chance to be free, and they will show up at the polls. Forty-one percent of those 10 million are women.

The fact is that liberal feminists, when all is said an done, would rather have a man who can turn a witty phrase over a nice Cabernet Sauvignon than one who liberates a nation of women, and gives them the vote, to boot. What refined morality they possess.

You know what our enemies really fear? Women. Women scare the hell out of them.

Hey, there’s no shame in that: women scare the hell out of me, too, only I don’t shoot them in the head in their burkas in front of a cheering crowd in a soccer stadium. And in that regard, I find I am exactly like the Taliban…because they're not doing it either. They are dead or in caves. Has this president deterred atrocities coming our way from Afghanistan, home of the International Jihad 2001 Road Tour? You’re damn right he has. I have a word for how that makes me feel. It’s an archaic, old English word, no longer in common usage. It’s pronounced, “GRAT-eh-tood”

You liberate the women of the world and Islamic Terror evaporates. They fear this the way we fear interruption of our Cable TV service. It is the death knell for their tradition of dominance and brutality, and it is not just the sight, but the very idea, of liberated, independent and unafraid women that causes them such hatred and revulsion when they look to the West.

Ladies, President Bush has freed the women of Afghanistan, and shut down the state-run rape and torture of women in Iraq. And for every one of those women who was raped and tortured to death, remember that half the entire country lived in daily fear of being spotted by some Ba’athist pig with too much time on his hands as he hid behind the tinted windows of his limousine, cruising the streets of Baghdad or Mosul or Basrah looking for a little fun.

Senator Kerry, on the other hand, has not only said, he has promised that he will do no such thing.

SENATOR KERRY: But we also have to be smart, Jim. And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking if off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.

Somewhere, in an infinity of alternate universes, there must be a place where at this very moment, Ben Stein is wandering the wasteland of Tora Bora with clipboard in hand, stumbling over the rocks, never looking up, and saying, “Osama..? Osama..? Osama..?”

God, the restraint that the President must have when that murdering bastard’s name is mentioned in derision as a sign of Bush’s incompetence. It’s practically superhuman.

First of all, you may recall that three years ago, the President -- correctly, in my estimation -- pointed out that this was not a criminal manhunt for Public Enemy Number One, but rather,

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

“Secret even in success…” An interesting phrase, that. What does that mean?

Osama bin Laden has not been seen since the battle of Tora Bora in December of 2001. Remember now, this is not someone like Abu Nidal, a genuine terror mastermind described by the US State Department as having carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. Targets include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul and the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in Greece in July 1988

Abu Nidal was rightfully phobic about being photographed. Anonymity was camouflage to him: incredibly tight operational security, even plastic surgery. The man wanted to remain unseen. In fact he did remain unseen, retiring in his golden years to a nice apartment in Baghdad until he was assassinated by Saddam just before the war to maintain the well-established fact that Saddam had no ties to terrorism. No living ties to terrorism. Well, to that terrorist. It’s all very nuanced and sophisticated.

Contrast this behavior to that of Osama bin Laden, who did not operationally plan the 9/11 attacks (see dead underlings, above) but was rather the figurehead for an international organization of many thousands of fanatics, their numbers much thinned now.

Osama made endless videotapes. Lecturing, preaching, instructing, firing an AK-47: all the things that make young jihadis feel funny in the pants. After 9/11, he wowed ‘em in several tapes gloating and laughing over the attack and its aftermath. He was reliably heard on the radio during the final phase of Tora Bora, then…nothing.

Maybe he escaped. It’s possible.

Then came the videotape condemning the Israeli incursion into Ramallah and Jenin…only it didn’t. The US corporate scandals? Silence. Anniversary of Holy Tuesday? Cue the tumbleweeds.

The freaking invasion of a Muslim country by the Great Satan, and this new Caliph, the Leader of the Oppressed, cannot bring himself to shoot a crummy VHS in front of a white wall condemning this outrage? This glory-seeking egomaniac, the New Saladin riding the White Horse across the desert, who practically put out a 10 DVD commemorative set every time the US so much as hiccupped, is now suddenly silent, and has been for three years?

You may call that a Terror Mastermind. I call it a greasy wet spot on the wall of a cave in Afghanistan.

The man is dead. Dead, or just possibly captured. The likelihood of him having been killed at Tora Bora by US “outsourcing” was rising with his deafening silence concerning each American counterstroke and became 100% when nothing was heard from the late Osama after the US invasion of Iraq.

Does President Bush know what became of him? I would say, very likely. We know what did not become of him: he didn’t become a Martyr. He did not become the symbol of Glorious Death resisting the Great Satan. He did not become a Symbol or a Cause or an Example to Them All.

He became, if you will pardon the expression, AWOL. Bugged out. Handed in his walking papers. Fizzle…poof. Gone.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately, I do not have fake (but accurate!) documents to back this claim up. I just have common sense, a psychological history, and the ability to see Naked Emperors. The man is dead – just possibly captured; he has been for years.

Now, do I fault President Bush for not announcing this? I do not. For the President to not disclose something so beneficial to himself, politically, must mean that there is a reason of great magnitude behind the official silence. Are we, the American People, entitled to know what this secret is?

We are not.

We are not for the same reason we were not entitled to know that allied cryptographers won WWII by breaking the Japanese and German codes and having the good sense to shut up about it. But don’t dare breathe such sentiments to the current editors of The New York Times. Had those people been running the paper in 1943, tomorrows headline would have read:

AMERICAN AND BRITISH CRYPTOGRAPHERS BREAK JAP AND NAZI WAR CODES – ALL FUTURE ENEMY MOVEMENTS NOW KNOWN WITH CERTAINTY BY ALLIED HIGH COMMAND.

I suspect that if I live another ten years, I’ll be sitting watching the History Channel some night in my pajamas and all will be revealed to me. Until then, I’m happy not to know. I know some people have a hard time with that. Go to hell. This is serious business. Not everything is about you.

Has President Bush deterred bin Laden from repeating his attack on the US? I don’t honestly see what Osama can do these days, what with him being in several thousand crispy pieces and all.

One nice thing about those hyperbaric bombs, developed by that Vietnamese immigrant who fled to the US after certain people’s ideological heroes overran her country and likely killed most of her extended family: they make a small boom, release some nastiness, and then make a much louder boom.

I hope that son of a bitch knew what the sound of that first little boom meant.

And now, finally, the piece de resistance, the Main Event.

SENATOR KERRY: Well, where do you want me to begin?

First of all, he made the misjudgment of saying to America that he was going to build a true alliance, that he would exhaust the remedies of the United Nations and go through the inspections…

…And we pushed our allies aside.

Yes, after only thirteen brief years of Iraq’s causus belli of repeatedly and energetically violating every clause of the cease-fire agreement that stayed the US hand in 1991 when he was down, out and routed, and after only fourteen barely-have-time-to-pee months of non-stop, back-to-back UN sessions, resolutions, meetings, condemnations, threats, blocked inspections, harsh language, sanctions, embargoes and Saddam’s willful disregard of international protest, the Smirking Chimp ordered the raring-to-go German, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Belgian armored divisions out of theater so that he could have his unilateral war.

Thanks for clarifying that opaque moment in history, Senator.

And so, today, we are 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost: $200 billion -- $200 billion that could have been used for health care, for schools, for construction, for prescription drugs for seniors, and it's in Iraq.

The inference being, I suppose, that a more sophisticated foreign policy and lack of Texas accent could have persuaded France, Germany, Russia, indeed, the entire UN – all with their hands deep in the oily pockets of Saddam – to put their billions back on the table and step up like good fellows to trade their cash for some decent-sized share of the casualties…three or four hundred killed, perhaps, something in that ballpark. Yes, exactly: the Kerry team, using the same impeccable diplomatic finesse they displayed in calling the desperately courageous leader of Iraq a “puppet” and our true, abiding friends a rabble of bribed, coerced, bought and extorted lapdogs, will convince the most selfish, perfidious and unreliable “ally” in human history to step up and do the right thing because he is asking them?

And Bush is arrogant?

But wait! There’s more!

John Kerry, in his bones, cannot envision winning a tough fight. He supported the effort in Iraq when we had a three-week victory, just as the anti-war activist and enemy collaborator is now John Rambo gunning down commies in a hail of bullets. But now that things are just a dirty, nasty, slugfest – a war that is nothing more or less, in fact, than the French premier Clemenceau’s description of a series of catastrophes that results in victory – as it has in Afghanistan, and Germany, and Japan, and the Confederacy and as it most pointedly did not in Vietnam, he says he alone can save us from the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place?

US marines are killing Ba’athist remnants and Syrian and Iranian mercenaries at a ratio of something like 600 to one, which, I might point out, is a damn sight better than the 150 to one against us that those 19 hijackers pulled off on 9/11. The insurgency in Iraq is burning casualties at an absolutely insane and unsustainable – indeed, ruinous pace. Why? Well, they have been paying close attention to Senator Kerry and his history, and saw how unsustainable, devastating, insurmountable NVA and VC losses during the Tet offensive bought victory because we decided we had had enough. Because we were told we were nothing more than a modern day horde of Ghengis Khan and the people whose freedom we were fighting for did not have the guts or the spine to stand up for their own defense. Today, that nation – Vietnam -- remains a basket case while the rest of Asia rocketed out of the stone age.

That is the model Senator Kerry has for Iraq. I’m not claiming he’s malicious. Not at all. I genuinely don’t think he gives much thought to Iraqis or Vietnamese at all.

I do know what he does give a lot of thought to, and that is the image of John Kerry.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place. What message does that send our troops? What message does that send to our allies? What message does that send the Iraqis?

Yes, almost got it, Mr. President. But what the hell does this policy say to our enemies? Does this deter attacks on our troops? Or does it say, in the clearest and most unmistakable terms, that as long as you blow up our men and women President Kerry will begin plans to pull them out as soon as the hand comes down on Inauguration Day?

Does it not ultimately say that this “mistake” was another War Crime? That it was an unjustified and unwarranted attack on an innocent and harmless nation? Does this not make any future preemptive action on the part of President Kerry for all intents and purposes impossible to achieve? Does this “Global Test” nonsense mean every single nation in the world must approve of our pre-emptive actions, including the one we mean to invade to defend our people? No? How many then? 90% of the globe must agree? Fifty percent? France? Who?

But of course, there’s a four point plan at www.JohnKerry.com that will “change the dynamic on the ground.” Yes, this plan on a website will stop Improvised Explosive Devices from detonating. This plan will bring the sworn enemies of this nation into a series of binding arbitrations that will convince them this is all one jolly misunderstanding. This plan – unlike any military plan in human history – will survive contact with the enemy, and his intentions, his will and his capabilities will melt away like the morning dew because Senator John Kerry has a four-point plan at www.JohnKerry.com.

Finally, and most tellingly, Senator Kerry says that Iraq is “a long, long way from the fight on terror.”

Senator, you might choose to read some history: it might broaden your perspective. The last time this country was attacked, it was by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, whose capitol city was Tokyo.

The first land battle the US Army fought was at Kasserine Pass. Kasserine Pass, Senator, is in Tunisia. Tunisia is in Africa. Africa is a long, long way from Japan.

Tunisia did not attack the United States, Senator Kerry. Tunisia, in fact, was a far, far more innocent battlefield than Iraq, which had spent the preceding decade, and then some, committing overt acts of war against British and American aircraft flying missions to enforce UN mandates.

US troops fought in Tunisia – and they fought badly; infinitely worse than they do in Iraq – because people of vision and courage and great intelligence perceived that this was the first, best front against an enemy that straddled the entire globe. We did not begin our war by launching an armada of landing craft filled with Marines on a suicide mission from Midway to Tokyo. We did not send fleets of transports to get shot down over Berlin carrying fifty divisions of paratroopers.

We attacked in Tunisia because it was the soft underbelly of a powerful enemy. There is a word for this type of action, Senator Kerry, and that word is “foothold.” It is a place where the enemy is weak. It is a place we can capture, fortify, defend and launch further attacks from. As Tunia, so Africa. As Africa, so Italy. As Italy, so Germany.

We were not attacked by the natives of the Marianas, or the Solomans, or the Marshall islands, and yet these innocent people died along with our troops. It was part of a strategy for victory, Senator. I know you understand the term ‘strategy.’ It’s the other term that seems to me to stick in your craw as I examine your entire career.

Here’s something you might want to read up on aboard the campaign jet: bright people have done studies on what the operational limits of a terror cell are. It’s actually kind of…biological. See, as a terror cell grows in members, it gains not only mutually-reinforcing enthusiasm, but capability. However, the bigger the cell, the less secure it becomes.

Zarqawi’s cells having been fighting us from the day Saddam’s statue fell. So I ask you, Senator: if there were no terrorists in Iraq, where did these organized units come from? Did they parachute in? Saddam’s Fedayeen are not and did not behave as a defeated military unit, but as an organized, cell-based structure. Where did they come from? And poor, unlamented Abu Nidal? And how many others?

When operating outside of rogue nations, law-enforcement pressure limits the cell to about 80 members, and the operational center is much smaller. Any larger and the cell fragments into smaller, more secure, but less capable splinter cells.

However, when protected by a nation-state, such as Syria or Iran – Iraq and Afghanistan having been wiped off the blackboard in this regard in a puff of chalk dust, and Libya having suddenly found religion – there is effectively no limit to how large and capable a terror organization can become, since there are no law-enforcement pressures limiting its growth.

Putting a democracy – even a very bad democracy – in the heart of the middle east is a dagger at our enemy’s heart. It is as if Canada were overrun to the degree that Afghanistan once was: intolerable. It draws all the enemy’s resources. It provides a mortal example that people of Arab lands can live in freedom, and eventually, prosperity. A free Iraq is a fatal, deadly poison to the Ideology of Death that threatens this nation and the world.

The essence of deterrence, Senator, is to cause uncertainty in the mind of your opponent. The missile defense system, which you oppose, does precisely this. It doesn’t matter if it has a 3 out of 5 success rate. Fifty such anti-missile installations enormously, in fact fatally complicates an enemy’s ability to plan a first strike or, far more likely, to issue nuclear blackmail.

You have made it clear that you would cancel the bunker-busting bombs that cause uncertainty – deterrence, Senator – in the minds of unstable lunatics like Kim Jung Il and the Iranian Thugocracy.

They do not have to guess what you will do, Senator: you have already given that away, in the same way you gave away the atrocity fictions the Vietnamese Communists were torturing your “Band of Brothers” to obtain, without success.

President Bush believes that a free and democratic state provides a shockingly clear example that there is another way for Arab peoples to live. He believes, as I do, that all people want to live free and determine the course of their own lives. You claim that this is a mistake. You seem to be determined to fulfill that prophesy.

You lack the vision, Senator, to see this as a many-front war. You lack the insight to see how the sight of Saddam crawling from a hole inspired an identical self-possessed lunatic to give up Libya's nuclear weapons program. Iraq deterred Libya, you eternal defeatist. And all of the rest of the former free-range dictators now hang on the results of this election to see whether they will get a man who has capitulation in his very marrow, or one who has weathered unbelievable pressure, slurs and insults, and very likely thrown away his second term, to face reality and do something. Something unpopular. Something that he knew would make his poll numbers go down.

I know. I know John. Inconceivable.

Senator Kerry, I do not desire to be President of the United States. I will settle for being the head coach of the Florida Gators. I have a four-point plan on how to win against the Tennessee Volunteers. My plan is foolproof, and it will change the dynamic on the field. I place little weight on the fact that that game was played several weeks ago: that is why my four-point plan is so perfect! I have analyzed all of the Florida errors, and they will not be repeated when I replay that game in my mind.

And I might add I have won every Monday morning game I have ever quarterbacked.

Vote for me.

My friends, if any of you think this may in any way convince people unsure of what to think about this critical election, for God's sake print out as many NON-COMMERCIAL (Short form: that means, no charge) copies as you can and drop them out of airplanes if you are able. This election is entirely too close.

Bill Whittle

I think that says it all

Some Thoughts from Iraq

2004-09-28T12:47:00.000-05:00

This comes from a father of a friend in Iraq. I think you will find it interesting. Iraq is being portrayed as a disaster by the main stream media. Is there credibility to their reports?

I wonder. Please read on, though it does come from a Marine:

September 23 1779 - Captain John Paul Jones in Continental Navy frigate Bonhomme Richard captures HMS Serapis.
1931 - LT Alfred Pride pilots Navy's first rotary wing aircraft, XOP-1 autogiro, in landings and takeoffs on board USS Langley while underway.
1944 - Naval Task Group lands Army troops on Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands
1944 - USS West Virginia (BB-48) reaches Pearl Harbor and rejoins the Pacific Fleet, marking the end of the salvage and reconstruction of 18ships damaged at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
1947 - James Forrestal, former SECNAV, takes office as first Secretary of Defense 1990 - Two Hospital ships (USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort) steam together for first time in Arabian Gulf
2004 A thought from Iraq - "Doom & Gloom about Iraq's future....I don't see it from where I'm sitting."

[For those of you who haven't gotten my "Thoughts" before, I'm a Major inthe USMC on the Multi-National Corps staff in Baghdad. The analysts and pundits who don't see what I see on a daily basis, in my opinion, have very little credibility to talk about the situation - especially if they have yet to set foot in Iraq. Everything Americans believe about Iraq is simply perception filtered through one's latent prejudices until you are face-to-face with reality. If you haven't seen, or don't remember, the JohnWayne movie, The Green Berets, you should watch it this weekend. Pay specialattention to the character of the reporter, Mr. Beckwith. His experience isdirectly related to the situation here. You'll have a different perspectiveon Iraq after the movie is over.]

The US media is abuzz today with the news of an intelligence report that is very negative about the prospects for Iraq's future. CNN's website says,"[The] National Intelligence Estimate was sent to the White House in July with a classified warning predicting the best case for Iraq was 'tenuous stability' and the worst case was civil war." That report, along with the car bombings and kidnappings in Baghdad in the past couple days are being portrayed in the media as more proof of absolute chaos and the intransigence of the insurgency.

From where I sit, at the Operational Headquarters in Baghdad, that just isn't the case. Let's lay out some background, first about the "National Intelligence Estimate." The most glaring issue with its relevance is thefact that it was delivered to the White House in July. That means that the information that was used to derive the intelligence was gathered in the Spring - in the immediate aftermath of the April battle for Fallujah, and other events. The report doesn't cover what has happened in July or August,let alone September.

The naysayers will point to the recent battles in Najaf and draw parallels between that and what happened in Fallujah in April. They aren't even close. The bad guys did us a HUGE favor by gathering together in oneplace and trying to make a stand. It allowed us to focus on them and defeat them. Make no mistake, Al Sadr's troops were thoroughly smashed. The estimated enemy killed in action is huge. Before the battles, the residents of the city were afraid to walk the streets. Al Sadr's enforcers would seize people and bring them to his Islamic court where sentence was passed for religious or other violations. Long before the battles people were looking for their lost loved ones who had been taken to "court" and never seen again. Now Najafians can and do walk their streets in safety. Commerce has returned and the city is being rebuilt. Iraqi security forces and US troops are welcomed and smiled upon. That city was liberated again. It was not likeFallujah - the bad guys lost and are in hiding or dead.

You may not have even heard about the city of Samarra. Two weeks ago, that Sunni Triangle city was a "No-go" area for US troops. But guess what? The locals got sick of living in fear from the insurgents and foreign fightersthat were there and let them know they weren't welcome. They stopped hosting them in their houses and the mayor of the town brokered a deal with the US commander to return Iraqi government sovereignty to the city without a fight. The people saw what was on the horizon and decided they didn't wanttheir city looking like Fallujah in April or Najaf in August.

Boom, boom, just like that two major "hot spots" cool down in rapid succession. Does that mean that those towns are completely pacified? No.What it does mean is that we are learning how to do this the right way. TheUS commander in Samarra saw an opportunity and took it - probably the biggest victory of his military career and nary a shot was fired in anger. Things will still happen in those cities, and you can be sure that the bad guys really want to take them back. Those achievements, more than anything else in my opinion, account for the surge in violence in recent days -especially the violence directed at Iraqis by the insurgents. Both in Najaf and Samarra ordinary people stepped out and took sides with the Iraqi government against the insurgents, and the bad guys are hopping mad. They are trying to instill fear once again. The worst thing we could do now ispull back and let that scum back into people's homes and lives.

So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq, but from where I sit, it's looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that, so please, please, pass this on to those who care and will pass it onto others. It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press. It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed. It causes the American public to start thinking about the acceptability of "cutting our losses" and pulling out, which would be devastating for Iraq for generations to come, and Muslim militants would claim a huge victory, causing us to have to continue to fight them elsewhere (remember, in war "Away" games are always preferable to "Home" games). Reports like that also cause Iraqis begin to fear that we will pull outbefore we finish the job, and thus less willing to openly support theirinterim government and US/Coalition activities. We are realizing significant progress here - not propaganda progress, but real strides are being made. It's terrible to see our national morale, and support for what we're doing here, jeopardized by sensationalized stories hyped by media giants whose #1priority is advertising income followed closely by their political agenda;getting the story straight falls much further down on their priority scale, as Dan Rather and CBS News have so aptly demonstrated in the last week. Thanks for listening.

A Good Quote To Remember

2004-09-25T13:45:00.000-05:00

"...you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life- but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman Legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."

T.R. Fehrenbach
THIS KIND OF WAR

He was writing about Korea, but the same things are true today. Something to think about.

A pretty good explanation

2004-09-24T07:22:00.000-05:00

This may be long. But worth reading to the end.
Don't close your blinds...a great explanation. I thought this was worth reading, it would be hard for me to explain it that way, but I believe it. SImply put we cannot afford to fail, it would be far worse than abandoning Somalia if we do.

Also on a good note the Navy Department refused to open an investigation on Sen Kerry's medals saying that 35 years ago is too long to conduct an fair evaluation of why these medals were awarded and noted that all proper procedures had been followed when they were awarded. Hooray for the Navy in trying to stay out of the political fray. Nothing good could come from such an investigation.

IT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED BETTER THAN THIS!

Read this story about: "Don't Close Your Blinds!"

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war. My husband looked at our son and then looked at me. My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation. My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window.

He told him: "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"
"I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.
"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America and you are President Bush."
Our son giggled and said "OK."
"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.
"OK Dad, I'm pretending."
"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and see that man come out of his house with his wife and he has her by the hair and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death. Their children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are crying, they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and afraid of their father. You see all of this son.... what do you do?"
"Dad?"
"What do you do son?"
"I call the police, Dad."
"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations and they take your call, listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help. What do you do then son?"
"Dad, but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.
"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or your place to get involved ! and that you should stay out of it," my husband says.
"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.
"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."
"Daddy...he kills them?"
"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"
"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.
"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my husband says.
"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"
"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.
"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"
"What Daddy?" "He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in he window and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"
"Daddy..."
"WHAT DO YOU DO?"
Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I close the blinds, Daddy."
My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him... "Why?"
"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help...people who needs it....and they won't help....You always say that neighbors are supposed to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself ...Daddy.....I can't look out my window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do nothing...so....I'm just going to close the blinds....so I can't see what he's doing........and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."
I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husbands questions and he tells him...."Son"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door...WHAT DO YOU DO?"
My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he says: "I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"
I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs my son to his chest and hugs him tight, and cries..."It's too late to fight him, he's too strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone, before......it's too late." my husband whispers.

THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let evil happen is the greatest EVIL of all. Our President is doing what is right. We, as a free nation, must understand that this war is a war of humanity. WE must remove evil men from power so that we can continue to live in a free world where we are not afraid to look out our window. So that my nine year old son won't grow up in a world where he feels that if he just "closes" that blinds the atrocities in the world won't affect him.

"YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!" BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!! BE PROUD OF OUR PRESIDENT SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT AMERICA!! SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS...."

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility." -Eleanor Roosevelt

Hate is not enough

2004-09-21T15:18:00.000-05:00

OK, just a little burned out here today...just got off the I-95 thunder run from New Jersey to North Carolina--- and I do hate that drive now, even though I used to like it. One word--tolls, hate the damn things. Everything north of DC is toll city, and I hate it.

Also did an experiment driving North on 95 on Friday and back down today. Tried to make a game of spotting and counting Bush or Kerry bumper sticker and/or other items of political sport. Quickly tired of it though because all I saw was Bush/Cheney 04 or GW stickers. Not a single Kerry sticker to be found. Northbound or Southbound, and I was looking. I did finally find one, in my Mother's retirement village. It was on the bumper of a car next to faded Dean sticker. I also saw a Kerry button on one older lady having lunch in New Jersey. I didn't even see any of the normal campaign ads or signs in the democratic stronghold of New Jersey. This is one of the places you can get keyed if you have a Bush sticker on your car. It made me think of the poll done that Ala71 referenced about strong supporters for both campaigns.

Now bumper stickers are not a scientific method of determining political support, but at least one person in a family has to be dedicated enough to stick one of the things on your car (have you ever tried to get one off?). What I saw was a lot of people who felt pretty strongly about Bush, but not one who felt the same about Kerry. Interesting. Also saw a lot of yellow ribbon and red/white and blue ribbon Support your troops magnets and POW magnets which made me feel good. In and around Fort Bragg we are fairly conservative-- GW signs are up in my community (but not in my yard, nor do I have a GW sticker on my truck- not a big fan of the whole polarization thing and some of my Soldiers might think that I am telling them how to vote) and no Kerry ones. Still I expected a lot more strong supporters as I wandered up North into the democratic bastions. Maybe the luv Guv (McGreevey) has eroded some support up there. I don't know, but I was surprised. I have even seen a Nader sticker down here that some poor bastard put on his riceburner. But Kerry, not so much.

It made me think that the ABB crowd has mobilized their base as simply hatred for Bush and not in support of their Candidate. Hate then, is not enough to win a campaign. A good lesson you would think, that the republicans learned in 1996.

I think the democrats will learn it in 2004. It will still be a close race, but many of these democrats might not get up off the couch to vote because they might not like their candidate enough to go out and vote for him. John Kerry or a block of wood and the vote would go about 49-51%.

Again, just something my observers eye picked out and found interesting.

Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs

2004-09-13T17:33:00.000-05:00

Interesting, but which are you?

ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS

By LTC(RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D.,author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy thingsthat deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself.

The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - ina lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997 One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens isconsiderably less than two million. Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: Wemay well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is stillremarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people whoare not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful. For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators. "Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial."Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy foryour fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness,into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed. Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves,and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids'schools. But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officerin their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial. The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheepdog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that thereare wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where togo, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports incamouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog. The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door. Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard onthe door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differentlyabout their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember howmany times you heard the word hero? Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones. Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens inAmerica said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs,the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out ofthe herd that is least able to protect itself. Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man onFlight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, businesspeople and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought thewolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke.

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision. If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door. For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones. I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break,one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked whyhe felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot,and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard itwould be to live with yourself after that?"Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for"heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids'school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them. Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up. Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when youare not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth. Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book,which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling. "Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in smallprint, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level. And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of hislife, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, andyou walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this toyourself..."Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. Itis not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.-----

Good words and remember...which one are you? I am a sheep dog.

Another perspective on the medal dilemma

2004-09-08T04:09:00.000-05:00

Troubling what this retired admiral has to say....Of all of the statements I have read on this subject, this one rings closer
to the truth than many others. I just want to forget about the medals and talk about Kerry's record in the Senate or his anti-war activities after Vietnam, but these things make it impossible....

Subject: An Admiral on Kerry

Here is a statement by the first hand, credible, witness to his
fraudulently claimed "Purple Heart Number One":
Purple Heart News
William Schachte speaks.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A new voice has been added to the debate over the
circumstances surrounding Sen. John Kerry's first Purple Heart.
William Schachte, who was a lieutenant in the Navy during Kerry's Vietnam tour - and who later rose to the rank of Rear Admiral - has released a statement describing the events of December 2-3, 1968, when Kerry received a minor shrapnel wound for which he was awarded the Purple Heart. What follows is Schachte's statement, in full.
Byron York
> > > ---------------------------
Statement of RADM William L. Schachte, Jr. USN (Ret.)
August 27, 2004

As was true of all "Swiftees," I volunteered to serve in Vietnam and
was assigned to Coastal Division 14 for a normal tour of duty. I was a Lieutenant serving as Operations Officer and second in command at Coastal Division 14 when Lieutenant (junior grade) John Kerry reported to us in mid-November, 1968. Lt. (jg) Kerry was an Officer-in-Charge (O-in-C) under training in preparing to be assigned as one of our Swift Boat O-in-C's.
At some point following President Johnson's announcement of the
suspension of bombing in North Vietnam in March 1968, we were directed to become more aggressive in seeking to find and destroy or disrupt the enemy in our operating area. As part of this effort, I conceived a new operation that became known as "Skimmer OPS." The concept was simple. A 15-foot Boston Whaler was sent into an area where, based on coordinated intelligence, North Vietnamese cadre and Viet Cong were expected to be meeting or where, for example, concentrations of enemy forces might be involved in the movement of arms or munitions. We were to draw fire and quickly get out of the area. This would allow more concentrated firepower to be brought against the enemy forces we had been able to identify.

These operations were carried out only in "hot" areas, and well away
from any villages or populated areas. A Swift Boat would tow the skimmer to the general area of operations, and the ambush team would then board the skimmer and proceed to the designated area of operations. The Swift Boat would be riding "shotgun" and standing off, occasionally out of sight, to provide fire support and long-range communications. The Skimmer was powered by an outboard motor, and we carried an FM radio, handheld flares, an M-60 machine gun with a bipod mount, and an M-16 mounted with a starlight scope. If the night was heavily overcast, we brought an M-14 mounted with an infrared scope. We also carried an M-79 single-shot grenade launcher. In addition to our combat gear and flak jackets, we
often carried .38-caliber pistols.

The operation consisted of allowing the skimmer to drift silently
along shorelines or riverbanks to look or listen for sounds of enemy
activity. If activity was identified, we would open fire with our automatic weapons, and if we received fire, we would depart the area as quickly as possible, leaving it to air support or mortar fire from a Swift Boat standing off at a distance to carry out an attack.

I commanded each of these Skimmer operations up to and including the
one on the night in question involving Lt. (jg) Kerry. On each of these operations, I was in the skimmer manning the M-60 machine gun. I took with me one other officer, and an enlisted man to operate the outboard motor. I wanted another officer because officers, when not on patrol, were briefed daily on the latest intelligence concerning our sector of operations and were therefore more familiar with the current intelligence. Additionally, at these daily briefings, officers debriefed on their patrol areas after returning to port.

On the night of December 2-3, we conducted one of these operations,
and Lt. (jg) Kerry accompanied me. Our call sign for that operation was "Batman". I have no independent recollection of the identity of the enlisted man, who was operating the outboard motor. Sometime during the early morning hours, I thought I detected some movement inland. At the time we were so close to land that we could hear water lapping on the shoreline. I fired a hand-held flare, and upon it bursting and illuminating the surrounding area, I thought I saw movement. I immediately opened fire with my M-60. It jammed after a brief burst. Lt. (jg) Kerry also opened fire with his M-16 on automatic, firing in the direction of my tracers. His weapon also jammed. As I was trying to clear my weapon, I heard the distinctive sound of the M-79 being fired and turned to see Lt. (jg) Kerry holding the M-79 from which he had just launched a round. We received no return fire of any kind nor were there any muzzle flashes from the beach. I directed the outboard motor operator to clear the area.

Upon returning to base, I informed my commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr.
Grant Hibbard, of the events, informing him of the details of the operation and that we had received no enemy fire. I did not file an "after action" report, as one was only required when there was hostile fire. Soon thereafter, Lt. (jg) Kerry requested that he be put in for a Purple Heart as a result of a small piece of shrapnel removed from his arm that he attributed to the just-completed mission. I advised Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard that I could not support the request because there was no hostile fire.

The shrapnel must have been a fragment from the M-79 that struck Lt.
(jg) Kerry, because he had fired the M-79 too close to our boat. Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard denied Lt. (jg) Kerry's request.

Lt. (jg) Kerry detached our division a few days later to be reassigned to another division. I departed Vietnam approximately three weeks later, and Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard followed shortly thereafter. It was not until years later that I was surprised to learn that Lt. (jg) Kerry had been awarded a Purple Heart for this night.

I did not see Lt. (jg) Kerry in person again for almost 20 years.
Sometime in 1988, while I was on Capitol Hill, I ran into him in the
basement of the Russell Senate Office Building. I was at that time a
Rear Admiral and in uniform. He was about 20 paces away, waiting to catch the underground subway. In a fairly loud voice I called out to him, "Hey, John." He turned, looked at me, came over and said, "Batman!" We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, agreed to have lunch sometime in the future, and parted ways. We have not been together since that day.

In March of this year, I was contacted by one of my former swift boat
colleagues concerning Douglas Brinkley's book about Senator Kerry,
"Tour of Duty." I told him that I had not read it. He faxed me a copy of the pages relating to the action on the night of December 2-3, 1968. I was astonished by Senator Kerry's rendition of the facts of that night. Notably, Lt. (jg) Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all. He also claimed that he was wounded by hostile fire. None of this is accurate. I know, because I was not only in the boat, but I was in command of the mission. He was never more than several feet away from me at any time during the operation that night. It is inconceivable
that any commanding officer would put an officer in training, who had
been in country only a couple of weeks, in charge of such an ambush
operation. Had there been enemy action that night, there would have
been an after action report filed, which I would have been responsible for filing.

I have avoided talking to media about this issue for months. But,
because of the recent media attention, I felt I had to step up to recount my personal experiences concerning this incident.

*******
The term that seems to apply will have to wait until after the DOD investigation, but here it is.... a medal hunter. I have seen them before, in combat and in garrison.

Words Women Use

2004-09-07T03:56:00.000-05:00

For a laugh when one is dearly needed :)

FINE

This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

FIVE MINUTES

If she is getting dressed, this is half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given 5 more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

NOTHING

This is the calm before the storm. This means "something," and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with 'Nothing' usually end in "Fine"

GO AHEAD

This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it

LOUD SIGH

This is not actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A "Loud Sigh" means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you over "Nothing"

THAT'S OKAY

This is one of the most dangerous statements that a woman can make to a man. "That's Okay" means that she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

THANKS

A woman is thanking you. Do not question it or faint. Just say you're welcome.

Good News, but not in the media

2004-09-04T15:28:00.000-05:00

A friend of my father in law sent this...

This happened to me this weekend. I would like to share it.

On Saturday, August 7th, I flew to Ohio for my 40th high school reunion. Due to an error in boarding passes, I ended up in First Class, Seat 2B from Atlanta to Dayton, Ohio. As people were boarding, a soldier came on. I said to him that I appreciated him serving. He said thanks and continued to coach. When the door of the plane closed, there was clapping and applause from the back. The soldier was brought to First Class and sat next to me in 2A.

We began talking and he told me he had been traveling for three days from Baghdad. His wife and twin two year old daughters would be waiting for him in Dayton. He was going to be home for two weeks and then back to Iraq for 6 months. This 23 year old man had been in the Army five years. This was his fourth deployment. He has made up his mind to leave the Army and go with the CIA so he can be with his family more while still serving his country. He is a Sergeant in intelligence. Loves the Army, but because of the draw downs of troops, there are not enough soldiers to do the job. If he stays in, he knows he will deploy again in the near future. I asked him several questions and was surprised at some of his answers.

My obvious first question was would we really ever get the job done in Iraq. No question about it, he said. Since the Iraqi's have taken over, things are getting done. Thev US troops are now more of a support role for the Iraq Army (National Guard). There are now 40,000 troops in their Army and 60,000 more being trained plus police and local militia. His opinion is we would be starting the withdrawal by January 2006. The Iraqi's are very upset that the insurgents and non Iraqi's are the ones causing problems. He told me the Iraqi people in large liked the US but wanted the radicals out of their country. Schools are open, power is on, commerce is going, etc.

When an Iraqi unit tries to find a suspect, that always "get their man" because their tactics are a bit harsher then ours.Without getting into politics, I asked him how the troops felt about President Bush. He commented that they totally trusted him because he felt Bush was honest with them. Bush had made mistakes, but admits it.He was at the Thanksgiving dinner when Bush was there. Nobody knew the President was coming. The sergeant had to 'reluctantly' drive 60 miles to get there and was expecting a rah rah speech from a Senator or Congressman. When Bush came out, it made him proud to be in the Army. His reaction was one he really could not explain. Every soldier there without exception has relived that moment many times. Proud to be an American because they knew Bush had risked his life to be there even for a shorttime.

Another subject was the WMD's. His only comment was they obviously had them or had them at one time because they had been used in the past. He also commented regardless of whether they had them, if we had not gone in now, we would have eventually because Iraq had the potential to make and use them and probably would again. He saw many prisoners of the old regime that had been maimed and had seen several mass graves. No question we should be there.

I asked him if they were all getting in their absentee votes. The answer was a definite yes and they were all being done correctly. It appears the military was not happy after the last election when an attempt was made for many of the votes to not count because of "technicalities." He said that would not happen again.

One of my final questions was how he felt about the Spanish pulling out. He jumped right back and said "they are all cowards." He was with them in April when their compound was attacked. They all ran and hid. The 50 US troops were able to drive back the Iraq's with no Spanish help. It took 12 hours. He had been told earlier that the Spanish were going to be asked to go home anyway.

He had been in many fire fights and commented that the only medal he received was a Purple Heart when a mortar round went off in his compound while he was off duty and he was wounded in the leg. He said medals were hard to come by and very few had been awarded in his unit. But he said nobody he knew was there to get a medal. This was a volunteer Army and they were doing their job.

He also commented that the value of life there is far different than in the US. Iraqi soldiers/non soldiers would attack tanks with rocks. Some of them are fanatical. That used to bother him, but he said when it's you or them, there is no choice. That also try and recruit small children because they know the US troops will not fire at a child. If a child comes at you with a grenade, fire away. No remorse. However, much has changed since the Iraqi's have taken over their own government.

My last question was whether he had seen Michael Moore's movie. I was surprised when he said yes. It was treated as a comedy by all who watched it because it was 100% propaganda. His unit wants Michael Moore to come over on a USO Tour so they can "hog tie" him. Had a big smile on his face. I can only imagine what he meant.

While we were flying, he commented he had not had a shower in a week. He looked out at the green countryside and said it was 118 degrees when he left Baghdad. He did have a beer, his first in 8 months.

I know I am not a good writer and have left out some important things, but I was very proud to have spent 90 minutes with this brave individual and wanted to share it. He commented he loved his country and what he was now doing was what he wanted. He reached into his pack and gave me some Saddam dinars (money) as souvenirs.I said that some national media should talk with him. He commented 'fat chance' because all they like is negative stuff and he would only tell positive things. This is being written late on the night of August 8th so I don't forget any details. You may question it and, yes, it is second hand, but I know what I heard. When we got off the plane, I walked by his family because twin two-year-old girls stand out. I said to them he was right behind me. They were so excited. They asked me how he was. I told them 'great." Besides his wife, his Mother was there with tears in her eyes. I had a few myself. What a flight!

Rob Schantz
Jacksonville

Should we declare war?

2004-08-29T07:46:00.000-05:00

It sounds like a simple question but since the US has not declared war on fundamentalist Islam or international terror organizations, the question remains should we declare war now?

It has many advantages-- first, as Harry Summers noted- it clarifies the mind. Declaring war focuses you and the nation on the task at hand.

Second it would be easier to mobilize the nation, the economy and the populace to the task of defeating our enemy. If we have made a more serious mistake than not declaring war on the enemy during this time of great crisis, I don't know what it is. It was possible to do in the days after 9/11. We didn't do it.

Third, every enlistment contract in the US military reads (though few actually read it) that during time of war or national emergency the enlistment is extended to the duration PLUS six months. That would stop the silly discussion about stop-loss as a backdoor draft. That would not make a draft more likely for the forces required still need to be trained to the same level they are at currently.

Fourth, we could take legal measures permissable during wartime to silence actions aiding the enemy or hindering a nation at war. Sean Penn doing a real movie from jail might not be such a bad thing. Treason is a harsh word and it should remain so. War has visited us all and the nation should be able to punish those who think their rights of free expression infringe upon the sanctity of the nation.

The question remains should we declare war now? After all that has happened in both OEF and OIF and in the world...can the US effectively mobilize the will power to declare war against the enemy? This is my major criticism of the Bush Administration-- that when we declared the war on terror we did not actually declare war.

Now I can't see Kerry doing any better, but I think we should correct the mistake and start doing it right from here on out.

My perspective and my perspective only though I welcome debate on it. I realize that in this polarized nation we live in this will probably not happen in the near future-- short of another large scale domestice terror attack (which is sure to come, sooner or later).

Any thoughts?

This one has to hurt

2004-08-25T12:05:00.000-05:00

Amid all the other flotsam and jetsam of the election year. I just couldn't pass this one up. Michelle Malkin posted it from the Washington Times. Amid the dDrudge Report story and from Fox News----
take it for what it's worth

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040818-092342-5914r.htm

Ask the warriors

2004-08-25T05:22:00.000-05:00

Proceedings
August 2004

Ask The Warriors About Iraq

By Lieutenant Colonel (select) Stanton S. Coerr, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

President George W. Bush gathered U.S. support for invading Iraq by using two arguments: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein supported al Qaeda terrorism. Now, vicious words and gratuitous finger pointing keep coming from people who insist they were misled. Politicians and TV experts sharply critique the Bush administration. Yet, I have not heard a word from anyone who actually carried a rifle or flew an aircraft in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and its ugly aftermath. What about consulting the guys who had—and still have—the most to lose?

As a Marine Corps reserve major, I was the senior U.S. officer attached to the 1 Royal Irish Battlegroup (a reinforced British rifle battalion). I commanded five Marine air-naval gunfire liaison teams and was the liaison officer between the U.S. Marines and the battlegroup. Seventeen days after activation on 14 January 2003, my Marines and I were in Kuwait, ready to go to war.

Having studied political science at Duke University and government at Harvard University, I understand realpolitik, geopolitical jujitsu, economics, and the realities of the Arab world. I am not a blind follower. But the war made sense then—and our presence there makes sense now.

At dawn on 22 March, we crossed the border in trace of the 5th Marine Regiment’s sweep through the Ramaylah oil fields. We were the guys you saw on TV every night: filthy, hot, exhausted. Although the National Rifle Association’s right-to-bear-arms mantra is a joke to me, I carried a loaded rifle, a loaded pistol, and a knife at all times. I pointed a loaded weapon at another human for the first time in my life. We killed numerous Iraqi soldiers. I directed air and artillery strikes in concert with my British artillery officer counterpart. Close up, we saw dead bodies, helmets with bullet holes in them, handcuffed prisoners, and oil well fires with flames leaping 100 feet in the air. In short, I did what I had spent 14 years training to do.

Apart from the violence, a number of things lifted our hearts. Thousands of Iraqis ran into the streets at the sight of us, screaming, waving, and cheering. They ran from their homes when our vehicles roared in from the south, bringing us bread, tea, cigarettes, and photos of their children. Much was lost in language differences, although my clear impression was: “Thank God, someone has arrived with bigger men and bigger guns to be on our side at last.” We saw in the eyes of the people how a generation of fear reflects in the human soul.

For those who oppose the war, let there be no mistake: the Ba’ath regime was the Nazi Party of the second half of the 20th century. Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship raped, tortured, murdered, extorted, and terrorized the Iraqis for 35 years. Mass graves bear testimony to countless crimes. One U.S. Marine battalion liberated a prison populated entirely by children, where the jailers had brutalized the weakest of them and killed the strongest.

The Ba’ath Party retained power by placing officials in every city and village to keep the people under its boot. We found munitions and weapons everywhere. In Ramaylah, the local Ba’ath leader’s desk contained brass knuckles and a handgun. These are the people who are in prison—where they belong.

Consider this analogy. For years, you watched the same large man come home at night. You listened to his yelling and the screams of children and the noise of breaking glass. You and everyone on the block knew he was beating his family. On behalf of the neighborhood, you asked him to stop. Then you begged; finally, you threatened him. Nothing worked. So, after 13 years, you muster the meanest guys you can find. You kick his door down, punch him in the face, and drag him away. The house is a mess, the family poor and abused. But now there is hope. You did the right thing.

I can speak with authority on the opinions of British and American infantrymen: at no time did anyone say—or imply—to any of us that we were invading Iraq to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction and avenge the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. We were there to oust a tyrant and return Iraq to its people. Marines carry out policy decisions, not make them—and none of us had the slightest doubt about the righteousness of our actions.

Take it from someone who was there and stood to lose everything. We must stay the course in Iraq. We owe it to the Iraqis and to the world.

Lieutenant Colonel (select) Coerr, a Marine reservist activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom, is an attack helicopter pilot and forward air controller. He is in the Home Depot Store Leadership Program in San Diego, California.

Appreciate Your Freedoms

2004-08-24T06:28:00.000-05:00

Detroit Free Press
August 23, 2004

An American Soldier Has A Unique Perspective On Iraq

By Mort Crim

The story of Iraq is a tale of two countries.

There's the one we see in the news: fighting, killing and conflict. That Iraq is all too real, but so is the other Iraq -- one our soldiers see every day. And we need to know about this other Iraq to fully understand what's happening there.

Rocky Eady of Greenville, Ala., knows about that Iraq. He's just returned from 14 months there, assigned to transportation with the Army. And what did he transport around the country? Not missiles or bombs or guns. Rocky and his unit moved food and water to the people of Iraq. Their job was to ease the hunger and pain brought on by months of war.

But Rocky Eady discovered another kind of hunger among the Iraqis: a deep hunger for freedom.

They may practice different religions and wear different kinds of clothing, but behind those differences, Rocky discovered Iraqis are very much like us. They want what people everywhere want: A chance to raise their children in a safe environment, to have a job, to achieve their dreams. They want to be free and Rocky got the distinct impression that most of them are glad we came and appreciate what we're doing.

Today's thought: Nothing makes us appreciate our freedoms like living among those who've never had them.

Interesting lessons from Varifrank

2004-08-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

The whole thing here-- just about the best analogy I have read in a good while-- about WMD, madmen, and the Manhattan Project:

http://varifrank.typepad.com/varifrank/2004/08/a_little_trip_i.html

I found it interesting...especially the lessons at the end

What did you learn from your visit to the past?

Even the worlds smartest people can make mistakes. BIG Mistakes.

Doing nothing in the face of an obvious threat only increases the theat.

Maintaining a democracy is hard. Just being a Democracy is no guarantee of success against tyranny.

Treaties with madman are not just a "waste of time", they can actually help get you killed.

Human Beings are capable of enormous evil.

Allies arent all they are cracked up to be.

The only time you can be absolutely sure your enemies have a WMD, is when its used against you.

We could have lost WWII, if the people in America hadn't first been convinced of the necessity to fight it.

Until the Japanese attacked, it wasnt entirely clear that they would be convinced to fight.

The job of President is not a place for men of nuance.