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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! December 20, 2004 Free TimeBy GreyhawkThe headline over this story reads "Brash Guardsman Isn't Sorry": The National Guardsman who put Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the spot about having to scavenge metal to boost the armor on military vehicles says he has no regrets. That, of course, is the Reader's Digest Condensed version of the give-and-take between the two. But hey, why let facts interfere with the story? Meanwhile, Spc Keith Lucas actually is in Iraq, and spending a lot of his time clearing roadside bombs. He does have off-duty time though: Spc. Keith Lucas, a Missouri National Guardsman on duty clearing bombs from roads in Iraq, participated Saturday in the commencement ceremony at the University of Missouri-St. Louis with the help of a satellite hookup. ?Hopefully, we'll get back real soon,? Lucas told fellow graduates watching him live on a giant screen. The 26-year-old mass communications major was given a minute-long ovation. Lucas' family accepted the diploma on his behalf. ?It shouldn't be just for him ? it's for all those guys over there,? said his father, Larry. Keith Lucas is due back in the states in February. Not sure if Spc Wilson will have that much free time on his deployment... (que the NCOs...) Posted by Greyhawk / December 20, 2004 10:00 PM | Permalink 13 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
I am puzzled by the tone of the article that says the hummvees are armored. If the hummvees were not armored until all of the bad press here in the states, then was that a false report? If the hummvees have been reworked with armor, isn't it because people like Wilson were complaining? Apparently the hummvees WERE NOT armored when many of them were under fire. If a tenant complained about a landlord because half the building burned due to no fire detectors, would you use that tone and say "The landlor has now put fire detectors in every apartment but 20. So that is a false report." I'm sorry but I'm puzzled. Who is the bad guy here, and why?
Powerline has an item today about this, including a link to a DefenseLink transcript of a press briefing. My take is that the up-armoring project has been ongoing for some time, and that the unit Spc Wilson belongs to (or will be joining) is complete or almost so.
I remember Ollie North reporting some months ago from Iraq and talking about the additional armoring on the humvees. He and the Marine team he was embedded with survived an IED which exploded very close to them due to the extra armoring - he was very impressed.
When my unit rolled North-allegedly we were all "armored up". But this is sort of impossible. They didn't have 5-Ton truck Up Armor kits then.
Chalks roll North with mixes of vehicles. Our Infantry Humvees were armored. The Signal Humvees from the another Company weren't. Some-had hillbilly armor-does that count?!? Is the General counting it here?!?
Furthermore-there are almost NO 5-Ton Up Armor packages now.
Were the few out there used only on the 278? Or do they have no 5-Tons? I would find that hard to believe.
As I sit with my Squadmates ...who are amazingly well prepared and equipped-I hope Rumsfield will be around for awhile.
But,I really doubt anyone will be dropping Wilson soon. General Speakes on the other hand....
Max
Thank heavens for guys like Spc. Wilson. If the armour was there already, as it should have been before leaving the manufactory, the question would have been unnecessary.I believe he saved many lives.
Max - you have a very good point. The information I looked at was for the Humvees only.
Greyhawk,
You wrote: "...he may soon be a sorry son of a bitch."
Yes, that's true. The officers in Wilson's chain of command may turn out to be vindictive little shits, as officers can often be, but that soldier had every right to ask the question he did. He knew damn well what he was doing, whether he got the idea from a journalist or not. It was a tough question, he wanted to put Rumsfeld on the spot, and in any case it's a question that Rumsfeld damn sure should have had a good answer for when he gives an open mic to citizen-soldiers.
The truth is, however, that Rumsfeld did have a good answer. This is the press's fault, not the soldier's, and not the military's.
f
Observer,
read link again.
All the criticism of Rumsfeld comments have been of the maliciously distorted reports of the comments rather than of the complete comments. Like the later shit about signatures, there is no search for truth there. All this concern for the well being of the military from a party that has done everything in their power the past 30 years to divert military budgets to welfare schemes and to demean the profession of arms is just a bit rancid.
Walter,
That's so true. I only wish more people would read what Rumsfeld actually said. He handled the question just fine. What did you think of the his opinion piece in USAToday?
f
I don't see why it makes a difference if Wilson's unit was "up-armored" at the time he asked the question. I didn't see that his questions specifically referred to his unit.
Besides which, naturally his unit would finished with up-armoring if they had spent all that time scavenging junk-yards.
The armor problem is hardly new. I remember reading months ago about a Midwestern town council working with a local steel factory to provide and pay for up-armoring vehicles for their own local National Guard unit.
There also wasn't anything Wilson said that wasn't true. If it was so out of line then why was it so warmly received by the rest of the soldiers there and afterwords? It's true that there may be only about 20 percent of HMMV's that may need armor. But there are over 80 percent of our trucks that they know need armor that don't have it. And by "they" I'm referring to official Pentagon numbers. It must take real courage to drive a fuel truck in one of these convoys.
Perhaps you should step back a few paces and try viewing the world out of something other than the perspective of thinking that everything is a liberal media plot out to bring down the military and end civilization as we know it. There's a faint possibility that you may have become somewhat biased and reactionary and have developed a tendency to jump to conclusions.
And I hate to be truly heretical, and completely mess up your sense of reality, but you also might want to consider that the reporter that helped Wilson with his questions (and tried to get him to tone them down) might not be evil incarnate.
We are after all talking about an embedded from Chattanooga. That's not exactly New York City. Smaller press often feel much more connected to where they live than big city reporters. He actually thought in some respects that he was helping to save some of his hometown soldiers lives.
What's funny about the blogs you link to is that in order to prove that there is a vast nefarious liberal media plot apparently underfoot they all quote other media or press officials as evidence.
That's as if Dan Rather said the sky was blue and you chose not to believe it because you had heard that Peter Jennings said it was yellow. Excuse me but... Huh?!
Patrick - as a guy here on the ground who has real problems with the Armor situation, I have to tell you that if the media's failure to cover the war with any real accuracy is proof of a liberal media plot.
Well-then there is a liberal media plot.
You know of course that only Bill O'Reilly can tell us the color of the sky!
Max
Ps I find myself more often agreeing here-not disagreeing.
Or-The media is horribly ignorant about the military. That's probably more accurate-I know writers from the Wall Street Journal, CNN and Newday.
They are all completely clueless about the military-they are also alllll liberal.
I know that this is a small sampling, just a dozen journalist, but I thought I'd throw that in.
Mx
If you read journalists from the Military Times family of newspapers you might change your opinion. As well as Star & Stripes. They have ceratinly published article critical of Pentagon and Government decisions. They aren't ignorant of military matters.
Inidentally, here is a another guy who has a problem with the armor situation. He's a veteran of OIF and a former Marine Officer.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2958840