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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! October 10, 2007 Sh!tb@gsBy GreyhawkBy way of explanation... Given that the idea of former American troops becoming political party activists or expressing opposition to the war in Iraq really doesn't bother me (though I'll freely counter any false claims they might make in that capacity) I guess I should explain why I refer to the IVAW sh1tb@gs as IVAW sh!tb@gs. Simple - while ostensibly "anti-war", the IVAW sh!tb@gs actually spend their time and energy accusing American soldiers of committing endless atrocities in Iraq and insisting that said atrocities are condoned and covered up by the US military. (See this link for details - and don't even bother arguing this point.) Regardless of what IVAW claims it is - that is what IVAW actually is. (To the point that Jesse MacBeth was a welcome and unquestioned addition - but that's another story...) But (you might ask) given that abu Ghraib proves that American soldiers are capable of heinous treatment of the enemy in time of war, shouldn't such accusations be taken seriously? Yes. In fact, that's what disgusts me the most about the IVAW sh!tb@gs. In the abu Ghraib case, one soldier in the unit involved was outraged by his fellow soldiers' actions - and he came forward through proper military channels to get it stopped, investigated, and prosecuted. Don't be confused by the myth CBS drummed up when one of the guilty parties sent Mary Mapes his photo collection - the Army, not CBS, put an end to the actions of the soldiers at abu Ghraib. But (ironically due in part to the success of CBS in propagated that mythical version of the abu Ghraib story) the IVAW crowd is able to get away with claiming they were unable to get their chains of command to act against the atrocities they claim were perpetrated by themselves and their fellow troops. Of course, listen carefully to their atrocity tales today and you'll find they don't actually specify exactly who did what and when - just vague stories of "soldiers" or "officers" or "units" that rampaged through Iraq leaving nothing but dead babies in their wake. (Under "orders" or "policy".) This leaves us with only two conclusions regarding the IVAW - 1. They are telling the truth but are covering up for the actual people who committed, ordered, or covered up those atrocities. Whichever the case may be, I know the military will respond to any actual actions on the part of soldiers - see "abu Ghraib" for example. There may be some IVAW sh!tb@gs who are in my category one above. They are cowards, at best, and criminals, too. They disgust me more than those in cat two. But they are all, at best, shitbags. If you should ever meet one of these gutless freaks, make him name names. We who've served honorably in Iraq shouldn’t have to live with their lies, or wait 40 years for the truth.
Posted by Greyhawk / October 10, 2007 10:42 PM | Permalink 12 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 |
As one of the unnamed officers in these tales, I'd like to set the record straight. I killed lots of times. Male and female, young and old. I did it with wanton joy at times, but never with remorse. At times, the stench from the bodies became unbearable.
I've never given it a second thought until now... all those innocent lives! Hundreds... possibly thousands of lives.
Remorse? No way. Those houseflies were everywhere on the FOB.
--Chuck
Dear Chuck,
Too bad you couldn't post your picture, as well. I've always wanted to see a walking and talking shitbag!!! Since you claim you had the balls to commit wanton murder, would you mind giving us your name, rank, and outfit you did this with????
"This leaves us with only three conclusions regarding the IVAW -
1. They are telling the truth but are covering up for the actual people who committed, ordered, or covered up those atrocities.
2. They are lying.
3. ???
Pete Dawg, please read Chuck's last sentence more carefully.
Pete,
Birdlegs is right. Chuck just wrote a piece of satire. It wasnt the most brillant joke, but he didnt mean to defame our troops.
You can check his blog to get an idea of where he is coming from. He actually has what I believe to be a picture of himself in uniform at the top. All of his posts are extremely supportive of his fellow soldiers and writes extensively about his time in Iraq.
Few days back, American Thinker published a piece I wrote about the Winter Soldier Investigation. In it I made a few connections between VVAW to IVAW.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/10/investigate_the_winter_soldier.html
I posted a link and excerpt at my own blog.
http://keohane.blogspot.com/2007/10/winter-soldier-investigation-and.html
Got a comment from a Clifton Hicks, who I knew from shinola. He likened not believing the WSI smear to being a Holocaust denier.
“The 1971 WSI was completely fabricated, those guys never did any of those crazy things, sure... and I bet the holocaust never happened either, we should "investigate" that one too! WSI wasn't about slandering soldiers or the military, it was about exposing the truth to the American people. They have a right to know, and we as veterans are obligated to inform them.”
Anyway, I looked about for who Clifton Hicks might be, and lo and behold – he’s got a bit of public history:
http://letthemenforceit.blogspot.com/2007/10/to-some-only-so-called-soldiers-can.html
and he’s IVAW:
http://www.ivaw.org/user/286
The thing I like the most about his bio at IVAW is the ‘we’, ‘we’, ‘we’, ‘we’...until he gets to the ‘I’ discharge as a conscientious objector. BTW, can anyone tell me how that works in an all volunteer force? I was enlisted back in the days of the draft, but I can’t recall anyone but draftees applying for that. You enlist in the army and suddenly realize you are conscientiously opposed to fighting? I don’t get a warm and fuzzy about conscientious objection when ‘the resistance began for me’ after he got busted in an Article 15.
Some day, we might actually get up off our knees and pry or lips off the leftist PC propaganda spigot and try to pretend to stand up like men and face these traitors for what they are.
Issuing lies, distortions, falsehoods, etc etc during a time of war for the purpose of spreading defeatism, insubordination, reducing recruiting or otherwise simply to aid the enemy in their efforts to subjugate and destroy is, is not, never has been, and in a society with any hope of survival, never will be "just a difference of opinion".
It is betrayal most foul. No human society in the recorded history of man has ever tolerated such and survived.
Heh - good catch on the "three" - my bad.
Oh. I thought three was "THERE IS NO... number three."
I'm guessing camel spiders and other creepy crawlies were victims of Chuck's genocidal campaigns as well. Oh the... er, entymology?
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 10/11/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Please forgive me... I went to public school. I was late for reading comprehension that day because I couldn't get the condom on the banana.
Chuck... never mind. Oh, yeah thanks for your service. Boy do I feel like an ass... ;p
I personally have not witnessed anything I would classify as an atrocity. If I saw an atrocity, I would report it.
That said, I know I saw a lot of things which were illegal. You had people encouraging war crimes. We had a sergeant major who gave an NCODP about how we were only required to stand up to war crime committers if we felt it was really, really important. No kidding, that he wasn't telling us to do anything illegal, but if we did he would completely understand. Then he read us a rousing speech by a man who had, in fact, committed war crimes to save his men.
We had people who self-identified with PTSD who were told to 'suck it up and NCO on'. Or that they didn't really have it, they were just a dirtbag.
Or that it wasn't a real injury or problem.
One first sergeant threatened to get someone locked up in an in-patient ward if they didn't shut up, even though he admitted he knew they weren't crazy.
The Army has a lot of problems, and a lot of leaders that are just now adjusting to the fact that the way they learned things from their fathers and grandfathers isn't the way it's done anymore.
I won't ever put these people's names out there-and I haven't even blogged about them, nor do I think I ever will. I definitely won't be giving testimony about it. Why? Because these things are wrong, sure, but they're not the level of wrong that people's careers need to go down in flames for. Quite frankly, it's not their fault they are the way they are. They're little-wrong. And I think that may be the case with other IVAW members-and to be honest, a lot of regular Army that aren't IVAW as well. People don't speak up for stuff that happens all the time, even if it is in fact wrong, because it's only a little bit wrong. Or they speak up, but just to someone in their chain of command. They don't go outside it.
I can see why people might not want to name the little guys who did things, believing they were doing what Top wanted or what they were told.
Also, I have to say, not every IVAW member is all "ATROCITY!" Because, well, there aren't enough atrocities to go around, other than the political atrocity, which really is no one in the military's fault.