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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! January 24, 2010 Give 'em a handBy GreyhawkQuestion: what is this man doing?
Dealing with the lingering headache from the Massachusetts Senate election? Thinking really really hard about Iraq, Afghanistan, health care, the economy and climate change? Well, yes to almost all, of course - but not in this picture. Hey, I got your salute right here:
I'm not sure why the identity of his trainer is a State secret - but here's the photo that accompanies the story:
The caption reads "Aides say President Obama privately repeated his salute until he got it down."
There's no evidence of that training here.
The salute represents something important, and doing it right is a sign you grasp that importance. It is indeed the "outward manifestation of what we expect" - but in this picture it's exactly wrong, and saying it's right doesn't make it so. If you're going to use this as the leading example of the tremendous effort and attention to detail the president puts to his task as Commander in Chief, you fail. Somewhere there may exist a photo of Obama rendering a proper salute. This ain't close. And that's a pretty lame start to a story that goes on to detail the many other things Obama has worked so very, very hard on to support the troops. Of course, if you're just trying to convince the 99% of the population who have no idea what a proper salute looks like that this is a "pretty good" example, then maybe it's the perfect start that tells us everything we need to know: the rest, assuredly - the part that actually matters - is just this good. On the other hand, as far as ball-washing feature coverage of how the president salutes and what it means, the story is sure a hellalot better than this one from the New York Times in 2003:
(Attention check: did you notice which name from paragraph one is missing from paragraph two?) For the record, a salute is a mutual exchange - it's initiated by a junior and returned by the senior. (The higher ranking you are, the more salutes you will render.) However, salutes are not required to be rendered or returned when the senior or subordinate are in civilian clothes. Anyone can perfect the salute, few will ever get it. Related blast from the past: Making Legends The 40 second long video isn't an urban legend, it isn't "an email from a guy at microsoft" or "a sergeant that was there". But what I suppose both Ed and I failed to make clear is that it is, in fact, a de-bunking of a media-fueled urban legend - Obama as military commander, making decisions on strategy, and literally calling the shots (See this week's iteration, examined here). The guy in this video is, in fact, a guy who needs a note card to recite the names of the military commands in Iraq. Multi-National Force-Iraq is not a bit player. It's the top level of command in the theater. It was recently commanded by a guy named Petraeus and is now commanded by this Odierno dude - both of whom have had their name in the papers a few times. If details like the full names of MNF-I or MNSTC-I (you know, the non-combat dudes who are working with and training our Iraqi partners to turn things over to them?) are hard to pronounce tongue twisters unfamiliar to the average American that's okay. The average American isn't nominally in charge of the operation. Whoever is in charge of developing their strategy and issuing their orders (aka "a plan for Iraq") knows who they are. The President of the United States needs a notecard. Posted by Greyhawk / January 24, 2010 2:55 AM | Permalink 1 TrackBackTrackBack URL: http://www.mudvillegazette.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/17260 Let's face it, troops - you guys make a pretty good photo op! Which makes you criminals! Criminals!You did not have to be paying much attention during last night's Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address to notice a young Ar... Read More 6 CommentsLeave a comment |
July 19, 2010Dawn Patrol 07/19/2010 [Greyhawk]
Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our ongoing roundup of information on war and other topics - from the MilBlogs and other sources around the world.
Always updating - refresh for updates.
AFGHANISTANProspects for stability in Musa Qala: challenges and possible solutions -- [Bill Ardolino /Long War Journal - in Afghanistan] Exploding Culverts -- [Kandahar Diary - in Afghanistan] Arbaki -- [Free Range International - in Afghanistan] Weather -- [A Major's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Fête Nationale -- [Field Notes: One Soldier's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Goodbye "FaST" Food (and good riddance) -- [FaST Surgeon - in Afghanistan] IRAQOn The Iran, Iraq Border -- [J.D. Johannes - in Iraq] WAR ON TERROR /TERRORISMSenators Look For Smoking Gun In BP-Lockerbie Link -- [AP] No Link Between BP And Lockerbie Release: UK Envoy -- [NPR news blog] UK's Cameron: Releasing Lockerbie Bomber Was Wrong -- [AP] U.S. AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLDAs Cameron and Obama Meet, BP Will Be Top Issue -- [NY Times] Afghanistan tops agenda for British PM's visit -- [Washington Times] WELCOME HOMEHomecoming -- [Rajiv Srinivasan - home from Afghanistan] STRATEGY & TACTICSISAF, SCR Address Military ROE and Tactical Directives -- [ISAF] SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYRaytheon's pain gun finally gets deployed in Afghanistan (update: recalled) -- [Engadget] Pain Ray Recalled From Afghanistan -- [Noah Shachtman/Danger Room] The Active Denial System: the weapon that's a hot topic -- [The Telegraph (UK)] World's Fastest Helicopter Boosts Battle Against Insurgents -- [ISAF]
POLITICSIs it time for a real GI Jane? -- [CNN] HUMOR/SATIRE(Need more? Dawn Patrols Archives are here.) Iraq, Afghanistan, War, Terrorism, Military, Politics, Media, MilBlogs, dawn patrol Mudville |
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.
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I don't know about anybody else but every time I see Obama salute I can't help but think of a child trying to play soldier. It actually pisses me off when I look at his attitude past and present towards military and law enforcement and the people he chose to surround himself with including people that bombed the Pentagon and America haters and now he's the Commander in Chief. My only hope is that as Commander in Chief he finally realizes what the military does every day, how important they are, how courageous they are, and recognize the wonderful individuals in the armed forces and that he will compare them with the f...ing idiots like Ayers, Wright, Jones, and other Che and Mao lovers that theorize about war, justice,and life while never having to actually fight for it.
When I was an Army paratrooper, giving a salute like Obama did, would have resulted in me doing pushups.
The pres did render near perfect salutes the night of the inauguration, and the midnight mission to Dover. But both of those were high profile events where he probably had a lot of people to remind him to do it right.
The casual salute you see above is likely what he does without thinking, and thus a better representation of how he salutes when he isn't thinking about all of the politics.
Military service of the last five Presidents:
Ronald Reagan, enlisted/officer in Cavalry, United States Army Reserve (1937-1942). United States Army Air Forces (promoted to Captain), 1942-1945.
George H. W. Bush, U.S Navy aviator, 1942-1945 (awarded DFC and three Air Medals).
Bill Clinton: no service. (Don't even get me started....)
George W. Bush: 1st Lt., F-102 pilot, Texas ANG and Alabama ANG, 1968-1974
Barack Obama: "Community Organizer."
I'll give you three guesses as to which three of the above presidents really rated giving salutes...and two of your guesses don't count.
I was in Civil Air Patrol as a teenager and we wore uniforms and saluted. I salute better than Obama, and I'm a girl! But what really surprised me was how lousy John Kerry (did you know he served in Viet Nam?) saluted - he looked like he was shading his eyes with a curved hand.
As they said about Clinton's salute, he always looked furtive and as if he knew he didn't know how, and didn't deserve the honor of being saluted. I was actually glad to see that Bambi had practiced saluting before heading off for the first time to greet "his" Army guys (always interrupting their meals, standing up to talk to them so they either have to crane their necks or stand up too, never sitting down and risking getting Army guy germs on him), but I think his skill is decreasing with practice. How does that happen? I hate watching him walk, too - he walks like a pimp or a stoner, not with purpose. Should work on the walk - take lessons from W on that.
I think his entire organization has the wheels coming off. He looks like he's surprised there would be actual work to this job, not just speechifying and receiving adulation. Bummer when that happens!
Having mastered the salute, we now move on to coaching that tricky hand-over-heart move during the National Anthem...