Another Fraudvet...

...about to be exposed? IVAW's Carl Webb claims to be a deserter, and encourages others to follow his lead. But his lack of credentials has attracted the attention of the guys at This Ain't Hell, who've been doing yeoman's work exposing members of the stolen valor crowd.

He knows they're looking (see comments there). If I was him I'd provide proof of my claims. Documentation of that sort should be readily available - if it exists.

Administrative note: speaking of comments, we're putting some site upgrades in place, so comments here are unavailable at this time. Hope to have them restored shortly.

Take Cover

Now that Rolling Stone has included Small Wars Journal on the 2009 Hot List, how long until we see these at the local PX (or grocery store):

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All done!

The Afghan National Police

Just completed a roundtable with Col. James Harris, Regional Police Advisory Command-South: "Col. Harris, headquartered in Kandahar, Afghanistan, is responsible for mentoring and advising Afghan National Police in southern Afghanistan. He will discuss Afghan National Police Mission Essential Tasks."

The phone line was a bit more crowded than usual. Here's the audio, I think you'll find it interesting. Further discussion to follow.

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SWJ and the Rolling Stone Hot 100

Dave Dilegge asks "What do Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal have in common? One is on the cover of the Rolling Stone and one isn't - but sure enough both made the Rolling Stone 2009 "Hot List" - go figure."

"This time," an anonymous Rolling Stone editor says of the list, "we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga."

The kewl kidz know where to go for the show.

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I wonder what this button does...

Site maintenance is on tap for tonight. Hopefully we won't destroy everything in the attempt to improve, but if you experience the unexpected here that's why.

Testing one two three

Test link.

Comments currently don't work. Sorry, working the fix.

Near Bagram

A friend and Afghanistan vet emails regarding this story, noting two USAF members killed by an IED "near Bagram":

"That place is safer than Scranton. This would be VERY bad."

Safe is relative. I don't know enough about Scranton (or what"near" means in the context of the DoD press release) to provide additional details. But neither Afghanistan or Bagram are what they used to be, per this headline from earlier this month: US predicts 50 percent spike in Afghan IEDs:

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan--Strategically buried in the middle of dirt roads, packed in culverts and attached to trip wires, a heightened hidden danger awaits the thousands of U.S. troops pouring into Afghanistan to fight a tenacious Taliban.

The U.S. military expects a 50 percent spike this year in roadside and suicide bombings, which surpassed the number of similar strikes in Iraq during the spring. These types of bombs killed 172 coalition forces last year -- and far more Afghan civilians -- according to military figures.

"We don't hide the truth from them. We tell them if you are going to be killed or injured in Afghanistan, it is probably going to be by an IED," said Command Sgt. Maj. David Puig, 51, of Fort Lewis, Wash.

At least four rounds of indirect fire hit or struck near Bagram Airfield on Thursday night, with one round hitting the detention facility on base.
<...>
On Wednesday, an attacker set off a car bomb and a suicide vest device near a base gate. Only the bomber was killed, though three contractors were injured in that incident.

I spoke via phone with a friend at Bagram this week, one who was with me in Baghdad in 2007. I'd heard about that car bomb story immediately before he called, but I didn't ask him about it directly, instead asking a more general "How's security?".

"Here?" He replied, "Not bad. No where near as bad as we had it in Baghdad."

Your results may vary.

Fighting the Tide

Clint Watts ("a former US Army Infantry Officer, former FBI Special Agent and former Executive Officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point") at Small Wars Journal:

Current Western counterterrorism (CT) strategies, largely overshadowed by counterinsurgencies (COIN) in Iraq and Afghanistan, place great emphasis on eliminating the supply of foreign fighters at their intended targets. These strategies fail to adequately mitigate the demand for jihad by young recruits in foreign fighter source countries.

The key to success for future CT strategies will be the disruption of terrorist recruitment in foreign fighter source countries using a mixture of cost effective, soft power tactics to engage local, social-familial-religious networks in flashpoint cities – cities that produce a disproportionately high number of foreign fighters with respect to their overall population.

But regardless of destination, any efforts on our part to stem the flow at the source have been either non-existent or very much under the radar. Obviously an "American face" (especially a military one) on that effort would probably be counter-productive, so perhaps we're more involved in that than I know. If not, we should be.

It should also be noted that numbers - given potential numbers - of recruits for al Qaeda efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan have been generally small (though undeniably lethal). But whatever inferiority in numbers they suffer from has always been balanced by information warfare dominance, success at which simultaneously lowers enemy (us in this case) morale and boosts "homefront" recruiting. As I've said repeatedly, contra John Kerry al Qaeda will always have someone willing to be the last man to die for a mistake. Turning off the media PR machine that's been running full steam on their behalf over the past eight years might be difficult, but it should prove do-able and helpful in keeping our (including allied) soldiers and their would-be opponents (who inevitable die in even larger numbers then we do) alive. (Not to mention the thousands of civilians murdered in the cross fire.)

By the way, soft power - if you hadn't caught on yet - is a new kewl kidz buzzword (but - as with all kewl kidz buzzwords - nothing new). You'll be hearing it a lot in the near future. I should write a separate post some day about kewl kidz buzzwords and their utility in historical re-writes and continuation of old policies with new names.

A tough week for the USAF Community

Sad news from Afghanistan:

Senior Airman Ashton L. M. Goodman was 21 years old and in the Air Force for less than three years; Lt. Col. Mark E. Stratton came up through the ranks as a navigator and left his Pentagon desk job for a year in Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, both died when a roadside bomb exploded as they drove in Afghanistan near Bagram Airfield.
<...>
Goodman, a vehicle operator dispatcher, was assigned to the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team and deployed from the 43rd Logistics Readiness Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. She grew up in Indianapolis.

Stratton, 39, commanded the PRT. He was deployed from the Joint Staff’s plans and program office at the Pentagon, an Air Force spokesman said.

Provincial reconstruction teams specialize in helping Afghan communities with development projects such as building roads and schools, expanding medical services and providing electrical power. Panjshir Province is located in the mountains north of Bagram Airfield.

First Lt. Roslyn L. Schulte, 25, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations officer assigned to the 613th Air and Space Operations Center, died May 20 near Kabul, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered by a roadside bomb.
<...>
The lieutenant was a 2006 graduate of the Air Force Academy. She was the Academy's 10th graduate, and first female, killed while supporting operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

More here:

When Air Force 1st Lt. Roslyn Schulte, a member of the U.S. intelligence team in Afghanistan, traversed the dangerous mountain roads, she usually did so side by side with a Navy colleague, Lt. Shivan Sivalingam.
<...>
On Saturday, Lt. Sivalingam was making one of the longest trips of his life, and he was doing it alone. He was on his way back to the U.S. for the funeral of his friend, Roz Schulte, 25, the first female U.S. Air Force Academy graduate to be killed in action.

J.D. to the 'Stan

I've admired J.D. Johannes for his work for some time, and finally got to meet him at this year's MilBlogs Conference. There he and I talked deep into the night on new media and war, our experiences in Baghdad in 2007 (and earlier).

But that's the past. His next stop is Afghanistan, and you can help him get there. (I say go for the trilogy.)

On the chopping block?

Wings over Iraq:

I just received this e-mail from someone involved in an Army-based web forum called "CompanyCommand.com" (whose sister site is "PlatoonLeader.com"). Seems that, with projected budget "cuts", the first thing to go isn't bloated programs like the F-22 Raptor or the Army's Future Combat System, but rather, inexpensive projects which have actually yielded impressive results by spurring innovation from the field...

Decades

While visiting Abu M's place yesterday I read his account of Lunch with Casey:

I made only my second trip to the Pentagon today to have lunch with General George Casey and about seven other defense policy wonks and a few journalists.

When invited to spend a bit of time with the Chief of Staff, Army, it's useful to know a bit about the man's job and his role in that planning process. (Here's a wikipedia version) . Exum does, as he demonstrates by ending a discussion of the effectiveness of troop levels in Iraq with this: "Obviously, this is Gen. Odierno's problem more than it is Gen. Casey's. I was just curious to hear his thoughts given his time in Iraq."

On the other hand, here's the AP coverage:

Army chief: Troops could be in Iraq after 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States could have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade, the top Army officer said, even though a signed agreement requires all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by 2012.

Change of Command

I've been to a few in my day - you usually don't hear this sort of thing from the departing commander...

A top NATO leader says the alliance’s politicians are effectively absent without leave in the battle against Afghan insurgents.

General John Craddock, the outgoing Supreme Allied Commander, was referring to the fact that countries such as Canada, the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands are doing most of the fighting in Afghanistan’s most dangerous regions.

“I’m probably being harsh here, but I also believe that much of this is due to the fact that political leadership in NATO is AWOL,” the U. S. Army general told the Atlantic Council of the United States.

Air over Afghanistan

Roundtable with Brig General Walter D. Givhan, Commanding General, Combined Air Power Transition Force, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan. I joined this one late...

"Brig. Gen. Givhan discusses how his unit works alongside Afghan pilots and ground support Airmen to build a capable and sustainable Air Corps for Afghanistan. The CAPTF mission is to set the conditions for a fully independent and operationally capable Afghan National Army Air Corps to meet the security requirements of Afghanistan."

Digital Warriors

An invitation:

Join us for a live online discussion Tuesday, May 26, at 11 am EDT culminating our feature "Digital Warriors: Our 21st Century Military." The forum will cover a wide range of issues raised in our online videos and blog, including cyber-security, drones, virtual reality training, virtual reality medical treatment, and the "Soldier 2.0".

A panel of three distinguished experts will discuss the issues and answer visitor questions about the U.S. military's applications of modern digital technology. Guests include Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder, commander of the 8th Air Force, Air Combat Command, at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, where he served as the first commander of Air Force Network Operations and led the development of the cyberspace mission for the Air Force; Christian Lowe, award-winning military journalist and current editor of DefenseTech; and Dr. Albert 'Skip' Rizzo, research scientist and professor at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) and developer of the Virtual Iraq treatment for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Lt. Gen. Elder is also commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Global Strike (JFCC-GS), underneath US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). The JFCC-GS plans and executes strategic deterrence and global strike operations for USSTRATCOM.

While America Slept (Part four)

From July, 2008...

(Previous entry in series here.)

"I'm reluctant to say "the war has ended," as he did, but everything else he wrote is undoubtedly true."
- Michael Totten, on Michael Yon.

He was expanding on a brief post he'd done at his own site, in which he added that "...I'll be back in Iraq myself soon enough, and I'll weigh in on that question then."

And I believe he's uniquely (and superbly) qualified to do it - so I'm looking forward to his reports.

I met quite a few wandering bloggers passing through Baghdad last year. Missed a few, too.

Legacies

From June, 2008...

The American soldier is the most dangerous man in the world, and the Iraqis had to learn that before they would trust or respect us. But it was when they understood that these great-hearted warriors, who so enjoyed killing the enemy, are even happier building a school or making a neighborhood safe that we really got their attention.

*****

More before and after photos from the surge:

*****

This week Robert Stokely sent me some more photos he'd just received from Iraq.

"The purpose of what was labeled the Mike Stokely Foundation Yusufiyah Project", Robert writes, "was to establish a humanitarian link with this region and help the local school children have needed school supplies."

Robert described the email that came with the photos:

The words of LT Dreschner in his email to me today are words Mike and his 108th CAV never knew - 'things in Yusufiyah are very good". Just three years ago, when Mike and his fellow 108th CAV were in Yusufiyah things were the extreme opposite - very very bad. The Triangle of Death has now become a peaceful place where our soldiers are able to concentrate more on humanitarian relief and seldom encounter hostile action or IEDs.

"Coincidentally", Robert adds, "at the same time, the Nathan Barnes Foundation (honoring Nathan Barnes, 10th Mountain Division who died in the region) also sent supplies to be distributed by the 101st AB DVN."

The Christian Science Monitor covered the Nathan Barnes Foundation here.

See earlier stories here here and here.

*****

The Mike Stokely Foundation also awards scholarships to American students - as does the Maupin family's Yellow Ribbon Support Center: "It has sent thousands of gift boxes to troops overseas and awarded 180 scholarships in honor of fallen soldiers."

2008-06-13 20:37:57

All done!

The Red Pill (Part Two)

From December, 2008...

Part one is here.

"On 23 October, we seized it with a two-company assault from the Golden Dragons, and since then it's been known as Patrol Base Dragon."

October 23, 2006 - before "the surge" began. That's from the post-deployment "wrap up" by Colonel Mike Kershaw, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division ("Commando"). Its become all too common these days to approach declaring everything before the surge as "failed" in Iraq - in spite of the fact that all of the tactics used during the surge were tried and proven in the years prior, in Tal Afar and Qaim and Ramadi and other locations throughout the country, and nowhere had American troops surrendered the battle.

"We initially looked at this is a classic counterinsurgency, and we moved in and secured the people. We had several examples we were able to follow and studied the counterinsurgency doctrine that our Army has been pushing to the forefront and were able to apply that immediately upon getting here." Colonel Kershaw wrote, and added praise to the previous unit in the AO: "our predecessors from the Strike Brigade of the 101st literally had their way into the heartland of this al Qaeda sanctuary. Their hard fight really put us in a good position to launch our counterinsurgency operations, which commenced 20 September 2006, as we assumed this area of operations from our Strike brethren."

In December, 2005, Robert Stokely wrote me an email that began with this:

Came across your blog this morning, and thought I'd share my thoughts as the dad of an American Soldier killed in action four months ago. My son was standing cover flank for two buddies checking out a suspicous location in the roadway while on patrol at 2:20 A.M. 16 Aug when an IED exploded. He was the only one killed. Two soldiers suffered serious injuries and are now home on permanent medical leave, but both will live normal lives after they finish med rehab and surgery.

Mike didn't die for a "just cause", he died JUST BECAUSE - just because he loved his country enough to want to serve it since the time he was in middle school; just because he loved his family enough to want to protect them; just because he loved his friends enough that he would rather fight a war "there" than here; just because he believed in our order of government whereby the civilian government rules and the military obeys, and when the President, with lawful authority, calls upon soldiers to go and fight, he believed it was not only his duty, but his honor to go; just because he wouldn't let his fellow soldiers - his guys - go it alone; and just because he wanted to do for others - the Iraqi people - what he would do for his own country.

Robert Stokely, Lucky and Proud to be the Dad of
SGT Michael "Mike" James Stokely, KIA Operation Iraqi Freedom 16 Aug 05
2nd Platoon, E Troop 108th CAV 48h Brigaded GA NATL GUARD
15 miles south of Baghdad near Yusufiyah / IED

And they had not forgotten.

The Fallen

Via comments here:

Today the media has insulted the fallen. In an article on corruption charges against the Iraqi Trade Minister the photo included is of the return of SFC Brian Naseman's remains at Dover AFB. The reporting agency should issue a public explanation of how the photo relates to the story outside of trying to tie every story about Iraq to emotionally charged photos of the fallen.
- Gary Walters

REMEMBER WITH HONOR - A LIFETIME OF LOVE HAS BEEN GIVEN

From Robert Stokely, Gold Star Father:

Memorial means "serving, or intended, to preserve the memory... to keep in remembrance". Here is an Excerpt from the Order designating May 30, 1868 as Memorial Day:

...We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security, is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten...

The gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery graced by U.S. flags

Ask yourself an honest question - Is that how America views Memorial Day? Honestly, I have to say that before my son went to war and died, it wasn't for me and from what I have observed, it isn't for most of America.

There are many costs of Freedom, but on Memorial Day we should only focus on and Remember the Fallen with Honor for their sacrifice is the highest cost to maintain freedom - A Lifetime of Love.

On Memorial Day, let us each strive to serve with intention to preserve the memory of the Fallen, for as has been said, a nation who forgets its Fallen will itself soon be forgotten.

Duty Honor Country,

Robert Stokely
The proud dad of SGT Mike Stokely
KIA 16 AUG 05 near Yusufiyah Iraq
USA E 108 CAV 48th BCT GAARNG

OBAMA Speech Addressing Nation on Monday 2/9/09 - Did I hear the question I thought I heard Ed Henry CNN ask?

From February, 2009...

Guest post from Gold Star father, Robert Stokely:

Tonight, as I watched President Obama's speech on his plan for the stimulus, I could not believe some of the lame (nice way of saying stupid) questions he was asked out of context for the message he was delivering.

What did he think about Alex Rodriguez admitting steroid use? I have to say President Obama showed great restraint in how he answered the question, but who could have blamed him if, given the seriousness of what we face economically, he had said "you got to be kidding, somebody show this idiot where the door is and take his press credentials when you throw him out on Pennsylvania Avenue...." Really, is it the most important thing most of us (much less the President) need to be concerned about given that Alex Rodriguez is at best an overpaid jock who got outed after he has continually lied that he used steroids?

But that was not such a bad question compared to Ed Henry with CNN, who asked the President whether he thought the arrival of American coffins at Dover should be accessible to the media to "show America the real cost of the war...." and would he reconsider the policy of not allowing the media in. Ed Henry and CNN seem to want to make it a spectacle to "behold" when our FALLEN Heroes arrive at Dover on their final trip home to an honorable rest. Absolutely not!!!! Why shouldn't we let the media have access to film and put it on the evening news? Well for the same reason the media should not be the first to know the identity of the fallen before the family is told.

It is a very personal moment when a fallen hero arrives home. And the first to see that should be the family, not America.

Our family made a decision which granted me a special privilege and honor for me to go alone and meet Mike's body as he arrived from Dover at Hartsfield Atlanta Airport on August 24, 2005. A quiet singular reception, so I could ride in the hearse to take him to the funeral home 25 miles away on a road he and I traveled many times as I carried him to and from for weekend, holidays, and other visitation as a divorced dad. It was a "LAST RIDE TO TAKE MY BOY HOME". I wore a favorite blue blazer and red and blue tie as my way of showing respect to my son. As they uncrated his casket and draped the American flag over him I saluted from nearby, tears streaming down my cheeks as a number of busy airline air cargo employees suddenly stopped in stunned silence, only then realizing what was taking place. I held my salute, poor as it was for an untrained civilian, until the flag was completely draped and the edges evenly corned out. Then, I stepped outside to call my wife Retta who loved him like one of her own and as she answered the phone, tears still streaming down my cheeks, with a quiver in my voice, I said "our boy is home."

Others families did it "their way" and that is how it should be.

Mike Stokely and many others like him died for America. I was once asked what I thought the cost of freedom was. Freedom has many costs, but for the fallen and their families the cost is a Lifetime of Love. Is it too much to ask, given what we have paid for America and the likes of Ed Henry and CNN to be free to have that first moment to be ours and not America's? Should we now be asked to give more so that something so private can be used, not for furthering the first amendment, but to sell advertising to ensure a media's profitable bottom line? While black corporate ink is in most cases a good thing, it can not be so when it comes at the cost of dishonoring the spilled Red American Blood of our FALLEN.

Mr. President, I hope your answer to ED Henry, CNN and the likes will be an unequivocal, unwavering and unapologetic NO WE WILL NOT TURN THE HONORABLE SANCTITY OF DOVER INTO A MEDIA SPECTACLE!!!! You Sir, must protect our fallen and their families and the privacy of Dover.

After all Mr. President, that is little enough to ask given that the fallen gave their lives to protect you and your's.

DUTY HONOR COUNTRY.

Robert Stokely
proud dad SGT Mike Stokely
KIA 16 AUG 05 near Yusufiyah Iraq
USA E 108 CAV 48th BCT GAARNG

UPDATES by Mrs G: Heres what others have to say:

Obama Reviewing Ban On Photos Of Military Coffins -- [AP]

Gates Orders Review of Policy on Soldiers’ Coffins -- [NY Times]

God, I hate the media. - [Chuck Z - From my Position]

Has The Time Come To See The Fallen? -- [Wolf - BlackFive]

Dear President Obama -- [Carrie - Villianous Co.]

Tug of War -- [Cassandra - Villianous Co.]

Propaganda, Agendas, And The Sanctity Of Dover -- [Old Blue - Bill and Bob's Afghan Adventure]

A must read from Robert Stokely -- [Greta - Hooah Wife]

Public or Private: A Policy Under Review -- [Andi - Spousebuzz]

Another Must Read -- [Tammi's World]

UPDATE II:
Military.com took a poll on whether the policy should be overturned. RESULTS HERE

2009-02-10 07:55:28

Erin Doyle

From March, 2009.

"ISAF" is the acronym for International Security Assistance Force - the NATO coalition in Afghanistan. There's an inside joke among some that it actually stands for "I saw Americans Fight."

I'll bet no one ever told Erin Doyle that.

It took three rockets to kill him. Take three minutes and read the link.

(Via the DP, as always)

2009-03-12 19:57:01

All done!

SEAL statue frightens parents

From April, 2007...

Navy SEAL Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny Dietz Jr., fell in action in Afghanistan in 2005:

Petty Officer Dietz, 25, was awarded the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest award for valor after the Medal of Honor, for fighting off an ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan despite being mortally wounded. His actions were credited with helping a fellow Navy SEAL escape.

Littleton, Colorado, plans to honor his sacrifice with a statue:

Plans for the memorial began last summer when the city started working with Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, and the Dietz family. The family raised $42,000 to cover the costs, with no public funding involved.
<...>
A bronze sculpture of Petty Officer 2nd Class Danny Dietz Jr. showing him cradling his rifle across his chest is scheduled to be unveiled July 4 at Berry Park here, where he grew up and attended school. The statue was modeled after a photo of the young serviceman.

But a group of parents wants the city to recast the statue or place it elsewhere, arguing that the site, near three elementary schools and two parks, is a hub for young children who could find the weapon disturbing.

"While our hearts go out to the family of this brave young man, we have serious concerns regarding the graphic and violent detail the statue portrays," stated a flier distributed recently in a nearby neighborhood.

Update: The statue honoring Dietz was unveiled on July 4th, 2007.

2007-04-08 00:03:42

TSgt John A. Chapman

Note: Originally from February, 2005, this tribute to a hero of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM is being presented as part of Mudville's Memorial Day weekend, 2009.

The Navy has announced it will name a ship for Air Force Technical Sergeant (E6) John A. Chapman.

Old Man's War

From earlier this month...

The title of this post is also the title of a book by John Scalzi - one that came immediately to mind when I read this, for obvious reasons.

2009-05-15 12:05:08

News for the New Millenium

As the buffer fills, skip forward to 22:30 in this video...

Air Mobile

News from Vietnam:

Here is Germany

This extremely graphic 1945 film by Frank Capra was made to "prepare soldiers who had not seen combat to go to Germany for the US occupation after the May 8, 1945 unconditional surrender." The film was, however, never used for its intended purpose.

Before viewing you might want to review my earlier Memorial Day warning.

Run with me

Run with me.

Don't worry if you haven't lately, or don't have the right shoes, this run won't hurt a bit. It's virtual, of course. You can be 10 again, or 12, or whatever age you were when last you ran for the sheer joy of it. I run for many different reasons now and joy is still one of them. I'm grateful that I can run. There's joy in that. I've planned a route. Ready?

We're out the door. We walk across the patio, turn the corner around the house, and in three steps we are in the woods. Here we can start to jog, to warm up. The path under our feet is soft and smooth, the smells are of pine rather then the car exhaust and until we begin breathing harder later the loudest sounds we'll hear are the call of birds.

I start my watch, but the time is important today only as to total duration of this run. It's a short one - half an hour at a fairly easy pace - distance is not important but the hills along the route will separate this endeavor from a truly easy day. This initial stretch is flat though, the surface soft and smooth as I said, and will serve to work out the stiffness and minor aches that keep others on the couch.

A quarter mile through the woods and the scenery changes as we emerge from the trees and enter the farm country, our path now an unpaved 'road' between a horse pasture and a planted field. The surface is flat but uneven, closer attention must be paid to ankle-twisting ground below, especially those stretches where tire ruts are deepest. This is not a traveled road, so grass grows tall and disguises treacherous footing. But eyes can not remain on the ground; we run along a hillside, and though only half way up the view is fine. Hills roll in the distance on the far side of the valley below, fading from green to purple to grey in the distance. On roads below a few cars seem like toys and move slowly through the countryside. The entire scene, even the viewing perspective, is like looking at a model railroad layout on a table. A Gods-eye view of pastoral country, quiet and serene. The parallel to hill country in my past is unmistakable.

A tree line ahead marks the turning point in the trail. We're only a half mile along, but we've been speeding up ever so slightly as we've gone. Now we must think slower as a left turn takes us in an uphill direction. Running at our current pace on this early incline will render the remaining distance a bit uncomfortable. Not a steep hill, but a quarter mile at an increasing grade will still start the real heart rate increase and elevated breathing rate that indicate an entry into "the zone" - the just beyond comfort level I'd like to maintain for the duration of this run. The hilltop is in sight, a final push and we're there.

A ridgeline actually, with a paved, single lane road running along it, a mile-long strip of concrete connecting two small towns. Turn a 360 while jogging in place and claim the reward for every hill climb you'll ever complete: the view.

The path behind us has now joined the rest of the model railroad world; the tall trees of the woods we ran through now seem small. Turn forward though, for the path ahead is longer by far then that behind us. Blue sky above, but the air is turning to cool, some of the leaves of the hardwoods begin to hint at the breathtaking riot of late fall color that's still to come. The cool in the air is just enough to sting the back of the throat, and nothing like the winter cold that will reach into the lungs, steal heat, and exit as steam. For a runner though cold is infinitely better then heat. For me 45 degrees is just right, though I'd prefer the wind not to blow too hard with that. Today the wind is fine, just enough to counter the production of heat that accompanies this degree of effort.



We travel only briefly on this flat paved road. Just up ahead, where the ground is just wide and flat enough, sits the soccer field for the town below, on the far side of the ridge from where our journey began.We turn on the road that connects the field to that town and begin our descent. Downhill - a bit less effort then a hill climb perhaps, but challenging in it's own way. Gravity, that uncaring enemy of the climb, might now be our friend, but if so a treacherous one. Stomping down a hillside is a mark of the rookie runner, on the way to injury. We stress different muscles now, on the edge of control, but gliding easily, soundlessly forward. No rush, no rush... the runners high kicked in back at the top of the hill and we're cruising now... enjoy!

Ahead the little town grows closer. I'd seen it many times from above, a postage-stamp size town from that perspective, looking for all the world like the perfect German version of a Courier and Ives postcard village offering a year-round look at life in four seasons. Snow-covered winter with smoke curling upward from chimneys gives way to spring when the fields stretched out along the valley are brought to life. Summer arrives and the ground becomes a verdant patchwork green.
Autumn follows and the fruit trees planted neatly like soldiers in formation on the hillside are ready for the harvest. I'd never visited this side of the ridgeline until just a couple days ago when I saw the village transform from matchbox town to real as I descended on this road. Now we enter it together. See the large, two story houses on either side of us? Old but solid, and the closer to center we get the older they appear. These small German towns survived two World Wars, mostly without physical damage; the battlegrounds were in other countries and there was no industry here to attract allied bombs.

The comparison to hill country towns in America is unavoidable, inescapable. Homes, small shops, and people appear virtually indistinguishable from their counterparts across the Atlantic. Slight variations in architecture and clothing, and Opels instead of Chevys in the streets, but otherwise I'm sure I've found the archetype for many a small American community.

I have a high-detail Atlas of this part of Germany back at the house. Even though it's highway system is the envy of the world, the vast majority of Germany's roads are narrow country lanes, often unpaved and rarely traveled by traffic faster then bicycles. The countryside is crisscrossed with these roads, utopian for those like me who consider the run or ride through this scenic beauty as the highpoint to plan a day around. I scouted the route the other day, before that first trip through this town. I couldn't resist when I saw the symbol for "monument" on the map in the village center. What sort of monument could such a small town boast? Surely there were no more then one hundred homes here, and a hand full of shops. I had an idea what I would find, and mostly I was right. We're approaching it now.

The paved road beneath our feet is leveling out from the downhill, the effort required to maintain forward motion is increasing. A different set of muscles is in use. My stride is returning to "normal". Around the slight bend ahead is the center of town, and though we've said hello to a few folks along the way so far no cars have passed to force us to the side of the road. We'll slow our pace now to prepare for a brief stop at the monument ahead.

And there it is, just across the main street that intersects this one at the center of town. A small fenced area, gravel covered with nice garden type landscaping and a couple benches facing a five-column memorial. The center column is about fifteen feet tall, capped with a crucifix, and bears two dates. I'd assume the first is the founding of the town and the second the date of the erection of this memorial, though based on the state of the engraving on the other four columns it appears older then it reads.

Those other four columns bear lists of names below years. 1914 is the first year listed, then 1915 and so on, until about halfway down the second column a jump from 1918 to 1940. A 22-year break from war deaths, then increasing numbers for every year of the Second World War. Fifty-six names in total, the dead of two world wars from a town that now, 60 years later, consists of about 100 homes, perhaps a few more or less.

What a price to pay. Could any of the few families of this town be untouched? Most of the twenty or so last names are repeated. The last name listed first below 1914 is Schneider, and six more follow, four in the first war and 3 in the second. The supply of Schneiders was lower then, perhaps? Klinks, Wagners, Braums and others are listed. All German names, but all of which can be found in any American phonebook, or any American military graveyard.

My heart rate is slowing; we must resume our run soon. But note this: the last year listed is 1947, though hostilities in Europe ceased in 1945. Are the additional dead based on the year they died, or the year their deaths were discovered? Did they die then from wounds received years before in combat?

All I have are the names. No cause of death, no place of death. France? Germany? Russia? Poland? Jeep wreck, gunshot, plane crash, disease? The people of this town don't need that, I suppose. They know. And this strange American in their midst will not ask them. Not today. A quick prayer then and we're off on a different road out of the town.

It does not take long to exit that speck of a village, that small cluster of humanity that seems to have paid a high price for the madness of a few. The road rises slowly out of the valley once the last of the homes of the Schneiders are behind us. We are gradually climbing up the far side of the narrow valley from which we entered. We are passing the fields and orchards we viewed as a distant patchwork quilt from the opposite ridgeline, and the incline is becoming steep. There are no farm houses here, for farmers live in the villages and work the fields. Currently there are no farmers out; we have the world to ourselves here.

Save energy, for after this long steady climb we'll have a choice. We could enjoy the view briefly then turn and take a straight and steep route back into the valley, then immediately climb straight to the top of the first ridge, then down to home. This is the shortest route, but neither the climb nor the descents are easy. The other option involves following this road, which you may notice is now rough and crumbling pavement, along the ridgeline through about 3/4 of a mile of dense and scenic woods to where it intersects the first ridge, then following the road along that ridge to our point we first joined it, then down the hill to home. Slightly longer but no steep climb. We can decide once we hit the top. We can't stop now though, we must after all, get home.

Please don't complain. After all, you agreed to join me on this run. You may feel better if you take in the view as we climb out of the valley. Spectacular. And not uncommon for this area. This beautiful and now serene part of the world has changed hands a few times in a once seemingly endless series of wars between Germany and France, and clearly a significant number of people in that town below us felt it was worth dying for.

I researched the name Schneider after my first visit there. It's literal translation into English is cutter, but its meaning is actually "German, occupational name referred to the tailor who made and sold outer garments." So Taylor then, for the English equivalent. I don't know any Schneiders, nor any Taylors, though I'm sure I've met several over the years.

Keep moving... we're almost at the top...

Did you know 17 Schneiders have their names etched in stone on the Vietnam Memorial Wall? I started counting 'Taylors' too but quit after 60. Seventeen Schneiders died for America in Vietnam. None were from West Virginia. Parts of Germany look a lot like West Virginia. I have an uncle who agrees with this. He spent some of WWII here as a POW.

Top of the hill at last, and I don't know about you but I'm sucking air and my heart's pounding like a jackhammer. A cliche, I know, but true, so I said it, though I can't talk too well right now. We'll go slowly until we return from this anaerobic intensity level, okay?

During Vietnam, West Virginia had the highest casualty rate in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. The state had 711 casualties -- 39.9 deaths per 100,000 people.

I did not know that before today. Just discovered that fact on The Wall page. West Virginia rightfully doesn't brag about it.

When my grandmother passed away some years ago the family spent long hours in that house on the hill sorting her lifetime's accumulation of things. My wife found a bible that belonged to my uncle - he did not want it. It's a hardcover, but showing its age, and probably signs of the rigors of its journey to that house. It's English language, King James Version...

And stamped on the inside cover is the imprint of the Stalag where he spent the latter part of WWII, having been shot down over Germany on a fighter mission.

I've brought that book back to Germany where it sits on a shelf in my living room. near a picture of my father in his army uniform from WWII and my Grandfather in uniform from WWI.

In my living room in a house in a small town in Germany; surrounded by hills and forest and tranquil beauty. What would be the thoughts of those who made this possible, at such high cost, to look upon this now?

Look at the view now. Did I promise you it would be worth the climb? You can see nearly the whole course we've run, stretched out behind us and over there on the far ridgeline. And look there, that's the road home, the route is in plain view. Or that longer route, if you'd prefer. It's mostly viewable except for the bit in the trees up ahead. I always tire a little in the valleys, when so little of the course is in sight. How is it I get an energy boost at the top of the hills when I can see the entire road, where I've been and where I'm going? Why are the valley roads sometimes such a chore? I know the road is there, why do I need to see it?

Part of the human condition I suppose. Come, rest awaits us at home, by the fire.

Though we've still got a long way to run.

2004-06-13 14:21:54

All done!

All Quiet on the Western Front

This 1930 Academy Award winning film (Best Picture and Best Director) has a place on many "all time" lists.

The film is based on the 1929 novel by German World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque (birth name Erich Paul Remark). The book was banned and burned by the Nazis, who also "issued propaganda stating that he was a descendant of French Jews and that his real last name was Kramer, a Jewish-sounding name, his original name spelled backwards." By that time, however, Remarque had already left Germany:

In 1943 the Nazis arrested his sister Elfriede Scholz, who had stayed behind in Germany with her husband and two children. After a short trial in the "Volksgerichtshof" (Hitler's extra-constitutional "People's Court") she was found guilty of "undermining morality." Evidence supports the contention that the verdict and the associated death sentence were issued to punish her brother: Court President Roland Friesler declared, "Ihr Bruder ist uns leider entwischt - Sie aber werden uns nicht entwischen" (your brother has unfortunately escaped us - you, however, will not escape us). Elfriede Scholz was decapitated by axe on 16 December 1943.

The full feature film, below:

Callin All The Clans Together

From our old friend James Hooker, for Memorial Day:

You'll really want to see that in a larger version. James says "This is the official page for legally downloading, free of charge, my song ¨Callin All The Clans". All I ask, in lieu of payment to me, is that you please consider supporting SOLDIERS ANGELS."

Lot's of other great videos from James at that link. Enjoy.

2009-05-22 12:58:35

The Warrior Caste Revisited

A May, 2008 follow up to an even earlier story...

WESTMORELAND: O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!
-- Shakespeare, Henry V

November, 2003 - the MilBlogs Ring was brand new, but I was surprised at the number of folks who'd joined. There might have been two dozen milbloggers operating at the time, and at least 20 had already linked up. Active duty, Guard and Reserve, guys who'd been to Iraq, guy's who'd go there and Afghanistan later, spouses, and veterans. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines were all "represented" in those small numbers.

One purpose of the MilBlogs Ring is to promote awareness of the individuality and humanity of the members of the US Armed Forces. Members are aware of the liklihood of difference of opinions between fellow members, and although we may not agree with each other on everything we say we will fight for the rights of each other to say it.

We mean that literally.

In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised. While individuals start blogging for individual reasons and have individual stories to tell, military folks are already bound by virtue of service, understand what it means to be part of something, and instinctively grasp the concept that the total exceeds the sum of the parts.

The United States was founded with a militia tradition of citizen-soldiers, and a cultural aversion to the excesses of the peacetime standing army of England's King James II. A national army was raised during the American Revolution, but in 1783, after the United States won independence, the Congress discharged the Continental Army that had defeated the British, except for 80 soldiers retained to guard the military stores at West Point and Fort Pitt, plus a proportionate number of officers, none above the rank of captain. This congressional action set a precedent for a military force, composed exclusively of men, that was to be mobilized during wartime through calling up the militia, recruiting volunteers, and occasional conscription, and was to be demobilized during peacetime. This pattern persisted until the mid-20th century
-- America’s Military Population, by David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal

Back in those early days of milblogs, Blackfive had written a post called The Warrior Caste, initially inspired by other milbloggers:

Recently, Doc Russia mentioned it to me when I left a comment at his blog. LCDR Smash had a post in response to Professor Atlas' editorial about the widening divisions between civilians and the military. Those who continue to serve have less in common with those who don't, and this gap widens with every generation.

Sadly, most of those links are no longer available. If Professor Atlas' editorial exists anywhere on the web now, I can't find it.

For most of U.S. history, less than 1 percent of the population served in the military, except for brief periods when the country was at war. There were notable surges in the relative size of the force during the first half of the 19th century for the War of 1812 and the Mexican War of 1846-1848, but the annual military participation ratio (MPR)-the percentage of the total resident population serving in the active-duty military4-did not approach 3 percent of the population until the U.S. Civil War in the mid-1860s. More than 1 million men, mobilized largely by militia call-ups and conscription, served under arms between 1861 and 1865. The MPR then declined again until the First World War, when almost 3 percent of the population-almost 3 million men-served. Again, mobilization involved calling up the militia, supplemented by selective conscription.
-- Segal and Segal

I had just read the Stars and Stripes story on Jonathan Falaniko and his father, and seeing the connection I made my own post on the topic. As you can see from the trackbacks there and at Blackfive, many other milbloggers joined the discussion. The Ring was off and running.

The pattern of surge and decline in the size of the armed forces changed when the country mobilized for World War II. About 16 million people were brought into the armed forces in the 1940s, including more than 200,000 women. The men were largely conscripts (10.1 million); women were not subject to the draft, and all women in uniform were volunteers. The World War II armed forces represented about 12 percent of the population and included about 56 percent of the men eligible for military service on the basis of age, health, and mental aptitude.-- Segal and Segal

Atlas' op-ed might be long gone from the web, but I'm familiar with the message. There have been many like it since. A small number are fighting for the few. The gulf is widening between military and non. Some go farther: There is a class distinction between those who serve and those who don't. Those who don't are unworthy of the sacrifice of those who do. If only we had a draft people might protest this war more! Americans aren't suffering enough!!!





Actually, while keeping Americans from suffering might not be the chief reason most people join the military, it is a measure of our success. We're actually damn good at it. Read through the comments on all those inter-linked Warrior Caste (not Class) posts and you'll not find one complaining about how under appreciated they are. Likewise you'll find none who look down on civilians as some sort of unworthy recipient of our largesse.

There may be fewer people now related to active duty service members than there were in the (anomolous) 1945, but as has been true throughout our history, everyone in the military is related to someone who isn't.

WESTMORELAND: O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING: What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
-- Shakespeare, Henry V

And there is nothing new under the sun.

2008-05-25 16:13:29

All done!

The Warrior Caste

Note: this entry, originally from November 2003, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Lady of the Lake

Combat America (Part Two)

Part one of this film is here.

Part two is here:

LTC Joseph Spadoni

An October, 2004 salute to World War Two veterans, re-published here as part of our Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen. "WWII era vets don't leave much of a legacy on the internet," I wrote at the time. That's changing now too.

Memphis Belle

Ride along with the crew of the Memphis Belle on their final combat mission via this 1944 color documentary from William Wyler.

In its entirety, below:

Rafael Peralta - Home of the Brave

Note: this entry, originally from April 2006, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen.

Without further ado, meet Rafael Peralta, American.

Sergeant Peralta’s younger sister, Karen, 13, was left to confront life without a father and now older brother. She worried that his life and legacy would soon be forgotten: “I know that right now, people are really nice and everything. When it’s going to be like, one year, or two years, they are going to forget about him….Right now they are giving medals to my mom for everything. But I know that when it comes to later on, they are going to forget him, they’re gonna forget about him.”

The following is an excerpt from Home of the Brave : Honoring the Unsung Heroes in the War on Terror by Caspar Weinberger and Wynton C. Hall. The story of Sgt Rafael Peralta is one of many such tales contained therein. My thanks to Mr Hall for authorizing this early look at what promises to be one of the most significant books of this or any summer.

Wynton tells me, "This is, first and foremost, a book about people. People who happen to be the best damn kind of people—military people—on the face of the earth."

And of Cap Weinberger he adds "That was the reason he wanted to write Home of the Brave; he wanted it to be his final salute to the 2.4 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who defend freedom each day. To the end, he remained committed to lifting up our service members and their families and expressing gratitude for their many sacrifices.

"In that spirit, I hope readers will remember Cap for what was, I believe, his greatest legacy as Secretary of Defense: he stood with those who fought for us."

To the Shores of Iwo Jima

From Wikipedia:

To the Shores of Iwo Jima was a 1945 Kodachrome color short war film produced by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. It documents the Battle of Iwo Jima, and was the first time that American audiences saw in color the footage of the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima.

The film follows the servicemen through the battle in rough chronological order, from the bombardment of the island by warships and carrier-based airplanes to the final breakdown of resistance, though, after it shows the taking of Suribachi, it then switches to the footage of the second flag raising.

The film ends by acknowledging the 4,000 who had died in the month-long battle, and tells the audience that their deaths weren't in vain, showing a bomber aircraft taking off from the island for a mission over Japan.

Four cameramen, including Bill Genaust, who shot the famous flag raising sequence, died bringing this footage to the public. Ten were wounded.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

Here's the full (20 minute) movie:

Why We Fight: Prelude to War

September, 2008:

Oscar Returned To The Army

The 1942 Oscar presented to the U.S. Army for Frank Capra documentary Prelude To War has been removed from the auction block and returned to the military.

The statuette, a duplicate Academy Award requested by and granted to the Department of Defense in 1958, was among items up for sale at an upcoming Christie's auction.

The unofficial Oscar went missing following the closure of the Army Pictorial Center, where it was housed, in 1970, and military officials only learned of its whereabouts when auction bosses came to them for authenticity.

A spokeswoman for the Academy says, "As Christie's auction house was offering the statuette for sale they notified the Army which asserted its claim on the Award. Christie's was pleased to see the statuette put back into the Army's care."

U.S. Army spokesman Brigadier General Jeffrey E. Phillips says, "We are very grateful that the Academy contacted us and has returned the Oscar to the U.S. Army. There is immense pride in our Special Services heritage and I cannot think of a better historical example of the importance of communicating with the public for our current generation of Soldiers than this statuette.

"The award will be proudly and prominently displayed at the Department of the Army Headquarters for Public Affairs Office at the Pentagon for all to see."

The Why We Fight film collection, which featured Prelude To War, is widely recognised as the most effective of the many films produced by the armed services to educate Americans in general, and new servicemen in particular, about the nation's objectives in entering World War Two.

The original Oscar for Prelude to War remains in the care of the Capra family.

A Word of Caution

I thought about writing this when I heard the message, too. But John did it, so I don't have to.

I don't object to what he's saying here. I really don't. And in a lot of places I go, people *do* thank me for my service, if they know I served. And much of what the President said in his message is apt for every day, or, at least, now and then when you can.

But most of what is in that message is... Veteran's Day. The day for the living. Memorial Day is... set aside to remember the lives that were spent so that we could live ours, those who served and survived, but have since passed, and, of course, for our family and friends, whether they served or not.

Memorial Day is where we resurrect the pale shadows of those who have gone before - so that, in a sense, as long as they live in us, they still walk among us.

This is Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy it. Celebrate it - the people who died to give you that right would appreciate it. But they didn't die peaceably in their beds, these dogs who fell protecting sheep from wolves.

But consider this a note of caution - a word to the wise: It's Memorial Day in Mudville, and here we know what that means. Remember that should you choose to scroll on...

If faded images like these from the Gettysburg battlefield disturb you, you are a sane and normal individual. Imagine their impact when they were new.

But they aren't that old, either. When I was a young sprout I spoke with my grandfather - who was a battlefield medic in World War One and whose sons fought in World War Two - about his grandfather, who fought (for the Union) in the Civil War.

If images like these leave you speechless, give thanks that another found a few words he thought worth saying at the time:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

All done!

Tibor Rubin

Our Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen continues. Originally from September, 2005, this two-part salute to a living hero of the Korean war is a reminder of those who fell in actual death camps - a term that's been much cheapened in recent years.

Meet Tibor "Ted" Rubin, survivor of the Nazi death camps, and an American hero:

Nazi guards made sure Rubin understood despair at the age of 13. A Hungarian Jew, he was forced into the Mauthausen Concentration Camp toward the end of World War II. But Rubin defied odds: He survived. After the war he moved to New York, and eventually joined the same Army that liberated him from hell on earth.

From the horror of the Holocaust arose a bravery that few can match. Rubin went on to fight in the Korean War and was taken prisoner by the Chinese communists. This time, he breathed life into his fellow captives, who were dying at the rate of 40 a day in the winter of 1950-1951.
<...>
Of the Nazis, Rubin remains baffled by their capacity to kill. He was just a boy when he lost his parents and two little sisters to the Nazi's brutality. "In Mauthausen, they told us right away, 'You Jews, none of you will ever make it out of here alive'," Rubin remembers. "Every day so many people were killed. Bodies piled up God knows how high. We had nothing to look forward to but dying. It was a most terrible thing, like a horror movie." American Soldiers swept into the camp on May 5, 1945, to liberate the prisoners. It is still a miraculous day for Rubin, indelibly imprinted in his heart. "The American Soldiers had great compassion for us. Even though we were filthy, we stunk and had diseases, they picked us up and brought us back to life." Rubin made a vow that day that he's fulfilled ten times over.

"I made a promise that I would go to the United States and join the Army to express my thanks," said Rubin. Three years later he arrived in New York. Two years after that he passed the English language test -- after two attempts and with "more than a little help," he jokes -- and joined the Army. He was shipped to the 29th Infantry Regiment in Okinawa. When the Korean War broke out, Rubin was summoned by his company commander.

"The 29th Inf. Regt. is mobilizing. You are not a U.S. citizen so we can't take you -- a lot of us are going to get killed. We'll send you to Japan or Germany," Rubin remembers being told.

"But I could not just leave my unit for some 'safe' zone," Rubin said. "I was with these guys in basic training. Even though I wasn't a citizen yet, America was my country."

Rubin got what he wanted and headed for Korea -- to the good fortune of many Soldiers who served alongside him.

At the end of October 1950, thousands of Chinese troops were laying in wait. Masters of camouflage, they blended into the brush and burned fires to produce smoke to mask their movements. When Soldiers of the 8th Cavalry Regiment were stretched before them like sitting ducks, the Chinese swarmed in.

"The whole mountain let loose," said Rubin, who was then a corporal serving in the 8th Cav.'s 3rd Battalion. On Oct. 30 the 3rd Bn.'s firepower dwindled to a single machine gun, which three Soldiers had already died manning. By the time Rubin stepped up to fire, most of his fellow Soldiers felt doomed in the confusion of battle.

"Nobody wanted to take over, but somebody had to. We didn't have anything else left to fight with," he said. Rubin's buddies say he was a hero, selflessly defending his unit against thousands of Chinese troops.

Battle raged for three days around Unsan, then the Chinese pushed the Soldiers south. Those who survived retreated with little or no ammunition and hundreds of wounded. More than 1,000 men of the 8th Cav. were listed as missing in action after the battle, but some returned to friendly lines or were rescued by tank patrols in the following weeks.

Earlier in the war, as the 8th Cav. moved toward the Pusan Perimeter, Rubin kept to the rear to ward off North Koreans nipping at his battalion's heels. At 4 a.m., while defending a hill on his own, Rubin heard gunfire from what sounded like hundreds of enemy troops. "I figured I was a goner. But I ran from one foxhole to the next, throwing hand grenades so the North Koreans would think they were fighting more than one person," he said. "I couldn't think straight -- in a situation like that, you become hysterical trying to save your life." "He tied up the enemy forces, allowing the safe withdrawal of Allied troops and equipment on the Taegu-Pusan road. The enemy suffered, not only tremendous casualties ... but it slowed the North Korean invading momentum along that route, saving countless American lives and giving the 8th Cav. precious time to regroup to the south," wrote CPL Leonard Hamm in his nomination of Rubin for the MOH.

And when Hamm himself later lay fallen, it was Rubin who fought to go back for him when the first sergeant issued orders to leave him behind. "But we didn't know if he was dead," Rubin said. "All I could think about was that somebody back home was waiting for him to return." Rubin was pinned down by snipers and forced to low-crawl for several hundred yards when rescuing Hamm, whose body was so loaded with shrapnel that he could hardly lift a limb.

"Rubin not only saved my life by carrying me to safety; he kept the North Korean snipers off our butts," said Hamm.

When battle ended in Unsan, hundreds of Soldiers were taken prisoner by the Chinese. They were forced to march to a camp known today as "Death Valley," ill-dressed for winter's freezing temperatures, exhausted and hungry. Many of them grew sick with dysentery, pneumonia or hepatitis. Others died. "It was so cold that nobody wanted to move, and the food we got was barely enough to keep us alive," said former Sgt. Richard A. Whalen.

Read the rest of the amazing story here and here.

Update: Watch video of the ceremony here.

2005-09-21 16:53:48

Corporal Tibor Rubin, Medal of Honor

Our Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen continues. Originally from September, 2005, this two-part salute to a living hero of the Korean war is a reminder of those who fell in actual death camps - a term that's been much cheapened in recent years.

Citation

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:

Corporal Tibor Rubin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism during the period from July 23, 1950, to April 20, 1953, while serving as a rifleman with Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the Republic of Korea. While his unit was retreating to the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin was assigned to stay behind to keep open the vital Taegu-Pusan Road link used by his withdrawing unit. During the ensuing battle, overwhelming numbers of North Korean troops assaulted a hill defended solely by Corporal Rubin. He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully. Following the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, the 8 th Cavalry Regiment proceeded northward and advanced into North Korea. During the advance, he helped capture several hundred North Korean soldiers. On October 30, 1950, Chinese forces attacked his unit at Unsan, North Korea, during a massive nighttime assault. That night and throughout the next day, he manned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted. His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward. As the battle raged, Corporal Rubin was severely wounded and captured by the Chinese. Choosing to remain in the prison camp despite offers from the Chinese to return him to his native Hungary, Corporal Rubin disregarded his own personal safety and immediately began sneaking out of the camp at night in search of food for his comrades. Breaking into enemy food storehouses and gardens, he risked certain torture or death if caught. Corporal Rubin provided not only food to the starving Soldiers, but also desperately needed medical care and moral support for the sick and wounded of the POW camp. His brave, selfless efforts were directly attributed to saving the lives of as many as forty of his fellow prisoners. Corporal Rubin's gallant actions in close contact with the enemy and unyielding courage and bravery while a prisoner of war are in the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

See the video of the Medal of Honor ceremony here. (2009 Update: This video was deleted from the White House website by the Obama administration.)

Additional videos, including an interview with Tibor Rubin here.

Our previous entry detailing Corporal Rubin's heroic acts here.

Corporal Rubin's actions in Korea earned him four recommendations for the Medal of Honor. He was also nominated twice for the Distinguished Service Cross, and twice for the Silver Star. Had he received all those awards, he would have become the most decorated American veteran of the Korean War. But two Purple Hearts and a 100 percent disability were the only recognition he received - until now.

A look at "what took so long" here.

2005-09-24 16:18:33

Hithcock's Belsen

Name Hitchcock's most terrifying movie... Psycho? The Birds?

Not even close:

The liberation of Belsen was the first real wartime media event in the modern sense. The first correspondent on the ground was John D’Arcy- Dawson, the Sunday Times reporter, who arrived early enough to see the camp commander, Josef Kramer, led half-naked past his former inmates. The reporter watched as the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Taylor, turned to Kramer and spat to an interpreter: “Tell him that when he hangs I hope he hangs slowly.” British officers did not usually talk like that in the presence of reporters.

Kramer did, indeed, hang — some 70,000 inmates had died because of his neglect, incompetence or cruelty — and the British-led trials of the Belsen staff were a revelation for the British public. It marked the beginning of an intense period of anti-German sentiment in Britain.

Correspondents poured into the camp. The Holocaust was on British kitchen tables. Army film units, with Alfred Hitchcock’s involvement, produced stomach-curdling footage. The British at home, though battered, had no previous idea of how it looked to die of hunger. Some of the pictures emerging showed naked bodies with missing hearts and livers, clearly cannibalised.

Although later Auschwitz was to take the central position in the narrative of the Holocaust, it was Belsen that provided the most immediate, the most graphic account. “When I talk to ordinary Britons who were 10 or 8 at the time of Belsen,” Dr Smith said, “they will often tell me: ‘That was the day I grew up and realised the world was not a nice place.’ ”

Anne Frank, the Dutch schoolgirl, was the most prominent victim of Belsen, but the liberators and their accompanying press corps would also rise to prominence, ensuring that Belsen continued to shape the consciousness of a generation.

Generations

Note: this entry, originally from June 2005, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen. (Now, of course, Jules has a blog of his own.)

This isn't my story, let's set that straight right away. This one was sent to me by Jules Crittenden, a friend of Mudville and a reporter for the Boston Herald. But Jules didn't write it either, it's by his brother, an Army SNCO stationed here in Germany. It's their family's story, though by giving me permission to post it here I suppose it's everybody's story now. It transcends time and place, spans generations and continents, and I'm proud to be able to share it with you. I'm posting it in two parts. This first installment is background, and an amazing story of discovery. Like so many families who lost relatives in that distant time and place the Crittendens knew little more than a few basic facts; they had an uncle who was killed when his plane was shot down over Europe in 1941, and that's about it. I'm of the same age, so I grew up knowing little enough about details too. I could look through my parents' war time High School yearbooks and find tribute pages to those recent graduates who had fallen in Europe or Africa or somewhere in the Pacific. It was a small school, too, but a surprising number of names were on those lists.

"What happened to him?"

"Oh, he was killed in the war"

And that was that.

It was a small school, everyone knew everyone.

Repeat several hundred thousand times, and you have several hundred thousand stories, all worth telling, few ever told. Some can still be retrieved. It's never too late, as SFC Peter Crittenden is about to explain.

Generations

P. J. Crittenden

When I was very young my Dad told my brothers and I about our Uncle Philip who had died in the war in Europe. This meant nothing to me at the time, I was too young to understand the meaning of it all. It was just another of Life's mysteries; Uncle Philip died in the war. He was shot down. We accepted it and asked no further questions.

When I was a little older, as I began to develop a grasp of the great World War II, I asked my father what type of airplane Uncle Phil flew. "A Wellington bomber," he told me. I had never heard of a Wellington. Spitfires and Mustangs and B-17 Flying Fortresses I knew of, but I'd never heard of a Wellington. I looked it up in my big brother's book of world aircraft. It was an ugly looking thing, an ungainly behemoth. It looked like a sitting duck for a Messerschmidt; which, I later learned, was exactly what it was.

The Wellington was a pre-war model; a wooden frame covered in canvas, one of the precursors of modern aircraft design. By the time Uncle Phil was shot down in 1941 the Wellington already belonged in a museum.

In 1974 our family visited Canberra. At the Imperial War Museum my younger brother Jules located Uncle Phil's name inscribed within the dome. Years on, when I was living with my Grandfather in Melbourne, I came across Uncle Phil's wings, and the telegraph informing that he'd died in the war. It surprised me to see that his wings were Canadian Air Force insignia; I later learned that he'd trained in Saskatchewan before shipping over to Britain.

That's as much as we ever knew. The older generation never talked about it. It was the War, the Big One. A lot of people died, a lot of families lost more than we. Uncle Phil died in Europe, it was over; that was it.

Then last December an email arrived from brother Jules. He had put an ad on an R.A.F. Bomber Command website, seeking information. The reply was from a young man in Britain, James Fitzmaurice, the grandson of the sole survivor of the shootdown of Uncle Phil's plane. SGT P.G.E.A. Brown has since passed away, but he'd left behind a treasure trove of information.

We never knew there were any survivors; it never crossed our minds to even wonder. The fact that Uncle Phil had died so far away from home was a tremendous loss, overwhelming in and of itself. No questions were ever asked; we were just told about the telegraph, and accepted the lack of detail as part of the fog of war.

James Fitzmaurice sent us photos and diagrams scanned from the journal. There were maps of where the camps had been located, near Frankfurt, then northwest of Berlin, then Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, and finally near Hamburg. There was a photo of a Wellington IV and a photo of a Messerschmidt BF-110, the twin-engined nightfighter that shot down Uncle Phil's plane. There was even the name of the aircraft, the FU-D - "Wimpy IV", and their outfit; Royal Australian Air Force Squadron 458. It was a Commonwealth composite crew, an R.A.A.F. aircraft filled out with R.A.F. crewmen. Of course by this time it was more than Uncle Phil's plane; there were the names of the crew:

PILOT: Sergeant Peter John Maxwell Hamilton, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 22
CREW: Sergeant Philip George Crittenden R.A.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 20
Pilot/Officer David Kimber Fawkes, Observer, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 25
Sergeant Thomas Jackson, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 26
Sergeant Andrew Young Condie, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Killed In Action), age 23
Sergeant P.G.E.A. Brown, Air Gunner, R.A.F. (Prisoner of War)

There were photos of the crewmembers graves, in Belgium. There were photos of SGT Brown with the crew, standing by the tail gun of the Wellington, as he described shooting down a Messerschmidt ME-109 the previous night. Looking at this last photograph, on the screen of my laptop, was like looking through a time portal. I tried to distinguish which one was my Uncle Phil but I couldn't; they are all wearing the 1940s aviator's helmets, with their goggles up.

We're not sure if this is the crew of the FU-D - Uncle Phil's plane - or SGT Brown's previous crew, because he was just assigned to the FU-D the day they before they were shot down. Likewise, we don't know if the jacket insignia - "SATAN RIDES TONIGHT" - was the FU-D's nose art, or that of Brown's previous bomber. It really doesn't matter - these are relics directly from the event. What was significant was that we finally had the story, and the sensation was overwhelming.

On the evening of 20 October, 1941, at 1829 hours (6:29 pm), Wellington IV FU-D took off from R.A.F. Base Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, Yorkshire. It was 458 Squadron's first operation, a part of a larger air raid; the target was possibly Bremen, or perhaps Antwerp. The flight consisted of 82 Hampden's, 48 Wellington's, 15 Stirlings and 8 Manchester's. FU-D's target was Mont-sur-Marchienne, directly south of Charleroi, Belgium.

Six hours later, at around 0030 hours in the morning, 21 October, 1941, Wellington IV FU-D was shot down by a German Messerschmidt BF-110 nightfighter.

Fitzmaurice's grandfather, Sergeant P.G.E.A. Brown, was the tailgunner. Because of his position in the tail he was able to escape by turning the turret around to the right, and with the door facing outside he jumped and "hit the silk".

The rest of the crew didn't make it; they are buried in Charleroi, Belgium. SGT Crittenden had the dubious distinction of being the first Australian serving in Bomber Command to be killed flying with an R.A.A.F. squadron.

SGT Brown landed safely although the exact location is not known. He was picked up by the free French (French resistance) and was dressed up as a mute Belgian Farmer, and was passed through the French resistance until he was turned in at the last post to German forces.

SGT Brown went on to establish a career as a POW escape artist; he escaped five or six times, each time being re-captured within a couple of days and sent to camps further east, in (now) Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania. During the time he was a POW, Brown kept a journal, which he somehow managed to hang on to throughout his entire three-year ordeal.

P. J. Crittenden
31 May 2005
Stuttgart

Greyhawk here: That was part one of the story, part two will follow tomorrow. Reading it led me to seek out more information on the Wellington Bomber.

Here's a picture of one, pre-mission:

Here's one flying a mission:

And here's one on the ground, its mission done:

As SFC Crittenden said: The Wellington was a pre-war model; a wooden frame covered in canvas, one of the precursors of modern aircraft design. By the time Uncle Phil was shot down in 1941 the Wellington already belonged in a museum.

But they kept 'em flying. Mostly. Here's a story of another from 1941 (source of the photo above). Here's one from 1942, and here's one from 1943. The Wellington was used until the end of the war, and actually only two survive in museums today.

Canvas stretched on a frame, thousands of feet above Germany, through flak from below and Messerschmidts from above. A far cry from today's endless discussion of the Army's failure to armor every Humvee.

(Part two of this story is here)

2005-06-02 21:12:25

Generations (Part 2)

Note: this entry, originally from June 2005, is re-posted as part of Mudville's Memorial Day 2009 salute to the fallen.

This is the conclusion of Generations, by SFC Peter J. Crittenden, US Army Special Forces, currently serving in Germany. Part one of the story is here.

Combat America (Part One)

On January 16, 1942, Lombard, who had just finished her 57th film, To Be or Not to Be, was on a tour to sell war bonds when the twin-engine DC-3 she was traveling in crashed into a mountain near Las Vegas, killing all aboard.
<...>
In 1942, following Lombard's death, Gable joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. Before her death, Lombard had suggested Gable enlist as part of the war effort, but MGM was obviously reluctant to let him go, and until her death he resisted the suggestion. Gable made a public statement after Lombard's death that prompted Commanding General of the AAF Henry H. Arnold to offer Gable a "special assignment" in aerial gunnery. Gable, despite earlier expressing an interest in officer candidate school (OCS), enlisted on August 12, 1942, with the intention of becoming an enlisted gunner on an air crew. MGM arranged for his studio friend, cinematographer Andrew McIntyre, to enlist with and accompany him through training.

However shortly after his enlistment he and McIntyre were sent to Miami Beach, Florida, where they entered USAAF OCS Class 42-E on August 17, 1942. Both completed training on October 28, 1942, commissioned as second lieutenants. His class of 2,600 fellow students (of which he ranked 700th in class standing) selected Gable as their graduation speaker, at which General Arnold presented them their commissions. Arnold then informed Gable of his special assignment, to make a recruiting film in combat with the Eighth Air Force to recruit gunners. Gable and McIntyre were immediately sent to Flexible Gunnery School at Tyndall Field, Florida, followed by a photography course at Fort George Wright, Washington, and promoted to first lieutenants upon completion.

Gable reported to Biggs Air Force Base on January 27, 1943, to train with and accompany the 351st Bomb Group to England as head of a six-man motion picture unit. [Link]

Another Mudville Memorial Day Weekend movie below:

The Warrior Legacy Foundation

Memorial Day weekend is a great time to join.

Why We Fight: The Nazis Strike

A Mudville Midnight* Movie for Memorial Day weekend...

*or whenever you happen to watch it...

Lance Cpl. Brady Gustafson

Gustafson outlasted an estimated 100 Taliban fighters despite his badly wounded right leg, Gates said.

“With his right leg in shreds, Corporal Gustafson kept firing, and as a result, in his words, ‘We didn’t lose a single Marine,’” the secretary said.

The Navy Cross was pinned on his chest by Lt. Col. John M. Reed, the commanding officer of 2/7, and meritorious corporal chevrons to his collar by Maj. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser and Sgt. Maj. Randall Carter, the commanding general and sergeant major of 1st Marine Division, at a ceremony held March 27 at Lance Cpl. Torrey L. Grey Field. The ceremony included speeches from his former and current commanding officers.

Gustafson accepted his medal at a perfect position of attention, despite missing his right leg below the knee. His entire battalion was in attendance as well as Marines from across the nation, former service members, family and friends.

According to eyewitness accounts, Gustafson’s actions that fateful day in July 2008 met and exceeded the requirements for a Navy Cross.

On July 21 Gustafson was manning the turret of the lead vehicle, a mine resistant ambush protected vehicle, or MRAP, during a four-vehicle mounted patrol riding through the streets of Shewan, Afghanistan.

That’s when things got ugly.

Here's the rest of the story.

Noted/Quoted

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip flops has a special kind of courage."
- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Previously: What's better for combat: Boxers or Briefs?

Obama Lied

...children cried.

I'm kidding about "Obama lied" - but that's an actual NBC photo caption.

However,

The Steelers and the Obama administration used their time together to create 3,000 care packages for U.S. troops as part of a Wounded Warriors initiative.

And if you were wondering, last season's #44 for Pittsburgh was Najeh Davenport:

Prior to entering the NFL, Davenport allegedly defecated in the laundry basket of a Barry University woman in her dorm room on April 1, 2002. In a plea bargain, his felony charge of second-degree burglary and misdemeanor count of criminal mischief were dropped in exchange for his completing 100 hours of community service.

After joining the Steelers, Davenport was given the nicknames "Dookie" and "The Dump Truck," both plays on the Barry University Incident.

On October 12, 2007, Davenport was charged in Cleveland with domestic violence, child endangering, and unlawful restraint in an incident involving the mother of his five-year-old son. He entered a plea of not guilty days later and the case went to trial on April 4, 2008. After a four-day trial, an eight-member jury spent three and a half hours deliberating before finding Davenport not guilty of all counts.

Update - the rest of the story: Besides the Steelers, "50 Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center and their families" were invited to the White House to join with the USO to assemble care packages for troops. Guess that part didn't fit the NBC story.

Why We Fight

For years they've been Bob Hopeless, but now "Vice President’s Visit Boosts Soldiers’ Morale".

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo, May 21, 2009 – Vice President Joe Biden offered heartfelt thanks to the troops at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, noting that their service gives them a rare opportunity to be able to tell future generations what it was like when the Balkans became part of a free Europe.

Biden visited the troops at Camp Bondsteel to boost soldiers’ morale and show support for the Kosovo Force mission.

And here's your morale-boosting Biden quote of the day: “Here in Kosovo, you protect the innocent; you protected innocents decade ago, and now you're providing Kosovars the security they need, and the space they need, to build an independent, democratic, and most importantly multi-ethnic state.”

Remember that this Memorial Day weekend as you honor the fallen from America's wars: "multi-ethnic" is more important than independent or democratic.

COIN Food...

...is apparently more than just soup, eaten with a knife.

So this must be some sort of food pyramid...

One Night in D.C. (2)

While watching this video on the opening of a new power plant in Iraq I noticed the appearance if U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill.

Which surprised me a bit - the last news I'd heard was that Hill's confirmation was held up in the Senate. Via rapid trusty Google search I discovered he was confirmed a month ago.

As near as I can tell, that story went virtually unnoticed in mainstream news. (Yes - I missed it too, but I don't pretend to closely track the State Department here.) Obviously it's not front-page banner headline material, but if you ever find yourself debating someone as to whether the Iraq surge was successful or not, ask your opponent who the "top general" and ambassador to Iraq are. If they respond "Petraeus and Crocker" you can rest your case.

Meanwhile...

THE UNBEARABLE VAGUENESS OF DRAPER

De-constructing a report on Rumsfeld at the Daily Howler - where Rumsfeld has few fans:

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld destroyed the known world, with plenty of help from Powell/Rice/Wilkerson. If you have to embellish to make a case against these guys, you should exit the case-making business.

Of course, embellishment can sell magazines—and it mightily pleases the demo.

One Night in D.C. with J.D.

J.D. Johannes: A Strategy Only President Obama Can Deploy. "President Obama's relationship with the media," says J.D., "will allow him to do what his predecessor could not--engage in the media battlespace."

True. By 2007 it was far too late - if it was ever possible after early 2003 - for his predecessor to engage. J.D. writes that the success of the Surge was becoming obvious in late 2007 - a point on which I agree. But review media accounts from that summer and you might draw a different conclusion - as did so many who experienced those same accounts when they were "news".

But J.D. and I were somewhat insulated from the potential negative impact of that media coverage. We were in Iraq at the time. Though we weren't too far away from one another, we never actually met. Until the milblogs conference in D.C. this year.

We met by chance in front of the hotel one night, each returning from wherever and determined to call it a night. It was late already, but we started talking and somehow started talking about being in Iraq for the surge and our attempts to tell the folks back home what was happening in Iraq during the surge and before we knew it, it was very late. After all, there was much to be said. Those were epic times, and in the entire world there are a handful of us who could have had that conversation and we're generally not in the same places at the same time these days.

One conclusion I've drawn: what we knew and what we learned in those days would matter more in the future than it did then or does now.

Night Flight

A Mike Yon photo essay on a helo night ride over Baghdad.

I've taken a few such rides myself, they do inspire the inner wordsmith.

Look at the horizon in this photo (there's a larger version at Mike's). The blur is from the lights below illuminating the layer of smog and dust a few hundred feet aloft. That layer isn't really "in the distance" - the helo is probably in it. It's neither dense nor thick in vertical extent - stand on the ground and look upward on most nights and you won't see it - you'll see through it to the stars above. But if you're in it and gazing through the horizontal it will be noticeable as that increasing blur with distance. On a bad night it can trouble even the sharpest eyed pilot. Fortunately, as with the unrestricted upward view, the view to the surface (and all the possible hazards thereon) is less obscured.

More fun with science: once the desert sun sets the earth begins to cool. But warm air rises, and the air that slowly baked near the surface all day lifts but becomes trapped beneath the same inversion that traps the dust and sand and smog visible in that photo. Those who've flown a few night time missions can tell you what it's like to launch from almost tolerable 80-90 degree surface heat and feel the temperature increase with altitude, to eventually rediscover the 100+ Fahrenheit environment waiting for you to rejoin it just a few hundred feet above the ground.

And oh - did I mention the wind? Ask an OH58 pilot about that if you should ever meet one...

I took a night flight from FOB Kalsu to Victory Base in early July, 2007 - rode in the back of a Chinook over the "Triangle of Death" at the time of some of the heaviest fighting ("frequent kinetic ops", for you kewl kidz) of the surge. The ramp was open; silhouetted against the stars I saw the second of the two-ship formation following. I was sitting next to one of the gunners, he was alert and scanning below (much as Mike describes in his post); I could turn my head (while staying out of his way) and enjoy much of the same view. Below us the surface was well lit by the lights of the towns along the way.

That was July, 2007. Though just published, Mike's photos are from November, 2008. "I’d planned to do a series of embeds," says Mike, "but Army admin hassles caused me to leave Iraq and head to Afghanistan." I wondered why he'd left so soon at the time. But I'd also wondered - back in the summer of 2007 and reminded now looking at images from 2008 - at the number of lights in a country where reportedly electricity was available only a few hours of every day. Too many to be explained by personal generators - perhaps my flight just so happened to coincide with those hours. If that's a question it's one for which I have no answer.

All I can say is that in one of the worst times and places in Iraq there were more than a few lights shining in the darkness.

LSUHSC to conduct study of hyperbaric treatment for TBI & PTSD

Stolen from our good friend MaryAnn:

There are still eight slots available to Army patients for participation in this study. The other service branches have filled their quota.

If you or anyone you know was injured while serving in the Army and is experiencing either or PTSD and/or TBI, please pass this on!

LSUHSC to conduct study of hyperbaric treatment for TBI & PTSD

Dr. Paul Harch, an LSU Health Sciences Center emergency medicine professor, has been treating TBI with hyperbaric oxygen for 19 years and is starting a pilot study for vets with chronic TBI and PTSD.

The study will examine 30 participants, half with TBI and half with TBI and PTSD.

Round trip airfare to New Orleans will be provided to all veterans approved for the study. Depending on branch of service, housing and meals are free or at highly discounted rates.

For more information or to find out if you qualify, call 504-309-1445 or 504-309-4948

Damned if you do...

...damned if you don't.

Al Jazeera TV:

ABC:

Though a discussion about what to do with the Bibles was captured on video, Pentagon officials said the end result that the Bibles were not distributed but confiscated by the chaplain -- which is not shown in the footage.

"A documentary filmmaker was allowed onto Bagram last May to shoot footage of religious sessions involving troops," the Pentagon said. "He recorded a session where a participant displayed Bibles translated into Dari and Pashto that had been sent to him by his church back home. After a discussion of how or if they should be distributed, the chaplain running the service reaffirmed Gen. Order No. 1 and the Bibles were not distributed and were confiscated."

As to the Lt. Col. Hensley urging his congregation to hunt people for Jesus, the Pentagon official said the chaplain was speaking in general terms and not urging them to go out into Afghanistan to convert locals. [Link]

This story hasn't received much attention but it caught the eye of The Brody File. The Pentagon has confiscated a stack of Bibles sent to an Evangelical soldier in Afghanistan. The Bibles were printed in the local Pashto and Dari languages. Military rules forbid proselytizing. By the way, the Bibles were burned because the rules on the base say that all garbage is burned at the end of the day. But just asking here; if the U.S. Military seized a stack full of Korans, would they be burned? You think that might cause a little outrage in the Muslim world? [Link]

Frank Rich/NY Times:

There are many dots yet to be connected, and not just on torture. This Sunday, GQ magazine is posting on its Web site an article adding new details to the ample dossier on how Donald Rumsfeld’s corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security.
<...>
Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations.GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy. [Link]

The suggestion that Rumsfeld would have composed, approved of, or personally shown the slides to President Bush is flat wrong. It did not happen.

Given that Draper used anonymous sources for this charge as well as for the rest of the innuendo in his piece, one would think he might have at least done a cursory review of the facts. He might then have avoided being taken by people with an axe grind. When Draper goes back and checks reality against his reporting, he might also check whether GQ is in need of a new gossip columnist. [Link]

Not For Veterans Only

Good stuff, John:

Legislation in the House of Interest to Veterans

Legislation in the Senate of Interest to Veterans

He adds, "Those bills that include a website in red are being pushed by various veterans groups for passage and by clicking on that website you can forward a preformatted message to your legislator requesting he/she support the bill."

For everyone else: Caption Contest! (But I've already weighed in as "Spalding Smails".)

The 2010 Defense Budget

I joined in on the blogger roundtable last week...

Robert Hale, undersecretary of Defense, comptroller and chief financial officer discussed President Obama's Department of Defense fiscal year 2010 budget submission of $664 million to Congress with online journalists and bloggers during a DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable

Q The biggest growth, looks like, from 2009 to 2010 is in military personnel. Is that a significant reflection of increasing the size of the force, or are there other programs that are increasing? And if so, what are some of the success stories from that part of it?

MR. HALE: Well, you hit the biggest reason. We've been expanding both the Army and the Marine Corps. They are now at their target end strengths, and that is fully funded in this budget. And we've also halted the growth in the Navy and the Air Force. They were declining in size, and we have stopped that decline given the needs for personnel. So that is a major reason.

There was also -- and it sounds like you're all pretty well tuned in, so if -- but if I'm using jargon that's not helpful, tell me -- we call it supp-to-base transition. As you know, we've been submitting -- or have had some of our personnel costs in the supplementals. We are now moving toward all of our personnel costs being funded in the base budget. So that also caused some of the growth in personnel.

To my mind, it's a good-news story. We believe that we have fully funded the military personal (sic) accounts for fiscal year '10, consistent with the larger Army and Marine Corps, and halting the declines in the Navy and the Air Force. So I think it's a good-news story.

Fair enough. That Army "now at target end strength" bit will make an interesting lead-in to any future stop-loss discussion, but that isn't in the budget guy's lane. The rest of the questions were a bit tougher, coming from folks better prepared on details than I. (For my second shot I went for something that I didn't anticipate would actually be answered. Short version: "This is going up Capitol Hill. And what comes down might look somewhat different from what went up. But is there anything in particular within this budget that is considered both vulnerable and critical, that you would not want to see transformed as it makes its way through the halls of Congress?" - but I wanted to hear how it wasn't answered.) The full transcript and audio are here - I've also included the audio below.

And here's the wrap:

LT. CMDR. SANDOZ: Okay. And thank you all. I think we've had some great questions and comments today. As we wrap up today's call, I'd like to ask Mr. Hale if he's got any final comments.

MR. HALE: Well, thank you. I'll just repeat what I said before, and that is, we are trying to make significant changes in the Department of Defense. This is, in my view, a reform budget and, as I mentioned before, I think, qualifies in my 30-so years of experience of a handful that really are reform budgets, and both in terms of reshaping toward more regular and unconventional war and also changes in the way we buy equipment and services.

And the one other theme I would emphasize -- we didn't touch on it too much here, but it's probably the most important one -- not probably, both the secretary and chairman have said it's the most important -- is taking care of our people. We need to maintain the all-volunteer force. It's a stressful environment with two wars going on, as well as taking care of our civilian personnel.

So all of those themes are important. I hope, as you write about them, you will at least say I believe this is a reform budget and that those three themes are key.

Thank you sir - we'll keep an eye out for specific success stories on that "taking care of people" part.

Audio:

All done!

Imaginary Death Squads

...can result in real death.

Accusation's that U.S. military members assassinated Benazir Bhutto aren't the first such allegations built on the foundation of Seymour Hersh's fable of "Dick Cheney's Death Squads" - and Hersh isn't the only "credible" source providing fodder for world-wide conspiracy theorists. They should be the last. They won't be.

News from Pakistan:

Former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on the orders of the special death squad formed by former US vice-president Dick Cheney, which had already killed the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief of that country.

The squad was headed by General Stanley McChrystal, the newly-appointed commander of US army in Afghanistan. It was disclosed by reputed US journalist Seymour Hersh while talking to an Arab TV in an interview.

US journalist Seymour Hersh on Monday contradicted news reports being published in South Asia that quote him as saying a “special death squad” made by former US vice president Dick Cheney had killed Benazir Bhutto. The award-winning journalist described as “complete madness” the reports that the squad headed by General Stanley McChrystal – the new commander of US army in Afghanistan – had also killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafique Al Hariri and a Lebanese army chief. “Vice president Cheney does not have a death squad. I have no idea who killed Mr Hariri or Mrs Bhutto,” Hersh said.

Translation: "I'm a liar, and if you repeat what I say without fact-checking me I'll call you a liar too."

Funny, in a way. But far away from the comforting embrace of home, Seymour's fevered mouth actually will get Americans - and those he inspires to fight them - killed.

Good Question...

...inspired by David Bellavia's statement here: "The very same people who scream about the homelessness of veterans call Post Traumatic Stress a “disorder.” "

Why do people who want to "de-stigmatize" post-traumatic stress call it a "disorder"?

Update: One answer.

Moving On

Something to consider regarding the non-release of abuse photos: This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken. The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.

Those aren't my words - but I agree with them whole heatedly. I know them to be fact.

And that isn't a quote from Dick Cheney, or Don Rumsfeld, or George Bush - though it's what they've been saying for years. So if you thought someone from the previous administration was the source that's an understandable mistake.

That was actually an excerpt from President Obama's explanation of why he (rightfully) decided not to release those photos:

In other words, this is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.

It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals.

Here's the full statement - I think it took courage to make it:

Strategic Thinking?

May 6:

There is one republican presidential candidate that President Barack Obama's campaign manager fears the most in 2012...and his name is Jon Huntsman Jr.

President Obama on Saturday selected one of the nation’s leading Republican governors to serve as the ambassador to China, nominating Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman for the diplomatic post that Mr. Obama called “as important as any in the world.”

Strategic Reading

Greg Bruno in Council on Foreign Relations (via Small Wars Journal):

Under President Barack Obama's directive, the army is rewriting its information operations manual, FM 3-13 (PDF), last updated in November 2003. Lt. Col. Shawn Stroud, who until May 2009 served as director of strategic communication at U.S. Army Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas--which is coordinating the update--says previous versions of the army information doctrine gave senior officers far from the battlefield the responsibility for making decisions on communication and outreach. The goal of the new manual, scheduled to be released in late 2009, is to "empower commanders" closer to the fight. The need for swifter communications decisions is especially pressing in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters--who often accuse U.S. troops of killing civilians during operations--are believed to stage civilian deaths and post videos of the fabricated footage. Stroud says U.S. field commanders need the tools to combat counterproductive messaging quickly, like speaking directly to the news media or even filming operations and posting their own combat footage online before the Taliban can. "It's almost like we've surrendered the information battlefield and said, 'Well, we don't play by the same rules as them because we have to tell the truth,' " Stroud says. "The key is, we've got to be first with the truth. So we've got to build systems that do that."
<...>
Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, in an April 2009 interview with CFR.org, said Kabul--which has made efforts to improve its image among the population--nonetheless needs help countering the Taliban's messaging prowess. But that will not be easy, noted Michael Doran, a former deputy assistant security of defense, in a lecture on public diplomacy (PDF) at the Heritage Foundation in February 2008. Doran said that in Afghanistan, U.S. forces carry out an operation "and within 26 minutes--we've timed it--the Taliban comes out with its version of what took place in the operation, which immediately finds its way on the tickers in the BBC at the bottom of the screen."

Having Osama bin Laden in one’s sights is one thing. Devoting precious resources to his capture or death, rather than focusing on protecting the Afghan and Pakistani populations, is another. The goal should be to isolate extremists from the communities in which they live. The best way to do this is to adopt policies that build local partnerships. Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies must be defeated by indigenous forces — not from the United States, and not even from Punjab, but from the parts of Pakistan in which they now hide. Drone strikes make this harder, not easier.
<...>
Imagine, for example, that burglars move into a neighborhood. If the police were to start blowing up people’s houses from the air, would this convince homeowners to rise up against the burglars? Wouldn’t it be more likely to turn the whole population against the police?

Here's an Idea...

and

Kill binLaden

Elsewhere:

Jules Crittenden

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Danger Room

Newshoggers

What's better for combat: Boxers or Briefs?

Pink boxer shorts, a red T-shirt and bedroom slippers aren't everyone's idea of the ideal uniform for fighting the Taleban.

But a young US soldier found himself battling the enemy in his underwear when his platoon came under a sudden attack by Taleban militants in Afghanistan on Monday.

Zachary Boyd, 19, was sleeping when the ambush occurred and only had time to put on his helmet and body armour before grabbing his gun and rushing into action, leaving his "I love New York" pink boxers on full display.

The moment – at Firebase Restrepo in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan's Kunar Province — was captured by an Associated Press photographer and placed on the front page of The New York Times.

Army Specialist Boyd, fighting in Afghanistan with the US Army First Battalion, phoned home to warn his family of his sudden notoriety, much to the amusement of his parents.

“He said, ‘I hear the Times is what they put on the President's desk’,” said his mother, Sheree Boyd. “Then he told us, ‘I may not have a job any more after the President has seen me out of uniform’. [Link]

It coulda been worse.

Update: Email conversations with fellow combat zone-experienced milbloggers indicates a developing consensus answer to the headline question: "Commando."

Had Specialist Boyd exercised that option, the readership of the NY Times would have been in for a memorable breakfast/commute.

Kill bin Laden

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "Kid, you're our boy."
- Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant

"We will kill bin Laden"
- Barack Obama, campaigning for president

At the time I thought the only unparsable (other than "we"), unequivocal defense promise the then-candidate made might be "bluster designed to comfort (or even excite) McCain "national security voters"." It certainly is an audacious and risky vow - contrary to criticisms and finger pointing over the years the task is demonstrably not an easy one. Beyond that, other than "great PR for a week" the results of success might be less of an impact on various battlefields of the war on terror than many imagine. I'm sure focus group research indicated that was a fine campaign slogan, but as a foundation for national security strategy it would be cause for concern. (That said, I'd certainly and gleefully shoot the f%$ker without hesitation if I had the chance.)

But events of this past week have me re-thinking whether that campaign promise was serious. No doubt there were several reasons for the decision to replace McKiernan with McChrystal in Afhganistan - I believe Secretary Gates when he indicates there was no specific single "cause" for that decision. Recall his dismissal of the USAF Chief and Secretary last summer - our current Sec Def doesn't seem the sort to wait for a possibly headline-making "event" to dismiss those whose overall performance isn't in line with his vision. Kudos to him for that. In D.C. it's a rarely-exercised leadership prerogative that shouldn't be second-guessed from above, below, or elsewhere - assuming the man exercising it is comfortable accepting responsibility for the real-world events (vice petty criticisms) that result. Few are, hence "rare".

But during the hiring process for McKiernan's replacement, certainly this resume line would appeal to someone whose nod was required to make it so - and who'd promised America that "we will kill bin Laden":

He is credited with masterminding the eventual demise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and didn’t waste any time getting to the scene of the al-Qaeda in Iraq’s death to see for himself the results of a long 2 ½ year manhunt. I participated in that hunt for over a year under McChrystal’s overall command and his presence was well known and consistent. Another indicator of his stamina for the fight.

From my perspective, our rules of land warfare, our respect for human life, and our strategic constraints handcuff us to the point that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. But, with LTG McChrystal at the helm now all bets are off.

Phony Vets in Changing Times

Fake veterans among us! I'm shocked - shocked I tell you - to hear of this. But if you see it in the Times, it must be so...

The New York Times covers FakeVet Rick Duncan:

And Mr. Strandlof, who contrary to his claims never graduated from the Naval Academy or served in the military, is a 32-year-old drifter with a history of at least one criminal conviction, for car theft in Nevada. As a condition of his probation in that case, he was ordered to appear in a mental health court.

Or maybe not - maybe years of practice at exposing these guys just makes me think it's easy. Besides that, while "Rick Duncan" was busy speaking at Obama rallies, cohosting "several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis" and appearing in VoteVets ads supporting their Party's candidates American newspaper and television reporters were already working overtime exposing "Joe the Plumber" as a mere apprentice with a lien on his house whose name was misspelled on his voter registration card. Besides which, surely the media darling group Iraq Veterans Against War - whose members are often cited but never as such in media reports - vets their veterans, right?

Well, no. In fact, after repeated exposures of frauds in their midst Iraq Veterans Against War has finally abandoned "Iraq veteran" status as a requirement for membership. The group is now led by a former Coast Guard member who never served east of Bermuda, and while they (like VoteVets) are busily eliminating all traces of existence of "Rick Duncan" from their web site (even as members of the Colorado Veterans group that exposed the fraud in their midst decide to fold up shop) other FraudVets are still embraced. IVAW remains on speed dial for media outlets whose resulting stories - the more outlandish the better - still prompt congressional demands for Pentagon investigations. (Even as real Iraq vets leave the group in disgust.)

Rick Duncan isn't the first IVAW fraud to be exposed. He is, however, the first to make the New York Times. (Although the coverage, it should be noted, omits any IVAW or VoteVets connection.) Clearly something has changed since the time - at the height of combat during the surge - Rush Limbaugh was excoriated in the media for this conversation with a caller:

LIMBAUGH: "Save the -- keep the troops safe" or whatever. I -- it's not possible, intellectually, to follow these people.

CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

That prompted (surprise!) a rapid congressional response, and ultimately led to this NY Times coverage:

After Rush Limbaugh referred to Iraq war veterans critical of the war as “phony soldiers,” he received a letter of complaint signed by 41 Democratic Senators. He decided to auction the letter, which he described as “this glittering jewel of colossal ignorance,” for charity, and he pledged to match the price, dollar for dollar.

But Jesse wasn't the first either. There were many before him and many between him and "Rick Duncan". But change has come - for any considering a future attempt, be advised: the New York Times is watching.

Previous coverage from this and other milblogs:

Escaped Mental Patient stars in IVAW/VoteVets

IVAW/VoteVets fraud was an Escaped Mental Patient?

More on Duncan/Strandlof (Updated)

Stealing Water

Stealing Air

And huge, HUGE kudos to my fellow veterans at This Ain't Hell - those guys have been at the forefront of exposing these frauds for a long time now.

'Tis the Season

...for books here in Mudville: Interrogation of Morals by CPT Jason Meszaros

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan by Doug Stanton

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich

Each of which, judging from the opening chapters, you'll be hearing more about here. Of immediate note, Meszaros book - an account of his 2004 tour of duty in Afghanistan ("Interrogating Senior Al Qaeda Operatives -Ambushed by 700 Taliban -GTMO Detainees released and returning to fight in Afghanistan -Taking down the most sought after Taliban Commander in Afghanistan, aka "Taliban Billy the Kid"") reads very much like a well-written milblog. (That's a good thing.)

Stealing Air

Shocka - the guy complaining about shower quality in the "Stealing Water" story from CBS TV's Houston affiliate KHOU was an IVAW member.

“You can eat Subway, Burger King, you can buy a $1,200 Oakley watch, but you can’t have clean water to brush your teeth with, what’s the real priority here,” Sgt. Porter said.

Again - the idea that soldiers have been in Iraq without water for six years without knowing it is a crock of s#^t that only a moron could swallow.

Anyway, at least Porter was in Iraq. And he was an IVAW member - he recently left the organization over ideological differences. Apparently some members have certain convictions that others don't share, others lack convictions altogether, and still more are awaiting trial. One of his fellow members Porter had issues with was fraudulent "Afghanistan veteran" Matthis Chiroux, as explained in this excerpt from his resignation letter from the group:

IVAW treats its members with inequity and lacks credibility. While an admitted rapist, and being a party to rape on more than one occasion, Matthis Chiroux, is accorded accolades for making a big deal out of something that required no action on his part to begin with. There are also allegations that he used donated money from IVAW members and activists to pay his rent and buy drugs. But the board does not seem to be concerned with investigating or kicking him out. They even posted his “confession” on the main page of the IVAW site! Where he only brings up the rapes not out of a moral awakening but because he got called out on it. Furthermore, he blames the Army for it. The Army mindset and training made him a rapist. That is just a load of garbage and any who believes that is a fool.

I also talked to the Executive Director, Alex Bacon, about this. I brought up how this is public relations nightmare and that Matthis must be dealt with. But he believes that this will not be big issue.

But don't confuse fraudulent IVAW Afghan vet Matthis with fraudulent IVAW Iraq vet Rick Duncan - about whom this is the latest from the Denver Post:

He spoke at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol in July, co-hosted several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the national group Votevets.org.

And the mostly Democratic candidates he supported — looking for credibility on veterans issues and the war — lapped it up appreciatively.

Update - Slurp! - they heard "water" and drank the Kool Aid::

"I want to find out what's going on at the Pentagon," said Gene Green.

Now, a half-dozen congressmen, many who’ve personally been to Iraq, are demanding answers from the Secretary of Defense.

“We are dismayed to hear these accounts and believe the health and safety of our service members must be a priority and taken seriously,” said a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, signed by U.S. Reps. Gene Green, Al Green, Solomon Ortiz, Ralph Hall and Ron Paul.

"If it's a problem, solve the problem and find out also who's responsible for the problem," Poe said.

Still more - via email from TSO: "If you watch the KHOU video, the guy corroborating the Sgt Porter story is Brian Hannah. And who is that? The President of IVAW-Austin Texas."

"The Pope"

"From my perspective," writes the pseudonymous Dalton Fury in Small Wars Journal, "our rules of land warfare, our respect for human life, and our strategic constraints handcuff us to the point that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. But, with LTG McChrystal at the helm now all bets are off."

LTG Stanley McChrystal’s meteoric rise through the ranks is no surprise to anyone that has ever had the opportunity to work for or with him. I was fortunate, from a subordinate officer perspective, on numerous occasions.

Few know the facts just yet as to why GEN McKeirnan was moved out of command in Afghanistan. Regardless of the reasons, and I’m certainly not read on to the scuttlebutt, I do know that America’s interests, America’s warriors, and America’s mission in Afghanistan couldn’t be in better hands under LTG McChrystal. My biggest concern is that I hope the senior officers in Afghanistan soon to be under LTG McChrystal’s command are well rested.

Munmu the Great

...and the pirates. (I couldn't resist a chance to write that headline.)

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi (aka "Botox the Magnificent") says "I was fighting a war in Iraq at that point, too, you know."

True enough - but she lost her war. And she ain't a lovable loser.

Update - from comments:

"I was fighting a war in Iraq at that point, too, you know."

I am glad you posted that - I had heard that on the radio and thought I must have been hearing things. I wonder what patch is on her right shoulder...?

Wear is optional.

Update: Whoops - was reading an old reg. In the 1970 change, "wear is optional, but if authorized member is wearing this patch then they must wear the above to cover it up. However, it is acceptable that in many instances portions of the underlying patch will likely show through, and expected that this will likely increase over time."

And yes, these patches are also available:

To qualify for wear, member must simply repeat "we support the troops" whenever hearing the word "war" until it becomes the only response they can offer on the topic, and one they believe is a unique and reciprocal quality they share with no one else.

In many cases both the elephant and donkey patch may be worn simultaneously, but should be kept on opposite sleeves to limit view of both at once.

"Stealing Water"

There's a scene in the movie Kingdom of Heaven where the hero attempts to stop the army from marching into the desert for a battle without taking water along. He's the only one smart enough, you see, to know that they will need to drink water - especially in the desert they've been living in for years - to avoid death. (You can read the actual story of that battle here. Water does play a significant role.) It was an awful moment in a mediocre movie. As much as I understand expediency I thought the scriptwriters could have come up with something better - no one on earth could be ignorant enough to believe that plot device. Even in the days of the Crusades people weren't that stupid.

Headline: Some US Soldiers Forced to steal water in Iraq:

"It really hit me the day I was with my commander and we're stealing water," Robey said, describing how they raided supplies at the Baghdad International Airport.

But if you want to believe American soldiers have been living without water in Iraq for six years and no one has heard about it until now - be my guest (but please sterilize yourself before contaminating the gene pool). No doubt over the years some incompetent commanders and Senior NCOs allowed their unit supplies to run low, or failed to check each individual's personal supply prior to a mission, but the idea that there's any previously suppressed corporate shortage of water is one only the most gullible would believe.

As for the water in the shower facilities - it is "not drinkable" and heavily advertised as such. Everyone knows not to drink the water from the sinks - you are told to use bottled water even to brush your teeth (hey - there are oceans of the stuff laying around). Most people I knew who had been there long enough didn't care and brushed their teeth with tap water anyway (including me). As for substandard quality of water from pipes in the showers? Boo freakin hoo. A better shower was one of the many things I looked forward to having at home. (But weeks in the field without a shower was something I got used to twenty years before).

"Stealing air" is the correct term for what the peddlers of this story are doing.

Update: More here.

IVAW/VoteVets fraud was an Escaped Mental Patient?

It seems an anti-war “Marine” from IVAW has now been unmasked as a lying mental patient. He’s never served a day in the Marines, as he has claimed.

“Rick Duncan” (Richard Glen Strandlof) of Colorado Springs was a prominent anti-war activist who claimed to have served in Iraq on three tours of duty AND survived the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.

Greyhawk updates: Real Iraq veterans get suckered into joining IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against War), too. Here's a resignation letter from one of them that offers insight into what this fraudulent "anti-war" group is really all about.

Hell, even their leader (allegedly a former Coast Guard member) isn't an Iraq vet. (At least he admits it.)

More from Greyhawk:

He was not an "escaped mental patient" - unless there's more news to follow.

Our hero (or someone else named "Rick Strandlof") was trying to run something called the "Reno Tahoe Grand Prix" in 2005/2006.

Fabulous!

RENO TAHOE GRAND PRIX FOUNDATION NEW YEAR’S BASH AND FUND-RAISER Dec. 31, 2005 and Jan. 1, 2006

Home of Rick Strandlof, Incline Village Participants spent a fabulous evening at picturesque Lake Tahoe partying to the menthol-cool sounds of San Francisco-based DJ Pete Luscious and bidding on items ranging from a weekend spa getaway at The Village at Squaw Valley to 500 gallons of gas. The auction and donations raised a total of $25,000, benefiting the Reno Tahoe Grand Prix Foundation. The RTGP Foundation raises and distributes funds primarily for kids’ charities. RTGP funds initiatives that promote kids’ health, support for education, and help for families who cannot afford food, shelter, health insurance, and more.

I had the opportunity last week to speak with a gentleman named Rick Standlof, who is the moving force behind the proposed Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix, a street race through the streets of downtown Reno.
<...>
An endeavor of this magnitude takes a lot of planning and organization, but it looks as though Standlof has his ducks lined up.

The entire event will be privately funded, with some of the proceeds going to local charities. A fund-raising event planned for this coming August will benefit the Washoe Association for Retarded Citizens, helping that organization to purchase new vans to replace their old ones, which were damaged in the New Year's flood. Standlof's goal is for the Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix to become an annual event that will rival Hot August Nights in terms of bringing in visitors and dollars to Reno and the surrounding area.

Computers are wonderful. You make one little mistake, and it will propagate it through an entire document. So my computer and I apologize to Rick Strandlof of the Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix for misspelling his name throughout last week's column. Just remember the old adage, Rick: "Any publicity is good publicity."

By August:

I recently reported that Las Vegas had signed a Champ Car race for 2007, noting that the Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix concept for 2009 might be in jeopardy as a result. Well, a couple of readers asked me for an update on the Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix and I attempted to contact founder Rick Strandlof.

The website for the race is not currently online, and the phone number I have for the organization is not working. So Rick, if you're reading this, please contact me and let me know what's going on so I can share the information.

Once again I've had inquiries about the Reno-Tahoe Grand Prix. Not being a professional skip-tracer, I don't have any more news. The website is down, the phone number I had is not working, and there is no record of Rick Strandlof, the erstwhile promoter, that I can find. So I can only conclude that another race promoter has overstated the facts and I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

It's not the first time I've been led astray by a race promoter, and it may not be the last. The race promoter's motto seems to be a paraphrase of one of Abraham Lincoln's famous statements. "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and that's usually good enough."

According to Nevada court records, a Richard Strandlof completed 24 months probation in 2006 in an "unlawful taking" of a motor vehicle case in Reno.

I'd bet that Strandlof - as part of his plea bargain, was receiving outpatient "mental health treatment" during his probation period (during which he was also "setting up" the Grand Prix) - and that's the extent of his "mental patient" status.

Regardless, immediately after Strandlof completed his probation (at about the time the "Nevada Appeal" writer was looking for him for follow up) he could be still be found in Reno - if you knew where to look. Far from hiding, he was quoted as a representative of the communist group "World Can't Wait" in an AP report (now archived on Michael Moore's website, among other places) on an "Anti-Bush Rally" held weeks before the 2006 elections:

In Reno, Rick Strandlof with World Can't Wait said his coalition opposes "the Bush regime's record of corruption, fear, incompetence and tyranny."

"We are at a defining moment for this country and our people," he said.

When "Rick Duncan" started the group Colorado Veterans Alliance he used the same "charity" tactic as with the Grand Prix hustle. (In this case, helping "homeless veterans".) But when real veterans began to join the effort, they quickly identified him as a fraud:

The man, who called himself Rick Duncan — purportedly a former Marine captain and 1997 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy — is in fact 31-year-old Richard Glen Strandlof, a former mental patient who never served in the military and falsely claimed he was in the Pentagon during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to David Walsh of the Colorado Veterans Alliance, which Duncan founded.

Walsh, who joined the CVA board at Duncan's request last year, said his colleagues in the organization grew suspicious of Duncan after discovering "significant inconsistencies" in his personal story.

In a search of the Colorado secretary of state's office records, for example, they found that the name Colorado Veterans Alliance had been reserved by Rick Strandlof, whom they had never met, Walsh said.

While probing Duncan's past, Walsh said, the group found evidence that he was a patient in a mental hospital in Washoe County, Nev., at the time of the roadside bombing in Fallujah, Iraq, that Duncan claimed left him severely wounded.

That would be the Grand Prix fraud noted above - though the date was actually December 31, 2005.

Kudos to the real veterans in the CVA who saw right through this phony. Once the story broke, I was able to discover everything above in about an hour with Google.

That IVAW, on the other hand, fails at this at every opportunity is no surprise. The more outlandish the stories he could tell, the further he could go in the organization - and beyond. From IVAW he moved to appearing in videos for Democratic political candidates and posting "recommended diaries" at VoteVets. He weighed in on several issues, citing his six troops who were killed because of Bush, claiming he was an openly gay commander well respected and admired by his brothers in arms... each of his lies (see here) disgraced actual veterans (gay or straight) - but all were embraced without question by the "anti-war" vanguard.

Greyhawk's Law will never be repealed: "There are two types of combat veterans that have a tremendous appeal to the anti-war crowd - the fictional and the dead."

Still more: "Veterans' group disbands after founder exposed as impostor" - wrong group, right thing to do.

*Correction/clarification on timeline: Strandlof's initial court appearance was April, 2005)

Milbloggers...

Wow - some of us look straight even in Village People people outfits - others on the other hand, can make Jack Bauer look totally...

Well here, you finish the thought.

Murtha v Russell, Round Two

Sheesh:

Rep. John Murtha's opponent in the 2008 election claims the Pennsylvania congressman's chief of staff has threatened to have him recalled to active duty and court-martialed for campaigning while in the military, which is in violation of military code.

Bill Russell, an Iraq war veteran who served with the Army, told FOXNews.com that Murtha's chief of staff, John Hugya, made the threat on two occasions -- first to his former commanding officer and then to his face in March.

He also attacked Russell as a "carpetbagger". Not sure what Pennsylvania focus group that appealed to.

For the record, although Russell was retired from the military by last November's elections, he "was on active duty for a three-month period -- from April to July -- of his campaign for Congress last year. But he said he did not campaign during that period, as Hugya was suggesting, and so did not violate military code that prohibits doing so."

Strategy and Tactics (and Pirates - oh my)

There's a great introduction to concepts of strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war within this Small Wars Journal entry on application of those terms to discussion of the modern piracy issue. Well worth reading whether you are currently confused by the various definitions or not.

For a pop quiz, once you've read the above, tell me which of the three strategies this tactic employed and endorsed by the U.S. Navy indicates is ours:

Lookouts on the USNS Lewis and Clark spotted the approaching pirates and the ship immediately took bold action, using "evasive maneuvers and increased speed" in an attempt to escape. But the "suspected pirates" were relentless in pursuit, and even "fired small arms weapons" at their prey. It was at this point, realizing contact was imminent, that the ship "continued to increase speed and the skiffs ceased their pursuit".

"The actions taken by Lewis and Clark were exactly what the U.S. Navy has been recommending to prevent piracy attacks - for both commercial and military vessels," said Capt. Steve Kelley, Commander, Task Force 53.

The Jet Set

Corporate jets go "out of style". That's a good way to put it - whether they can afford them or not companies learned a lesson from the media assault on "The Big Three" last fall - in the current business climate even the appearance of prosperity is a dangerous thing.

By March, the pending second and third-order results of that were obvious in in my neighborhood:

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- When Gulfstream Aerospace settled in Georgia with 100 employees in 1967, there was little hint the company would take hold as Savannah's largest private employer and as the Ferrari of private jet manufacturers catering to celebrities and CEOs.

So the announcement that Gulfstream is laying off 1,200 workers -- many of them at its Savannah headquarters -- and will furlough an additional 1,500 employees here for five weeks this summer has this coastal community bracing for a major economic blow.

"It's going to hurt all the local businesses in town," said Kelly Heino, whose family owns and operates Ronnie's, a mom-and-pop restaurant near the Savannah plant. "We're open from 6 a.m. to 10 at night, and I would say we get their employees for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Greyhawk Exposed

Fierce debate: "is he more a '70s Pr0n Star or Sam Elliot clone?" I'll let others decide.

But "Village People Member" is right out.

(Meanwhile, Hugh Laurie weeps, forgotten.)

Here's another Good Idea

Because the first one wasn't:

President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge's order, and had changed his mind.

Unfortunately, I also think that as bad as they might be the actual pictures wouldn't have lived up to the ones in the imaginations of those who were most looking forward to their release. (Not that they would ever admit that.)

Here's an idea...

On countering enemy information operations:

Former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne thinks the best solution may be to let the troops themselves document the story. “We need to make sure we capture the news cycle by providing our troops with something like a combat blogger,” Wynne tells Danger Room.
<...>
Wynne thinks it’s time to let military bloggers have a freer hand. “This thing of letting the Taliban, letting Al Jazeera, letting the enemy public affairs unit get a hold of 24 to 48 hours of news cycle and then you announce that you’re forming an investigative team — what is that?” Wynne says. “The sad part is, that when [the military] forms an investigative team, it looks like it’s only for one reason: to cover it up.”

Let's draw a distinction here between milbloggers (military and civilian) and deployed milbloggers (military). The first group is thriving - so much so that we can gather in conferences dealing with wide ranging issues from diverse points of view. We visit the White House and the Pentagon, interview high-ranking officials (on and off the record), embed with combat troops, and accomplish host of other tasks only dreamed of a few short years ago (when I wondered if the dozen or so of us running what could be called "milblogs" would even be willing to link those sites in a "ring"...). This access is a good thing - doors opened by smart people who responded to our knocks - an undeniable sign of progress.

But speaking of conference, I mentioned this at this year's: back before the DoD's efforts to destroy deployed military bloggers achieved an amazing success (that couldn't quite be matched on the physical battlefields of the war) we came very close to achieving something like what Wynne describes above. When a suicide bomber struck a DFAC in Mosul in December, 2004 there were several first-hand, eyewitness accounts provided by milbloggers on the scene. In my mind the potential for coverage of future events exceeded the impact of this specific one. "Potential", however, is a matter of individual perspective, and undoubtedly not everyone who perceived potential trouble from immediate ground-truth reports from multiple points of view of a battlefield were members of the media. Attempts to gain control of the then-becoming robust information platform ensured it's potential good was never achieved. The downside, on the other hand, was predictably unstoppable.

Off the top of my head I can think of one subsequent example of rapid, real-time "IO victory" by deployed milbloggers. While the DoD has made great strides forward in putting Humpty together again over the past two years, by the time the surge was launched in 2007 my distant early warning that if milblogs were outlawed only outlaws would have milblogs was (with few notable exceptions) effectively fact. I was in Iraq in December, 2004 - and back again for the surge. But among the few deployed "milbloggers" during that second tour (not many more in all of Iraq than were in that DFAC in 2004) the most well known and widely-read was The New Republic's DFAC correspondent Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Funny how that worked out.

On a closing note (for now): soldiers don't quit, and milblogs won't die. There are still guys in-theater - Iraq and Afghanistan, blogging away. (And we still follow them here.) Their numbers are small, but another point I made at the milblogs conference is worth repeating here: for that they are a national treasure.

Teed Up

National Security Advisor James Jones on repealing Don't Ask/Don't Tell:

JONES: So it's a complicated issue. It will be teed up (ph) appropriately and it will be discussed in the way the president does things, which is be very deliberative, very thoughtful, seeking out all sides on the issue and trying to ...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if the president is against the policy, why not suspend prosecutions and investigations while that review continues?

JONES: Well, maybe that's an option that eventually we'll get to but we're not there now.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: But it will be overturned.

JONES: I don't know. We'll have to - the president has said that he is in favor of that. We'll just wait - we'll have to wait and see - as a result of the deliberations and as a result of the - in the months and weeks ahead. We have a lot on our plate right now. It has to be teed up at the right time so - to do this the right way.

Update: "White House: Law only answer for gays in military". Are there any sane arguments against that?

Hot Town, Summer in the City...

One briefing (General Odierno, 8 May 2009) - two headlines:

New York Times - General Sees a Longer Stay in Iraq Cities for U.S. Troops "The top American general in Iraq said Friday that one-fifth of American combat troops would stay behind in Iraqi cities even after the June 30 deadline that the United States and Iraq had set for the departure."

AFP - US on track to exit Iraqi cities by end June: commander: "WASHINGTON (AFP) — US forces are on track to pull out of all Iraqi cities by the end of June in line with a deal struck with Iraq, Washington's top commander in the country said on Friday."

And a bonus: We don't need US troops in cities: Iraq PM tells Pelosi

But the first paragraph of that last story exposes the lie in the headline: ""We don't need big numbers of (US) military forces inside the cities after we get control of them," Maliki said..." - so chalk that up as another obvious example of why people who read headlines alone aren't as "well informed" as the rapidly dwindling number of morons who believe the text they read beneath them.

As for the other two headlines, they're reminiscent of the time of the announcement of the surge, when both President Bush and General Petraeus explained that we were sending in more troops, but the solution to Iraq's problems weren't exclusively military. The media created a fictional disagreement between them by giving each credit for half the quote - but this is the first time I recall them actually attempting to fabricate a General who wouldn't listen to himself.

The American media-created myth of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities continues unabated. But the reality isn't that complicated and has not changed since the SOFA (pdf) and Strategic Framework Agreement (pdf) were signed last Fall. Prime Minister Maliki understands it - reduced numbers of ("non-combat") U.S. troops will remain in Iraqi cities functioning as enablers (coordinating air support and other services the Iraqis can't yet provide themselves) and advisers (trainers, etc.). Others stationed outside the cities will be available if needed to provide security.

American military commanders understand this too - and are willing to take as much time as necessary to explain it very carefully to American reporters. U.S. Brigade Combat Teams (now called "Advise and Assist Brigades") preparing to deploy to Iraq are training for that role - and even learning the basics of providing essential city management services. In Iraq, efforts are ongoing to ensure Iraqis are informed of and understand the continued presence of American troops in cities there after June 30th. In the Western media, an equally vigorous effort is underway to ensure the rest of the world is ignorant. (An alternative explanation exists - that reporters simply can't comprehend and are effortlessly sharing their confusion with others.) For additional details including audio and video interviews with American commanders on this topic, see here.

As for the briefing that resulted in both the headlines above, here's the transcript of General Odierno's attempt to update the press last week.

First order of business, there are now only two cities where "combat" troops remain, Baghdad and Mosul, and there's a possibility "combat" troops will remain in Mosul after June 30th:

Defining "Facilitating"

October, 2008:

Q And are you considering or looking into a program that would be similar to the Sons of Iraq, where you would actually start paying some of the tribes, that the U.S. money would go to some of the tribes to get --

GEN. MCKIERNAN: No, the difference in Afghanistan is that needs to be an Afghan-led effort to engage the tribes.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE AIRBORNE, Afghanistan - Provincial, local and tribal leaders, along with special operators and 10th Mountain Division soldiers deployed here, today gave Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates their stamp of approval on a new program that's getting local Afghans to help build security in their communities.

The Afghan public protection program is an Afghan-led initiative that recruits and trains local people to serve as community guard forces in unsecured regions. Operated under the Afghan interior ministry, it helps to ensure law and order and build governance at the community level, a U.S. special operator serving here as a mentor told reporters traveling with Gates.

"This is an Afghan program," he said. "Our role is to facilitate."
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Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan and NATO's International Security Assistance Force, also praised the program that's been compared to the "Sons of Iraq" program in Iraq. APPP applies a "bottom-up approach" to security, with community members serving as a local security force in support of the police, he said.

McKiernan called the salaries the United States pays the participants – less than a police officer's starting salary – a good investment with a potentially big payoff. "And that's security," he said.

Gates/Mullen Briefing

On Afghanistan, strategy and new leadership:

Beyond citing "time for new leadership", both declined to provide definitive answers to any direct questions on cause for relieving General McKiernan. At one point Secretary Gates pointed out that "I would tell you that those who are speculating on the ingredients in this decision, if it's not Admiral Mullen or me or General Petraeus, have no inside information on our thinking."

Gates' response to a question regarding McKiernan's troop level requests ("No, that had nothing to do with it, as far as I was concerned") was the only yes/no answer any related questions received.

This passage...:

Question: Admiral, you said, we can and must do better. And so I'm surprised you don't have any more solid idea of how we need to do better.

Admiral Mullen: I can't think of a more important decision than putting in new leadership, with respect to that, and then having the impact that is so critical.

Question: Actually the secretary said, "we must and can do better". Any thoughts on how?

Secretary Gates: Well, I think, that's the challenge that we give to the new leadership. How do we -- how do we do better? What new ideas do you have? What fresh thinking do you have? Are there different ways of accomplishing our goals? How can we be more effective? The admiral and I aren't the source of those ideas. General McChrystal and General Rodriguez are. And that's what we expect from them.

Question: Let me ask it a different way. One of the criticisms of General McKiernan was that he hadn't implemented a joint campaign plan, essentially an implementation of the way the strategy would be used on the ground. When the new leadership gets there, do you have a sense that then they will provide new feedback that could change the Af/Pak strategy as we know it? And what might it be?

Gates: Well, I -- first of all, the new strategy is a strategy approved by the president. And it is a whole-of-government strategy. If there are any changes that they would recommend, it would be in the military part of that strategy.

...reminds me of another recent discussion in D.C.:

Maybe we'll see that plan soon.

Iraq Oil Deal?

Ending months of political stalemate, the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq reached an accord Sunday that would allow the Kurds to export oil for the first time.

Back in May, 2008 she went to Iraq with Jack Murtha to tell the troops they were proud of them and to talk to them about the faulty intelligence that got us into this war:

This year I'm sure the "hot topic" that would be interesting to start discussions with war zone troops with is waterboarding. (Or maybe not.)

2009 National Paralyzed Veteran Wheelchair Games

National Paralyzed Veteran Wheelchair Games to be held in Spokane, WA this summer.

A multi-event sports and rehabilitation program for military service veterans who use wheelchairs for sports competition due to spinal cord injuries, amputations or certain neurological problems. Attracting more than 500 athletes each year, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games is the largest annual wheelchair sports event in the world.
<...>
Competitive events at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games include swimming, table tennis, weightlifting, archery, air guns, basketball, nine-ball, softball, quad rugby, bowling, handcycling, trapshooting, wheelchair slalom, power soccer, a motorized wheelchair rally, track and field. Exhibition events are also being planned. Athletes compete in all events against others with similar athletic ability, competitive experience or age.

Admission:
Free. The public is most welcome.

Check it out.

More here

The Moon over Yusufiyah has a special glow tonight

Robert Stokely:

0900 11 May 09: Christell Pitts Stokely, born April 21, 1928 died at age 81 Piedmont Fayette Community Hospital.

No person has ever been born who did not have a mother,but I was fortunate to have a Momma and the best to say the least.

Chris Stokely was as sweet a woman as ever were. She was a devoted wife who did not work outside the home and was there for each of her children every day. But, she worked harder than if she had an outside job. Taking care of three boys who could find a lot to get into and prone to break a lot of bones along the way. I was youngest of the boys and our sister came eight years after me, completing my Mother. A fifth child, William Thomas Stokely, was an "unexpected' but happy pregnancy. He was born February 28, 1963 and died during child birth. In the years to come, his death would have been prevented with the invention of the fetal monitor which alerts doctors to the need to do a C-section when the baby is in distress prior to birth. I shall never forget holding his tiny hand in his tiny casket. Each February 28 Momma and I would spend time remembering William Thomas - it was our private bond, one which I think was ironic since it would be me who would one day bury a son. In another ironic twist, William Thomas Stokely was given the first name of my great great grandfather - William G. Stokely who was a SGT with E Company, Florida Cavalry in the Civil War. Even more ironic is that William Stokely (actually spelled Stokeley then) died as a prisoner of war in Federal custody at Camp Chase Ohio, two months before the Civil War ended. Mike Stokely was a Cavalry Scout with Troop E 108 CAV 48th Brigade Georgia National Guard and was KIA 16 August 2005 in Iraq. Broken hearts understand each other.

Digital Warriors

From Frontline:

Much more here.

Greyhawk's Gallery of Great Official Air Force Photos

Current events have me thinking about what a great job the USAF photographers do capturing "American Airpower" in flight under a variety of conditions. To really appreciate these you might want to see them in glorious full size (many are available here) but even in reduced versions the awe-inspiring clarity and quality is spectacular. Of those that aren't readily available at the link above, some are from previous galleries I've displayed here - they link back to the original posts (with more and larger versions). For those I first found via other bloggers, the photos link back to their posts, too.

I hope you won't glance too quickly at the images, but will instead take a moment to enjoy the awe-inspiring, breathtaking results of the photographers' efforts to bring you these incredible juxtapositions of nature and technology. As you ponder man's dominance of the heavens I think you'll agree that it's simply amazing what can be captured for posterity even while camera and subject move at speeds undreamed of even few decades ago.

Enjoy!