I am not in the military, but I recently emailed Russ Vaughn, after reading Fightin' Words, facts conveniently forgotten by the mainsteam press worth repeating. It goes like this:

Dear Russ Vaughn,

Great poem. I wanted to pass along some thoughts/facts of mine supporting your ideas that were in an AmericanThinker article and repeat something I read on Lucianne.com about urban combat.

From my article, Denial on the Hudson: liberals and 9/11 http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4049

I was going to make the major supporting point a fact few in the press remember from the 1990s, how there was talk of a Homeport, a US Navy base on Staten Island - and people in New York were opposed to it greatly. How if a Navy ship with missiles had been on Staten Island on Sept. 11th, it could have shot down the first or at least second plane within a minute. How New York used to have an Air Force base at Westbury, L.I. and used to have missiles in either Floyd Bennett Field or Ft. Hamilton in Brooklyn to shoot down Soviet bombers, if they came. I was going to say how as a boy in New York, an older brother of a friend of mine worked at that missile installation as a US Army soldier. I was going to argue how New Yorkers thought they were too "sophisticated" to have a military base nearby like those "grubby Bible thumping rednecks" in Florida and South Carolina.

My last example is from my readings. I recall an article written by George Stephapolis's sister, a nun in Jenin (West Bank) and posted on Lucianne.com, along with one telling reply. Stephie's sister complained a few years ago about Israeli soldiers using an indoor office, to shit on the floor and a photocopier. A replying post came from a Texan whose uncle fought in Germany in World War II. It talked about what soldiers did when they needed to defecate in safety during an urban war setting in the heat of combat. To the point, the poster said that his uncle burst into a German family's urban home and held them at gunpoint during a battle while he shit on their living room floor. Apparently he wasn't going to go in the bathroom and lock the door behind himself while they searched for a knife, gun or pushed a heavy dresser in front of the bathroom door.

Jack Kemp
not the politician

Aw Geez Russ, can you at least express how you really feel? LMAO! Great poem!!!

While I do not profess to speak for Mr. Vaughn, my interpretation of the point Russ makes at American Thinker is in the same vein that I've tried unsuccessfully to communicate. Things in the MSM changed with Nam. Which in turn changed in journalism as a whole. It is now taboo and goes against "objective" reporting to actually choose sides. And yes, there comes a time when everyone must choose a side! It does not mean you have to give up any objectivity what-so-ever. Nor does it mean censoring anyone's ability to bulldog the government or military. It simply means that most journalists live their lives trying to "NOT" choose a side and in the process lose what value they may have. To themselves and those around them! Or they refuse, such as Sites, to do what needs to be done to protect our troops and the Country as a whole. It's that same "right vs wrong" thing that we, as a Nation, seem to be grappling with right now. JMHO.

BTW Bucky, if you read this, I gave up trying to reconstruct that rant. I used the link you provided, which was way excellent, and just about had it finished when we got hit with a three hour power outage due to a young lady running into a power pole and destroying a transformer. Before I could hit "save"! he-he! Just wasn't meant to be!

P.S. The young lady was OK. She swerved trying to avoid a squirrel of all things. Squirrels make excellent gravy. Power poles mess up cars something fearful! ;-)

Some people pretend to be "Above the Fray" when all they really are is in denial to avoid responsibility.

You got to be more constructive in your criticism.
I'd say to the MSM Since you know better than all the army & marines, you go ahead, go into that mosque first and show us how to do the job right.

What Russ said.

Eeeehaw!!