Dawn Patrol

Alert

UN alert as nuclear plans go missing (Guardian)
Electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished and could be put up for sale on the international black market, according to UN investigators.

Iraq

Patience [365 and a Wakeup -in Iraq]
One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.

- Ancient Chinese Proverb

One of the iron clad rules the cavalry soldiers passed along as they were leaving was to never let your guard down. It was valuable advice - not everyone who warmly shakes your hand is your friend. But just as true is the inverse of that law - not everyone who appears threatening is your enemy. Several of our soldiers relearned that lesson today while setting up a TCP (traffic control point - aka checkpoint) on one of the crowded streets of Baghdad.

Interview with COL Disalvo [DVIDS video]
Colonel Joseph Disalvo, Commander, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Third Infantry Division (Fort Stewart), talks from Baghdad to an ABC reporter about his area of operation, his role in Baghdad, and the role of the Iraqi Security Forces

General: Insurgents force others to launch suicide raids (Army Times)
Iraqi insurgents appear to be forcing some followers to commit suicide car bombings by tying or binding them inside explosive-carrying vehicles, the commanding general of allied security forces in Baghdad said Wednesday.

Sad News... [My Vacation in Iraq]
Last night the inevitable happened. My unit sustained it's first casualty of the war. I know I am not a good writer and couldn't begin to write about what happened. So I'm not going to try.

Why aren't more pictures like these in the news? [A Soldiers' Angel - Holly Aho]
I got these pictures in an email from a fellow soldiers' angel. The came from an adopted soldier in the program. Why don't pictures like these get any airtime on the big news channels???

Mission turns fowl for Charlie 1/5 Marines Marines.com]
At five inches tall and less then two pounds, the suspect that Cpl. Scott B. Lyon and fellow Marines with Company C, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, have in their custody here is not the average AK-47-toting insurgent ? he?s a pigeon.

Dates with my husband [Ryan and Christy's Place - in Iraq]
We could talk about almost anything on our dates. His job -- but most often, he can't tell me what he does. The weather -- pegged as a "boring" date topic, but it's pretty interesting, to be honest, with temperatures topping 100 degrees and the prettiest sunsets. Stories about crazy things he his guy friends do -- they're funny and always make me laugh.

"Be proud of them...they do great things for the right reasons" [Marine Corps Moms]
The HMM-162 (Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron-162) has landed and the situation is well in hand. LtCol Diehl updates the friends and families of this Aviation Combat Element:

WE LAUGHED FROM 8:00 P.M. TILL 10:00 P.M [SFC Kevin Kelly's Dixie Sappers - in Iraq]
From all of the helicopters landing today you would have thought we were Jackson International Airport. The first helicopter brought the comedians in a little after 10:00 a.m. We were surprised to see them so early and that they even showed up at all. The show wasn't till 8:00 p.m. so they pretty much spent the day just eating with us, playing ping-pong and just talking. They were some pretty nice guys. We had no idea how funny they were until tonight. Jody and the producer were playing ping-pong and Jody asked him "What does it take to get into comedy?" The man said in a serious manner, "You have to be funny." I laughed at Jody for asking such a loaded question. After that, he told us all about all the guys and how they had started and how long they had been doing it. Some of the guys are on like comedy central, VH1 and a few other television shows. One guy always opens up for Larry The Cable Guy.

Soldier Rap, The Pulse of War (Newsweek)
It took only a few ambushes, roadside bombs and corpses for Neal Saunders to know what he had to do: turn the streets of Baghdad into rap music. So the First Cavalry sergeant, then newly arrived for a year of duty in Sadr City, began hoarding his monthly paychecks and seeking out a U.S. supplier willing to ship a keyboard, digital mixer, cable, microphones and headphones to an overseas military address. He hammered together a plywood shack, tacked up some cheap mattress pads for soundproofing and invited other Task Force 112 members to join him in his jerry-built studio. They call themselves "4th25"?pronounced fourth quarter, like the final do-or-die minutes of a game?and their album is "Live From Iraq." The sound may be raw, even by rap standards, but it expresses things that soldiers usually keep bottled up. "You can't call home and tell your mom your door got blown off by an IED," says Saunders. "No one talks about what we're going through. Sure, there are generals on the TV, but they're not speaking for us. We're venting for everybody."

Music Video

Afghanistan

Anxious Hours [Firepower Forward - in Afghanistan]
When we received word of U.S. casualties in a rocket attack in Shkin, there were some anxious hours until we could verify that all our people were unijured. Our prayers are with the units and families of those lost.

Does the USA really help Muslim women? (The International News - Erica Ahmed)
....While American feminist groups decried the Taliban's treatment of women, the government remained largely silent on the issue until the 9-11 tragedy turned the nation's eyes towards the Muslim world. Then formed the most unlikely of partnerships: left-wing feminists and the conservative, war-mongering Right.

In a similar effort to that being undertaken now, Laura Bush was paraded out in an effort to prove how much America values women, reframing the conflict overseas in terms of women's rights and freedom.

<...>

The world needs to respect the sovereignty of women in developing areas by letting them find their own voice, identify their own needs and operate within their own cultural context.

When a representative of the Bush administration stands up as an advocate for Muslim women's rights, it taints the idea of women's liberation with the same ugly brush as Quran desecration, abuse of Muslim male prisoners, and other atrocities which have so damaged America's image.

MSM Reports

When is a Submarine Not a Submarine? [The Stupid Shall Be Punished]
When a CNN.com photo misidentifies a sunken submarine rescue ship as a submarine, that's when. This one may change quickly, but for now, the first photo that comes up when you click on the story above shows a picture of what's clearly the bow of a surface ship, along with the caption: "The shipwreck of the USS Macaw, a submarine that sank after striking a submerged reef in 1944."

Flying Over The Line (Washington Post)...Richard Cohen
We should all attend the Air Force Academy. We should do so not just to learn about military flying but also -- actually, mainly -- to find out what happens when religion is not kept in its place. At the academy, the result has been utter contempt for separation of church and state and a form of religious persecution.

Recruiting

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call (SEATTLE POST - SUSAN PAYNTER)
For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"

Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.

<...>

The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."

Via email: A 21-Year-Old Patriot [Jack Army]
I received this email and was highly impressed. This young man explains from the perspective of his youth why he thinks recruiting is having difficulties:

I wanted to explain my position more than on the comments post. Again, I am a 21 year old male in my junior year in college. The reason I believe we are experiencing the difficulties in recruiting involves our generations perception of America. While I think that it is correct the people in my generation are not actively joining up military is partly because of danger, but I think it has to do more with the time we grew up in.

Army Headed to Recruiting Shortfall (washington post)
The Army appears likely to fall short of its full-year recruiting goal for the first time since 1999, raising longer-term questions about a military embroiled in its first protracted wars since switching from the draft to a volunteer force 32 years ago.

Why I Serve - SSG Schnoor [DVIDS video]
Why I Serve features Staff Sergeant Michael Schnoor. He talks about leaving recruiting duty to rejoin a line unit. Video from American Forces Network Iraq

Feel That Draft? (Chicago Tribune)...Charles Moskos
Recruitment for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps is on the brink of disaster.

Military Issues

Since When Does Free Speech Include Sedition? [The Gun Line]
Jihad Watch posts a video of American Muslims desecrating and American Flag in the streets of New York City... World Net Daily runs the story...

Okay, they're exercising their First Amendment Rights...

But, listen to these select quotes, from The Islamic Thinkers Society, based out of New York, :

"Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn't it obvious?"

DoD Working to Increase Tricare Access for Reserve Components [Defnse Link]
The Defense Department has made "tremendous efforts and strides" to meet the needs of Reserve and Guard servicemembers who now qualify for health-care coverage under the Tricare program, the program manager said today during an interview on Fox News.

Military Files Set For Unsealing (Philadelphia Inquirer)...Associated Press
The National Archives will open 1.2 million military personnel files to the public Saturday for the first time, including those of Elvis Presley.

GTMO

White House: Gitmo prison could close (Army Times - AP)
The White House on Wednesday left open the possibility that the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, could be shuttered after criticism of the facility that has led former President Jimmy Carter and others to call for its closure.

GTMO [Sisyphean Musings]
Blackfive asks Should GITMO Go?
Short answer ... no.
Longer answer ... still, no.
Let's walk this through. There is nothing inherently "wrong" with the facility or the location at GTMO. The "problem" at GTMO is three-fold.

Who's Really Abusing the Koran? (LA Times - Max Boot)
At Gitmo, the prisoners, not the guards, were the worst offenders.
All the headlines about "Abuse of the Koran at Gitmo" are absolutely accurate. Brig. Gen. Jay Hood's internal investigation has uncovered some shocking incidents. On at least six occasions, Korans were ripped up. They were urinated on three times, and attempts were made to flush them down the toilet at least three other times.

Why aren't millions of Muslims rioting in response to these defilements? Because the perpetrators were prisoners, not guards. As John Hinderaker notes on weeklystandard.com, the most serious desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were committed by the Muslim inmates themselves

MilBlogs

When Bloggers Attack [Euphoric Reality]
As you may have read earlier, EuphoricReality was asked to be in a blogumentary documentary about bloggers, set to film this summer. With a working title of 59 Bloggers, the film was meant to showcase fifty-nine blogs that ?represent the blogosphere?. Considering ER and Andi?s World were the only two milblogs in the group, we were pretty excited. [We?re not sure why Blackfive, Froggy, or Mudville weren?t chosen over us [since they?re all better sites], but we?ll take it.]

Humor

Dean says... [Day by Day - comic strip]

Dean: Dem Poll Workers Can't Tell GOP Voters Apart [Scrappleface]
Many Republicans probably voted for George Bush dozens, if not hundreds, of times in 2004, according to Democrat party Chairman Howard Dean, "by taking advantage of the fact that Democrat poll workers have difficulty distinguishing individuals from among a crowd of white Christians."

The road to HEALING [Protien Wisdom]
Asked to comment on Mr. Dean?s characterization of Republicans as a white Christian monolith, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) expressed disappointment with the former Vermont Governor: ?Howard says that like being white and Christian is a bad thing,? the Senator told a small gathering of reporters. Byrd was then quickly ushered away by several aides after he pressed a quarter into the palm of freshman Senator Barack Obama and demanded the Illinois Democrat ?be a good boy and go fetch Mister Bobby a nice cold sodee-pop.?