There aren't many movies that convince me they're worth the price of admission, but if this one makes it to theaters I'll plunk down my money, happily.

According to a flyer produced by the 1st Cavalry Division Public Affars Office after the Division returned from OIF II in MAR 05 (which I am now holding in my sweaty little hands), the Division awarded as of 9 FEB 05, 175 awards for valor. How many of these citations have YOU heard of?

This situation doesn't just apply to this conflict. Ask around your office or school how many people know who Alvin York, Audie Murphy or Roy Benavidez were and what they did for this country?

At least the blogs are getting out many of the stories, often in great detail. Of course, the vast majority of the public remains more interested in "Lost" than in the realworld situation in Iraq. For many, Iraq is just a soap opera that has outrun their interest.

BTW, while our troops are fighting so bravely for freedom in the Middle East, it's being quietly stolen away in some places people don't seem to care very much about. Check out my posting at http://datatroll.blogspot.com (you might at least like my London Tube Rider T-shirt :)

The President pins the Medal of Freedom on a draft dodger like Mohammad Ali, {who embraced Islam so as to better trash his country and avoid the war, another real hoot was that his adoption of Islam meant that he embraced NON-VIOLENCE}. But when have we seen the President recognizing by bemedaling the men who are making his vision a reality.

I don't blame the media, they are lefties, what do you expect.

Rather I blame the White House communication team, which is a sad joke. As Mort Kondracke said on Fox, "this White House communication staff is the worst I ever saw...."

The President needs to rhetorically wage this war.

"Most Americans couldn't name a single hero from this war. It's partly because many Americans are aloof from this whole conflict, and couldn't tell you a thing about Operations Matador and Steel Curtain and the other major offensives."
(Excuse my editing for the sake of brevity.)

And whose fault is that ? Our "press" doesn't tell us these things. It's not "Stupid Americans", it's "Stupid American Press".

I don't go to movies very often these days, but I will be there standing in line opening night for this one. Thank you Bruce !

Hey Dan? While I agree some stuff the CiC could do in a more public way he's basically caught between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea. If he does personally pin awards then he's grandstanding. If he doesn't then he's a heartless SOB. Go figure! 'Sides, he's been doing things you just don't hear about and the 2/2 Warlords appreciate it:

http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051125/NEWSREC0101/511240330

I'm still wondering how the 1st Battle of Fallujah movie will turn out. Haven't heard anything since the announcement it was going to be made. Probably rate right up there with "Over There" I'd imagine. (and no, I won't take a potshot at Sites although it's so very Pulitzer-like tempting in this context! heh!)

A couple of comments. First off, it could have something to do with the fact that, in typical Bush administration fashion, the Pentagon lied through its teeth to the American public about Jessica Lynch and that Tillman guy. The former who didn't do what the liars in the Pentagon said she did, and the latter who the liars in the Pentagon forgot to mention was killed by friendly fire.

So, if there are no hero stories from the war it can be pinned directly on the Pentagon, which time after time after time has proven that it cannot be trusted with even basic facts.

As for the Battle of Fallujah, I hope Bruce Willis's "pro-war" movie will show the U.S. using white phosophoros as a weapon and then going to the public and lying about it.

No wonder two-thirds of the public thinks the Iraq War was a waste, and a majority of the public thinks the Fake President is personally dishonest.

Wilson? You don't belong in this conversation. Spew your bile somewhere else on a political thread. This is a thread about American Heroes. Something of which you are not, never will be, nor qualified to speak about. You couldn't even sniff "that Tillman guy's" shorts! You young squire wouldn't understand Honor, Duty, Country if it bit you on the butt.

You cannot even get your facts straight to begin with. The 1st Battle of Fallujah will star Harrison Ford. The battle was a Marine OP Apr04. The 2nd Battle of Fallujah was a combined OP Nov04. Bruce Willis will be starring in a movie on the heroes of Deuce Four which is an Army unit that did an amazing job in Mosul. You simply have no clue. Or intestinal fortitude.

Go away pantywaist. Take it to another thread and leave this one alone.

JarheadDad, nice try at sidestepping the Pentagon's premediated lying in the Tillman and Lynch cases. So why do you think they did it, anyway, i.e., lied about Lynch and covered up Tillman's being killed by friendly fire while releasing out a lie? What is it about these people that makes them such liars, anyway, and what is it about you that makes you so willing to lap up their lies?

By the way, your Fake President has never attended a military funeral. He couldn't possibly care less about the dead and wounded. He is totally indifferent to their fate, which is probably a function of his own cowardice during the Vietnam War + his knowledge that his lies to get us into the Iraq adventure have killed tens of thousands of people.

One thing I don't wonder is how he sleeps at night George W. Bush is a drunk, and I'm sure he drinks himself to sleep.

No sidestepping here Wilson. You're a whiney little keyboard warrior that likes to pick on women. Military wives at that. You have no guts, no scruples, no morals, no class, and no nads. I think that pretty much covers it.

You basically are a worthless little boy with delusions of grandeur and nothing to back it up. What part of this do you not understand?

Jarhead: He'd have to have a sense of shame to understand. Since he has none, he'll spew anything so long as it annoys or hurts the people he hates.

He'll meltdown eventually, cross the line and get banned for a few months. Like he did last July or so. The fact that he's using older smears might indicate he's getting closer to that point.

Understood Patrick. He can spout off all he wants as far as I'm concerned. It shows how easily led he is and how weak his mind is. Typical of the gilded youth of his age and circumstance. I just ignore it for the most part.

But when he starts spewing his bile and denigrating young men of character that have given their lives for something for which they had the moral fortitude to fight for, well, then he's crossed a line with me. And his threatening a military wife puts him so far over that line that it's time for him to understand that words have consequences. Easy to be a big man behind a keyboard!

I'd love to bend him over my knee and wear out his backside like his parents obviously refused to do. Now that could even be fun. We could sell tickets and donate the funds to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund or FbL's ValourIT program. Would you buy one? ;-)

Annoyed? Yeah, a bit maybe but then I'm easily amused! :-o

Michael Yon is a great writer and is himself a hero as far as I am concerned because he tells the stories I want to hear that few others are telling.

Kudos to Micheal and to Deuce Four.

I can't tell you anything about hero's but from watching Fox I can tell you anything you want to know about Natallie Holloway.

Wilson ... if President Bush did attend one of those funerals, I can predict your responses:

> "Let me guess -- the dead soldier was the son of one of his oil buddies (though I don't see how that happened -- a rich guy's son joined this Army?)".

> "There he goes again ... using our dead to score political points."

Ever thought, Wilson, that if he attended, the funeral would end up being focused on his presence ... and not on the fallen warrior?

Now, he has met with the families to console them ... despite the contradictions of your fellow-traveler in lies, Cindy Sheehan.

However, not attending individual funerals -- a policy practiced by many other Presidents, on both sides of the politcal fence -- has its roots in common sense, not crassness. These events should be about the fallen warriors themselves, and not become press events around the CINC.

Go peddle your garbage on another thread ... the others are right; you have no place here.

Well if we get back to the topic at hand as opposed to Jarhead Dad's S&M fantasies, my point was and remains the following: The biggest reason we don't have any widely recognized Iraq War heroes is that the stories of the first two trotted out by the Pentagon were transparent, cheesy military lies. Beyond that, the practical reality is that you tend to get heroes from wars you win as opposed to those you are losing.

By the way, Jarhead Dad, what's the deal with the S&M fantasies? They seem to be ever-present in your cohort. You're into spankings. Others are into forcing other people to masturbate. Some seem to go for plain ol' male-female rape, while others like the anal thing with chemlights.

There are the voyers who take videos of translators raping young boys, and then there are the really creative (the Pentagon's word, not mine) who do elaborate "scenes" where they dress a guy in women's clothing, tell him he's queer and have him dance with an American soldier.

You know, I always thought there were bars in L.A. for this sort of thing, but it seems you folks party hearty yourselves. Learn something new every day, don't we?

Isn't it amazing how the American public continues to trust the US military more than the media? And they continue to re-elect George Bush?

Being right is better than being like Wilson...

Were the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman stories wrong? Yes. The reasons they were put out were different (with Lynch they mistook the eyewitness statements about a "blonde soldier" fighting to the end as Lynche. With Tillman, wouldn't be the first time the guys on the ground have lied to cover up a goof-up).

BUT...the rest of Wilson's crap is just that. Most Americans wouldn't know the truth if it bit them on the ass. And to qoute another movie "you can't handle the truth." So keep living in your little make believe world Wilson, and let the grown ups take care of the real boogie men.

Well "nurseboy," it would be nice if the "adults" could "take care" of the boogeymen without creating more of them, and without turning themselves into Rightwingnut Perverts and Liars for Armerica. Face it, you hate everything about this country and what it stands for. You should declare your allegiance to the other side, given how thoroughly you've been fighting on their behalf.

Wilson, what you call "making more of them" ("them" being boogeymen) is better phrased "bringing them out into the open".

They aren't new -- they were already there.

As I've said before, these men are not freedom fighters defending hearth and home ... they are terrorists seeking to subjugate others to their will ... or seeking to end the lives of those who will not submit.

You don't learn how to hate that way overnight; i.e. in response to recent actions on our part. IMO, it takes too long to warp the nature of that many humans, that much.

IMO, they were already inclined towards hating us, well before we set foot in Iraq ... thanks to the rhetoric and fanaticism from that part of the world ... and further motivated by the perceptions of perversion and decadence that is seen in the West.

A perception you are wrongly helping to feed ...

I notice you are slipping into more and more sexual innuendo -- and as a result, stepping closer and closer to the abyss of troll "martyrdom" -- right along with straining at every gnat of news you consider bad for this Administration, and/or using propagandists like Atrios to prove your point.

Running out of ideas?

Wow, THAT is probably the most blatant example of projection from Kolb I've seen so far.

Rich, when George W. Bush reopened Saddam Hussein's rape rooms under American military management, he created more boogeymen. And you helped.

Incidentally, Rich, it's well, rich that YOU would accuse ME of "sexual innuendo," when in fact it's YOU and "Jarhead Dad," who doesn't appear to have any military background, who are all in favor of sex games by our troops. As long as they're rape, and as long as the "enemy" is the victim.