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A veteran who has been out of the military for 15 years and recently received his AARP card was stunned when he received notice he will be deployed to Iraq. The last time Paul Bandel, 50, saw combat was in the early 1990s during the Gulf War. “(I was) kind of shocked, not understanding what I was getting into,” said Bandel.In 1993, Bandel took the option of leaving the Army without retirement and never thought he would be called back to action. “Here he’s 50 years old, getting his AARP card, and here he’s being redeployed with all these 18-year-olds,” said Paul’s wife, Linda Bandel. “I can understand, say, ‘Here, we have this assignment for you stateside. Go do your training,’” said Paul Bandel. “But, ‘Hey, here’s a gun, go back to the desert.’” Involuntary recall allows the military, regardless of age or how long someone has been out of service, to order vets back into active duty. “Anger’s not the word. I was more concerned about the financial impact it’s going to do. My pay’s probably cut in half,” said Paul Bandel.
This is open for comments. What say you?
Does not qualify according to the DoD:
The Purple Heart will not be awarded to service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.“It’s not a qualifying Purple Heart wound,” said Defense Department spokeswoman Eileen Lainez, although she added that “advancements in medical science may support future re-evaluation.”
The decision, reached Nov. 3 but not made public until now, followed months of evaluation by military and outside officials. That evaluation was spurred when Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked at a May press conference whether he would support awarding the Purple Heart to PTSD sufferers.
However, Susan Keating asks :"Should we acknowledge PTSD within the context of an award? "
...there is a big "however." The evidence shows unequivocally, PTSD can wreck lives. My own father was awarded the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat in Korea. He recovered well. But I am convinced that PTSD, for which he received no medal nor treatment, had a hand in his death.I understand that much stigma is attached to the PTSD label. Troops remain reluctant to acknowledge symptoms. In addition, both society and the military leadership view the disorder with mixed feelings. Is PTSD an easy out for malingerers? If you have it, does it mean you're nuts? If we admit that combat is bad for the troops' mental health, does this mean we can't ever go to war? The short answer, to all three, is a resounding "no."
Nevertheless, we remain faced with the question: Should we acknowledge PTSD within the context of an award? The Pentagon has issued its ruling. But in doing so, DoD also has used code words that betray its prejudice:
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The PTSD-award decision is best left to the troops themselves. I'd very much like to see their thoughts on this matter.
The title isn't a final score from the British Premier League. It's from the best milblog post I've read this year - and it's not about combat. (At least, not directly.)
(And yes, it's early in the year, but this will be hard to top.)
Michelle Malkin rounds up 'original reporting' done by conservative bloggers over the past year. I'm sure a similar effort could be made on behalf of those on the other side of the political fence. I'd like to see it done.
"This is by no means a comprehensive list." She adds. "I did not, for example, include the priceless work of milbloggers, many of whom are conservative, but who prefer not to define themselves along partisan lines."
Which is exactly right.
Equally right is the statement that many are not conservative but prefer not to define themselves along partisan lines. Still others are unapologetic Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc. etc. But for whatever reason, the bulk of milbloggers have drawn more attention from the right than the left. (Please spare me the example exceptions that prove my point - I can name more of them than you can.) I've often wondered if that would be the case had Al Gore won the election in 2000, likewise I wonder what shifts may occur in the coming years. I suspect that the role of milbloggers as counter balance to an adversarial media (and that's but one role among many) will shift, as I anticipate a massive shift in media response to presidential actions in the next few years to a far less adversarial position. I suppose whether military members end up as victims or beneficiaries of that shift will determine their future audience (and size thereof, if any) in the political blog arena. Regardless, most of us - and all of us who actually blogged from down range - were (and are) writing about the war where we were and as we saw it, a distinctly different conflict than the one waged in the infinitely more comfortable environs of Washington D.C. or Yourtown, U.S.A. If we kept a weary (and wary) eye or made an occasional remark upon that conflict, too, it was with the knowledge that it could make ours better or worse - and usually worse.
But while their stories aren't from the past year, by coincidence I had just yesterday taken a look back at some of those milbloggers who had reported from Iraq in 2005. Original reporting? You bet. Milbloggers in war zones have unmatched opportunities for that. Unavailable in the mainstream? Check that block, too. Counter to whatever narrative was available in the mainstream media? Yes to that, too - in a big way.
And re-reading their blogs reminded me of the shift in what could be called the "right wing narrative" on the war over the past couple of years. That's transitioned from "the media is only reporting the bad news and ignoring all the good!" so popular in the 2004-2006 time frame to the current "everything before the surge was bad but now we've won!" mantra often repeated today - without a second thought given to what that implies about all those years of unreported "good news" preceding "the surge". I'm over-simplifying for the sake of this discussion, but I hope you catch my drift. My admittedly too-brief initial mention of that thought caused some confusion (albeit in someone apparently pre-confused who may have mistaken my frame of reference as the "war" in America instead of the actual war in Iraq) but even as I wrote it I intended to expand.
Which I have not yet begun to do in full. More to follow.
...amidst larger ones:
Baghdad-based sports fans have one more reason to look forward to this season’s Super Bowl.Hell, there might already be some there.Multi-National Division–Baghdad has received permission to let its units enjoy an honest-to-goodness beer on game day instead of the near-beer soldiers usually quaff in downrange DFACs. The approval comes with plenty of time for the beer to be shipped into theater.
Of course, with the kick-off at 0200 on a Monday morning the free coffee and rip it in the DFAC might be more popular than the beer.
(Via the Dawn Patrol, of course.)
Should it be legal? I don't particularly enjoy doing it, but I say "sure". Heck, if you wanted I'd even let you hump my ruck while I watched, know what I mean? Might even thank you when you finished...
In compiling the entry below, it occurred to me there may be readers here who don't have a copy of The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan
Reading (or re-reading) these stories you (like me) might be reminded that everything done before "the surge" was not stupid, pointless, and wrong - and you might even come to share my complete disgust with those who now believe otherwise.
Adam Ashton of the Modesto Bee reports on a California Guard unit's return to Iraq:
Veterans from the first tour describe it as marked by constant roadside attacks and ambiguous results. Some left with mixed feelings about Iraq's future."The battalion lost 17 of its roughly 700 Baghdad-deployed troops in 2005," Ashton reports. And that wasn't their only misfortune:"My experience last time wasn't the greatest," Adame said. "When we left, it hadn't gotten any better. It was just as active as when we started. We took hundreds of detainees, hundreds of rockets, off the streets, and there were still IEDs."
Other veterans who'd joined the battalion since that tour said they had similar doubts about Iraq after they finished deployments with different Army and Marine contingents.
"Last time I was very unsure," said Spc. Jeremy Calgaro, 27, of Patterson, Calif., who's on his third tour in Iraq. His past deployments brought him to the country with the Army during the 2003 invasion and in 2005.
He came back wanting to see how Iraq had changed.
The Army ousted its first commander in Iraq, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, in the wake of a controversy over abused detainees in one of his companies. A roadside bomb killed his successor, Col. William Wood, in October 2005, three months after he'd taken over.But shortly after, Robert C. J. Parry - a veteran of the deployment - would write in the LA Times:The battalion persevered and returned home with fanfare in January 2006. Gov. Schwarzenegger dubbed the troops "true action heroes."
From the first weeks of our mobilization in August 2004, we were in the spotlight. We were the battalion “mired in scandal.” We were, according to the disgruntled, poor in training and morale. Once in Iraq, we were the battalion that suffered casualties seemingly faster than anyone could count: 17 killed in action and nearly 100 wounded in 12 months. We were the battalion whose commander, Col. William W. Wood, became the highest-ranking soldier to die in action. Our previous commander was relieved of duty after a scandal involving the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Even as we rolled out each day to confront terrorists, we were known at home primarily for things that had nothing to do with the job we did or how we did it.And if all that sounds familiar to milblog readers, it's not just because the story is typical of media coverage of most units that deployed to Iraq when the fighting was heaviest, the outcome uncertain, and the battle far from won. Milblog readers will recognize the story as that told by Major K, Red2alpha, Rusten Currie, and Danjel Bout (Thunder6) on their blogs Maj K, This is Your War, Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum, and 365 and a Wakeup.Over the course of 18 months, the 600 soldiers of the 184th experienced almost every high and low a band of brothers could, from great distinction to shocking heartbreak. But what never made it into print were the things that will mark our hearts until well after we become the old-timers down at the VFW.
We served with honor. We served with valor. We earned distinction.
Google us to find the litany of supposed woe. But if you want to know the real story of our battalion, go find Sgt. Thomas Kruger and ask him about April 5, 2005.
On that bright spring morning, with his legs shattered, Kruger dragged himself across 100 feet of debris and shrapnel to reach Cpl. Glenn Watkins, who had been mortally wounded moments earlier by the same ghastly roadside bomb.
You might also ask anyone from our ranks about Staff Sgt. Steve Nunez. Broken and bloodied by an IED, he was ordered home to recuperate after refusing to go voluntarily. He rejoined us to carry the fight forward, refusing the chance to stay home.
There were no front-page headlines for Kruger, Nunez or even Sgt. 1st Class Tom Stone, who covered a wounded subordinate’s body with his own to protect that soldier from a secondary attack that could have come at any moment.
Stone, a Los Angeles Police Department officer, and Kruger, a paramedic on movie sets, were awarded Bronze Stars for their valor. Nunez, a Riverside metalworker, received our awe and admiration, and I hope yours too.
Equally deserving of recognition were Sgt. 1st Class Chris Chebatah and 1st Lt. Ky Cheng. One terrible September night, an armored personnel carrier in their patrol was destroyed by a tremendous blast and flipped, pinning a soldier. Even while taking enemy fire and directing the care for casualties around them, they rigged a chain to pull the 10-ton vehicle off him. The effort was successful but ultimately futile.
So far, 14 of our soldiers have been decorated for valor and another 48 have earned the Bronze Star for service. But that cannot be found in print.
Our unit – supposedly just a band of weekend warriors from the National Guard – was selected by the Army’s renowned 3rd Infantry Division to take on its primary challenge: taking control of a sector of south Baghdad that was home to leading Baathists and Al Qaeda fanatics. In that capacity, we conducted more than 7,000 combat patrols totaling nearly half a million man-hours. We captured more insurgents in one month than did whole brigades. We stand nominated (with the rest of our brigade) for a Valorous Unit Award.
But instead, people who didn’t know the first thing about us trumpeted the misdeeds of a handful of young men who scoffed at the concepts of honor and duty that our commander invoked.
From their first man lost (Watkins) through the previously mentioned morale-breaking scandal to the December, 2005 elections they brought home the highs and lows of the warriors' war - including even the battles they couldn't win. And then they came home.
"I patrolled the streets of Baghdad’s elite Karrada neighborhood and its insurgent-rich Doura sector, shaking people’s hands and learning their problems." Parry wrote in his Times op-ed in February, 2006 - in stark contrast to the now popular (and erroneous) narrative that 'everything before the surge was wrong'.
I lived and worked alongside American contractors upgrading a key power plant. I trained Iraqi police, saw their enthusiasm and came to understand their different approach to things. I worked as a junior officer on our battalion staff, witnessing how the decisions governing the street fight were shaped. I was shot at and attacked with IEDs.I saw the successes. I struggled with the failures. But most important, I saw people who once had nothing now bursting with hope and thanks.
And now, three years later, in defiance of the also-current narrative that there are no stories left to tell from Iraq, reporter Adam Ashton is with the Battalion for their return.
"Last time I was very unsure," said Spc. Jeremy Calgaro, 27, of Patterson, Calif., who's on his third tour in Iraq. His past deployments brought him to the country with the Army during the 2003 invasion and in 2005.Along with that, in one of the most disheartening signs of victory I've ever heard, Calgaro says he "also sees less mail from the states, another sign to him that the war is going well."He came back wanting to see how Iraq had changed. He sees the differences in flourishing agricultural fields that remind him of home in the San Joaquin Valley, and in positive interactions he's had with Iraqis.
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"Here we are, we're doing our jobs and things have gotten much better," he said.Spc. Ralph Salazar said he was enthusiastic about his mission in Iraq as a Marine in 2003 and 2004. He'd smoked a cigar with a close friend on the roof of a Baghdad palace to celebrate his 20th birthday in 2004.
His feelings about the war began to shift around 2006, when news reports showed Iraq descending into bloody sectarian violence.
He heard about improvements before he left the U.S. for his current tour, but the better conditions still startled him when he arrived in November.
"I was still expecting to spend some time running for the bunkers," said the 24-year-old from Fresno, Calif. "I do have to say I appreciate the calm.
"The fact that we've been here and made all this progress, it validates everything for me," Salazar said. "It did matter."
This story includes no links to or citations of mainstream media reports from Afghanistan. It's a pure-milblogger look at elements of counter-insurgency warfare there. The key piece: a report of denial of an illumination round, and its impact on one mission (failure). Said denial apparently (from what I gather from one side of the story and some personal experience) based on fear that the (parachute-equipped) round could potentially damage the area (perhaps the fire threat?) and therefore do more harm than good.
Meanwhile, ISAF releases a video (not too graphic - the camera fails) of a terrorist strike killing over a dozen school children. The impact of such an episode is blunted when the enemy can counter with examples of collateral damage caused by our own actions, "intent" being an argument that carries little weight with the jury of public opinion.
No one can deny the importance to successful counter-insurgency ops of minimizing our own collateral damage while exploiting the enemy's desire to maximize the same, or the equal importance of getting that same message out to a public both within and beyond the borders of Afghanistan. But while both are crucial battles in the same war, is this the right balance between winning hearts and minds and successful kinetic ops? Can we win both?
And if not, which is more important to winning the war?
Small Wars Journal - Close Air Support and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan:
American airpower seems to have lost some of its mystique in the war in Afghanistan. American air dominance, including its ability to conduct airstrikes in close air support of coalition troops, has been and continues to be critical to the Afghan war effort. Close air support, in particular, is allowing the United States and NATO to fight an energized insurgency with far fewer troops than it needs. Yet if one follows press reports from the Afghan theatre, what Eliot Cohen once characterized as an “unusually seductive form of military strength,” has become a source of consternation for the United States and a ready cudgel with which to beat America’s troubled prosecution of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Tragic news stories of American airstrikes gone wrong and their resultant civilian casualties trump more mundane analyses of the Afghan government’s failings or the (by now routine) atrocities committed by Afghan insurgents. American airpower, it seems, has become a victim of its own misunderstood successes in the Persian Gulf War and Kosovo bombing campaign. Its famed precision makes any costly error unacceptable, inflames Afghan and international public opinion, and forces American defense officials and military leaders to observe endless rituals of public apology. The irreconcilable conflict between the immutably violent nature of war and the fiction of a “bloodless” use of force has trapped the United States between the Scylla of military exigency and the Charybdis of public sentiment.More at the link.This paper will briefly examine the issue of airstrikes during close air support (CAS) operations in the Afghan theatre. It will give a broad overview of the use of airpower in OEF, then examine the controversy surrounding American airstrikes in Afghanistan. It will take the position that given the existing constraints on the American war effort (troop shortages, the vast and difficult Afghan terrain, limited human intelligence, cross-border insurgent sanctuaries, and increased insurgent activity), CAS is vital to the prosecution of the Afghan war. It will further argue that, even as mounting civilian casualties are alienating the Afghan populace, excessive restraint in the use of airstrikes may be handicapping U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts.
Elsewhere, this report from Afghanistan by milblogger Vampire 06 indicates the "err on the side of caution" approach to warfare there isn't limited to "smart bombs".
The sweat under my IBA and in my ACUs is starting to freeze, I can feel it against my skin. I'm wishing right now that I'd put on some long underwear before we'd come out here, it's too late for that now. Currently, we're holding about 200 meters short of the target khalat, it's aprox 2330. The moon has finally risen giving us better illumination than when we started this about 4 hours ago.Read the whole thing. I'd add only that an illumination round is parachute-equipped, and designed to fall slowly to the earth.
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The ANA have no night vision capabilty, so a key piece of this plan is that the US will fire illumination rounds via 60 milimeter mortars once we dismount allowing the ANA to see as we move through the woodpiles. All of the ETTs have night vision.Sounds great, we're going whack these guys that have been trying to kill us for three days. Yeah Team!!
<...>
The ANA reach the dismount point and we all get out, prepping to move through the wood piles. These piles could hide anythig, giant stacks with limbs and logs sticking out everywhere, trying to see a person in this is going to difficult at best. Once we're all ready I call for the illumination rounds.DENIED! Because the battalion commander 100 miles away thinks it's to dangerous. His concern is that the canister that the illum round is in will land on a khalat in the area, this canister weighs about 8 pounds. Disregard the fact that without this illum the ANA can't see anything. 8 pounds hitting a house or us not being able to see? I'm coming down on the side of us being able to see the enemy.
I call for the illum round again. DENIED! What the...? This guy is 100 miles away and making decisions that should be made by us on the ground, we're the ones closing with the enemy. I guess empowering subordinates and letting ground commanders make the call isn't taught anymore.
We now have a serious problem. The ANA can't see but the ETTs can, guess we'll now have to move in front of the ANA clearing through the piles of wood. So that's what we do. The ETTs get in front and start moving forward. There are about 50 of us in this position and only four of us can see anything.
And for more insight into the Rubik's Cube of warfare, morality, and Aghanistan, this from Bill and Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure.
Yes, Afghanistan is a Rubik's Cube. Many people have solved Rubik's Cubes at some point in their lives; sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and we are spinning the individual blocks around in a seemingly disjointed and random pattern instead of in a coordinated series of movements that see the whole cube. I, like CPT Hill, 1SG Scott, and Vampire 06, was working at moving one or two of the little blocks that make up the larger cube, and every once in a while the Big Hand reaches in gives the cube a couple of quick twists that undo considerable effort or short-circuit a favorable turn in battlefield fortunes. We in the Army have a polysyllabic yet simple word for this effect, but I'll give you a more generally acceptable and family-friendly word that starts with the same letter; counterproductive.As the warnings of many experts and pundits ring, our window of opportunity in Afghanistan is growing smaller and smaller. It's time to reconsider... read unscrew... ourselves in how we are approaching this war. A symptom of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Moral conundrums have never troubled the enemy.
That's a video of an apparently well-timed attack that killed over a dozen school children. "It's another aspect of this war that makes it tougher on our own troops," John Donovan writes, "especially when their professional prowess and skill cause the enemy to deflect to softer, easier targets - those targets are precisely the people they are trying to protect."
The video was released by HQ ISAF and CJTF-101, prompting this response from John:
The message from CJTF101 is simple - it was the closer to the notice. These photos and videos provide further proof the Afghan militants are not interested in the welfare or benefit of the Afghan people.And one can hope that the Afghan people see it that way, though we're swimming against an millenniums-long experience that tells these people to submit to he who has the stronger tribe. And that ruthlessness is a component of strength. They know they can get upset with us about civilian casualties, and we will abase ourselves, express heartfelt remorse, and, perhaps most importantly, pay. Unfortunately, for many Afghans, that's a sign of weakness, not strength, whereas we see it as a component of strength, strength tempered with compassion.
They know the Taliban will remain, they aren't sure about us.
Update/More:
Video: Jimbo from Blackfive talks information warfare on CNN, and answers the question "why are the insurgents better at it than we are?" (Some background on the CNN/terrorist video he references - and al Qaeda's media strategy - here.)
And Afghanistan vet Troy Steward (who just welcomed his son home from a year in Afghanistan) offers a poll: "How would you handle Afghanistan if you were President?" Vote!
(And thanks, Glenn!)
Mudville night at the movies...
The full feature is below.
Bonus features for the "Mudville edition":
Mutiny on the bounty (full text of the 1932 novel) by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.
Men Against the Sea (1933, second book of Nordhoff and Hall's Bounty trilogy)
Pitcairn's Island (1934, conclusion of the trilogy)
The Mutiny on the Bounty - collected text of original narratives, journals, documents, letters, and court martial transcripts.
Mutiny on the Bounty Wikipedia page.
Trivia - Christian was portrayed in films by:
Errol Flynn in In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)
Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
Mel Gibson in The Bounty (1984)
President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.Raising the question: who will be the first milblogger on the moon?Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015, according to people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team.
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Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned companies already are assembling heavy-lift rockets that could reach the moon, with a first launch scheduled for 2013.
A New Year prediction from J.D. Johannes: "The SOFA agreement with Iraq will be broadly interpreted to keep US Forces in most Joint Security Stations."
"When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic." Says the Army (and Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps) Times.
More specifically, only 25 percent say "pessimistic". Thirty-three percent responded "optimistic", and a slightly larger group (35%) answered "uncertain" - with another eight percent claiming "no opinion". Some may be inclined to offer exclamation points to those results, but this analysis sounds about right to me:
Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has written extensively about civil-military relations, said a degree of uncertainty among service members toward Obama is appropriate, given their questions about how he will govern as commander in chief.The survey results are from just under 1,400 respondents. From personal experience I'd speculate that if there's any difference between these results and those from a hypothetical survey of every man, woman and child in the US military today it would be a larger percentage of "uncertain" responses at the expense of the optimistic and pessimistic crowds in this result. But uncertainty is anathema to the military mind; in training, planning, and execution of military operations one hundred percent of the effort is aimed at reducing it. In a change of Commander-in-Chief a degree of uncertainty is unavoidable, amplified when his or her political affiliation is different from that of the previous CinC, and immeasurable in the specific case of Barack Obama, whose exposure to military members (and political experience in general) is perhaps less by orders of magnitude (if such things were measurable by some unit) than any previous president-elect. This is not to imply he's unqualified for the job, doomed to failure, or undeserving of the support of the troops - far from it, in fact. Just that "uncertainty" is the only sensible response to the question, and that uncertainty makes most military people uncomfortable (most people, for that matter), to say the least.“Those numbers don’t convince me he has got a big problem on his hands because what he is seeing is not military hostility, but rather military caution, and caution that is reasonable because he has never been in the position of this office,” Feaver said. “It’s sensible and understandable that they have doubts about him.
But most can accept a degree of temporary uncertainty. A large percentage of military members tend to be pragmatic (if not jaded), and with a history of being promised much and given little tend to be of the "I'll believe it when I see it" variety - and apply that philosophy to forecasts of doom or improvement. "Plan for the worst and hope for the best" is a well-honed sword (or perhaps solid shield) found in the arsenal of all successful military leaders. Some might say "I'm hoping for the best, therefore I'm optimistic", others that "I'm planning for the worst, therefore I'm pessimistic" - but there's little real distinction in their positions. Likewise there's not much separation from those who have "no opinion" or express uncertainty; all are describing the same terrain from their own perspective, but all are standing on common ground.
Having served under four presidents myself I offer generic advice to younger troops: "You will be disappointed and delighted by events of the next four years". That and "hope for the best, expect the worst, plan for both and everything in between".
Seems to be your typical, average liberal American college:
While SAT scores may be “considerably lower” than those of Columbia and New York University, students come to Lang not as a substitute for these universities but for a completely different experience.A college that specializes in "social theory and social protest", Who'da thunk?We came to the New School’s undergraduate liberal arts college in search of a creative and critical community of students who were interested in social theory and social protest. We wanted to know how the world worked, and we wanted to experience New York City in its most unmitigated form.
Many of us could have easily gone to Columbia or N.Y.U., with acceptance letters and scholarships — yet we chose a college and university where are voices could be heard.
It is heartening to see that this practice continues and has permeated all parts of the university, and no doubt the undergraduates are continuing in the tradition of criticism and protest.
“People just don’t give equality, you have to take it.”
A little after 11:30 p.m., Mr. Kerrey emerged from a university building on Fifth Avenue south of 14th Street to a sea of a few hundred protesters chanting for his resignation. As Mr. Kerrey walked down Fifth Avenue toward 12th Street, about 30 protesters began following him, some of them shouting insults.Cannot say I have always agreed with his politics but these protesters will never be equal to Bob KerreyAs the crowd’s pace quickened, so did Mr. Kerrey’s. Then, Mr. Kerrey, who lost a part of his leg in Vietnam and wears a prosthesis, broke into a run. The protesters gave chase. Mr. Kerrey turned left on a cross street and ducked into a brownstone.
At some point in the confrontation, a protester threw a tomato at Mr. Kerrey.
<...>
Mr. Kerrey, the former governor and United States senator from Nebraska who was given an overwhelming vote of no confidence from the university’s faculty in recent days, showed up at 11:30 a.m. asking to address the dissident students, but they voted not to hear him out.The student demonstration began Wednesday evening in the ground-floor cafeteria, with about 50 of them staying overnight citing a list of grievances with the Kerrey administration, dating back to his early support of the Iraq war. They adopted a list of eight demands including a greater student voice in university affairs and the resignations of Mr. Kerrey; James Murtha, the executive vice president; and Robert Millard, treasurer of the board of trustees, who students said was connected to a private security firm working in Iraq.
“Once the faculty vote came out, we thought now is the time,” said Jacob Blumfeld, a graduate student in philosophy.
On Wednesday night, the students pushed wooden tables against the cafeteria’s front door and blocked a rear corridor to the street with heavy recycling bins. Marcus Michelson, also a graduate student in philosophy, said the sit-in was meant to show that the students were serious about having a seat at the negotiating able. “This is about starting a dialogue, and to do that you have to be seen as an equal,” he said. “People just don’t give equality, you have to take it.”
Via Insta
So, as part of our holiday tradition I sent Mrs G up into the attic a few weeks ago to drag out all the Christmas decorations. Way back in a corner under an old milk crate practically hidden by spiderwebs she found an old video from one of my early-70s T.V. appearances. This might have been filmed for Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve '73, I can't remember. Anyhow, here it is...
"Hey", you might ask, "how come we never see your face?" Simple, really. Back in those days (or so they told me) David Cassidy had a contract with the network guaranteeing they'd never show anyone better looking than him.
"What about the rest of your band?" You inquire. Also simple: they were just too shy.