Different Demographics

Compare and contrast.

Entering the Twilight

Haven't had much to say since I got home from Iraq. But now I am entering the twilight and had a couple of thoughts.

Hmmmmm .....

All of a sudden, I am only getting emails about funny cats and stuff.

The Pentagon said Wednesday that top military officers and civilians had to sign a letter promising to keep details secret as they work on the military's budget.

Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters that Secretary Robert Gates made the unusual request out of concern for national security. He said the department didn't want any leaks to "unravel" the budget process.

"This is highly sensitive stuff involving programs costing tens of billions of dollars, employing hundreds of thousands of people and go to the heart of national security," he said. "And so he wants this process to be as disciplined and as forthright as possible.

"And he thinks that by having people pledge not to speak out of school, if you will, on these matters while they are a work in progress, that you'll create a climate in which you can ultimately produce a better product, because people can speak candidly with the confidence that it will not be leaked," he said.

Gates remained as secretary under Obama after serving under President Bush, but this year is the first time he is requiring the non-disclosure statements.

That explains the CNO's email the other week.

Attention Deficit Disorder

"Call me a softie", says Tom Ricks, "but I don't understand why this murder case involving American troops hasn't gotten more media attention in this country. This seems to me worse than the tortures at Abu Ghraib."

The accused has since been found guilty and sentenced to life with possibility of parole.

[Leahy’s civilian lawyer] said the government will likely seek Leahy’s cooperation in murder cases against two other soldiers — Master Sgt. John Hatley and Sgt. 1st Class Joseph P. Mayo — who also are accused of shooting the detainees.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Quick update: Bonus points if your answer includes "Brandon Neely".

And - time's up. Twenty four hours and no one offered the answer, which is simple: The entire purpose of media fixation on Abu Ghraib was the hope that it could end George Bush's Presidency. George Bush is no longer president. Thus, American reporters no longer have to pretend to give a damn what happens to Iraqis.

(Also at Mudville.)

Truly Honoring Our Dead

On lifting the ban of photographing coffins at Dover:

If you read my blog, you would know that in Oct. '05, our youngest son, Noah had the honor of escorting his good friend and brother SPC Thomas Byrd to his final rest. He accompanied Tommy from Dover to Chicago to Tucson. He and I spoke a number of times before, during and after his mission. He spoke (and I blogged) of the kindness and the respect of those he came in contact with on his journey. I told the story of Tommy and Noah's last journey together [on my blog].

Because our son had been wounded and returned stateside a few weeks before, he was not there when the IED took Tommy and four other brothers in his squad. When he first learned that he had been granted the honor of taking Tommy home, he told me that when they all went off to war, they promised each other that they would bring each other home. "This isn't how we thought it would happen, Ma." To our son, the opportunity to greet his friend at Dover and have that private reunion with him and the interactions as they transferred between planes and when they reached their final destination were moments that would not be -- nor could they ever be -- the same if the media were present and snapping away.

The final minutes with his friend were solemn and special and private moments that are -- and should remain -- reserved for those who understand the sacrifice. They do not have to personally know the soldier, but they do have to BE a soldier or family to understand. And understanding in this case is just not the same as knowing.

All of it at Some Soldier's Mom (with links)

Loose Lips... & Ships

New MilBlog

Troy, from Bouhammer.com, and CJ, from A Soldier's Perspective, have created a new blog called Military Pundits

We both realized that our military blogs tended to delve into non-military political topics and we want to avoid that. In an effort to keep our political views and our military views separate, we set up this site and have invited some great talent.

Be warned: this will NOT be a strictly conservative site. All military bloggers from both sides of the political fence are invited to write. As an example, one of the writers will be Army Sergeant, an active IVAW member. We are also opening up memberships to any military personnel or veterans with a blog that also wants to keep the non-military political tendencies where they are most fitting.

Why we usually win wars

...reason #97: "Because our freaking meteorologists are hardcore badass":

2/12/2009 - HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. -- In an instant, Senior Airman Alex Eudy went from battling the enemies of Afghanistan to battling for his life.

It was just after 1 a.m. Jan. 24. He was only two months into his first deployment after graduating from Advanced Skills Training at Hurlburt Field, Fla., in September 2008. The special operations weather team journeyman and the Marines he served with were on patrol about 30 miles from their firebase in the western province of Farah.

Behind the wheel of the fourth of four up-armored humvees, Airman Eudy and the five others in his vehicle kept their eyes peeled for variations in the road surface, exposed wires, freshly dug soil - "scab left" or "scab right" they called out. The driver adjusted his path of travel accordingly to mitigate the threat to the special operations patrol.

Then the roadway erupted.

Two 155 mm mortars and a Soviet anti-tank mine were command detonated under the front of the vehicle. The engine flew 30 feet away as the six-ton rig somersaulted three times. The concussion of the blast rendered Airman Eudy unconscious.

His personal protective gear had done its job - no puncture wounds or lacerations from flying debris. In the violence of the explosion, his helmet chinstrap had sawed through the skin on his lower jaw. Everything else seemed fine - except his legs.

When he came to, he said he was lying nearby outside the vehicle - he thought he'd been thrown out.

"My Marines told me when they pulled me out of the vehicle, they could hear the bones crunching," the 22-year-old warrior said. "Of the six of us in that vehicle, I was one of the two who were non-ambulatory."

So Airman Eudy became the casualty collection point as the Marine special ops team set a defensive perimeter and requested med-evac airlift. He didn't just lie there, Airman Eudy said. He checked his buddies and put his Combat Lifesaver first aid training to work. He checked his weapon - the 9 mm pistol was still in its holster, but his M-4 rifle had been lost in the explosion.

In the hours and days after the explosion, Alex's parents, Dale and Kathy Eudy of Highlands Ranch, Colo., spoke with Alex and others involved in the convoy, medical evacuation, treatment and travel back to the states.

Despite dozens of fractures from both knees down, the special ops weatherman kept his mission focus, Dale said. With a medical evacuation helicopter, Alex's special operations weather team mission was paramount.

"When the med-evac was inbound, Alex was telling his Marines how to use his instruments to pass critical weather data for the helicopter landing zone," Dale said.

"That's what we do - generate high-fidelity, localized, mission-tailored forecast to for ingress, employment and egress of air, land and sea forces," Alex said.

I Found The Quote

Took me a year to find the time to do it, but I found the hundred-year-old book and the quote that was discussed here back in the day. Results here.

Eccentrics Go to Sea

A reminder that "state of the art" can have a limited life.

This is Going To Affect The Deterrence Discussion

Initial reports are thin (I collected some of the initial ones based on a Ken Adams tip) but we've now got three Brit newspapers saying that the RN SSBN collided with French SSBN Le Triomphant. Doesn't sound as though anyone was injured or any significant damage, but this is at a time the British are actively planning how to deal with Trident end-of-life and the French also have some big discussions to do about nuclear weapons and deterrence.

The collision may well change how those discussions go.

MilBlogs in Italian News

This is from last month and meant to post it then but time got away from me.

“Buona fortuna, mr. President!”: i blog dei soldati commentano Obama

English translation: "Good fortune, Mr. President! ”: the blog of the soldiers they comment Obama

Soldati americani di stanza in Iraq (by http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmed… Flickr)

“Ma non poteva metterci anche Fallujah?” si domanda CDR Salamander sul suo blog. “Ha citato le battaglie di Concord e Gettysburg, la Normandia e Khe Shan” si lamenta, “per Iraq e Afghanistan solo buone intenzioni per il futuro”. “Buona fortuna, mr. President!” scrive invece Eaglespeak, “le nostre preghiere sono con te”. Il discorso di insediamento del nuovo presidente americano suscita emozioni contrastanti tra i soldati e i veterani delle guerre volute da George W. Bush.
I loro blog, nati tra le montagne afghane o i deserti iracheni e tenuti in vita anche dopo il ritorno in Usa sono centinaia. Dal fronte come da casa accolgono le opinioni, le speranze, le critiche dei soldati. In comune, l’orgoglio dei commilitoni e la convinzione di combattere per una giusta causa. Ma non mancano le critiche, anche feroci, contro i comandanti e i politici, Bush incluso.

Il sito “Milblogs.com” raccoglie molti dei diari online scritti da militari o simpatizzanti. E anche sul cambio della guardia alla Casa Bianca dicono la loro. Poche le critiche esplicite al neopresidente, ma a dominare più che l’eccitazione mostrata a Washington dalle folle osannanti, è la perplessità. “Cominciamo bene” commenta “Iraq war today” sulla decisione della nuova amministrazione di sospendere i processi a Guantanamo. Mentre sul discorso inaugurale non ci sono commenti ma solo link alla filo-repubblicana Fox News. “Mi sembrano tutti un po’ troppo eccitati, aspettiamo di vedere cosa farà questo tizio” scrive Illini6, nome di battaglia di un veterano dell’ Afghanistan. C’è poi chi rivolge il suo pensiero al presidente uscente: “Ora i liberal non sapranno più chi incolpare per tutto ciò che non va nel mondo” scrive l’ex ufficiale della marina Joel Kennedy, dall’Idaho, che poi aggiunge “e i conservatori potranno iniziare a incolpare Obama e inventarsi i suoi piani diabolici”.
“Adesso gli ‘adulti’ sono al comando” commenta sarcastico Cassandra su “Villainous company“, “vediamo cosa combinano al posto di quei bambini capricciosi che hanno difeso la nostra nazione”.

Happy Birthday President Abraham Lincoln

Gettysburg on the USS Lincoln

Video of crew members of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln reciting the Gettysburg Address as they celebrate the 200th birthday of the ship’s namesake.

TIME joined the crew and spoke with each member.

To bad Google chose Darwin's B-day as more important than President Lincoln's

UPDATE
CDR Salamander asks:

How could the Navy possibly ruin such an opportunity? How could something as inclusive, uniting, and purely American as the Gettysburg Address be used as a tool to divide Sailors?

Murtha, Murtha, Murtha!!!

Admit, it does make you all tingly inside. You know it does.

The FBI raided the offices of a defense lobbying firm with close ties to Democratic Rep. John Murtha (Penn.), sources tell ABC News.

The FBI searched the Virginia headquarters of the PMA Group in November, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. PMA was founded by former Murtha aide Paul Magliochetti and specializes in winning earmarked taxpayer funds for its clients.

Good government groups have long criticized Murtha's cozy relationship with a handful of lobbyists and defense firms, ties that see millions of dollars in government spending go out from Murtha's office, and hundreds of thousands in campaign donations come in. Murtha has said his earmarking has helped revive his economically depressed district.

PMA is the second company with close ties to Murtha to be raided by federal agents recently. In January, agents from the FBI, the IRS and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the office of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, as well as the homes of the firms' founders. The companies reportedly have received over $100 million in earmarks, thanks to Murtha's efforts.
...
"The FBI is showing a lot of interest in" a lot of people around Murtha, said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "If I was in Murtha's camp, I would not be sleeping at night."

Honor

On their way to a memorial service, a Canadian contingent is rendered honors and returns in kind.

This old sailor got a little misty.

Via OpFor via The Torch via Ghost of a Flea via Dave in Texas ...

Actor Val Kilmer Governor of New Mexico?

Val Kilmer thinks he's qualified to be a leader and is reported to be seriously considering a run for Governor of New Mexico in 2010.

Good luck with that.

But he won't get any votes from Vietnam vets!

Before anyone considers voting him take a look at his interview for Esquire magazine :

Klosterman: You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?

Kilmer: Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life.

Klosterman: You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?

Kilmer: I understand it more. It's an actor's job. A guy who's lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He's some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship. They didn't have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.

Ahem, wow, it's nice to see how he feels about our military.

I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.

Really? You think very highly of yourself there Val.

Kilmer, will never have the courage of their convictions to actually do something honorable as he obviously lack's the essential characteristics of honor, integrity, duty, and honesty.

Military-Money-Matters has the full story

Kesterson At War (Afghanistan)

Anyone who has been reading Mudville or the Dawn Patrol, knows who Scott Kesterson is, a U.S. photojournalist who spent 15 months embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan in an effort to understand the conflict.

Here's an interview that CBC did with him showing new footage and some of the Canadian soldiers talking about some of the battles after the fact.

This is the first time many Canadians have even seen how their military have been sacrificing. The Canadian military were not happy. So there's some controversy in the Canadian Military.

Bouhammer, an American Afghanistan vet has been working closely with Scott to on the upcoming distribution and release of "At War". He also has some AT WAR Raw Footage

Wreck of UK warship HMS Victory 'found' after 264 years

A legendary British man-of-war that sank in the English Channel 264 years ago called the HMS Victory has been found:

The wreckage of the HMS Victory, found below about 330 feet of water, may carry an even bigger jackpot. Research indicates the ship was carrying 4 tons of gold coins when it sank in storm, said Greg Stemm, co-founder of Odyssey Marine Exploration, ahead of a Monday news conference in London.

So far, two brass cannons have been recovered from the wreck, Stemm said. The Florida-based company said it is negotiating with the British government over collaborating on the project.

"This is a big one, just because of the history," Stemm said. "Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this."

Some history here

New GI Bill Carries Different Eligibility, Benefits

Via DefenseLink:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2, 2009 – A series of educational assistance programs administered by the Veterans Affairs Department, commonly called the GI Bill, have helped servicemembers pursue post-secondary learning for decades.
Soon, another program will be added to the mix: The Post-9/11 Veterans Education Bill will be available to qualified individuals Aug. 1.

“We previously administered four major education programs before this bill came along,” Keith M. Wilson, VA’s education service director, said. “The new Post-9/11 GI Bill has different eligibility criteria [and] pays for different types of training.”

The new GI Bill provides three separate types of benefit payments to those who have at least 90 days of aggregate active service after Sept. 10, 2001.

The first type of payment covers tuition and fees equal to what each state’s most expensive state-run school charges for in-state, undergraduate study.

In addition, ...

The first VIDEOS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ever created

Studio Macbeth emails us this clip that will be appearing on The History Channel's "Stealing Lincoln's Body" on February 16th, 2009.

As millions celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln this year, HISTORY™ presents perhaps the last unknown story of our 16th president – the shocking plot to steal his body.

Here is what Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer says:
“The result—an uncanny, believable, realistic, living Lincoln—moving before our eyes as he must have in life, wholly imagined yet based on actual photos—took my breath away. Here is the man who lived, laughed, spoke, walked, for precious seconds practically born again.”

Nice to see some history on the History Channel.

Groggy

Kicking the rum grog bucket, the U.S. Navy switched to "Bob Smith."

Hoist a "tot" and read about it here