May 19, 2007
H&I* Fires, 19 MAY 2007
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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Yet more contrary views:
Project on Defense Alternatives says There’s No Good Reason to Grow The Army and Marine Corps, since it’s only Iraq that’s pinching deployable troop numbers.
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Shloky says Tigerhawk doesn’t know war. That also extends to a lot of the rest of us too. The Hyper-empowered individual and 4GW makes mass armies obsolete.
[Added by the Armorer: Cassandra weighs in on this issue, too.]
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Something about the PLA I sent out to some friends that generated some interesting comments.
Comments like “OMG SUCKS(sort of)” and “So, China is jogging into the 1980s."
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Kat-Mizzou continues her Counter-Insurgency and Religion series.
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The graphic in this is just too funny.
--ry
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Bloodspite is, erm, peeved. I didn't mention this, since Blackfive and Doc in the Box had - but, since a Denizen is riled... It isn't to say I'm not - just that I decided a while ago that covering what's already been covered elsewhere and by bigger bloggers was kind of redundant if I didn't have something to add. Bloodspite's value-added is his involvement and support of LEOs and his opinion of what happened in Las Vegas. -the Armorer
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If you haven't read about Fuzzy's Big Adventure - you really should. Here's your trailer...
Act I: The guard is firmly ensconced in his little shack, rather than on the road and there are no other cars in front of her. Thus, there are none of the usual visual cues to remind a preoccupied Fuzzybear to pull out her ID and stop. So she doesn't.Completely oblivious, she soon turns off the main road into a parking lot, stops for a 3-minute errand, then takes the back way (through parking lots) to her employment site's parking lot. Checking the clock, she sees she still has a few minutes, so she pulls down the visor mirror and does some close inspection.
Go. It's a hoot. -the Armorer
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Armed Forces Day 2007
Quick! Grab a warrior and hug 'em!
Find an Armed Forces Day event near you.
Heh. Apparently the DefenseLink people (there are no listed events for Kansas) don't get the same press releases I get. So, if you're a Kansan (or a border ruffian in Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska) and want to show a little love - this is what's happening in Topeka...
HOT RODS AND HUMVEES THIS SATURDAY AT HEARTLAND PARK TOPEKA AS TRACK HOSTS ARMED FORCES DAY CELEBRATIONTOPEKA, Kan. (May 15, 2007) - A full day of military and civilian defense displays, hot rods, band performances, and fireworks are planned this Saturday, May 19 as Heartland Park Topeka will host the Third Annual AT&T Armed Forces Day Celebration presented by The Topeka Capital-Journal, and sponsored by Budweiser and Cumulus Broadcasting.
Gates open at 2 p.m. to the public to enjoy all festivities planned for the day. Admission is absolutely free, and parking will be available inside the facility. All traffic should enter Heartland Park Topeka through Gate E off Gary Ormsby Drive .
Spectators are welcome to browse the dozens of exhibits and military hardware on display throughout the afternoon. Interested car owners can take part in the “Hot Rods and Humvees” Car Show presented by The Eagle 99.3 beginning at 2 p.m. There is no charge to enter the car show, and awards will be given at the end of the day.
Car show judging begins at 3:30 p.m., and awards will be presented at 4:30 p.m.
Stage shows begin at 5 p.m. with the Section 8 Military Rock & Roll Band kicking off the evening entertainment in the Liebler Pavilion. At 6:00 pm the Kings of Swing will share the Liebler stage with the USO Troupe for dancing and reminiscing. “The best Military Band You’ll Ever See”, the Kansas Army National Guard 35th Infantry Division Band takes the main stage at 8:15 p.m. The 35th Infantry Division Band will perform a medley of contemporary patriotic music and classic military marches, including Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” complete with cannon fire.
The night sky will light up with the Armed Forces Day grand finale, the “Rockets Red Glare” fireworks display scheduled to begin at 9:25 p.m.
Heartland Park Topeka , a multi-purpose racing facility located in Topeka , Kan. annually hosts NHRA POWERade drag racing, the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and many other pro and amateur drag racing, road racing, and dirt racing events throughout the race season.
This retired warrior will risk life and limb on a ladder today, cleaning gutters and repairing replacing the downspout the Exterior Guard damaged destroyed while chasing interlopers Alvin and Theodore, the Chipmunks of Argghhh!
May 18, 2007
H&I* Fires, 18 MAY 2007
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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(Mouth agape and hands on face like that kid in the Home Alone movies.)
Fuzzy?! What’re you doing in a dog pile of 6-10 military men?!
(I think Werekitten and the rest of the SB Brigade are going to be jealous.)
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[Continuing the view from the counter-to-Castle-consensus round up started yesterday.]
The next Saladin will be a product of McWorld and blowback.
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We should’ve seen Sadr coming according to the people who run Conflicts Forum.
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Counting the human cost, E-ring style. [The Armorer heartily endorses this selection of Ry's]
--ry
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I’ll post the link to this, even though I won’t be signing it myself.
I largely agree with the main message: science is under attack by ideologues and the disciplines need defense. But I won’t be signing it because it stops well short of naming all the enemies while making it seem like attacks only come from people of Faith or from the right. That’s WELL short of the full list, and excludes some of the worst offenders(some of whom get to cloak themselves in the guise of scientists). But this place, The Castle Argghhh!, is squishy, a real friend of science(we count some real eggheads in the membership), and typically supports resistance to Medieval-ism.
I’m a bit put off by some of it though. Decide for yourself whether to sign it. The cause is a good one, even if I don’t agree with who is running it.
--ry
[While the cause is a good one, the people running this particular defense of it border on delusional, if, as Ry notes, they think the only threat to science are Luddites clutching their religious tracts. The threat they define is an open one, and can be met with argumentation and open debate - the threat they ignore, the one they don't mention, is the hijacking of science for political purposes - and the useful idiots in the community of science who aid and abet, for personal gain or political reasoning. The threat that causes them and the secular left to shout down, excoriate, and belittle honest scientific debate by asserting that un-PC findings are illegitimate, and that the act of research on the alternative itself is a fault, rather than the application of... the scientific method. I don't mind the cause, but I'd rather find a champion of it that isn't quite so myopic Stereovision is good. -the Armorer}
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John Hawkins has the latest pulse of the Rightospheric Blogworld - at least the self-selected amongst the "Choice Right Blogs"
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Bloodspite and Operation Kudzu. Methinks BS is *not* happy with the immigration "deal" from yesterday. -the Armorer
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Destroyer names honor heroes of Vietnam, WWII - Navy Times
A well-respected admiral known as much for his integrity and dignity as for his accomplishments, and one of the greatest naval tactical commanders of World War II will be commemorated by two new Arleigh Burke-class destroyers to be built for the Navy.
Names for the USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110) and USS Spruance (DDG 111) were to be announced May 11 by Navy Secretary Donald Winter. The choices continue the recent practice of applying well-deserved new names and perpetuating classic ship monikers for the Navy’s destroyers.
H/T to Steeljaw Scribe who has a great post up on this.....Maggie
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Ry put up a link about the cost of a human life in yesterday's H&I Fires post. A comment at Army.ca yesterday had me asking a similar question as it affects the use of indirect fire: which is more detrimental to the NATO mission in Afghanistan - a dead Afghan civilian or a dead coalition soldier? - Damian
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431 Air Demonstration Squadron, better known as The Snowbirds, lost a pilot today in Montana while practicing for an airshow there. While we don't yet know his name, we mourn for him and for those who cared for him. - Damian
The Lion of Fallujah.
I've been silent about the death of Major Zembiec, if only because others have covered it already, Blackfive especially, and I had nothing to add.
Today, whether or not I'm adding anything, I have something to say.
The Washington Post has an article on Major Zembiec's funeral at Annapolis.
This caught my eye.
Five hours later, after the sound of taps had faded over his coffin at Arlington National Cemetery, came what Zembiec, 34, might have considered the finest tribute of all.About 40 enlisted men gathered under a tree, telling stories about their former commander. Some had flown in from as far away as California, prompting one officer to observe: Your men have to follow your orders; they don't have to go to your funeral.
Word.
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.
� Media Lies links with: I hate quoting the LA Times....
The Whatziss, continued concluded.
To catch up - start here.
Interestingly, the closest anyone got was John S. Except he was answering the questions not asked. The two things I said I *could* have asked you about, but didn't, because they would be too hard (I thought) were the ones mostly correctly identified. The round gizmo is a check gauge, and the long, skinny thing is, in fact, a barrel-wear gauge. The only thing John got wrong was caliber - it's a wear gauge for .30 cal barrels, not .50. But since no size context was provided, John wins the Non-Contest! Of course, John really *is* a capital "G" Grognard.
The rest of you were inventive, entertaining, clever, and wrong, though some got tantalizingly close.
Let's see if this helps.
I realize that some of you will immediately think - "Hey! That works within the context of my guess!" True enough. Just remember I said... you were wrong, thus far.
Update! We have a winner. Dan. It is indeed, an early WWI British grenade, the Grenade, Hand No. 12, commonly referred to as a "hairbrush" or "jam tin" grenade, for obvious reasons.
For the label side, click here.
Or is it? Finding one of these mostly intact, much less in as good a condition as this - is almost the Holy Grail of those who collect grenades. If you do find one out in the wild, and the person who has it knows what it is, you're talking many hundreds of dollars.
I know better than to try to sneak that by SWWBO.
These were not what is called 'artisan' grenades (though the Holdings of the Arsenal *do* include a couple of French examples of artisan grenades), manufactured in their generally poor-quality-and-reliability tens of thousands by all sorts of people and entities during the desperate early years of the munitions shortages on the Western Front. This was actually a 'sealed pattern' grenade, meaning there were blueprints, specs, etc. It used that pull-ignitor to light off the fuze train (missing in this example). In addition to the fragmentation plate, the box was filled with scrap metal to make it more useful. It had a very short service life, it's funny looking, not that many were made, it's relatively fragile... so of course guys like me want one.
This is a reproduction. Or at least that's the best assessment of people far more knowledgeable than I. And it was presented to me as such - and it didn't cost hundreds of dollars as a result. I got it from an honest chap in England. I could lay out the details of why it's a reproduction, and go through the discussion of whether it was created as a favor or with malice - but I don't need to - that's already been done, for those who care to study further.
Go ahead, take a look - which one does *this* one look like? If it *isn't a fake - well, then my son will get a little more money than he expected when he liquidates the holdings of the Arsenal after I start tapping kegs at Fiddler's Green.
A gun-rights post.
First up - this post was written by commenters, Fdcol63 and KCSteve. Steve was right, I *did* want to pull their stuff up from the comments and post 'em for the Googlebot.
First up - Frank from this morning's H&I (which I deleted to remove the sense of deja-vu):
John, probably OT and you might have already seen this on Instapundit, but thought you might find this interesting if not:From:
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2007/05/chaos_gunmen_ki.php"50 heavily armed men abduct 7 police: four them of them found dead, three missing, gun battles leave 20 dead. About a thousand people so far this year shot or decapitated."
"Iraq? No, northern Mexico, about a hundred miles south of here. Betting is that the gang was a drug lord's entourage."
"And yet Mexico has strict gun laws."
Next, KCSteve's bit - the Zumbo report. Zumbo is a gun writer who writes about hunting. He recently really pi$$ed off the "Ugly Black Rifle" community by essentially saying "No one needs one of those, you can't do any serious shooting with them anyway, get rid of 'em" or words to that effect...
He was *excoriated* in the gun-owning world, however much he might actually represent one of the fissures in the gun world that the anti-gunners exploit (learning that from their bretheren in the UK).
This is KCSteve's contribution:
There's a Zumbo Update over at Ted Nugent's placeTed,
I recently completed the tactical weapons course under the direction of instructor Pat Rogers. It was a life changing event for me. The course allowed me to become familiar with the firearms, and also to understand what I hadn't realized before.....that black rifles are used and owned by people who are salt of the earth. Fifteen of us took the course, including four women, two doctors, a chef, a retired engineer and law enforcement and military folks. I have to tell you that I was overwhelmingly intimidated the first morning, and was tempted to quit. I had difficulty with the unfamiliar guns, and the course was designed in drill fashion. This was no bench rest scenario where you sat and tried to shoot as accurately as possible. Here we followed very explicit orders by the instructors and shot from sitting, kneeling, standing and prone positions. As the first day wore on, I began to feel more comfortable with the gun and shooting requirements. By the third day I didn't want to leave, and had one of the most incredible experiences of my life when I fired fully auto rifles and handguns. I made great friends among the other students and instructors, and have to tell you that I drove home from the Indiana course with an ear to ear grin. Sitting beside me in my pickup truck was a very large Elmer Fudd doll that was given to the student who screwed up the most. I don't need to explain the reasons why I was the recipient! It was all in great fun, and the outpouring of kindness from the people there was terrific.Throughout all this, since I wrote that blog in February, I learned many, many things. I want to thank you for understanding, early on, how my words indicated an ignorance about black rifles, and I want to thank you for your efforts in using my ignorance as an example in order to unite all of use who own guns, all guns, whether they're for hunting, shooting, home defense, or simply as collectors items.
Rock on, bloodbrother!
Jim Zumbo
Lastly, I have been in communication with Representative Boyda's staff for Ms. Boyda's official stance on the issue of firearms. They are polishing up her letter on the subject (which I have not seen) but from what I've gotten in conversation with her legislative director Doug Matties, the Armorer should find it acceptable. We will, of course, reserve final judgement for when we read the actual document.
Wargaming, modeling reality therein.
CAPT H sends us a link to A Pointless Waste of Time and what he terms an oldie-but-goodie post on the subject of The Ultimate War Simulation - which was new to me. I appreciate the humor. Perhaps more importantly, however, I note that in the military wargaming and simulation world - especially in the larger events, but even embedded now in some of the niche sims... we actually *do* a lot of what appears in this funny bit.
Longtime readers will recall that I have run a battle simulation center, I hold the FA57 skill identifier - Simulations Operations - and have been a sims developer as well as participated in the design and execution of many wargame scenarios, from huge enterprises like Millennium Challenge 02 and the Division Advanced Warfighting Experiment (DAWE), to lesser-scoped events like supporting the Division Warfighting Exercise at the Command and General Staff College to simple one man one machine events.
So, while laughing, I was also intrigued by the overlaps.
David Wong (the author) wants a War Sim...
1. ...where I spend two hours pushing across a map to destroy a "nuclear missile silo," only to find out after the fact that it was just a missile-themed orphanage.I want little celebrities to show up on the scene and do interviews over video of charred teddy bears, decrying my unilateral attack. I want congressional hearings demanding answers to these atrocities.
-In many sims we now have targetable (i.e., able to take damage and be killed) sites that are ambiguous in nature. And there are consequences. We hire role-players to do exactly that in live events, and in sim-driven events where that's a training objective, we build MSEL (Master Scenario Event List) events that do exactly that. Though it might be Barbra Triesand, or McGeorge Looney who shows up in the MSEL... We have real live actual local newspeople come and conduct interviews, and role-play the press.
2. On the very next level I want to lose half of my units because another "orphanage" turned out to be a NOD ambush site. I want another round of hearings asking why I didn't level that orphanage as soon as I saw it, including tearful testimony from a slain soldier's daughter who is now, ironically, an orphan.
-Mebbe not this exactly... but it's there.
3. Every War Sim has a "Fog of War" that obscures the map in darkness until units scout the landscape. Well, I want a hazy, brown "Fog of Bullsh*t" layer below that. I want it to make a village of farmers look like a secret armed militia, I want it to show me a massive enemy fortress where there is actually an Aspirin factory. I want to never know for sure which it was, even after the game is over.
-We now have multi-sided sims where sides can switch from friendly to hostile to neutral depending on how things are going - all in the same run-time event, as well as in live training at the Combat Training Centers.
4. I want those awesome rooted monsters from Starcraft that wait until the enemy gets close and then launch tentacles up their a$$es. Just think of how demoralizing that would have to be.But I want to lose points off my Public Support meter every time one of those monsters accidentally impales a schoolgirl in a horrific bloody mess that will shock all but the Japanese.
Okay. Not yet. But! In the early days of the Fort Sill Battle Simulation Center, we had a scenario for training the Advanced Course students that took place on Fort Sill terrain. The terrain map we had was *much* larger than the area defined by the graphics for the operation - and students, being competitive, had this tendency to inch out of the boundaries of their graphics... so we built Imperial Walkers. Yep. Those big things from the Battle of Hoth. They were invulnerable, had a PH of 99, a PK of 99, perfect sensors, were only detectable close up, but their weapon had a very limited range and a slight delay. If you didn't run back inside the boundary pretty darn quick, you were toast. They were positioned on the flanks - if you saw one, you were either not paying attention, or you were cheating.
5. I want that "Public Support" meter to rise and fall according to Troops Lost, Length of Conflict, Innocents Killed and Whether or Not There is Anything Else On TV That Week. I want to lose 200 Public Support points because, in a war where 8,000 units have been lost, one of my Mutalisks happened to be caught on video accidentally eating one clergyman. Then, later, my destruction of an entire enemy city goes unnoticed because the Nude Zero-Gravity Futureball championship went into overtime.
I just submitted this one to the master JFCOM MSEL list. That would be kewl.
I put the rest in the Flash Traffic/Extended entry, to save your scrolling fingers.
� Murdoc Online links with: Friday Linkzookery - 18 May 2007
May 17, 2007
H&I* Fires, 17 MAY 2007
Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...
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Because we don’t like becoming an echo chamber edition:
The cost of a life via the NYT. Move past the political snottiness. Does he have a point about a failure to win hearts and minds and does he have the best solution?
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Looks like OD’s worst nightmare over the Afghani poppy field situation is coming to pass: the WOD enters the WOT in Afghanistan. This could be brilliant, or it could be a goat----(which is OD’s position, and I don’t know that he’s wrong).
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Armchair isn’t real happy about the whole ‘War Czar’ idea and the choice for it(not what you think about the pick).
--ry
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Something that irritates me is the new ‘sanctuary’ movement. CA Proposition 187, and its legal battles, proved once and for all that anything and everything to do with immigration is a Federal level power; and states and community preferences or votes be damned. Or doesn’t the law matter when it’s not working in your favor, immigration advocates?
--ry
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Via the NYT comes this gem of Congressional thought.
A congressman from New Jersey said yesterday that he would propose a bill that would require all visitors to military installations to undergo federal background checks. The proposal comes in the wake of the charges filed last week against six men accused of planning an attack on soldiers at Fort Dix. The congressman, Representative Jim Saxton, a Republican whose district includes Fort Dix, said his bill would require the background checks for all visitors, including contractors, delivery people and civilians. The authorities have linked the six terrorist suspects to a pizzeria that frequently delivered to the base.
Heh. I suspect this will die a quiet death as someone from DoD drops by the Congressman's office and gives him a reality check. He will effectively be closing those installations to outsiders. There goes any airshows... open houses, access to the museums... the list goes on. Then there's the cost. I would remind the good Congressman about the backlog in doing security clearance investigations - largely due to... cost. And would security be enhanced? Only marginally. Better to allow the denizens of military installations the ability to carry concealed. That would nip things like the Six Dix in the bud pretty quickly, if there's a group out there that isn't a Keystone Kops operation. -the Armorer
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Then there's this, from Vic Hanson:
What do leftist, mostly secular elites share with medieval sinners?They feel bad that the way they live sometimes doesn't quite match their professed dogma.
Read it here. -the Armorer
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From Zach Bauer of Missouri Carry yesterday - admittedly, it's the state next door, not here - but regional solidarity and all that!
At approximately 9:24 pm, the MO House took up and passed the Castle Doctrine bill, SB62 by a vote of 151-6.The Missouri Castle Doctrine Law and PTA Repeal has now passed both the Missouri Senate and tonight the Missouri House! The Bill will now move on to Gov. Blunt who has said repeatedly that he will sign the bill. This is an important victory won by those of you who wrote letters, sent those emails and made countless calls to your elected state officials.
So do you want the really good news? The good news is that the Brady Campaign who currently rates Missouri a "D+" when it comes to gun laws will probably be upgrading us to the much sought after "F" rating in the coming weeks when Gov. Blunt signs the bill. That is when you will truly know that we have done something right here in the state of Missouri.
Ah, sometimes it *is* good to have an "F" on your report card. From the Brady Campaign, from Kossacks, etc. -the Armorer
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Jules - supporting Palestinian Statehood. Why wouldn't we want these guys to be a full-blown government? -the Armorer
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� Techography links with: Illegals on the Roads, and in your town!
Supporting the troops... is wrong.
Bill the Rotorhead breaks radio silence:
TINS.
March (or thereabouts) 1970. I'd just finished an all-day and all-night Green Beanie support mission and was slouching toward my tent, hoping to grab a couple of hours' sleep before the sun rose high enough to turn my GP Medium into a reasonable approximation of a convection oven and the traffic on the street outside generated a semi-permanent dust cloud inside. If I was lucky, the malathion fogger had already made its run, so I wouldn't get chased out of the tent by the fumes.
I'd been flying every night for weeks and had reached the chronic fatigue point where anything that didn't happen in the cockpit didn't happen. I thought I'd remembered to eat the C-rat I'd carried out to the aircraft the previous day, but I couldn't swear to it. My canteen was empty and there was no hole in it, so I was holding dehydration at bay, anyway.
Enter Company Clerk, stage left. "Mail Call, sir." He handed me an envelope addressed to "Any Soldier in Vietnam." Return address was some school in Iowa.
I just sat there and stared at it. Maybe five minutes later, I opened it. It was from a sixth-grader who wanted to know who I was, what my job was, was there a lot of fighting where I was, how I was doing and who had been saying a prayer for me every day. Nothing about what he'd been studying in school, or who his friends were or what was new in his own young life -- he just wanted to know about me.
Now, I realized at the time that the kid had launched that letter with nobody in particular in mind, but yet, at that particular moment, that letter meant that somebody other than my immediate family gave a rat's ass about me and the job I was doing.
I finished and sealed the who-I-was, what-I did, there's-fighting-but-we're-beating-the-bad-guys, I'm-doing-fine-thanks and please-keep-praying-for-me letter just before the malathion fogger chugged past and chased me out of the tent...
Last week CDR Salamander left a post on Milblogs:
Shipmates; this has been another one of my days I get in a Strategic Funk. I see the progress at the Tactical and Operational levels working towards what we want Strategically - but one thing keeps coming to mind. It is all for naught if the Political side fails us. Perhaps tomorrow I will feel better, but with the "Two month vacation meets Yankee go home" with the Iraqi Parliament; and the schoolyard games in the US Congress - my mind keeps going to the Table at Damascus.
You should read the linked post in the above, about the Table in Damascus...
This can be won. We are making progress, but the politician's feet of clay is crumbling in front of out eyes. Is my Gandamak at hand? I'm watching the Iraqi lawmakers - and I think of the good people of Iraq - but in my mind I see more and more, in both the US and Iraq, the Table at Damascus.
That post generated this comment, which Michael turned into an email aimed at some of us larger milbloggers:
I left this comment on Mudville Gazette's MilBlogs at this post by CDR Salamander... [linked above already -the Armorer] … and I wanted to get the thoughts of those of you in the military community.My main point is that sending cards to troops is a waste of time, UNLESS we are also sending letters and making calls to Congressmen to tell them to support the mission in Iraq. Sending 'thank you' cards doesn't do much at all in the overall war effort. Our soldiers' morale could be sky-high and it wouldn't matter a hill of beans if they do not have the support of the American government. I am simply getting tired of the Gathering of Eagles and the Operation America Rising and the 'support the troops' letters efforts… UNLESS they are also getting all those people organized to not just stand around waving flags, but also to sit down and write a letter to their congressman/Senator or call them up. Standing around waving a flag is not going to win the war on Islamic Totalitarianism. But making sure our elected leaders support the war effort will help win it.
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I have been seeing the "One Million Thanks" commercial on TV the last couple days, regarding the girl who has been making the effort to send "thank you" cards to the deployed soldiers and now is working with GM (I think) to put boxes at each dealership for people to easily donate cards at those locations. This is nice and all, but really, when it comes down to it, it does nothing. Because one million 'thank you' cards are not going to matter when our politicians surrender in the war effort and things get a lot worse in the war against Islamic Totalitarianism in the future. The "One Million Thanks" is just another "feel-good" campaign for those who want to say they "support the troops".Well, forgive my callousness, but the whole "support the troops" campaign is worthless. What would REALLY make a difference is a "One Million Letters to Congress" campaign to tell those defeatist f'ers to support the military in fighting our enemies.
But maybe I am wrong here, being that I am looking at this from a civilian standpoint. What do you all in the military think about this? Do you feel that it is more important to get one million 'thank you' cards or do you feel it is more important that Americans give Congress one million "hey defeatist jackasses, get your heads out of your asses and support the war on Islamic Totalitarianism" cards?
Have a great day,
Michael
The responses in email, at least those that were sent out as a 'reply all' - were uniformly in support of "Write your Reps, but you are flat wrong on the issue of supporting the troops in context."
I'll tell you - write your congressional delegation. Email them. Do not *ever,* *ever* use the mass mailing card approach. For anything. Always write it yourself. They figure if you only care enough about something because AARP/NRA/NARAL/Fill-in-the-blank sent you a mailing card or set up a mass email generator - you don't *really* care. Take the time to dash a few words on paper - or actually fill out the email contact form from a website - with your own words, then you care. I know this has greater impact with the people in Congress. Depending on the politics of where you live - you may be tilting at windmills - but tilt we must!
Guess what. Writing anonymous letters to "Any Soldier" has impact, too. My wars were easy ones. I served in the period of time where we just puffed our chests out at the Russians, and fought small, sharp, limited wars or tried to keep the peace. Easy duty compared to those were *just* before and *just* after me.
So, here's a TINS that supports the thesis that it *does* matter. From one of us who was both *just* before and *just* after me. On the value of supporting the troops. But Michael is right, too - send *three* notes to Congress - your delegation - for every one you send to a deployed warrior. That makes it 100 percent of the retired warriors who blog here. Just sayin'.
Heh. I'll go with the judgement of the GCM convening authority...
But it sure strikes me like a courts-martial for dereliction certainly should have been on the table. And possibly was. [In retrospect, and a little more infomation, that might have been an overly-harsh initial reaction on my part. I do concur with the reliefs vice a reprimand, however.]
Consequences of action and inaction matter.
WASHINGTON - Three U.S. soldiers slaughtered in a grisly kidnapping-murder plot south of Baghdad last June had been left alone for up to 36 hours in a poorly planned mission, a military investigation concluded. Two officers have been relieved of their commands.Neither of the officers faced criminal charges as a result of the litany of mistakes that left the soldiers exposed, a military official familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
A report on the investigation said the platoon leader and company commander — whose names were not released — failed to provide proper supervision to the unit or enforce military standards.
Depending on circumstances surrounding this incident - there's a Lieutenant Colonel battalion commander who's probably also seen his terminal promotion, whether justified or no. When lives are at stake, them's the breaks and we all know that going in.
Read the rest of the story here.