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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I see that Sugar Buttons has beat me to my "steal the march" strategy of posting the first entry of the day just after midnight. He is upping the ante after I challenged him with "still got it". LOL
Quick note on a long post about an important subject. This is my full report on the Heart of American Summer 2007 Veterans' Stand Down on Friday.
There are a lot of veterans, future veterans and those who are family, friends or general supporters of our military who read here. I am probably not reporting anything you don't know. The long and short of it is, there are many homeless and indigent veterans. Not all of them are drug addicted. Not everyone is homeless. I saw a number of vets who I surmise are living on limited social security and/or veterans benefits. Barely. I'll tell you the same thing that they say about war: until you've experienced it, you don't know.
On a happier note, we were also at the Belton Community Days Parade. I'll have some video and a report on that soon. And don't forget, KC area folks, we'll be at the Rally in the Alley, Parkville, MO on Saturday, June 30, from 3pm until the crowd goes home or the bands lose their voices. Be there or be square.
-Kat
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News from MNF-I:
Local Iraqi council meets with Coalition forces
General describes Phantom Thunder
'Ace of Spades' the ace in the hole for Marines on the ground
Up Armor Team saves lives of fellow logistics Marines
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Today's entry in the Stupid Criminal Files... - FbL
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.
Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.
*Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*
The UAVs (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.
I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
