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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Over at The Weekly Standard, John Noonan of Op-For asks a good question. Nice score, Noonan.
CAPT H points us to GOPublius, where you can read Senator Clinton's famous vanishing senior thesis from Wellesley. The one that was buried by the school during the Clinton Presidency but has now surfaced again in time to give us a peek into Young Hillary. I'd have to caveat this with the observation I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be terribly impressed with *my* writings from that era in my life...
From Green Mountain Politics comes this *gem*:
Subject: Manchester Republican Committee to Host Machine Gun Event
The Manchester Republican Committee (MRC) will hold its first Annual Machine Gun Shoot fundraiser on Sunday, August 5, 2007 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The public is invited.
One hopes that the Brady Bunch got their invitation, too! Read all about it here. -the Armorer
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There are probably a few civilian AND military types that wonder how Lt. Gen. Kensinger ends up holding the bag for with holding information or other wise covering up Cpl Pat Tillman's death. I believe, after sifting through almost 3000 pages of testimony, tests and other memoranda, I discovered why Lt. Gen. Kensinger was thrown under the bus. [updated: 15:55z]
The long and short of it is, he decided to re-interpret the regulations regarding family notification or, as I also suspected considering the number of regulations repeated like a Mage Shield in World of Warcraft sequence, he was trying harder to CYA than to take care of his soldiers. Everyone CYAs once in awhile, but, if you don't know when it's time to stop CYA and just do your duty, you are very likely no longer an effective officer or leader.
Right there, I don't blame the Tillman family for their years of trying to get the truth and not trusting the only people that can give it to you because they were not doing their jobs. I would be crawling up Rumsfeld's well protected hindquarters too since these officers were allowed to continue to act that way after two investigations without proper "re-direction".
-Kat [update: I apologize for the chopped up sentences and thoughts on the earlier posting. Learned my lesson, too. If you are in a hurry, you likely can't do the job right. A problem the Tillman investigation showed and I should have learned my lesson from. update to the update: forgot to mention, after much review and re-checking the source material, updated part I of the Tillman story with a more complete outline of the battle scene and an updated diagram. Apparently, I was looking at the scene in reverse. Tillman was on the north side and serial 2 coming from the east. My apologies for any confusion.]
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A Canadian serving with the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan e-mailed some photos and an interesting story to go with them - a story of incremental progress in local governance that you won't find in the MSM. - Damian
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I had a meeting on the Fort this morning, which prevented me from standing with a flag along the cortege route as I usually do when we bury a fallen warrior. We buried hometown Leavenworth loss Sergeant Courtney Finch at Fort Leavenworth today. The odious Phelps clan was present, with a new sign (to me) "Don't worship the dead!"
We don't worship them, you buffoons. We honor their service and offer our respect to the grieving. Something in short measure for you carrion-eaters, who feast on the flesh of the slain to sustain your warped view of the world.
The Armorer was bad. I gave the Phelp's a single-digit handwave as I passed their knot of pinch-faced small-spirited drones spouting their vileness. I regret the lapse that dropped me to their level of discourse. -the Armorer
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Once again - pressure works. The Army is going to do head-to-head testing of the M4 carbine against rifles critics charge function better in extreme environments. This is a good thing, methinks. The flip side, of course, is the whole Dragonskin foofaraw... -the Armorer
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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"
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