Time to add a new caveat, because from email it's not clear to some folks (mind you, if you don't read this it won't matter...) Being an open post, people (collectively, the Denizens) other than I post in the H&I. They sign their work (most of the time) - keep that in mind when you want to flame someone in email please - if it doesn't say "The Armorer" or "John" then I didn't write it! And honestly - if you don't like something said or posted... leave a comment, and hash it out (within the context of The Rulez which are clearly posted on the comment form, I would add).

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Up here in the glittering, frozen north, our opposition politicians, if they're not agitating for the withdrawal of the Canadian military from Afghanistan altogether, are attempting to put caveats on our participation that would put us on a par with the Germans or Italians. My skin crawls with the very idea, as does my co-contributor Mark's.

So today, I use a Digger engineer video to educate our remedial opposition politicians about the realities of fuzzy-wuzzy development and reconstruction in southern Afghanistan. - Damian

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The Boston red Sox have the honor of meeting Philip Dow, American hero.

He had been on a training mission in the California desert on the night the Red Sox won the World Series, leaving his new bride from South Boston, Gina, and their dog, Teddy Ballgame, to watch the game by themselves on the base in Fort Irwin. So eight hours in an operating room yesterday wasn't going to stop a Milton kid, Philip Dow, not when Gina and his best buddy from BC High, Mike Viano, told him that the Sox were coming by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

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Armchair Generalist has a counterpoint up to my commentary on Senator Obama's musings on defense. As Jason is a sworn Obama fan, he speaks from a different perspective than I - but, as always, the amount of ground where we either agree, or are close enough to live with either result, is perhaps more informative, if less exciting for the news or juicy blogspatting. As I'm crashing on something, a response on my part will have to wait.-the Armorer

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Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan since December, and the news only broke now. That's not an easy one to keep secret, I'd imagine. - Damian

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Heh. Damian stole my thunder. Good on ya, Leftenant Windsor! -the Armorer

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Speaking of the prince's service at the pointy end of the spear, Chris Taylor has a fantastic post up about it. And as I see it, this line qualifies as Quote of the Week:

As far as I'm concerned, if MoD really wanted to burn some Islamist britches and destroy enemy morale, then HMS Ark Royal should be parked in the Persian Gulf with Elizabeth, Phillip, Charles, Andrew and Edward flying daily missions from her deck. That would make a great object lesson to hand down to the next generation of terrorists. "Your father was killed by an 82-year-old infidel Zionist-Crusader queen". "And did we shoot her down?" "No, she bombed your uncle last week."

Booya! - Damian

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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."