Literally, in the case of my Rotary club. I'm at that point in my life where death overshadows life, in that I'm old enough that some of the people I hang out with, well, they wear out, and in my family, at least, the next generation has not yet entered their child-bearing-and-raising stage. Since none of them are yet married, though a couple are, um, "practicing," I'm not complaining. So funerals predominate. Such was the case this week, when fellow Rotarian (and the second of my two mentors-in-Rotary) slipped from "Senior Active" to "Career Completed."
The colors are at half-staff again, at Castle Argghhh!
Colonel Robert "the Baron" von Schlemmer, 83, of Leavenworth, passed away on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, 2008. If you're a soldier, not a bad day to die, if the time has come to lay your tools aside.
The Baron (as he was called throughout his military career) was born in Long Beach, California in 1925. Baron attended Hollywood High School (how cool is that, eh?) and was drafted into World War II out of Los Angeles City College Art School. He served as a medic, earning a Combat Medical Badge fighting in the Pacific and CBI theaters.
He attended UCLA on the GI Bill and attained the rank of cadet colonel and was a Distinguished Military Graduate in the Army ROTC program there. After school and service in Korea, where he earned a Combat Infantryman's Badge to go with his CMB, he married Joanne Paul in 1951. The von Schlemmers had a pretty classic WWII-generation military career in the Infantry. They served overseas and around the nation a lot - Joanne gave birth to children in Okinawa, Japan; Fort Benning, Georgia; Frankfurt, Germany; and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
His career was split between schooling at Fort Benning and Fort Leavenworth, and infantry and intelligence jobs in the US, overseas, and he got stuck at the Pentagon, as most Colonels do. His career included commands in Korea and notably with the Old Guard in Washington, D.C., for President Kennedy. If you've seen the footage of President Kennedy's funeral - you've seen the Baron's work. After more than 30 years service to the nation, he retired from the Army to continue his service in a different vein - to his adopted home of Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth.
He and Joanne spent years sponsoring officers from around the world who were attending the Command and General Staff College. Sponsorship means they picked up the officers and their families at the airport, helped them get settled and through the bureaucratic maze of getting an identity established in the US - housing, banks, cars, licenses, etc. They sponsored officers from all over the world, especially the Middle East and Northern Africa — a part of the world that Baron loved and whose cultures he greatly respected. Every summer, he taught "American" to the teenage sons and daughters of visiting officers.
Baron was a committed historian and a good teller of the story, serving as the preferred tour guide of the fort and the surrounding area for visiting dignitaries and performed in the “Living Museum” in downtown. He also served this community through work with the Kansas Governor's Board of Tourism and Leavenworth Convention and Visitors Bureau. He recently received the Tourism Ambassador award from the Leavenworth Convention and Visitor's Bureau. Robert was an active Mason with the Scottish Rite, Hancock Lodge. He was dedicated to the Rotary Club of Leavenworth, High 12 Club and the Acacia Fraternity, UCLA Chapter.
Not to worry, the Baron's legacy of service and care has been well-established. He is survived by his wife, Joanne; his daughter, Gretchen of Sonora, Calif.; and his sons, Paul of Ridgecrest, Calif., Kurt of Kansas City, Mo., and Mark of Lawrence, Kan., and their families. He had six grandchildren and recently one great-grandchild - and all those soldiers, US and foreign, who served with him or who were, in a sense, served by him - and he is well-remembered in the community, where he had a real, day-to-day impact, where he lived up to, no, exemplified, the motto of Rotary...
Service above Self.
Rotary meets Wednesdays for lunch at the Riverfront Community Center in Leavenworth. Baron's visitation is at the RCC today.
I'll see ya for lunch today at the Riverfront, one last time, Baron. To say goodbye.
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam for Colonel Robert von Schlemmer.
Update: I'm back from the service, which was actually great fun, to see pictures of the Baron before I knew him. It brought back a lot of memories of "Growing Up Army." Some of you may read this and think to yourself, "Okay, got it - important to you, nice guy, etc - but other than that, so what?"
Well, leaving aside all the other answers, I'll provide this, as a direct answer, especially to those of you who live in the area, or are soldiers.
This. This is a direct impact.
There was a representative from former General and Secretary of State Colin Powell at the service. Bob von Schlemmer is mentioned more than once in General Powell's book - because while others took the public face of the project... Bob von Schlemmer is one of the key people behind why there is a Buffalo Soldier Monument at Fort Leavenworth - and it would be a far different looking monument if not for his "devil's advocacy" regarding the design. That alone is a lasting legacy worth noting.
Ry goes on considerably about he cost calculation and, indeed, notes that the deaths in the ensuing 50 years of Cold War were less horrible than another potential world war or nuclear war with the USSR. I would agree. However, I disagree that it is a viable calculation today because it is, in fact, comparing apples to oranges. Insisting, as it were, that the same equation could be used in determining whether an up front war with Iran is more or less costly than a long war of containment and terrorism.
We do not start at the same bottom line with Iran as we did with the USSR. Let's start with the starting number: 72 million.
According to Wikipedia, approximately 42 million military and civilian deaths were directly attributed to the war. Another 6 million Jews in the holocaust and 25 million who died from famine or disease as an indirect result.
Yes, the few million people who died in the ensuing years does seem like a bargain compared to the possibilities of another large scale war that was later overshadowed by the potential for a nuclear holocaust. No one denies that. But, we shouldn't overlook the fact that people did die during those years due to the conflict and that many still suffer the consequences today.
Nor should we overlook the fact that we are not starting at the same point in this discussion. The same number of people have not died in the lead up to this discussion or a possible war and contrary to some 90 day rule from nuclear energy to nuclear warhead, there is no such indication that Iran has or will be capable of a nuclear warhead in the next 90 days or even 90 days after war might begin.
In WWII/Cold War money, we have not spent nearly as much. Nor have we suffered the same sort of military casualties. And, as Ry mentioned, we have not mobilized anywhere near the capacity we could for war (ie, manufacturing, recruiting, etc). Not that it would be easy or popular today, but it is always about whether the cause or cost is too significant to disregard.
Still, let us talk about death calculations because it is obviously a necessary calculation. So, how many have died to date as Iran has sought to spread its revolution and political power over the region or further? How many will die in the ensuing years of containment without nuclear weapons in Iran's hands? How many more die in an escalated ideological, imperial Iranian drive with a nuclear weapon? How many are at risk or could die in nuclear strikes, even minimal, should the "rational state" calculation turn out to be wrong?
How many die during a military intervention or outright invasion?
It's possible and probable that upwards of a million people could die in Iran in a direct conflict. Maybe more.
Does that calculation equal, in anyway, on the same grand scale, as the calculation that was made at the beginning of the Cold War? Or, even, a historical evaluation of those events being "worth it"?
Apples and Oranges.
If we want to count up the dead, we might keep our eye on what happens when Iran actually does control 1/3 of all oil in the ME with a nuclear weapon. How many people die when fuel does run short? When prices are either driven up by Iranian demands to reduce production in OPEC? Or, simply by the even greater escalating price due to the fear of extracting or exporting oil under the umbrella of a nuclear Iran?
The repercussions go beyond the US, the EU or the ME and branch out into countries around the world since energy will be diminished, food, medicine, clothing and shelter will rise dramatically. More than they are today.
How many millions have to die for the second Cold War to be considered a complete disaster compared to direct war?
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...
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).
********************************
'Nuff said. H/t, Jim D. -the Armorer
******************************** Remember this? There was every indication that things were headed down a familiar path. It's all not entirely out of the woods, but yesterday she saw the proof: miracles still happen.
McCain Trusted More on the economy and Iraq. You think? And people don't like tax hikes and that a McCain presidency would lead to victory in Iraq though there is a small majority (52%) of Americans who, paradoxically, believe its more important to bring the troops home than win the war.
I wonder what order they asked the questions in? Because, if you can get victory, why would you leave? The question we keep booting around here. -Kat
Today, in the comments to the 'bullets' post, I made a passing reference to "Blazing Saddles."
Then, checking email, I find this: Harvey Korman died yesterday. I always liked Mr. Korman as an actor. SWWBO and I got to see him and Tim Conway doing their act at the Silver Legacy in Reno, and it was worth twice the price of admission. As Mel Brooks told the AP:
"A world without Harvey Korman -- it's a more serious world," Brooks told the AP on Thursday. "It was very dangerous for me to work with him because if our eyes met we'd crash to floor in comic ecstasy. It was comedy heaven to make Harvey Korman laugh."
Mr. Korman served in the Navy, so, "Fair winds and following sea, sailor."
Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam, for Harvey Korman. -the Armorer
*********************************
This came to me with the tag of "Another tempest in a teapot". Perhaps. But it still works at cross-purposes to what the US is trying to accomplish in Iraq. -the Armorer
Those young men and women, serving a government without the guts to even talk about a draft, are essentially indentured servants. Worse. At least indentured servants knew when their obligation would be over
*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 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 that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I had a liberal tell me one time, "Flamethrowers are barbaric and should not be allowed for use in modern warfare." This from an idiot who called me "baby killer" because I served as an airborne grunt and sniper. "So," I innocently (yeh, right!) asked, "There are appropriate modern wars?" He was still choking as I walked away, destroyed by his poor grasp of logic and PC thinking.
For the flamethrower, he should always be aware of the warning, "BACKBLAST AREA CLEAR?"
posted by Alan Briley, RN on May 30, 2008 9:05 AM
I'm not a Lib, but I do also think that flame-throwers are barbaric and unnecessary. I'm also having a problem with the US not signing the ban on cluster bombs signed by 111 other countries today. The excuse "we'll diffuse the uxo's better" just doesn't fly. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/05/30/cluster.treaty/index.html
posted by AFSister on May 30, 2008 12:28 PM
How about "The Chinese and Russians aren't playing, either."
Does that help?
Cluster munitions are a clear menace. But when you built your doctrine around them, it's foolish to just toss 'em over the side without having made the requisite adjustments.
And we are actually working on reducing the dud rate. And there is a lot more training in when to use them (they were almost a default choice, back when the SU was the major threat) and the ROE for their employment is much more strict - moreso than the ones in place for Kosovo.
And while flame weapons may appear barbaric, and there is no arguing they are nasty ways to die, they don't seem so bad when your alternative is to go into the caves and bunkers and winkle the bad guy out with small arms.
Of course, now we just bury 'em in the bunker and let 'em suffocate or starve.
At the sharp end, AFSis, it's an ugly business.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't do what we can to reduce it - and especially the post-conflict threat, but I'm not sure spending 10 minutes bleeding out with your intestines dangling around your knees is all that better a death.
Heh. When are they going to get around to thermobarics and stuff like MOAB?
From my standpoint, it isn't the dud rate. It's the 'wars over, let's go home' attitude. There's more to it than that. The 'flailtank' and other things like that make this a non-problem if people stick around to clean up their mess.
I'm just waiting until someone dies from the lack of mines(and soon to be clutermunitions) and the rise of people who scream about why we didn't 'do everything'. Kind of like we saw with body armor and humvees. It's all morally superior until someone loses an eye.(What did they put into this lemonade? I seem really caustic the last couple of days.).
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 1:53 PM
So, we double-teamed 'em on the handing out coins.
As for Mr. Reeves - yes, Mr. Reeves, it *is* a professional Army. One far, far, far more professional, and better treated, better trained, better equipped and subject to less personal danger, than any draftee army that preceded it.
And that's taking nothing away from those draftee soldiers, who, despite the shortfalls and shortcomings, did amazing things - that's just putting credit where it's due.
Ok, we'll take it from the top.
The poster - too funny! Love the non-PC caption.
Flamethrowers - I have never been in combat and it is highly unlikely that I ever will be. That said, I want my miltary to have every weapon at their disposal. I also want them trained on every weapon possible. To paraphrase the CNO, I never want my military to go into a fair fight, I want them to have every advantage.
Also, if you throw out flamethrowers because they are barbaric - what next? I am told being gut shot is a slow painful death. So, will we say that our military should only take the shot if it will be a clean headshot and quick and painless death?
Everything to do with McCain - Yeah, I know, he's fab. Shut up and vote for him. Bye, Susan, mind the door.
Harvey Korman was a Sailor? Good deal!
The Marine(s) and the coins. He's lucky I wasn't there. I would've smacked him upside the head so hard his eyes would have rolled! What the hell was he thinking? Answer - he wasn't. Clearly.
I don't think there really is a point where war isn't barbaric. Killing and injuring people isn't exactly chardonnay and chit chat with gentle classical in the background.
But there is better and there is worse.
I really best shut up about the chocolate, i'd just get into trouble.
Good grief. Seriously with the chocolate? Someone (several someones, actually) has ENTIRELY too much stinking time on their hands. Really...all of the time, effort, brainpower, and money that went into creating that piece of...work couldn't have been used for something more, um, useful? Really?
Dumb question, are flame throwers still in inventory?.....And the only good way to die offhand ,is getting snuffed by a jealous 30 year old husband on your 85th birthday.
posted by big al on May 30, 2008 10:09 PM
The US Army flamethrowers went out of the inventory during/right after Vietnam. They were replaced by a rocket system, which was still in inventory in the 80s, anyway.
With the proliferation of rockets like the LAW and AT-4, and the profusion of 40mm grenade launchers, the flamethrower wasn't seen as worth the risks to the operator, nor provisioning of fuel, etc, as the tactical mission was covered. Same thing is true of napalm, really. With the irony in this discussion being that napalm was considered replaceable because of... cluster bombs.
I agree there really isn't a "good" way to die if you're going to start comparing gut shots to fire, however, anyone who has been burned will tell you that it's about the most painful thing you'll ever endure. It's also a slower death if you survive the initial fire. Think about the Marine who recently died in San Antonion. He suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns over something like 90% of his body- and lived... for 3 years. Burn risk reduction is why the military banned UnderArmor thermals- they're nylon and melt when exposed to heat. The saying goes "cotton kills" when you're talking about cold weather gear, but so does melting nylon.
Replacing naplam with cluster bombs is rather ironic. Heh.
Considering that China, Russia and the United States are probably the most prolific users of cluster bombs, it doesn't surprise me that those three countries wouldn't sign the ban. Maybe technology has improved the "dud rate", but not enough is being done to rid the world of unexploded cluster bombs. There's a huge move to rid the world of unexploded land mines, but not enough on these cluster bombs from what I've read.
posted by AFSister on May 31, 2008 10:15 AM
There's a huge move to rid the world of unexploded land mines, but not enough on these cluster bombs from what I've read.
*That* I can agree with. You have to prepare to spend a lot "after the war" to clean up the effects. And if the locals won't/can't/shouldn't do it, then we have an obligation to do so (absent starting a war again...).
On the other hand, Argent, the non=pretty colors make them harder to find for disposal too. Double edged sword, that. There's ways of doing this, and then there's accepting that wars are icky. Sometimes.
(which I did, yesterday)...and the supply nightmares associated with... what with the doom and gloom of Wolfwalker, Canoneer #4, Kevin, et.al., regarding the pending collapse of the Republic, and the fear by El Borak, Terry and others of the overall collapse of civilization, a fair number have expressed the desire to retreat to the Castle, break open the Arms Room, and fort up.
Oddly enough, I'm not quite that down about things, but it never hurts to be prepared. There is a problem, however.
The Castle Arsenal is not an Armory. It has many weapons, to be sure... but it has many calibers, too.
And there are at least 6 calibers not therein represented. So, you're going to have to put in orders for which weapon you want issued to you - and then you're going to have to BYOBullets. I suggest you get your reservations in fast - the 7.62 NATO, 7.63x39, 7.62x54, .303, 30-06, and 5.56 weapons will go fast. If you need some help checking out the available calibers - click here.
Who's going to carry a flintlock? And somebody is going to get stuck with the muff gun, the Webley .25ACP.
Oh. The two rounds at the extreme right - those are a 60mm and 81mm mortar cartridge, not shotgun cartridges. I just realized I left out the 12 gauge riot gun cartridge... No, don't ask. The M97 is spoken for. SWWBO has it.
Update: Since Argent asked in the comments, "What's the fluffy thing..." I thought a little larger pic was in order. AW1 Tim adequately explained what it is - a .57caliber paper cartridge - but here's a picture. Argent: On top = fluffy. On the bottom = paper cartridge.
Simply put, you took paper, sufficient to hold the bullet and powder charge, and laid it on a flat surface. Put your bullet on it (to the left in the shot), and the powder behind it. Wrap up the paper and tie it off. In action, rather than up-end your musket, grab your powder flask, measure in the powder, drop your flask (on a sling, of course) reach into your box and get a bullet, etc, you grabbed a cartridge, bit off the end, poured the powder down the barrel and then stuffed the bullet, paper and all, into the muzzle and rammed her home, the paper acting as a wad. Made things simpler and faster - always good to simplify when you are going to ask people to do it under great stress.
And you really don't want to be the person getting the Webley. It's *small*.
I'll take one of the modified flintlocks. I felt I could actually see the sights and target simu. with it because of it's length. Besides, I'm sloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-breath-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow on the trigger so a semi-auto or otherwise would be a waste of time.
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 7:12 AM
***Wildly raises his hand*** Me - me - me!!! I wanna Diddle Cricket aka .25ACP Webley. If it was good enough for K, in MIB, 'tis good enough for me.
BTW - Love them 60mm Zero Charges.
posted by Boquisucio on May 30, 2008 7:13 AM
The "fluffy thing" appears to be a paper cartridge for either the .577 Enfield P-53/58 types, or mire likely a .58 for the M1855/61/63/63 et al series.
Although, to be honest, the US Arsenals changed production in 1861 to a >57 caliber projectile, so as to serve both the Springfield and Enfield series weapons. Similarly, they went with a .53 caliber to as to serve both the US ,54 caliber series and the foreign .55 arms which were being imported in some quantity.
For keeping heads down, the Springfield/Enfield weapons are pretty good. Although it takes around a minute to reload, it can still penetrate 6" of seasoned white pine at 1,000 yards :) Soft lead, unjacketed, slow velocity and high mass makes for quite an impression on the target.
Easy to clean, too. Just hot water and rags and some sweet oil to wipe it down with before you put it to bed.
Knowing my own skill set, I may have to volunteer to pass the ammunition (and cook!!) rather then be on the front lines, if it's all the same to you. I used to be a good shot with a rifle, but that was years ago. I have no idea if my poor eye sight would now mean I can't hit the broad side of a barn, but it's not unlikely. I will do what my leaders tell me to do, including shoot at people/things. However, unless you just need cannon fodder in the shape of an old woman with a few good years left in her, I think I will not claim a weapon. I'll take what you give me and do what I am told. Will that work for you??
posted by Terrymum on May 30, 2008 9:52 AM
Ah, heck, I'll take the flintlock. I have a fair history of beating people with blunt objects.
Hmmm - I want the weapon with the largest capacity, of course :-) But since I've been playing hooky from class, the Armorer will have to edumacate me on the options in that area.
Whatcha got that fires one of the 7.62 sizes and has a high-cap clip?
If she abases herself properly, I *might* allow her to have the 3-round Berthier M1890 carbine. If she *really* abases herself properly, perhaps the Bethier M1916, with the 5 round, CLIP-fed magazine.
Heh. You *coulda* had the crank-fired belt-fed M1919A1 in 7.62 NATO, with Ry as your AG, but noooooo, not now. Not after you commit the clip/magazine heresy!
Seeing the price of Wolf or Bernaul 7.62 x 39 nowadays, you can't imagine how often I pat myself on the back for stocking up with dozens of spam cans of it that I purchased during the late 90s. It's doubled in price since.
I'm usually not that smart.
posted by GunTrash on May 30, 2008 10:50 AM
That explains your upcoming rotator-cuff surgery then... all that back-patting.
I have a 1903-A3 Springfield, several .308 bolt actions, 2 AR-15's, a stainless Colt Commander, a commander size Para Ordnance in .45 ACP, .357 revolvers (5 r 6?), .32 ACP's, an SKS, numerous .22RF and .22WRF, MK4 Enfield in .303 British, hand & a half sword, calvary saber, katana, khukhri, multiple fixed blade knives, improvised explosives knowledge, ....
Maybe I'll share...?
posted by Alan Briley, RN on May 30, 2008 11:43 AM
Fine ... I'll just bring my own shotguns and sidearms. :-P
Oh, great. NOw people are bringing their own. That means I'm going to get stuck on the building of defenseworks(earthworks, trenches, nasty trap holes) detail. Man(kicks floor).
And I'm not going to ride the Trebuchet in the Bailey to be the Airborne of Argghhh!, period. There's still not enough cheetos in KS.
And if we're all holing up at John's, I think we need a bigger goat.
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 12:51 PM
ry,
I'll help with the breastworks, moat, sniper hides, OP's, and other defensive positions. Building and placement of booby traps, clearing fields of fire, range cards, pre-positioned coordinates for H&I fires, and other errata. Just don't make me an officer. Grunt or any NCO position would be appreciated. Plus, I love to parachute...!
Alan
posted by Alan Briley, RN on May 30, 2008 12:58 PM
Happiness is .... ammoman.com baby! Free shipping!
Arsenal= where you make them.
Armoury= where you keep them.
Sorta like the difference between clip and magazine.
Cheers
posted by J.M. Heinrichs on May 30, 2008 4:10 PM
True enough - except that in the US, we've been inconsistent with that.
Like fusilier and fusileer.
We have had arsenals where we stored things, and armorys where we made things.
And Castle Argghhh! is a manufactory. Well, more accurately (and legally, as we've paid no Special Occupation Tax as a manufacturer or gunsmith and do no work for others or original building from scratch), an assembly, finishing and rebuilding facility, including both firearms and ammunition.
BM-59, tanker model. Hands down my favorite 'long gun'. The Italians finally did something right besides pasta. Take a M1 Garand and add a magazine to it. Fantastic lil' weapon in 7.62. Easy to maintain, deadly accurate and comes to point in a second.
Love my M1A1, but I'd chose the BM anyday. It's a joy to shoot and has the round to knockdown.
None o' that sissified .22 stuff here, 7.62 IS stopping power. And, isn't that what we want?
posted by Kevin on May 30, 2008 5:14 PM
I hope Springfield/Enfield users can do better than 1 aimed shot per minute; good troops could manage three shots/min with flintlock muskets a couple generations earlier, and the Minié ball made loading the later muskets faster.
Even I could manage two/min with a flintlock, until I ran out of cartridges, and I'm old and shaky. (I was shaky before I got old, but still...)
Even after fouling started to get in the way, two shots per minute ought to be doable with a Springfield type musket.
posted by steveH on May 30, 2008 11:24 PM
Given that the AmmoMan.com doesn't seem to have any 303Br in stock, I better bring over a few bandoliers with rounds in stripper clips to the party! Will about 500 do? I can't remember if you have a N04 Mk1 T, but if you do I'll have that.
I always used to tell my mates that if things went to hell, they could come here for a rifle and a bandolier, and bring me back more rifles and ammo after using the donations!
posted by SezaGeoff on May 31, 2008 7:25 AM
steveH ,
Well, the problem with the 2-3 rounds per minute is that it never did happen. The "3 rounds per minute" but that historians keep talking about is a myth. It is based upon the bench trials conducted for the M1855 series under ideal conditions and with properly sized and prepared cartridges.
There is also a world of difference between a smoothbore and a rifle regarding fouling issues. It's true that a soldier could, in all likelihood, get off 10 rounds or so at 2 rounds per minute when well trained. However, the fouling built up so fast that after the initial bundle of 10 rounds, loading became progressively more difficult. At Glendale and Gaines Mill, for example, there are numerous accounts of soldiers being unable to use their rifle muskets because of fouling issues, of men loading a round by pounding the rammer against a stone or tree, and letting fly with both cartridge and rammer.
The US Army's solution was to adopt the William's Patent cleaner bullet. For those unfamiliar with it, it was a standard minie round with a zinc washer at the base through which passed a metal slightly cone-shaped rod. When fired, the rod was driven into the washer's center, which expanded the washer and scraped the barrel clean of fouling. It also kicked like a mule. One or sometimes two of these rounds were included in every packet of 10 paper cartridges. The Army's mistake was to wrap them in blue or green paper, rather than the ordinary colour paper and the men could easily distinguish them and toss them away.
Some things never change L)
Anyway, over the course of an engagement, although initial rate of fire may be higher, the average is 1 round per minute, or even less, dependant upon the conditions and the ability of the men to clear fouling.
Respects,
posted by AW1 Tim on May 31, 2008 8:54 AM
Geoff - I do, indeed, have a (T). Looking for the transit case and scope can, if any are laying about.
I'll start with a note that the dead are, indeed, dead and, if they could speak at all, might simply voice the opinion that they would have liked to have lived.
There are certain calculations in war and peace that do, in fact, force us to decide what exactly we can live with as a cost for either. But, in order to make those calculations, we need to understand the starting point. Possibly, even agree on it. That starting point must begin with at least one fact: Iran does not have a nuclear weapon - yet.
I find it some what egregious that the argument for learning to live with a nuclear Iran assumes that we must accept that they will have a nuclear weapon or that we should begin our approach to Iran as if they already had one. Why are we precluding the prevention of those circumstances? Even unto military intervention of one stripe or another?
Second, in making that acceptance a center of our approach, we elevate Iran far above its actual current station that is politically, economically and militarily inferior to the United States. I don't mean to imply that it makes Iran less dangerous nor that their capabilities should be ignored nor even that it implies we should take whatever actions we like including immediate military intervention. However, no one has yet to give an acceptable answer as to why we should handicap ourselves and make Iran equal at the negotiation table.
This isn't a sport where sportsmanship demands each participant have an equal start or equal chance at winning the game. This is national survival and the state should seek to have the strongest position possible to insure it can have the most options available in dealing with another state. It is one of the reasons that I eschew the idea voiced by Senator Obama that he would reach out and seek an audience with Ahmedinejad without pre-conditions, thereby, doing exactly that: elevating Iran and Ahmedinejad's political position.
That is exactly what it would be and it would not only give the Islamic Republic cache in its own country, but on the world stage. Historically, every act of recognizing Iran or attempting to negotiate with it has led to Iran insisting they had the upper hand and, very often, rejecting negotiations all together. Believing, if you will, that they have already achieved their goal by a simple act and going forward from there. It's a brilliant political move on their part, but hardly imbues negotiations or "talks" with them with some greater value for us or any other erstwhile supplicant.
One idea is that elevating them may force them to grow up into a rational state and jettison their revolutionary ideas. Much, as was contended, as was accomplished with the USSR. I have to disagree with that considering the current political realities of Iran.
Most people look at Iran and see a state run by religious authority that came to power in the revolution. That is true in so far as the Grand Council still remains the guiding power. Many people also consider these men to be "the revolutionaries" since it was their ideas and leadership in 1979 that overturned the Shah's government.
However, the real revolutionaries were the students and Ahmedinejad was a key member. It is suggested that the Khomeinists had neither expected nor advocated for the taking of hostages at the US embassy and that it was a stand alone plot by the students that Khomeini was forced by circumstances (and possibly good political positioning) to support lest he lose the zealous revolutionary followers. There was and is a split within these revolutionary clerics as to whether they should pursue external revolution or simply concentrate on insuring control of Iran and its continuation as the embodiment of the Islamic idea.
Today, it is these same student revolutionaries who are quietly, and not so quietly, consolidating their power over Iran. They have maneuvered to place supporters on the Grand Council who will pick the next Ayatollah and have "purged" clerical allies from public office. When I say "they", I am speaking of Ahmedinejad and his other "former" Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, many of whom were the original revolutionaries. These men are indoctrinated with the revolution and their responsibility to grow it including outside of the Iranian borders.
These men also consider that the Council and many clergy there have lost their way from the revolution. They believe Iran is being pulled inexorably towards western culture and politics. They mean to re-instate the revolution and stop the slide as they see it. One of the reasons that they do reject open relations or simply talking to the US and others. With the IRGC at the controls, they believe that the clergy will be forced to support them or end up losing power and becoming figureheads under the new revolution.
In a paradoxic twist, the Mad Mullahs may end up being the cautious moderates in the face of a resurgent revolution. That is the issue that plagues the question of who exactly will have control of a potential nuclear Iran. Or whether, as has been suggested, it could be "grown" into a "rational state" a la the USSR. At least in any time that will preclude the deployment of nuclear weapons or any other egregious act.
Ok you have a grande point on the they don't have the nukes yet and what is can mean. However, your arguments from the beginning have been on the basis of when they get them. And they will, they know their survival depends on it nationally and personally.
Of course there's here and now negotiation tactics but the fact is Iran and the US are not negotiating so it's irrelevant. Iran needs them the US demands they not have them. The scope for talks is really small. On this basis the US either takes non-talk action or does not. So far it has not.
I'm not so sure I'm with you on Ahmedinejad being more extreme. Can you back this up?
I am squarely in the camp that takes the position that Iran cannot be allowed to possess nukes, no matter the cost. The cost to accept a nuclear-armed Iran is too great for civilization, let alone the United States to bear.
I reject your consideration of the governing powers of Iran as rational actors. They have yet to demonstrate any rational diplomacy. rather, they continue to ejaculate inflammatory rhetoric and pronouncements aimed primarily at Israel and secondarily at the west. They continue to reject the concept of Human Rights and are well on their way to stripping both Universities and all libraries of any western influence through mass book burnings.
Iran is the world's leading state-level sponsor of terror, funding Hamas, Hezzbollah, and helping to train thousands of foreigners in nefarious means to use against the west.
On that last basis alone, we must conclude that Iran seeks nuclear weapons in order to carry it escalated attacks against the west, especially Israel and the United States.
We must listed to what Iran is saying and take them at their words. We cannot do less, because to do less is to follow the same course that permitted Hitler to take power and start the conflagration of WWII.
Everyone believed Hitler wasn't serious. No one wanted to take him at his word(s). Governments everywhere considered his actions and speeches and propaganda as just politics, just sabre rattling and nothing more.
Iran is acting in the same manner. Iran is stating plainly it's intentions and is rapidly arming itself to carry out those intentions.
We decline to take action at our own peril.
And yes, I am well aware of the risks and costs associated with such a move on our part. My own son leaves for basic in 2 week's time.
posted by AW1 Tim on May 30, 2008 7:33 AM
"We decline to take action at our own peril."
I agree, and I worry that the administration doesn't appear ready to take that action. I fear that we don't have the will to take action, and that worries me.
I find it some what egregious that the argument for learning to live with a nuclear Iran assumes that we must accept that they will have a nuclear weapon or that we should begin our approach to Iran as if they already had one.
Could it be because, well, everyone that actually has a nuclear power program can turn out a working device in 30-90 days? Japan, S. Africa(though they abandoned, they could go back quickly), one of the Viking country nations(forget which, but their whole program is deterrence by proxy), India(remember all that rumbling about how US help would mean proliferation? That wasn't just talking out of one's butt.), etc.
If one accepts that Iran has nuclear power one also accepts that they have, at least in potential just like Japan, nuclear arms. Period. Them's the facts.
Why are we precluding the prevention of those circumstances? Even unto military intervention of one stripe or another?
I'm not precluding anything. I'm just asking if it's smart and in our favor to buy cantelope for $9 of for $2, so to speak. Why pay more for something when I can get the same damn thing for a whole lot less. (But, apparently, that means I'm insane and not serious.)
Second, in making that acceptance a center of our approach, we elevate Iran far above its actual current station that is politically, economically and militarily inferior to the United States.
Or, perish the thought, alternatively, we could actually be accepting the reality on the ground: they are Numero Uno in the ME militarily and all that comes with it. We can start down a path of muscular confrontation, and all that that entails, or we can take a cheaper path that gets us to the same spot, accepts the facts on the ground, and takes a little longer.
This is national survival and the state should seek to have the strongest position possible to insure it can have the most options available in dealing with another state
Exactly, which is why you're talking out of your butt about detering them from obtaining nuclear weapons. It's the great equilizer. It's the only way they could ever really accept security garauntees from us or anyone else in the West. They've taken Teddy Rex to heart. They cannot be talked out of it, they can't be intimidated out of it, no economic carrots are going to be enough since for them it's national survival on the line.
You're a bit off with the initial Ayatollah, too. The Pasdaran aren't only the Iranian SOF, but also the Gestapo or the internal security forces of the USSR for the Mullahs. They don't like you, the Padaran makes you disappear. If Ahmedinejad and his rabble rousers were as powerful and a threat to the Mullahs like you claim he'd be dead. He's the Tragedian in Lewis' The Great Divorce. His chain gets shaken and he does his little monkey dance. In a paradoxic twist, the Mad Mullahs may end up being the cautious moderates in the face of a resurgent revolution.
Nothing paradoxic about it. They understand that they are a nation-state, and have been since Jimmy decided to negotiate instead of replanting the Shah as gov't head(and, it's kind of hard considering that doing so would've given the Sovs good reason to get involved to support friends like the IRC who talked a "Liberation Islamism" line at the time). They've got Great Power concerns. They know what's up(and the guerilla warfare is a tool of great powers. That could be holding us up so that a Shia majority secures the Iranian left flank, and not some bit of Revolucion! idoelogy spreading as previously contended.).
I fear that we don't have the will to take action, and that worries me.
It isn't will. IT's resources. It's also brains. This may or may not be the best play. Far more serious study needs to be done before one makes this call. Whether one's kid is in it or not. YOu cannot forget the scale of misery you're unleashing here. If we can avoid that while still getting our way, predominately, why not?
Mussolini was right in that blood is the grease of history's wheels(it was said slightly differently in the play Major Barbara too) it's a question of how much, not if. Which was J's point from the other day, by and by.
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...
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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A serving Canadian officer publicly spanks an American deserter and all those morally bereft cretins who would support him up here north of the 49th. - Damian
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From the email box this afternoon:
I am not a *demagogue*.
I am a *demigod*.
Spelling counts.
Heh.
Three guesses as to which of the deployed Argghhh! correspondents this came from.
--ry
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Kat in GA [Not to be confuse with our own Denizen Kat] is in need of some help.
Good morning, everyone! Just wanted to drop you a note to update you on the status of our Operation Love From Home 2008 4th of July card drive for the troops. Sadly, we are still far, far short of our 5,000-card goal... we have in our possession slightly less than 1,500 cards. We've extended the deadline until JUNE 14, 2008. Please do all you can to help get the word out, and send in a card or two! :) Every single card/letter helps tremendously, and truly makes a very real difference! An empty P.O. Box means less 4th of July Thank You cards & letters going to our troops. :-(
So what is "Operation Love From Home?" - 4TH OF JULY CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS
The Mission: To collect at least 5,000 "thank you" cards for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority of the cards collected will go to a unit currently stationed in an extremely harsh and remote area of Afghanistan.
The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!
The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:
Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052
ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2008.
The Guidelines:
The cards can be handmade or store-bought (letters are just fine, too). This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church and other civic organizations involved in doing something to show support for our troops.
Please do not write the date on your cards
Please, no glitter on the cards. Because of the intended destination of the cards, nothing "shiny" should be sent for safety & security reasons.
For those of you that have been deployed you can attest to the power that receiving mail from home can do for one's moral, it really does mean a lot to them to receive mail.
David M
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Uh-oh. Princess Crabby is going to have connipitions....
General Officer Announcement
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced today that the President has nominated Army Maj. Gen. Ricky Lynch for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general and assignment as commanding general, III Corps and Fort Hood, Fort Hood, Texas. He is currently serving as commanding general, 3d Infantry Division (Mechanized)/Multi-National Division - Center, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq.
*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 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 that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Well, ruin the suspense even. If I put in heliflopter herder 1) everyone would've known it was you and 2) HF6 would've kneecapped me for lying since you're a close second.
Um, since you helped Sky Boss with the formula for mud, aren't they all a little to young for you, Unka Bill?(wait, John filled in all the holes? Dude! where am I supposed to hide now?!)
Heh. Bill, that reminds me of a ventriloquist I saw once who was using a shaggy muppet-type puppet for his show. At one point the puppet started making these hacking, retching sounds in the middle of the show. The exchange with the comic ventriloquist went something like this:
It seems silly to pretend this isn't a shot across my bow, so to speak, so I won't. No, sorry, but I’m not buying this fallacy by emotional plea to the audience argument. And here are the reasons why.
A) Misunderstanding The Cold War
The Cold War, despite the loss of thousands (which is better than 100k increments if you ask me) in the places where proxy wars occurred, did cause one side to be unable to reach its goal. It (oh gawd I hate cribbing from Dan) off-loaded the conflict from one of direct violent confrontation to one of economic, political, and military confrontation, with a resulting lower body count over the same period of time. Fewer broken bodies along the way to victory (sort of like how we study Network Centric and Effects Based Ops to limit the number of bodies necessary to win) how is that a bad deal? Oh, well, I guess it's just manlier to take one's grief in mega-loads all at once, to chug it all beer-like.
Of course one has to remember that the WHOLE POINT of fighting the Cold War as it was fought was one of costs. It wasn’t about changing goals or ends, but of means. No change in the manner in which one fights is ever about taking away an opponent’s goals so much as finding better and cheaper ways of denying the enemy his goals or bending him to your political will (all Clausewitz-like). As much as I dislike George Kennan for becoming an anti-nuclear advocate he was 100% right that we had to change the means in which we thought to pursue our ends or the death counts would be beyond imagination and tolerance of any moral individual. Having so much of Europe emulate the wasteland that the Eastern Front was at the end of WW2 was exactly what he thought would be the result of WW3, and for good reason. Look what came of it with the industrially and economically hobbled Nazis, and now you’re going to talk about the two strongest economies and industrial bases at war’s end going at it. No, this is a twisting of the Cold War in a gratuitous manner. It ignores the issue of scale.
Let’s just skip straight to Party Time, and not even consider other alternatives because, well, people will die if we don’t. As if just as many, maybe more, people won’t also die if we just barrel on ahead with the assumption that the only way ahead is masjor military intervention. Let’s not even consider that there were three options available to us at any point in the Cold War, just as there are, at least, three facing us now, and that we constantly chose the one with the greatest chance of real success and the lowest body count during the CW while we have the possibility of doing the same with Iran in the present. I’m not saying which one that is, so much as saying it is fundamentally necessary to look and evaluate potential pathways before we commit to anything.
We had three major pathways in the Cold War available to us. We could’ve gone the Students for a Democratic Society collaborationist route, which would’ve turned us into communists ourselves, and unleashed a death orgy like we’ve seen in Mao’s Great Leap, Stalin’s Purges, and during Tet at the city of Hue. We could’ve gone with Roll Back, glowed in the dark, and watched humanity be supplanted by the cockroaches, but felt good about ourselves as we died (or while we watched hundreds of millions of others die) because, well, if we didn’t people would die. Which is a weird twist of logic employed here. Instead, we took the path that hurt, called Containment, which got us where we are now vis-à-vis the Soviet Union: we’re here, they’re not, and the path is not littered with as many bodies as it would have with either other alternative. But, nope, despite there being other alternatives available here (at least in potential and worth examining before we say, “Johnnie, get your gun, the commies are in our hemisphere today.”). It’s a pure binary set-up. One orgy of death or another and you have to pick either vanilla or chocolate in some people’s minds apparently. This isn’t ‘nuance’ here; we’re talking about deciding how many people die and why they die here. That’s not nuance. (more below the fold)
Let's just toss aside that Ike, when he first entered office, thought of nukes like bullets, just ordnance to be expended. Let’s forget that early in Ike’s tenure and his Sov counter part’s that threats were hurled fairly consistently over the use of nuclear arms. They were threatened in Korea, over the first Formosa Straight crisis and subsequent ones, and simply as hyperbole at times. But he changed his mind. He realized what he had in his hands, and his policy regarding them changed because of it. So did that of his Soviet counterpart.
But the Mullahs can't do that. They can't realize the horribleness of it. They can't possibly grasp that hitting Israel, which has had, tacitly, our nuclear umbrella extended over them, means that Iran disappears, forever; either by a ruthless campaign that would make Bomber Harris happy, or nuclear retaliation on a much smaller scale than Cold War levels. Yeah, they’re evil, and so that means they’re inherently and irredeemably stupid too. No, there’s no learning curve involved here at all and we can’t even entertain the idea that they might be capable of following the trail Eisenhower blazed at all. We need to just skip straight ahead, regardless of outcomes and costs measured in lives, to Party Time because, well, people are dying.
So it must be that some country winds up a burn-out cinder because Iran would wind up with nuclear weapons or that they’d wind up uncontested in their devious plots. Despite historical evidence to the contrary, that even a nuclear armed state’s cloak and dagger moves can be checked, we cannot even contemplate anything but a full fledged take down. That would be idiotic to do. Sit down, shut up, and hang on is the only acceptable approach so let’s not even waste the time on it, you collaborationist traitors you.
C) Proxy Wars Are Not As Good As The Real Thing
Let’s forget that what tolerated someone making a much more serious threat to the economic life’s blood that is what lays below the ME, with nuclear arms no less, and beat that back cheaply with proxy wars. Turning it into a complex dance of economics, industrial power, and low intensity armed conflict instead of a full-on clash that a Spartan Hoplite would love in all its Technicolor gore and glory (shock battle, baby!) was so stupid and not in our favor in the past so how ever could it be in our favor now? Hundreds of thousands dead directly, millions more indirectly, because we like the direct, “full mobilization of the nation” style of war more is such a smarter play that we shouldn’t even consider this possibility when contemplating what to do about Iran? I've been such a fool.
Last I checked though, we won because our plan was better.
It's not like we could ever accept them as central player in the ME, like we couldn’t accept Soviet control of Eastern Europe or Communists to control continental China for 50 years. It's not like we could ever leverage that to our advantage by having the conflict played out in other realms instead of the purely kinetic and physical one. I mean, bankrupting the enemy to win? It’ll never happen, stupid to contemplate, and a waste of our time. Make with the Great Power Warfare already, regardless of actual costs, people we like are dying.
Economic development and a take down from within (which PRC fears and the Soviet Union disappeared as a result of) has worked in the past. Proxy wars, simply holding someone up instead of stomping their guts out has worked in the past to prevent domination by those we consider evil and depraved. So it would be foolish to consider it now.
The costs of achieving said victories was much cheaper and more likely, when looked at the intact nature of the West and the East at the time of the end of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, via this route. Could the same be possible when talking about a nuclear- armed Iran? Is it possible that we could array forces, in the multiple spheres of conflict, to steer the confrontation to the end we desire like we have in the past? Of course not and it isn’t worth our time to consider the lower cost of lives in pursuing this. Naw, let's just have a Party at Ground Zero.
Sorry, but I’m not buying. Even if one ultimately chooses to do Iran, a full blown invasion because air strikes only kick the can down the road for a spell, you have to examine if it is the best play. If you’re trying to make an argument based on numbers of dead, hell, you’re likely to find you’re in quicksand since a war to end the Mullah-cracy, if one accepts the CW analogy originally adopted, is costlier than letting them be Numero Uno in the ME with nuclear weapons. How many civilians will die there? How many of our Service people will die there, considering that the Pasdaran (the Iranian SOF) *definitely* has taken notes from Iraq and is better equipped than the initial insurgency there? What, you don’t think they won’t fall back on a guerilla strategy?
Don’t forget that, yeah, we can do shadow war right back. We can ram it down their throats just as hard as they try to do it to us. Sure, the costs didn't disappear with this shift away from the direct and physical during the Cold War, but they were lower. Economic sabotage like the faulty computers to Russia is open to us. Cloak and dagger stuff. We can make them build, and build, and build with their very limited industrial base, pushing them to the brink of collapse just like we did for 45 years in the Cold War, with a much lower misery index, but that’s a play for losers. Yeah, this was such a losing play and it still is.
D) Quantity of Suffering and Death.
You want to talk death and suffering? Really? How about how many? That's the point of MAD and the Cold War, as Barnett talks about it, which doesn’t seem to be understood here, the issue of scale.
You'd rather we had particular and discrete conflicts where we talked about 500k casualties, if not more, in ten years instead of 50k in the same period, like Vietnam, and hundreds of billions of dollars of lost economic transactions that then has the ripple effect of millions more who die from 'lack of resources' (things like people dying from treatable diseases, contaminated food supplies because there's no development to do anything about it— the very same ripple effect grabbed onto to denounce the Cold War) because we’ve gutted the infrastructure (Seoul, Korea in 1953, but a bunch of them), instead of proxy wars. So, yeah, people want talk about it this way, fine. People want to deride the Cold War as not having changed anything for the better, fine. You own all of it though. You own the consequences of the alternate path, the blood bath that Roll Back would have been. You own a ruined Europe, some of it uninhabitable from BCW use. You own millions of refugees faced with no hope and mass starvation. You own it.
Same exists here with Iran. There are alternate pathways with different body counts at the end, as costs for traveling it. You accept responsibility for all of it and not just the stuff you like (kicking Iran's heiny), but all the consequences too and the ripple affects in totality as well. Own all of it. All of the dead and not just the one’s you want to accept in some arbitrary manner. All the misery and grief and kids dying from rickets and starvation because you found a classic von Clausewitz-ian fight of annihilation more palatable then a long shadow war, you VD Hanson lover you. Accept responsibility for all the stuff that gets glossed over when talk of being unable to accept a nuclear Iran because of body counts. You.Own.All.Of.It.
Digression: Do you actually feel better when you look at all the consequences of such a bigger, nastier level of war? Do you? I never have. In fact, I can’t ever seem to feel clean whenever I even contemplate this kind of Roll Back/Orgy of Blood type reasoning. It feels good for a few minutes, but when I work out the system of equations I start feeling like Lady Macbeth. So much blood, so much death, and there’s never enough soap to wash it away. End.
When doing the nasty Calculus of Death you don’t get to count only one side of the ledger. You have to do both sides, the whole system of equations. Scale matters. Even if it does make one an @55hole to consider scale.
--ry
Yeah, they’re evil, and so that means they’re inherently and irredeemably stupid too. No, there’s no learning curve involved here at all and we can’t even entertain the idea that they might be capable of following the trail Eisenhower blazed at all. We need to just skip straight ahead, regardless of outcomes and costs measured in lives, to Party Time because, well, people are dying.
and you are assuming that, gaining the nuclear weapon, they will, indeed, grow into this rational being. It's all guess work, compadre. Just looking at their current political affairs where anyone who even looks like or smells like a non IRGC "moderate" is being driven from office ought to give that entire argument a little more pause.
Along with the long held belief in martyrdom that they have supported and acted on in the last three decades.
I'm going by what they have done and you are hoping nuclear tech and/or weapons will suddenly make them something else.
Let's recap:
thousands of children and other non-military, walking across Iraqi mine fields carrying "the key to paradise".
Iranians letting lose with chem weapons that blew back into their own trenches.
That's two in one war and we're not talking about the 1950's when people didn't understand the power of nuclear weapons or the first expression of nuclear arsenals. We're talking about right now when it is well known and has existed for 70 years. Anyone still talking crazy about wanting it or using it and isn't "grown up" already is a serious danger.
for the rest of your argument, you'll have to wait, cause I'm trying to get ready for a conference call.
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 1:33 PM
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 05/30/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Such was the headline that caught my attention over the weekend.
The article discussses the drawbacks to the M855 round for the M16/M4, which was designed (shudder, oh no!) for killing the masses of Cylons, er, body-armored Warsaw Pact troops back in the day. And clearly, it isn't suited for modern conditions. The AP conducted some interviews and says so. You can read it right here.
The smaller, steel-penetrating M855 rounds continue to be a weak spot in the American arsenal. They are not lethal enough to bring down an enemy decisively, and that puts troops at risk, according to Associated Press interviews.
Such as the interview with Sergeant Joe Higgins:
As Sgt. Joe Higgins patrolled the streets of Saba al-Bor, a tough town north of Baghdad, he was armed with bullets that had a lot more firepower than those of his 4th Infantry Division buddies.
As an Army sniper, Higgins was one of the select few toting an M14. The long-barreled rifle, an imposing weapon built for wars long past, spits out bullets larger and more deadly than the rounds that fit into the M4 carbines and M16 rifles that most soldiers carry.
"Having a heavy cartridge in an urban environment like that was definitely a good choice," says Higgins, who did two tours in Iraq and left the service last year. "It just has more stopping power."
Gag me. "Spits out bullets" Faugh. And then conflating "firepower" with "stopping power" as if the terms are interchangeable. The author has a tight grasp of hackneyed phrases. He should let go.
Now, me, I'm a *fan* of the M14. Bar none, my favorite US service rifle. I *like* the 7.62 NATO round it shoots, too. My M1A (civilian equivalent of the M14) is, bar none, my favorite shooter in the Arms Room of Argghhh!. Of all the 7.62 NATO rifles I've carried and fired, I still like the M14. Better than the FAL/L1A1. Better than the CETME. Better than the H&K G3. Tied with the Beretta BM59. Which isn't surprising, given the BM59 and M14 spring from the same heritage. But I also know that I was a big strong fella and humping the rifle and ammo wasn't the drag on me it can be on feathermerchants.
But I admit, while not a fan of the M16 particularly, I *did* like the amount of ammunition I could carry for it. And it was a fine shooter. And I *like* SWWBO's M4-clone. That rifle points extremely well for me, and is a good shooter. But I'd still rather carry an M14. Well, for city fighting, I might well prefer the Springfield Armory M1A SOCOM rifle - if the wound ballistics are still good from that short barrel, it would certainly be handier in close-quarter combat than the M14. Heh. Wonder if I could score one for a review? Prolly not. Booksellers will give books to blogs, but I'm not enough of a gunblogger to score a rifle, I'm thinking...
Do note the premise of the article - and then consider this factoid they snuck in...
In 2006, the Army asked a private research organization to survey 2,600 soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly one-fifth of those who used the M4 and M16 rifles wanted larger caliber bullets.
Emphasis mine.
Meaning, um, 80% didn't express that opinion. Heh. In politics, that's a landslide. If you want to do a little poking at DoD and the Administration, one-fifth apparently represents the sum of expert opinion I suppose. And you'd be surprised how many of that one-fifth included Fobbits who rarely leave the wire but have fully tricked-out rifles.
The last bit in the article hits the nail on the head:
The arguments over larger calibers, Radcliffe says, are normal in military circles where emotions over guns and bullets can run high.
"One of the things I've discovered in guns is that damned near everyone is an expert," he says. "And they all have opinions."
The rest of the article (which, if you are interested in the subject, you should read in its entirety)
runs through the usual discussions of bullets, rifles, marksmanship, and legal issues, etc., that have dogged military rifle/ammunition choices since mankind started using projectile weapons.
And emotions on the subject always run high. Me? I'm not fighting in this war - that has to be my first caveat, I admit I am looking at this from a remove of relative safety. But I don't see a compelling need to shift to a new rifle or new ammunition in the midst of the war, needlessly complicating the supply and procurement issues. SOCOM, with essentially it's own, and much smaller, infrastructure is suited to changing horses in mid-stream. When you talk the rest of the Army, and toss in the Marines, you have complex problems to manage within the defense industrial base and DoD logistics. And then the whines when units go into the box with the "new and improved" rifles/ammunition vice the ones that don't have 'em. And DoD will get hammered either way - because it will either be a better rifle and the ones with old rifles are being discriminated against and put at a disadvantage - or it will have teething problems and the services will be playing contractor favoritism and putting troops lives at risk.
Oh wait, that's already happening. And does anyone remember the fiasco of fielding the M16 in the middle of a war?
For my money, the Infantry needs a new rifle. In that, I'm with the Generals, don't just tweak the current rifle, go ahead and try to get to the next generation. But - I wasn't with the Generals when they were trying to make the next generation rifle the equivalent of a Heinleinian Mobile Infantry weapon.
Yes and isn't there the whole issue of NATO rounds being the same for supply and logistics?
and, I think I recall an issue about the big rounds stopping the bad guy and then coming out the other side to stop some other poor slob standing near by.
Just two othe issues I don't see raised.
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 12:42 PM
Someone out there (SOCOM?) is fooling around with a solid copper 70 grain bullet for 5.56 rounds. That sounds like it would have the ballistics of a knitting needle.
Anyway, if you are concerned about going through a doorway with big bullets, what's wrong with the M3 grease gun?
posted by Fred on May 29, 2008 12:55 PM
Anyway, if you are concerned about going through a doorway with big bullets, what's wrong with the M3 grease gun?
No place to mount a front handgrip, a laser-pointer, a 3x low-light combat scope, mag pouches and a xenon flashlight. And don't forget, the USMC version will call for a bayonet stud, too...
Back in my infantry days, our basic load was 22 20-round magazines, one in the weapon and 3 bandoliers of 7. I used to hump and extra bandolier, 29 magazines all told.
One of the advantages we had was that the bad guys never seemed to have more than seven of their 30-round magazines.
When you're wandering around waiting to get jumped on (technically a reconnaissance-in-force) it's nice to know you can out shoot the bad guys until help arrives.
posted by 11B40 on May 29, 2008 3:25 PM
I know tales of hits-without-success are sexier, but that's probably because they're rarer. We had a big "iron sheik" type with an AK play suicide-by-soldier with us in Baghdad in 2003. A controlled-pair later, one "underpowered" 5.56 to the sternum and he looked like he got hit by a truck. Something about bone/bullet contact. Ok, it was a vital area, but right there I decided not to entertain complaints about effectiveness.
posted by Ironside on May 29, 2008 3:34 PM
If you're ever in Tucson, you're welcome to take my SOCOM-16 out for a spin -- as soon as I get it back from Springfield.
2. In my world, if you're in a shooting war, and you have to reload, you, um, well duck behind something, or at least reload by feel while keeping an eye on the target...
3. Okay, three - and you can answer this in email - what'd ya pay for it? I've been *tempted*...
I hate to seem to be an obsessive 7 millimeter crank, here, but yes I am one, so what can I say?
The M-14 has that awkward magazine sticking out of the bottom. Now, the Krag had a magazine you could top up from the bottom; FIFO. And it didn't stick out anywhere.
John, Have to agree with you on the M1A and the SOCOM. Originally got the SOCOM II with the rails. Bad, bad, bad. Traded it off to a friend for a SOCOM 16, one rail to hold my Trijicon Tripower. Much better. I guess I'm old fashioned and can't see the need for all of the rails. That being said, my favorite rifle is still the Garand. I got a Springfield Armory one in .308 to match the M1A's that I have. You have to go along way to beat the old Garand for shooting fun.
posted by AndyJ on May 30, 2008 5:53 AM
Frangible vs. ball, anyone? no? Okay.
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 6:18 AM
Frangible runs afoul of the Geneva Convention, Ry.
Police can use expanding/disintegrating bullets, soldiers can't.
Mind you, you can eviscerate 'em with a shell fragment, but no dum-dums or things like dum-dums.
And JimB shows up to prove this statement by being contrarian:
The arguments over larger calibers, Radcliffe says, are normal in military circles where emotions over guns and bullets can run high.
"One of the things I've discovered in guns is that damned near everyone is an expert," he says. "And they all have opinions."
There's lots of emotion in the discussion.
And JTG, if I'm going to have to have an integral-magazine rifle, I'll take a Garand, which I at least don't have to load one round at a time.
But if the point is stopping power(meaning, how much it hurts the target, lots of tissue damage) without wory of secondaries, frangible makes sense(it sticks in the walls and the people). Though, sometimes you want it to penetrate the wall so it isn't a perfect fix either.
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 7:07 AM
That's all part of the problem, isn't it? All the rules governing ammuntion, whether STANAGS (Standardization Argeements), the Conventions, etc.
All of those things have to be balanced or renegotiated, and it doesn't matter what you do - someone is going to hate you and call you a heartless bastard who doesn't care for the soldiers and is willing to get them killed for your convenience.
Any choice we make will generate someone with an expert opinion that the choice we just made borders on the criminal.
And whichever politician or just-barely-can-figure-out-which-end-of-the-rifle-the-bullet-exits journo will scream that it's just as bad a situation as Upton Sinclair wrote about in The Jungle. And a third of the serious gun mags will agree, a third will praise the decision, and a third will publish recipes for handloading the cartridge to make it better.
And depending on how you stake your territory, they'll all be correct.
Unlike personally owned weapons, where you can fit and fiddle with myriad choices to find the rifle/cartridge combination that fits your needs, the military rifle has to make a lot of compromises regarding cost, complexity, maintainability, durability, ease of use, and lethality - and has to work for a broad segment of dis-similar people.
We're never going to be at a point where everybody is happy.
All of those things have to be balanced or renegotiated, and it doesn't matter what you do - someone is going to hate you and call you a heartless bastard who doesn't care for the soldiers and is willing to get them killed for your convenience.
Well, when I say this, though more obfuscatedly and much looooonger, you say it's arbitrary(digs a hole real fast and slips away).
posted by ry on May 30, 2008 8:18 AM
Eh? Aside from Rule #1, where I'm always right, whattaya mean?
I've been promising to hook up this new blogger with a link and today seems like a great day to do it. Plus, you know, he's a major and we are very fond of majors around here.
Most milbloggers know Colby Buzzel out of a Stryker company in Mosul. He wrote the book "My War". Well, I don't know if the Major was in the same Stryker Co, but he was up in Mosul at about the same time as Buzzel and at the time that Yon was up their reporting on Duece-Four - The Punishers in Gates of Fire.
We had been on the ground in Tall Afar for approximately 48 hours when we received orders to move to the west side of Mosul and station out of Forward Operating Base Marez. Two days after receiving these orders we were on the road heading for Mosul. The company had completed a replacement in place with our outgoing counterparts in just under 72 hours, a feat in itself to be proud of, but we had not heard our first shot fired in anger yet. That was about to change.[snip]
On the morning of November 8th that changed. We had received orders to escort a humanitarian assistance convoy of back packs and school supplies for the local schools to an area that we had just completed a cordon and search the day before. We suspected that it was a hot bed of insurgent activity but hadn't been able to pin anything down. Luckily we brought three platoons with us on this mission. Thirty minutes after departing the FOB we made first contact. The enemy forces had set a detailed complex ambush within Yarmouk Traffic Circle. They had heavy and light machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, car bombs, IED's, and small arms all trained on the kill zone. The company courageously fought through it, and safeguarded the supplies in cargo trucks back to the FOB. No casualties, nothing lost. November 8th had been a draw, November 9th was our turn..
My name is Major Bryan Carroll. I'm a United States Army Infantry Major currently attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This is the United States Army's equivalent of going to a Masters Degree program at a civilian university. I have served a tour of duty in Iraq as a Stryker Rifle Company Commander, and a tour in Afghanistan as an advisor to the Afghan National Army.
I found the Major's blog via Caldwell's blog about a week ago. Interesting read. Wonder if Colby is going to be able to make it to this year's MilBlogging Conference? I know he's not a fan of large crowds so possibly not. Wonder if the Major will make it?
Well...I almost posted on his leadership post. Probably still will. But, you know, things came up. And, I wanted to see what else he was writing. You know, you gotta give the blog monsters something to chew on to get them interested.
anyhoo...he didn't actually email me. I just saw his note in comments one day and kept reading until I got the bug to link.
I am very much looking forward to going to the milblog conference this year. I've missed the last three. I am also hoping to see LTG Caldwell, et al. I met him at the VFW convention and he was great.
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 12:36 PM
Hello all,
Thank You very much for the kind words. Sorry John didn't mean to have it come across that way. Was more trying to get a foot in the door and figure things out on the fly. Hope you didn't take it the wrong way.
Kat,
Also figured out the connection with Colby. He was a part of 3rd BDE, 2nd ID SBCT. They were our sister Brigade at Fort Lewis and we replaced them in OCT 2004. We probally passed each other at some point.
Again thank you all for your kind words, and any helpful hints or pointers I would love.
I had a lovely long post to split into a series re: Iran, As something important came up that I needed to prepare for, I'll let Amir Taheri speak to some of my other thoughts on the subject. Mainly, another question that we keep batting around like the head of a sheep at a Middle East game of "polo": Is Iran a Rational State or do the Mad Mullahs insist on irrational acts?
The reason is that Iran is gripped by a typical crisis of identity that afflicts most nations that pass through a revolutionary experience. The Islamic Republic does not know how to behave: as a nation-state, or as the embodiment of a revolution with universal messianic pretensions. Is it a country or a cause?
A nation-state wants concrete things such as demarcated borders, markets, access to natural resources, security, influence, and, of course, stability – all things that could be negotiated with other nation-states. A revolution, on the other hand, doesn't want anything in particular because it wants everything.
So, how should one deal with a regime of this nature? The challenge for the U.S. and the world is finding a way to help Iran absorb its revolutionary experience, stop being a cause, and re-emerge as a nation-state.
The answer is simple, though execution seems to be in question:
Mr. Obama wavers back and forth over whether he will talk directly to Mr. Ahmadinejad or some other representative of the Islamic Republic, including the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Moreover, he does not make it clear which of the two Irans – the nation-state or the revolutionary cause – he wishes to "engage." A misstep could legitimize the Khomeinist system and help it crush Iranians' hope of return as a nation-state.
The Islamic Republic might welcome unconditional talks, but only if the U.S. signals readiness for unconditional surrender. Talk about talking to Iran and engaging Mr. Ahmadinejad cannot hide the fact that, three decades after Khomeinist thugs raided the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, America does not understand what is really happening in Iran.
There you have it. The problem with engaging Iran and "learning to live" with a nuclear Iran. It's a bi-polar state. Unfortunately, the "Islamic Republic" "cause" wishes to do more than improve its military, political and economic power in the region; something that is still a challenge to regional stability. The "cause" seeks to dominate globally and ideologically with the eternal revolution.
Iran, the nation-state, is not at war with Iraq, the nation-state (don't bother with the "Iraq isn't a nation-state because it's fragmented" crap -- nobody over *here* is buying that).
Iran's military, under the total control of the mullahs, is shelling Iraqi villages just a few dozen miles from where I'm sitting. And it's been going on for months.
Soooo, the leaders of one nation-state which is not at war with a neighboring nation-state is lobbing artillery into the neighbor's neighborhoods. While fomenting terrorist acts and supplying weaponry and explosives in support of the same.
Guess *whose* finger will be on the button when Iran goes nuke -- if the current status quo remains static...
The same Taheri who was responsible for the "Yellow Badges for Iran's Jews" lies?
Sure, go on, you let him do your thinking for you.
posted by hass on May 29, 2008 6:29 AM
Well, sir, he didn't do my "thinking" for me. I just happened to find his article and thought it expressed what I WAS thinking.
And, you didn't answer the question. Whoever wrote it... he has a point. Is Iran the rational state or is it the Islamic Revolution?
I think both of those are exclusive from one another frankly.
Bill...you make my point from yesterday. Imagine a nuclear Iran and what it would be willing to do under the aegises of that cover when it does some pretty terrible things today?
Of course, Iran knows it can bomb Iraq. Every time someone mentions the possibility of war with them, a whole group of folks going screaming into the proverbial desert. They don't know how to use the threat of war at all.
Or...maybe they do and they already know the answer to my question: that Iran is not a rational actor and, instead of being a negotiation tool, threats of war become the fulfillment of dreams for the Islamic revolution?
In other words, they are afraid the mullahs ARE mad and would take us up on the offer.
Ah, the smell of fresh demagoguery in the morning. Nothing like it.
posted by ry on May 29, 2008 8:31 AM
Ry - do please expound, rather than bleat and run... You are tossing out a personal attack (not sure who at just yet) without defending the premise. Bad form, boyo.
Hass - same thing. You toss out one counter-example, and seemingly I'm supposed to take that as sufficient reason to ignore all subsequent (and, by extension, all previous) thoughts on the subject by Mr. Taheri.
By this logic, I can pretty much exclude almost anything any politician says, because just about all of 'em have some issue or another like that.
Can I now ignore Senator Obama because he can't count the states, can't keep his WWII history and his family's involvement in it straight, etc?
No, I concede not perfectly matching examples, certainly, but sufficient to illustrate the point.
I think everybody needs to take a time-out and go to their rooms and contemplate treatment of their fellow cyberspace pilgrims.
BTW, as Bill pointed out Iran has been playing in Iraq's back yard for a while now. I had a friend taken out by an EFP (made in Iran) in early 2006. But then I also know of 2 soldiers who were "bit" and yet we still here there were never any WMD (BTW, this ain't classified, it was on FOX before the Army asked them to take it down).
posted by Oldloadr on May 29, 2008 10:25 AM
ry's just jealous because my posts are getting shorter than his. ;)
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 10:43 AM
It is, John. It is exactly what i called it. She's even abusing the article. She's only grabbing onto stuff that feeds the idea of a crazy Iran that must be stopped and ignoring all else, like this from the same article:
"So, how should one deal with a regime of this nature? The challenge for the U.S. and the world is finding a way to help Iran absorb its revolutionary experience, stop being a cause, and re-emerge as a nation-state."
You know, the important back half of the article.
That's been the idea at heart of the Barnettian plan for over 2 years. Basically, you treat them like 'big boys' and 'grow' them out of being causeheads and into a country, at which point, and Fareed agrees, they're not a problem anymore because countries are rational. But, no, we'll just continue to harp on feelings of fear to stoke up the fire to do Iran militarily, all else is nonsense. It's 100% in synch with dictionary definition of demagogic.
posted by ry on May 29, 2008 11:40 AM
You know, ry, it must be putting a twist in your panties because, I do believe that I noted Iran is both rational and mad. That wasn't ignoring "half the article" (copyright rules keeping me from putting the entire thing in). That was simply getting to the gist of Mr. Taheri's point. There are two sides to Iran.
Mr. Taheri says you have to be careful which one you're talking to. Yes, he did say we need to grow them out of their revolutionary causes, but then he did make an interesting statement about what exactly grew the USSR out of its revolutionary cause. Which, he doesn't say much of except that we need to do the same for Iran.
Well...if I remember correctly, Russia was collapsing economically, they had their a$$ handed to them in Afghanistan and Reagan said something like "we're backing out of the Salt II treaty" and "Star Wars".
That's when Russia "grew out of" its revolutionary causes. Are you and Mr. Barnett suggesting the same for Iran? I mean, we did just blow a satellite out of mid air and field a missile destroying laser. Maybe we simply haven't been explicit enough to help Iran start growing?
You know, something along the lines of a naval blockade and a brief statement a la cuban missile crisis: "get your mitts off Iraq or its on."
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 12:07 PM
"That's when Russia "grew out of" its revolutionary causes. Are you and Mr. Barnett suggesting the same for Iran?"
Actually, Kat, if you're following history you know they stopped being revolutionaries long before Reagan. That's the point. Containment caused them to. They stopped being revolutionaries and an empire probably in the 50's. Long before Reagan. Reagan just kicked them to the curb. Big difference. Part of it was that someone started treating them like adults instead of a bunch of wannabes or a passing fad. That would be Kennan, in the late 1940s.
They stopped supporting revolutionary causes(wars of national liberation) in 1974, Barnett's Ph.D. thesis work is on this. So, no, you're a tad off there too.
"You know, something along the lines of a naval blockade and a brief statement a la cuban missile crisis: "get your mitts off Iraq or its on.""
Sigh. DIME. That's what we're talking about. A little sabotage here, a little economic carrot there, assassination of a zealot or two, engagement with red telephones, visits to Camp David, maybe even a Diem puppet type thing(but better, no incompetence and further assassinatin of our own puppet.). The full spectrum of national power for the least cost in lives, treasure, and suffering. But saying 'hands of Iraq or it's on!' isn't going to get it done. It didn't win the CW because the USSR didnt end as aftermath of the CubMissCris and it didn't fall because Reagan did a mil build up(it was a critical component, but still only one of many).
Taheri's point isn't that the only path out of this is violent removal of the Mullah's but simply that the Mullah's are a problem. He's bought into the idea that they can't grow out of it. Sort of like Kruschev or Eisenhower couldn't grow out of their misconceptions when they enetered office either. Or St. Ronny for that matter. If all you see in that is 'kill the Mullah's, take over their country' you're not seeing everything that's there.
Remember, they say they aren't scared. Think about that. They aren't scared. UNless you're really willing to go all the way, committ troops and the whole shebang, you can knock it off. They're not going to blink. Saber rattling isn't gonig to work. They want that. It helps them. And committing troops, which may or may not be the right choice, is something they want as well because they believe they can win(see Brecher for naval. Look at a map for all the nice places the Pasdaran can hide with AT munitions and high explosive to make an advance into Iran really costly. They're already winning the 4th Gen Battle by making the cause very essoteric in the media to begin with. So, yeah, let's just say screw it and go. Might makes right, just like in the musical Camelot, right?)
And if there's panties in a twist their yours. You're the one who leaves all kinds of stuff in the bathroom of Argghhh! afterall. It's not my fault if we tripped over them, got angry, and tied knots in them.
posted by ry on May 29, 2008 12:49 PM
Children - enough talk of panties and similar metaphors.
Stick to the point, and quit poking each other in the chest.
I'll go all "dude" with Ry. I can't poke him in the chest or twist his panties? It's not like he's some stranger or something. I did wrangle chickens with him. ;)
Actually, Kat, if you're following history you know they stopped being revolutionaries long before Reagan. That's the point. Containment caused them to. They stopped being revolutionaries and an empire probably in the 50's.
Long before Reagan? 50's? You've got to be kidding me. I think you misunderstand the context of "revolutionary" here. We're talking about exporting their ideology, supporting Communist guerrillas, etc. How many counter efforts did we have to do all the way into the eighties? Africa. South America.
They did not give that up until the eighties and even that was because they got froggy and jumped into Afghanistan where they discovered they weren't the revolutionaries any more, but the establishment.
"Stop being an empire"? So, Reagan's whole "evil empire" thing was a complete misnomer of their status or intentions? Of course, there is a smidge difference between soft empire and hard empire, but it certainly had not stopped them from trying to influence countries, economies and politics well out of their immediate area. Even outside of their hemisphere and region.
And, these groups that they funded and trained were a seriously ideological, vicious lot. My point with the whole "who's going to die first?"
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 3:50 PM
Yeah, but that's Cassie's job.
Okay, you got me for usurptation of job of higher organism. How many potatoes does gollum have to peel?
posted by ry on May 29, 2008 4:30 PM
Long before Reagan? 50's? You've got to be kidding me. I think you misunderstand the context of "revolutionary" here. We're talking about exporting their ideology, supporting Communist guerrillas, etc. How many counter efforts did we have to do all the way into the eighties? Africa. South America.
By this definition we, the US, is a vile revolutionary gov't. We supported how many different guerrilla movements, toppled how many gov'ts(in Africa, in S. America, etc), and shoveled our ideology with Radio Free X. You're setting yourself up. NO, they stopped being revolutionaries when they took up Great Power concerns and turned away from the whole message of the revolution(the little guy). They became an empire, concerned with Power instead of the People, long before Reagan. And let's not forget that there's a difference between what the Sovs supported and what Cuba or China did. They aren't all the same. Che going to Bolivia is not something you can hang on the neck of the Sovs. Much of Africa was under the direction of Maoists(there's a diff between Marxist-Leninism and Mao-sim) or by Fidel. They all didn't play on the same team all the time.
Afghanistan was where they propped up one of their pre-existing puppets. Not the same thing as, say, support for the Sandanistas which was to take down a gov't(you know, revolution).
I left out a word. They became an empire instead of a revolution. "They stopped being revolutionaries and an empire probably in the 50's" insert became before the "an".
And you seem to be skipping on my point in the rebuttal: how many more are you willing to kill in a muscular approach? If death matters so much to you don't you need to take that element into consideration?
And you videotaped. You didn't wrangle, you videotaped and then tried to run some kind of extortion scam on me, She-who-could-pass-for-Brunhilda-in-the-Liebelungeleid(which is why if I was poking Kat in the chest, John, Unka Bill would be hearing me scream all the way in the local market.)
posted by ry on May 29, 2008 5:05 PM
I disagree Armorer, I think hass made a very relevant point. I find it always relevant pointing out weaknesses in the source. If the source is known for porky pies it is not a good source.
I think it's quite reasonable to let the matter rest at that for hass. Others like me or you can decide for ourselves if that's enough for them to reject an article. Man if you put a lot of stock in pollies i'm actually shocked. Hass did not make a personal attack apart from below nor did he make his point unclear. (hello Ry if s/o is a practicing demagoguery you really need to make it clear who and why and it's damn risky business wrangling at that personal a level).
hass' only error imo was deciding Kat's thought confluence means Kat let him do the thinking for her, which is not too unreasonable to say because of the use of his source but is still a presumption which is unnecessarily inflammatory.
Cmon Kat you are cherry picking this article. If this is really about *your* opinion just put it out there without a source. And you know full well copyright may prevent you from quoting the whole article, it most definitely doesn't prevent you from responding to or talking about 100% of it if you desire to.
I really think the ideas aren't too bad at all. Ry's poking holes in them well enough so i don't have to bother. It just seems this is more from you then some dubious source and frankly i have more stock in you. I'd rather you use a source to back up your views with evidence.
Oh Ry, poke holes carefully. You know Kat's pointy finger is sharper and can do it back with great adroitness when you have a little idea of your own to expound.
What? You all want a psycho-analysis of Iran? The guy's an opinion writer and I referenced his opinion as being similar to mine re: split personality.
And, I did not have time to go all detaily on it last night as I had other things to prepare for. Figured you guys could read it and do some of the talking.
posted by kat-missouri on May 29, 2008 8:23 PM
Oh Ry, poke holes carefully.
I haven't gone nullo, Argent. There's a position to defend. It's just someone pretends that because they've stamped QED on it there can be no other valid line of reasoning applied. That, again, they declared QED, a certain interpretation of facts(like, say, proxy wars by someone means they're still revolutionaries while ignoring that we're still supporting revolutionaries too(such as Iranian dissident groups and indirectly the PKK)) so that definition means we're eeeeevil too.) that other looks should not be performed and can never be valid, they've declared with a QED on the matter. Basically, we've got to accept that we *must* invade Iran post haste without reflection or one's being Sen Obama.
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...
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).
The Bon Jovi IED
O Dark Thirty. Memorial Day weekend, not that any of us were really aware of that at the time. Patrolling up and down Route Daytona, the highway stretch that serves as the logistical spinal column for the massive American body draped across this part of Iraq.
"Gravedigger 1, this is X-Ray." My entire vehicle groaned along with me.
Radio calls at this time of night rarely bring good news.
I responded and waited for the details for the latest goat symphony we needed to conduct. "Roger ... move south, to Checkpoint AL5. There's a convoy that has come to a halt on the far side of that checkpoint ... claims they see a box with some wires coming out of it. They need someone to check it out."
H/t, JimC. -the Armorer
*******************************
Sen. Inhofe visiting NLOS-C with Gen. Casey Photo by U.S. Army May 23, 2008
Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. George W. Casey traveled to Minneapolis for rollout of the first Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) Cannon prototype at the headquarters and central engineering site of BAE Systems. U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) accompanied Gen. Casey to the event, where they toured the BAE Armaments Systems facility and participated in a press conference. In front of the NLOS-C after its first operational test and public appearance, from left to right, Lt. Col. Robert McVay, Brig. Gen. David Ogg, Sen. Jim Inhofe, Gen. George Casey, and Col. Bryan McVeigh.
Heh. Isn't that thing taller than a Paladin? And that oh-so-contrived "Lookit us, we're thinking outside the box!" name... NLOS-C. Heh. Gad, they've spoiled the lines of my beloved artillery, managing to make the guns... *spugly*.
Sigh. -the Armorer
**********************************
The fight over the F-22 continues.
--ry
*********************************
*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 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 that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I am a firm believer in "Peace Through Strength". The threat of a US attack (air, ground, or sea) has kept our enemies at bay for hundreds of years. When we start to weaken our military through reduced funding and lack of vision, we weaken America and make ourselves vulnerable to attack.
AFSis, more accurately, the threat of US retaliation has kept us more moderately safer since 1945. Before that, most players figured us for minor league, and too far away to be worth the bother.
it appears to meet all the criteria to be classified on sight as being French.
posted by MajMike on May 28, 2008 2:37 PM
I dunno, John. I'm sure there is truth in what you're saying (you're the history dude after all), but we have ALWAYS kicked some serious a$$ in wars, going back to before the USA *was* the USA. Maybe we were left alone because of distance, but considering that a bunch of farmers and hunters smacked down the British Army during the Revolutionary War, I'd say we've always been a threat.
I've heard some people make comments about why we haven't won the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, considering we're fighting "a bunch of camel jockeys", and that we lost Vietnam to "rice farmers", but those who fought in those battles know better. They know that determination is a lethal weapon, and so is knowing the lay of the land. We were just as determined to win our freedom and independence, and we knew the lay of the land... and we beat the British.
No, I'm not saying that we lost Vietnam, AFG and Iraq (quite the contrary- we could have won Vietnam, and will win AFG and Iraq as long as we stick with it and don't pull out too early like we did in Vietnam)- but I am saying that fighting for your own homeland, on your own turf, gives you a distinct advantage of any enemy.
posted by AFSister on May 28, 2008 2:53 PM
We won in the Revolution because the Brits were distracted with events elsewhere in the world and not able to bring all their power to bear.
War of 1812? Frankly, similar.
Mexico? We won, but it's not like we were fighting a world class power, either.
Civil War? After that war, we'd have been a tough nut to crack, for a while. But we still had a coastal/riverine Navy. Our power was commericial, not military.
Spain? Beating up a cripple.
WWI? That's where we came out of our shell and showed we had a trule blue ocean Navy, and could field an impressive Army that could perform.
Then, Wilson got his knickers in a twist, everything came home, and, depending on the oceans and the Navy, we dissolved the Army, leaving a rump of 220K troops.
And no one really saw us as a challenger (nor did we really challenge anyone) and our location made that a pretty safe and sane approach to take.
Then we did start getting into a shoving match with the Japanese on several issues, not least of which was the mercantilist view of the world the Japanese had clashing with our capitalistic view of things.
And we got our clocks cleaned at Pearl Harbor, learned that the oceans weren't quite the barrier we had come to think they were, and got engaged.
Then, because we had nukes, we dumped the Army again, only to find out that unless you wanted to always fight a nuclear war, you were going to have to have a full-spectrum armed force, and that in an era of airplanes and missiles, it was better to have your defense forward-deployed than bunkering up in NorthAm.
But we didn't have "kick-ass" militaries at the start of most of our wars. We built them on the spot, and the geopolitical circumstances of the time allowed us that luxury.
That's my point. For most of our history, prior to WWII, were were mostly nearly defenseless, because we didn't need to be anything else.
The Armorer has it, the power of the US military is mostly a modern thing not that the US was really that much of a pushover before 1945. And it all relates to economics too. Military power needs people and money.
Mind you I agree with AFSis that now the US so heavily relies on the military for foreign policy any weakness might be quickly exploited. I view it as a dangerous situation.
As for the .. thing: We are the Superior Beings! Exterminate! Exterminate!
There were many examples of our unpreparedness in both World Wars and why it took so long to force our way back into Europe. Armorer: how about that cute little French light machine gun with the slotted mags that easily became fouled with mud, our GASOLINE powered Shermans in Africa. We never had a class tank all war. Our first carrier planes were no match for the Zero and our torpedo planes were sitting ducks. We sent the Marines into Guadalcanal with Springfields. The worst thing today is that all those industries that kept us in the World Wars don't exist anymore today. Oh well.
posted by Fishmugger on May 28, 2008 7:11 PM
NLOS
Gosh, I thought in the old days we just called that "indirect fire". LOL
posted by fdcol63 on May 28, 2008 8:06 PM
Ry ~
Boxy designs are great - in the right context. THIS is not the right context. THAT is "fugly".
And what year of Jetta were you thinking? The earliest model years (i.e. early 1980s) or something a little later in the history of the Jetta (ala early 1990s)? We have a '93.
Let the troops figure it out. They'll call it something...
posted by Blake Kirk on May 29, 2008 10:23 AM
Let the troops figure it out. They'll call it something...
*If* it's foisted off on them. And don't bet what they'll call it will be printable, even when reduced to an acronym.
I remember a contest CECOM had (back in the '80s) when it came time to name the very first computer program they fielded. The winning entry was "Digitally-Integrated Logistical Data Organizer."
[cue fanfare and initiate much in-house rejoicing]
Then somebody realized what the acronym spelled and the program was quietly re-christened...
Up through about '89 I'm thinking, HF6. The 'Hat Box on Wheels'. I've got a 95 right now that they tried to 'sleek out', and I don't like the contours.
Cause I can't resist goading some folks who come to visit and still insist that we should be leaving Iraq due to the disastrous prosecution of the war, NEWS FLASH:
Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic
Like I've been saying, we aren't going to see a surrender signing moment on the USS Missouri to punctuate the end of war.
Come to think of it, it more closely reflects Doenitz announcing Germany's surrender via radio circa 1945. Of course, he was kind enough to punctuate that announcement a few days later with a formal surrender ceremony.
I don't think we're going to get that. This announcement is the best we're going to get, I think, unless someone can scare up Abu al Masri.
Now, I'll take a few moments to remember those who made it happen, who sacrificed life and limb, American, Allies and Iraqis.
That done, I have to ask if there has ever been a precedent in history where the victors tried to surrender after the enemy had already surrendered?
Wow, Islamic web sites are crying doom, so let's act upon that right now. Great idea, if you like Trojan horse stories.
"That done, I have to ask if there has ever been a precedent in history where the victors tried to surrender after the enemy had already surrendered?"
See, that's why I just love conservatives, because they love to craft their own realities and put words into other people's mouths. In your reality, Dems are "surrendering" and Repubs are "ensuring our troops can win." In the real world, congressional Dems are the ones trying to get troops adequate post-combat health care and education, ensure accountability of the billions of lost dollars, and identify exactly what the end state of this conflict is. The congressional Repubs are the ones saying "well we have no idea of what's going on, but we're willing to feed troops and equipment into the sausage machine as long as BushMcCain tell us to."
I'm on the record as saying we won the war against Iraq in 2003, and that more troops should have been added in 2004-2005 when the insurgency was roaring up. It was the Repub Congress who refused to get serious about this strategy, abrogating their oversight and funding responsibilities to the White House inner sanctum. And now we have the Repubs saying "we can't determine when to leave even though we're winning, and we can't determine when leave because we might lose." So what is it exactly?
Whenever you get your story straight, Kat, try a new argument, because no one outside of the core 20% of the American public that still loves Bush buys this "surrender monkey" joke. On the Dem side, we're interested in regional stabilization, which includes a more detailed strategy other than the unending occupation of Iraq to succeed.
Leaving aside your other comments (all worthy of agreement or some discussion, Jason) please, let's not toss this crap around: See, that's why I just love conservatives, because they love to craft their own realities and put words into other people's mouths. as if it was a status unique to conservatives or Republicans (which are *not* synonyms, btw).
Well, I can't quite find total fault with J, cause, well, you slap someone you better expect them to hit back in just as ugly and nasty a manner(unless you're gollum, with the Armorer staring over your shoulder. And he's tapping the Big Boot. At which point you take the hint and play 'nice'.) You asked for that bit of hurled poo, Kat.
But, getting to the claim that it's only Dems(via the Webb bill) who care. Waht a load, J. Dude, did you see how much un-related, pork laden, domestic spending was attached to that bill? My gawd. Like I've said before. I'd have voted against it on general principle. Don't tack on stuff you aren't going to be able to get thru on important stuff like this. That's just venal @55 politics, dude.
posted by ry on May 28, 2008 4:03 PM
Struck a nerve?
Let's get things straight:
1) I said you all wanted to surrender, I didn't call you a "surrender monkey"
2) Calling it victory in 2003 and with drawing matters how? Since, you know, we didn't leave and round two with AQ was under way.
3) Let's not play games with the troops healthcare etc. It always sucks because we are always cheap, Democrats and republicans. And, I could easily whip out statistics that show health care spending, etc increasing under the Republican congress and Bush with plenty of the bills I'm sure you'd claim for democrats being co-sponsored or co-written by a republican. Thankfully, some folks get it. However...
4) What does getting more money for health care and education have to do with providing support for the actual mission and insuring or pushing for the troops to actually win? Particularly when, indeed, you, et al have been insisting that they be pulled out?
5) You, et al have been demanding the troops leave right in the middle of a hard fought battle and now that violence is way down, the Iraqi government is working AND AQ is making this announcement, you still call it a defeat and demand withdrawal under those conditions. A loss, in fact. You are insistant on it. What else would I call it but surrender?
5) the little word games the Democrats want to play by calling it a "disaster", "failure" etc but not out right "defeat" might make you feel better and give you a way to phrase it differently to feed to the public, but a quick look in the dictionary or any sense of actual language makes your statements very clear: defeat and surrender.
Even now, in addressing this post, you're trying to insist that there is no win and it is still a failure, by proclaiming these websites bogus. When, in fact, if you actually read the linked post, you'd know that the jihadi websites in question are the ones that carry bin Laden and Zawahiri's messages first. Among the many things that make them legitimate carriers of the AQ message.
But, let me point to the obvious. Not only is this on these websites, but violence is so far down in Iraq, it hasn't made the front page or prime story for major news outlets for months. Except, of course, a moment in Basra and Sadr city which have nothing to do with AQ and which have conveniently slipped away from the news again for the same reason.
So many AQ leaders have been killed or captured they can barely mount a road bomb. Their statistics match our statistics. In short, they were defeated.
One other reason it makes sense. If you ever actually read any history of previous jihad's in the middle east, you'd realize it is a standard procedure for these organizations to do self evaluations or "lessons learned" as we like to call it. Zawahiri's Bitter Harvest and Knights under the Prophet's Banner come to mind immediately, along with some great reads from the post Syrian uprising in 1992 to name another.
It's one of the reasons I do not find such posts from AQ incomprehensible or proof of some sort of hoax. It is standard operating procedure.
So, yes...dear Jason, we won Iraq, two times: crushed Saddam and then crushed an insurgency/terrorist guerrilla war. Three if you want to count the Iranian shia militias as a separate force to be countered.
And you still want to hurry away under the guise of "failure". That, sir, is surrendering after the victory.
I'm sure there is a historical precedent for it, but I'm also sure that people look back on that time with equal amounts of wonder and ridicule.
Frankly, I think you should be extremely happy that Obama will not have to demand troop withdrawals in the middle of a terrible war because it would have definitively painted Obama and the Democrats as the party of surrender and crashed their national security credentials for decades.
Now, at the very least, if he gets elected, he can be seen as the candidate that presided over the close of a very difficult war. Plus, since there is no formal surrender, he won't ever have to say "defeat" or "victory".
So what are you crying about being called a "surrender monkey" for?
posted by kat-missouri on May 28, 2008 4:24 PM
On the Dem side, we're interested in regional stabilization, which includes a more detailed strategy other than the unending occupation of Iraq to succeed.
But don't have a clue how to accomplish it other than making nice-nice to Iran.
Remember all those UN sanctions last year? They certainly worked out well, didn't they?
On the Dem side, we're interested in regional stabilization, which includes a more detailed strategy other than the unending occupation of Iraq to succeed.
I missed that one, thanks Bill.
Let's see:
Increased UN Sanctions? Check
Engaging through Iraq and Afgahnistan? Check
Military forces in place to contain Iran? Check
Multiple attepts to engage in direct talks? Check
Seeking to stabilize Lebanon and working towards stabilizing the Palestinian-Israel? check
Working with Israel vis-a-vis Golan heights and Syria? Check
Engagement with Syria? Check
I could go on. What exactly is missing besides your vaunted vision of speaking to the Iranians and assuring them we will let them continue to exist at no charge to oppress their people and support terrorist organizations around the world?
What we should be really asking is what, beyond our current activities and this vision of conversation (that the Iranians have been unwilling to participate in for decades) should we be doing?
Maybe some flowers on the anniversary of the revolution and a thank you note for not killing our people when they took them hostage? Or maybe some congratulatory references to their on going efforts to kill our men and women in Iraq?
Seriously, you keep saying that no one has a plan on the republican side, but I have not seen one plan from the Democrats beyond "talking". That's it? That's your comprehensive plan to stabilize governments beyond what is already being done?
Let's buy Brzezinski's plan. You know, give them a nuclear weapon because it some how automatically confers stability on the conflicting parties. You know, like Pakistan and India where the Pakistanis have some serious nutball extremists who would love to get their hands on the nuke. I'm also sure that the Kashmiris who have suffered during the interminable long war there and died by the thousands appreciate his dismissal of their suffering as, you know, not so terrible since everybody has a nuke.
Nothing like some good ol' non-resolution and long term continuing warfare to make those nukes taste good going down.
We live in an oil patch. We are literally surrounded by wells. This is in northeastern Kansas, not someplace most people think of when they think of oil patch.
Not because we don't want to, but because we can't.
Not because we don't have the tech, but because we won't let ourselves.
Because, well, Greenies and the Congress (both parties, over time) don't want us to. For varying motives.
Well, you see high gas prices. My neighbor sees... opportunity. And he's loyally trying to do what he can to help you all out.
He's drilling wells on his property. That would be the property that abuts ours.
He's got two in, two dry holes, and one drilling. Mind you, there've been no 'gushers' - no oil has yet shown up as an oily sheen in the creek that runs between us and then across my pasture and along the cliff, before heading off to Stranger Creek, the Kaw, and then the Missouri.
From the size of his horseheads, I'm guessing three barrels a day. Two wells is 6 barrels, assume (really dangerous in the volatile market) an *average* wellhead price of $100 for the year (also a swag at accounting for production and storage costs) - he'll gross $219K for a year.
Not bad for doing nothing more than just paying the electricity bill for the two horseheads bobbing up and down, up and down.
Just look at that despoiled and distressed landscape. Horsehead on the left (not yet in place on the well) and that blue thing on the right... is the drill rig, just despoiling the view. Not.
It *is* noisy, however.
I own the mineral rights. I'm waiting for $200 a barrel. Alternatively, I could invade.
Wait. That didn't work out so well for Saddam. Well, except for the whole "Oil for Food" scam he ran with the UN. Hmmmmmm.
And before we waste bandwidth on it - yes, I know arctic tundra and permafrost areas are far more sensitive than flyover country occupied by bitter, clingy people who probably deserve what happens to them as despoilers of the land. Heh. I appreciate my land a lot more than any city dwelling enviro who visits unpaved dirt on weekends and two weeks a year, I assure you.
"Come and listen to a story 'bout a man named John..."
Yeah...I'll never get that song out of my head...
posted by Carrie on May 28, 2008 11:00 AM
The price of gas in some areas out here has jumped about 60 cents in less than a month--40 cents overnight last weekend at some stations (the overall average this Spring has gone up 40 cents or so). Diesel is over $5/gal (I now have to "donate" about $12 in gas to volunteer for a shift at the USO).
Food prices are rising accordingly: tomatoes--in Southern California in May!!!--are $3-4/lb, canned beans are $1.70 (used to be $1 or less), my favorite frozen food jumped $2/ea, etc., etc.. It's starting to scare me--all those prices were BEFORE the most recent sudden jump.
Thank God I'm no longer unemployed, and that said employment requires no commute.
Didja see those cool pictures of the Martian arctic that the Pheonix mission sent back? Looks just like ANWAR.
posted by Fred on May 28, 2008 11:26 AM
Alternatively, I could invade.
Dude, I'm not ridding the Trebuchet to be the airborne advance force. Just. Not. Gonna. There's not enough cheetos in KS.
posted by ry on May 28, 2008 11:28 AM
I used to "make" money driving my own car on company business. I get about .40 per mile. Now, however, it costs me so dang much for gas it makes more sense for me to rent a car instead. If I rent a car, the gas goes on my company card, so I don't have to pay for it myself and then wait to get reimbursed. With the cost of gas, I can't afford the month it takes to get reimbursed.
posted by AFSister on May 28, 2008 12:01 PM
One argument in favor of going ahead with a well is if the formation in your area is also producing natural gas. Your own supply + a NG fired generator would give you energy independence. That would be nice not only for the savings on the utility bills but also for the winter time (and Spring storms).
Offsetting that is the rather large investment required in drilling any well - no assurance the first one you drill will hit anything but dirt (and your bank account).
posted by KCSteve on May 28, 2008 12:04 PM
AFsister, it has been my companies policy for some time that all trips over 100 miles/day be in rentals, as it is cheaper than paying milage now .495/mile. Make friends with the rental personnel and they will set you up in some fun rides when the company mandated sub-compacts are "unavailable".
Remittance Man had a great discussion on Reserves vice Resources and the difference between them, as well as how the mining industry classifies the differences in terms of production and profitability.
I for one am actually cheering the rise in oil price (this from a guy who's car, while not exactly guzzling 93 Oct, does shoot it down like that Carrie woman downs cosmos). The increased price leads to not only more resources going into reserves, but also neat technological tricks like nuclear and geothermal power being used to make those long carbon chains that work so well.
The Los Alamos guys say all they need is $5 gal gas, and its profitable. Economically it will be a hit, initially, but I'm certain the total cost will drop like a stone once the energy plants get online.
posted by GeoSTI on May 29, 2008 12:04 AM
I'm starting to get priced out of my commute, and I don't have the ability to move closer to work...
This is for Wolfwalker, et.al., who see the demise of the Republic just over the horizon.
Catching Wild Pigs
A chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government. In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?' The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc.. While we continually lose our freedoms -- just a little at a time.
One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. Also, if you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life then you will probably delete this email, but God help you when the gate slams shut! In this 'very important' election year, listen closely to what the candidates are promising you. Just maybe you will be able to tell who is about to slam the gate on America.
'A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.' - Thomas Jefferson
Things are fairly bad now, with respect to national unity and resistance to submission to the will of Allah, and likely to get a lot worse. The War of Northern Aggression and the Great Depression did not involve nukes, and both those tragedies so radically changed the Republic from what it had been before the Founders wouldn't recognize it.
The last political bullet this big we dodged was in 1944 when the DNC dumped the incumbent Vice-President in order to put their man Truman in.
The best-case scenario is not very good. With a veto-proof Congress, the nation's oldest ever President's legacy will consist mostly of reaching across the aisle and throwing the people who voted for him under the bus.
The worst-case scenario involves NUDETs in South Louisiana, Houston, New York/New Jersey, Long Beach, Beaumont and other ports.
"God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America."
There is a question that keeps being asked that, to me, is asking the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers. The question is, can we live with a nuclear Iran?
The real question that should be asked, isn't whether we can live with it, but who are we going to let die?
We have never learned the right lessons from the Cold War. In fact, calling it the "Cold War" is probably the worst thing we ever did. It wasn't really "cold". Millions of people died as a direct and indirect result of this conflict.
What did Nuclear MAD do during the Cold War? It didn't stop war. It simply kept the US and the USSR from exchanging nuclear ICBMs and, possibly, invading each other's country. That is important, but it didn't keep either country from continuing to reach its stated objectives or from seeking ways to diminish or destroy their opponent. It simply changed the strategies and the venues of actual war.
Iran is a beneficiary of those years. It certainly learned important lessons about how to conduct war without being directly involved or held accountable for their actions. Both the United States and the USSR funded political coups and supported guerrillas or, inversely, supported state governments against guerrillas in order to counter the influence and power of the other within a region. The end objective being to reduce political power of the opponent and gain economic power through those relations.
Iran has been doing that for three decades by funding Hezbollah, Hamas and various terrorist organizations and activities through out the region as well as occasional activities across the globe. Including currently funding Shia insurgents in Iraq, al Qaeda elements, Taliban and various other organizations in the last two decades that have directly attacked US citizens or US forces. Thousands of people have died as a result of their activities.
Now, imagine a nuclear Iran. Today, Iran does have to contend with the question of whether they will suffer military intervention if any of their actions or those of their proxies are deemed too egregious. In fact, one can consider their more recent actions to be a test of how far they can go without reaping the consequences.
Under a nuclear Iran, the type of activities that they could support without seeing direct consequences would increase ten fold and so would the number of people who would die due to these actions. When Iran has a nuclear bomb, who is going to stop them? Their actions would then have to be extremely horrific and direct state to state against the United States and/or one of its allies in order for some sort of action to be considered against it.
They'd have much more room to grow their extra-national activities. A lot of people are going to die.
So, my question to all those who want to consider whether we can live with a nuclear Iran:
Who are we going to let die while we learn to live with it?
The short answer: I vote for the bin laden ladies because then we'll get all that rubbish melted down for free. PS. Nobody need understand my humour. Most of the time i don't either.
The long answer: Ok. This is a completely open question post with no solutions given. I can't say I like the writing here it's so vague as to be like tarot readings.
I do like the point of a nuclear Iran being empowered to do more mischief. All nuclear nations get and do this it's one of the reasons for the recent rush to join the club.
However, let us begin at the beginning. Why is the first question wrong?
Why is this new question right? Most specifically lay out the hidden assumptions and evidence behind them. For example your question has the hidden assumption people will die. Who will die? Why is it a requirement? Why is this an accepted state? It also has the assumption it will be allowed by 'we'. Who are 'we'? The US? The West? The US Army?
What do you mean by who? Iranians or Americans? Are there other options? Show how there are options on who 'we' choose to allow to die.
Point of order for either Brab the Adjutant or Armorer to resolve before I respond: is counter-demagoguery within the Rulez?
[Yes. As long as it's polite and to the point.]
posted by ry on May 28, 2008 5:52 AM
Kat, this post is even less coherent than your usual diatribes. You ought to remember that some of the millions of dead you talk about are Iranians who lost their lives against Iraq in the 1980s - you remember, when the US govt supported Iraq with weapons and intelligence estimates and "wheat shipments" that supported Iraq's WMD program. OF COURSE Iran is going to develop any and all capabilities that will enable them to stop a repeat of the Iran-Iraq war.
Can we live with a nuclear Iran? Of course we can, since we've found out (over time) that Pakistan and India haven't nuked each other (despite their old rivalries), but at the same time, people still die in fighting over the Kashmir province. Russia has nukes, hasn't stopped the killing in Chechnya province. Yes, the Cold War stopped a direct nation-against-nation superpower fight, but the fight moved to proxy battles in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. What a surprise, there's always a fight going on somewhere.
You want to stabilize the Middle East despite the presence of two nuclear powers (Israel and Iran)? Easy. You do the same thing as we did in SE Asia and Central America (that is, after we lost in the fight for "hearts and minds"). You invest in the government's ability to take care of its people. To wit, if we better supported Lebanon and facilitated an agreement between Syria and Israel, Hezbolla would be set back. But that would mean telling the Israel hawks in Congress to STFU and do something for the greater good.
Good people always die as a result of someone's activities. It's the way of life. How many Americans will die in Iraq while the Bush administration fiddles? The meter is still running.
J...so, I make less sense than ever before, but you some how can craft a couple paragraph response? Hmmm...
Per my reading of you, people die anyway, so what are we worried about? I suppose, I could use your same logic and ask why we don't just go in and knock off Iran anyway. I mean, people die, right?
Today? tomorrow? what difference does it make?
posted by kat-missouri on May 28, 2008 10:45 AM
Why is this new question right? Most specifically lay out the hidden assumptions and evidence behind them. For example your question has the hidden assumption people will die. Who will die?
I think that my point was, people are already dying under the auspices of a non-nuclear Iran supporting terrorists organizations from Lebanon to Afghanistan. But, they will die in greater numbers because the cover of a nuclear weapon would allow Iran to step up its game, provide more and heavier weapons, money and training. Largely because currently they have to be concerned with going "too far". That "too far" is actually lower on scale than if they have a nuclear weapon.
Then, as with the types of intervention the USSR committed in other nations, when they have a nuclear weapon, that escalation point moves much further up the scale, thus providing them the opportunity or space to provide much more destructive capabilities to their proxies. This allows for a full blown escalation of war in the areas that they wish to affect. Leading directly to even greater death.
Why is it a requirement?
As I noted with the US and the USSR, the objectives don't change even with Nuclear MAD. Iran does have some very specific objectives in mind in regards to dominating the region and the energy resources there. That has not changed in several decades, but the advent of a nuclear Iran makes that definitely and, possibly, instantly achievable.
However, people in the region are not just going to lie down and let Iran have at it. Further, it is going to want to consolidate certain gains immediately in Lebanon and Iraq in order to bring about their arch of control that is politically, militarily and economically important to control the region. Finally, instability in other nations, with Iran as the instigator, supporter and arbiter, provides Iran with significant political power. That certainly occurs now, but it still has limitations because Iran is as vulnerable as the next nation without nuclear weapons.
On that score, I think we have know that the United States is not going to sit back and let a hostile power dominate a vitally important region that could have a long term impact on our economic future. Possibly our ability to exist.
Finally, because they can. When Iran can kill whoever opposes them without fearing the same sort of repercussions they could feel today, I believe they will. They certainly have shown in the past that they have little compunction about doing so. Nuclear weapons gives them that much more cover to do it.
In the end, that is why I believe that many more people will die under a nuclear Iran. Not only because it makes some sense in relation to their national objectives, but also because I believe they are an evil regime that certainly has no problem imprisoning and killing its own dissidents to stay in power. So I hardly see where, under nuclear weapons, they would have any reason not to do the same to anyoe else.
It also has the assumption it will be allowed by 'we'. Who are 'we'? The US? The West? The US Army?
I wonder why you ask that question? "We" is anyone who stands by and does nothing. You, me, national governments, etc. You're confused by that?
posted by kat-missouri on May 28, 2008 11:57 AM
Kat, you have taken the courage to examine your beliefs. Not only to do this privately, but publicly. Good for you! Argent, you belittle the very act of raising a valid question. I refuse to act like a parrot. She is right to ask the question, not necessarily because it is wrong, but for the generations to come. Learn one thing, there are no free choices. No matter what choice we make, there will be consequences, this is the reason to KNOW why! We should know what are the considered reasons for an action, but equally so, the reason for NOT taking an action. Politics is NOT a reason! There are three branches of the Executive Branch which are not to be political, they are Military, Intelligence and Justice. The future will show the core of the man and his honor. POTUS took an oath of office in relation to The U.S. Constitution. There is more than than the document itself and the Amendments to be considered. It could be very interesting.
Kat, THANK YOU,
Grumpy
posted by Grumpy on May 28, 2008 12:24 PM
Grumpy - I think Argent was examining structural weaknesses in Kat's post and possibly her thinking, certainly legitimate fodder which will help Kat refine her thinking and her message.
It's all good.
I'm doing the same thing with a response that Ry is putting together - for the same purpose. Ry just prefers to get smacked around in the dungeon rather than be performance art in the Great Hall...
I actually had a super long post with all the why's and where fors and then I though, "The Armorer says to leave room for the commenters to comment" so I tossed everything out and just put up the succinct: what happens when nations get nuclear weapons even if they don't use them - people die and in great numbers.
Sometimes, you can't win for losing.
posted by kat-missouri on May 28, 2008 5:50 PM
No, what you do is build modular posts... that you can post sequentially, that answer the questions, and can thus drag the story out, with lots of entertaining commentary, and simultaneously feed the blog-beast.
In other words - you're doing it right.
Now, you respond. The point is to get people to engage - that sharpens your argument...
Thanks for the clarification Kat. I hope you don't think I was picking on you.
I see little to disagree with in this context. And this proliferation is not unique to Iran it will be more widespread and that means the US may be spread a bit thin and that Iran will have other players to worry about besides the US. So more good and bad I guess.
Grumpy i have no qualms of anyone here being negative on me. I came amongst the conservatives to learn with that base expectation and it's been delivered plenty. The fact your talking is more positive than the usual silence.
However, do not think I belittle the act of raising a question. It's a valid question and it was my view it was not clear enough what the question meant, at least to me and possibly others. Most of what Kat writes I agree with or at least believe is excellent writing. ie a worthy argument. I do not make a habit of belittling Kat, she's smarter and infinitely more popular than I am so I know if i slip up i can quite easily get smacked around. Even if Kat wasn't I do not make a habit of belittling anyone.
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...
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).
********************************
Well, for the last eight years, we've been subjected to comedy routines and books about President Bush's malapropisms and occasional mushmouth. Looks like, if Senator Obama convinces the electorate of his Presidential Gravitas, the comics will have just as much fun, if in a slightly different way.
No doubt the Rethuglican Attack Machine (sekritly directed by Karl Rove) will be watching for more dead people voting this upcoming election. Heh. Nothing like an Chicago politician and dead people... but this man has Powerz! He's raising zombies in New Mexico, too. Oh, by the way, Senator - Memorial Day is for the dead... it's Veteran's Day for the living. Not that it didn't stop the whole lot of you from politicizing the fargin' holiday. Faugh. -the Armorer
*********************************
I know someone is going to blast me, messily and angrily, for disagreeing on this. It isn’t good sportsmanship at all. It’s stupid and the rewarding cheaters (who can say cheaters never win, eh, if this is what now constitutes good sportsmanship?).
Sorry, stepping out of bounds to get around someone who had boxed you in because you made bad tactical mistakes in your race does not mean you won. Actually, you lose when you do that. Just like takedowns outside the circle in wrestling don’t count and touchdowns where you run part of the way out of bounds to avoid getting your clock cleaned get called back. I can’t believe this was even appealed. She lost even though she was the stronger runner, and rightly so. She got frustrated, cheated to overcome someone else’s brilliant gamesmanship (or fell prey to the random vagaries of the race or even paid the price for being a drafter during the race.) and got caught. Giving her the medal isn’t good sportsmanship. It’s stupid.
Don’t turn silliness into sportsmanship, please. It’s hard enough teaching the young ones how to play by the rules without having moving goal posts to contend with as it is.
--ry
*************************************
*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 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 that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
I know, it's not funny. A day that shouldn't be used for domestic politics and chust thumping like that...was.
Still, I couldn't pass up the op. to turn that back on John. Sure, I'll pay for it(oi, I will pay for it), but you can't pass chances like that up, not if you're gollum.
posted by ry on May 27, 2008 10:12 AM
We are teetering on being afflicted with at least four years of what amounts to a looping "Saturday Night Live" sketch...
While I understand your pique, Ry, if the others want to swap around their medals, hug, and sing kum-by-yah, that's okay with me.
If would not be okay with me if the results of the race were officially overturned.
If the participants want it that way, unofficially, amongst themselves, okay. Number two is just admitting she got spanked, and didn't want to win on a technical issue, regardless of how important the issue is.
As a state champion myself, I admit I wouldn't be very proud of a distinction that came on a technical issue like that - but your point is well taken, like 'em or not, there are rules like that for a reason, not to gain an unfair advantage.
It's a semi-empty gesture - Nelson is still going to get the credit.
I'd save my ire for someone trying to overturn the official results, especially by lawsuit or something.
This is among the athletes themselves, they know who won and who didn't.
Heh. Until I read the article, I thought this was going to be about Danica Patrick's problems at Indy!
..and LTC DuBois (MI, Ret) knew full well that young Juan Rico only placed fourth in that race...
posted by MajMike on May 27, 2008 4:04 PM
I think you miss where I'm annoyed, BB. That ESPN is running this as a great example of sportsmanship(meaning that more people should be like this). That's wrong to encourage that. If you move the goal posts on what good sportsmanship like that you've got the, excuse please, was from psychological research(not mine either---no Castle Felines rending the rear upholstery of gollum, thanks), situation where girls change the rules of a game to make it 'more fair' instead of a single, universal rule for everyone(which is fair) as they walk in the door of the competition. I'm miffed at the media coverage. Damn it, kids are confused between the 'I's get's mine' of Allen Iverson-types and this rather silly example held up as what sportsmanship should be.
It's an incredibly selfless gesture, to be sure. It's the girl who finished second understanding that the other girl was a much stronger runner(but that doesn't mean better). Distance running is a tactical endeavor. Much more cerebral than sprints. The girl who came in second probably, I'll withold that util I can see some tape of the event, deserved to win because she manipulated the conditions of the race to *her* advantage. Gamesmanship is part of the equation, not just raw ability. (Which is why I disagree with the statement of the athletes know who won as you intend it. No, this action shows they don't really understand who won. Part of all games is using what you have in your favor to maximum advantage, and if your strategy infuriates someone into doing something stupid, like breaking the rules, well, tough. That's part and parcel of gamesmanship. Like you never frustrated an opponent by doing something, repeatedly, that drove him angry to the point of stupidity.)
Mmmm....Danica Patrick.....
RBBH wants to know if BSBH wants to borrow the 14" cast iron skillet. RBBH says so long as it comes back forensically clean we'll eat the shipping charges(we'll what?!)
Wait, did MajMike just drop a Heinlein reference(speaking of Heinlein, why is Green Hills of Earth on the floor of your garage, Armorer?) ?
posted by ry on May 27, 2008 4:31 PM
Ry, I have to disagree on the sportsmanship angle, especially if she was "boxed in". Many sports have quite poor contact rules and/or balking rules, track especially. What this should do is prompt a review of the rules of the sport, something which is needed in many now a-days. As long as it doesn't become like fencing, with a new rule each year a-la Calvin ball.
I think the Major's got it. The others did not feel they earned their rewards and *gasp*, tried to correct it, even unofficially. This IS something to be proud of in this day and age, where the need to EARN something is better than receiving it without any struggle.
Which brings me to Danica, oddly enough. She's pretty, but lacks talent required to move to a higher league. Her results do stem from her small stature, both in height and more importantly in an all-spec series, weight. CART/INDY min weight is car-only, not car+ driver. She won't stand a chance in something like F1 (where she will look like a giant next to Ferrari's number 2).
And there is the whole "can just turn left" issue. Even NASCAR has the Glen.
posted by GeoSTI on May 27, 2008 6:07 PM
Yes it's not good sportsmanship. All the same it's Ok for them to do that. Why does this matter to you so much? Bad sportsmanship is the norm in sports and that's mostly how the spectators like it.
Armorer, politicians politicize, it's their job. The reason many of us avoid it is because it usually involves a great deal of dishonorable behavior.
Ok ok....no me volunteering for hr uh..pit crew...or to look under her hood, or ball bearing adjustments or pistons, or rocker arms or rods or...uh yea...anyway
Especially that now I know Rye's D6 is playing overwatch for my warden I have to be careful! :)
Geo, dude, I'm walking on a bum knee because of how badly the contact rules are in track. Trust me, I know of what I speak. Boxing someone in is part of the tactical game of distance running. It's smart. It's taking their strength, the ability to push the pace high for a long time, without surrendering the advantage to us quick twitch muscle freaks.
Look, I was a drafter too. Someone who ran just behind the leader instead of trying to lead the race myself and then booked it the last 300 m of the race. IT's part and parcel of the game. Just because you've got an amazing kick doesn't mean the game has to be arranged just so for you to use it to your advantage. That's abusing the rules too, for undo advantage. The best way for a grunter to win is to box someone like me in and hold on hoping for a mass at the finish. What, are they going to institute a rule saying that I can't draft, saving my energy the entire race, only to kick people down in the last 300m then to offset my undo advantage? That's the only way a grunter, someone who's got endurance for days but no real high gear, is going to win. If they don't, dude, I'm going to win every damn time. I'm just going to let the grunter do all the hard work for 90% of the race and then sprint ahead at the end. And, yeah, leading a race is damn hard work. It's a lot easier to be just off their shoulder or totaly in their wind shadow.
And I've not gotten into the psychological effects of drafting someone either.
Like I said, vagaries of the race. It happens. Sometimes someone plans to box you in, sometimes it simply happens. That doesn't mean you get to break the rules to escape. Hell frackin' no. If you're really that cool you slwo down, drop back, go gonzo up the outside, hope you've got enough left in the tank, and vomit when you cross the line(heck, she won by more than 5 seconds, that's totally within her capabilities). Sometimes you'll lose. Chance is part of it after all. John's got a different perspective. He outclassed so many of his opponents in wrestling that he doesn't seem to get how some of us lesser beings would have to gameplan him, to offset his natural advantages of size and speed, and put the fight on our terms so we'd have a snowball's chance of winning. Which is also part of the game too, afterall. If you want nothing but pure talent go for sprints of 400m or less where you're always in one lane. No tactics involved.
No, that these girls coughed up their medals shows they don't understand how the game is played. They *got* played. Their whole conception of racing is the kick at the end, it would seem. He with the better kick is the best. balls. There's other ways of winning. And if the chick was so good why didn't she go back up the outside instead of cheating? No, they got played. I wouldn't complain if it *was* someone admitting they really didn't win, but this isn't.
Though I agree about fencing. THe rule I always hated in saber was the elimnation of the fleche and the arm cocked grants right of way rule. Yeah, like that's fair. He's got right of way, indefinitly, and can just back me off the piste. (But that just shows how long I've been out of fencing, huh?)
posted by ry on May 28, 2008 6:19 AM
Ry, I think we're on the same page, at least on the whole "system needs reformation" bit. I'm not a runner, so other than the rules explained to me by some of the more lanky types, all I know is that the penalties for contact and balking are similar to horse racing, where any contact, even something that in motorsports would be considered a racing incident, results in a full DSQ.
I wasn't there, so I'm not sure if going up and to the outside was an option, or what her options of maneuver were. If she could have dropped back, then powered ahead (I'm assuming that 5 seconds is a large margin in running of this distance, again, massive ignorance on my part), then the others did get played. You're right, even if she could have dropped and then re-gained, she still broke the rules.
I'm just used to sports where the goal is to push that line with the rules. That's what judges and stewards are for.
I *think* they've fixed the arm-cocked rule in sabre, but I'm a foilist (that hasn't been in it for 2 years due to an issue with knee+metal piste), so grain of salt. The point close to this topic is the elimination of the yellow cards for accidental corps-a-corps, since it used to be that even the slightest contact, no matter the cause, warranted a penalty. This change did benefit the bigguns like me though.
Turning Our Backs on the Gold Star Families [David M]
Most of America just doesn’t get it.
In point of fact, only a select few know what it’s really about.
To most of America, Memorial Day is the beginning of summer, the start of vacations and days at the pool, of sales and parties and friends all together to kick off the biggest party of the year…summer. A time when backyard parties occur for no reason other than everyone was available, the beer is cold and the sun still shines on warm summer evenings, but to some families Memorial Day still holds true to its original intent, a day set aside to honor their loved ones - who fell in combat.
Have we ever considered what a slap in the face it is on Memorial Day to the families of those whom gave the ultimate sacrifice? To see consumerism run amuck, sales and discounts and an extra 10% to active duty military when their loved one couldn’t take advantage of any discount even if they wanted to - because their loved one is dead. Yes dead, I said it, the word that scares so many people.
Have you heard those words spoke to you by the Casualty Assistance Officer when you answered your door and knew right away what the news would be? Have you America? Some of you have, in fact many of you have, as of May 22, 2008 - 4059 families have heard those words spoken to them since 2003 and yet most of America has no idea how we dishonor those who should be honored above all others. Memorial Day is not a day that should be devoted to sales and parties, eating BBQ and drinking beer. It is the one day we set aside to honor and remember the fallen. One day. Can’t we stop moving for one day and think what it is we are doing to the memory of our heroes?
Think about that for a minute corporate America and juxtapose that concept with your discounts and sales. There is no sale, no discount, and no honor you could bestow upon the families of the fallen that will in anyway make up for the price they have already paid. Can’t you take one day off to remember what it is they have paid for this country? Can’t you take one day out of the many to honor the fallen and their families instead of stabbing them in the gut by reminding them that the discount doesn’t apply to them because their service member is dead?
And what of the rest of America, why don’t we all get it? Are we so afraid of death that we try to make up for it by honoring the living?
While attending church on Sunday, I was struck by how out of place I felt. Not because I’m a heathen standing upon holy ground, but because on Memorial Day the pastor full of good intentions did exactly what so many in America do on Memorial Day, he recognized the living. When it came time to address Memorial Day he asked all active and former Military to stand, once we were all standing he asked that the congregation thank us for our service to our country, and while the applause subsided I thought, there are 4059 service members who should be the center of attention right now. We, the living have our day in November, Memorial Day is their day. Why is it so hard for America to speak of the dead and honor their service?
It is after all called Memorial Day for a reason.
They are dead, and we must honor them, not because they are dead, but because they lived, and served and protected all that we have. We must not let them be forgotten and we must not let them be replaced by a discount at the register.
Sorry - I simply disagree. I have fired and been fired upon in the defense of our nation. I have taken life and managed to return home unscathed. The fact that I bring my family and friends together to celebrate the memory of those who went before me, and prepare the meal on a grill that was discounted 10%, doesn't make me any less respectful or mindful of the day. The day is for the living to remember the dead - and my dad is among those listed in John's week-end blog. Were he still here, he would have enjoyed the barbecue and stopped for a solemn moment as we raised a toast to those already at the table in Fiddler's Green. No disrespect - just honoring the dead by enjoying the life they've given us. ML
I think you have some good and bad points in here.
It does seem many Americans don't consider the day from a remembrance perspective and it does seem most are confused about the living and the dead distinction between the two days. Certainly the idea of 10% is a bit silly if the families can't use it.
Over here our days are about the living and the dead as one. I guess we don't see dying as a means to more or less honour so we respect and remember them all.
However, I think people should be free to deal with it as they see fit. Commericalism is part of what was defended as are BBQs, parties and beer. Even the right to not remember as counter-logical as it sounds. Respecting the dead by celebrating the life they helped make possible is not such a bad thing in my view.
You show your frustration but where are your suggestions? Like how corporate America could respect the day more and how you can show to your fellow citizens the meaning of this day and why it matters?
Memorial Day is a day of remembrance. There's nothing wrong with taking the family out and enjoying the sunshine, the company of friends, and some really good steak and beer. Some of us do this, remembering buddies who would have been there, if they had not been so derned dedicated to their comrades, to the mission, to the Nation...
We live in a capitalist society: Make money any way you can... All I want to see is a token gesture by retailers: If they're going to cash in on the day, at least acknowledge the reason that the prices have been cut.
"Good morning, K-Mart Shoppers. Would you like to enjoy no payments and no interest on your purchases for one year? Apply now for our K-Mart Consumer credit card - See any associate for details. The time is twelve o'clock: Please join us for a minute of silence on this Memorial Day to remember all those who have fallen in defense of this great Nation."
A simple thought, easily executed, but so powerful ...
Excellent suggestions all, I shall take them under consideration.
As for sugesstions for corporate America, how about first aknowledging what the day is for, instead of just looking at it as another opportunity to perform a cashectomy on the public.
Want to do something in line with the day? How about approaching some Gold Star organizations and offer them a trip for the families, or forgive their monthly payment that month, etc. It won't do a thing to bring back their loved one but you'll start to include them in your business practice and at the same time you'll be aknowledging their sacrifice.
But I stand by my statement...its not our day...its theirs.
Interesting little piece of literary oeouvre is the DD FORM 2807-2, MAR 2007. Though the provenance of its authorship is not wholly known, its raison d’être is plainly clear. This is a blunt tool by which The Military Entrance Procession Command’s Medical Section (MEPS), pre-screens any prospective individual applying for service in the Armed Forces for any medical reason that may cause him/her to flunk out of Basic Training. Thus, in flowing bureaucratic prose, it compels any prospective military wannabe to fess-up all and any preexisting medical sins.
To continue - click the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry!
So as to grovel medically prove that he is fit for the rigors of his up-coming boot camp ordeal basic camp induction, the poor sap applicant must lay in black and white all which has ailed him in the past. For example:
Item 3:
Epilepsy, fits, seizures, or convulsions
(Warning: VERY STRONG LANGUAGE TO THIS LINK) Hmmm… would my Tourette’s-ridden Outbursts, torque-off the Drill Instructor???
Item 4:
Sleepwalking
Could I sleepwalk my way into the firing range at Fort Sill?
Item 9:
Double vision
Well… there was that time I slammed Nine Hurricanes down at Mardi Gras.
Item 10:
Periods of unconsciousness
See answer to Item 9.
Item 13:
Fainting Spells or passing out
See answer to Item 9.
Item 14:
Head Injury, including skull fracture, resulting in concussion, loss of consciousness, headaches, etc.
Yeah-yeah serves me right for picking-up a fight in that biker bar in Mardi Gras (See answer to Item 9)
Item 70, My favorite:
Bedwetting since age 12
The Army can’t have none of that. No amount of Febreze® will ever take out ammonia-laden stains from the barracks at Fort Jackson.
But seriously, Item 16 raises some interesting questions.
Seen a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, counselor of other professional for any reason…
If the applicant, answers truthfully to this question, he would put his initials on the “YES” column. But if the applicant answers “YES” to this question, The MEPS Medical Officer would require that the Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Social Worker Counselor, or other Professional write an official letter stating that the applicant, is cured and does not require any further treatment whatsoever. If this officially letterheaded-letter is not received with this precise wording, MEPS will deem the applicant, as being Permanently Disqualified (PDQ) for Service – End of the Military Road for the applicant. Of course no applicant’s shrink will ever pen such exact language to paper, and be truthful to herself or her profession. To them, there are no clear definitions in the psyche of our souls, only intangible progressions in this road called life. In their mind-set, one does not cure mental afflictions, only manage its causes and symptoms. Never mind that the applicant was never ever psychotic, manic, or suicidal. He just have had a string of life-challenging events pig pile-up on him all at once, and needs to air-out his worries with a kind soul.
The above quandary, begs yet another question. What of those, whom have never sought the services of a mental health professional, and yet have had equal or worse life experiences? Aren’t they really worse-off mentally/emotionally than those who have sought help; keeping all of their inner afflictions bottled-up, ready to pop when subjected to the stresses of Basic Training? In this scenario, wouldn’t those who have sought counseling be penalized unduly, vis-à-vis those who haven’t?
On the other hand, with the above in mind, could the applicant obviate parts of his past, and put his initials on the “NO” column? Well… the preamble of DD-2807-2 states that:
DISCLOSURE: Voluntary; however, failure by the applicant to provide the information may result in delay or possible rejection of the individual’s application to enter the Armed Forces.
This preamble is followed by the following stern admonition:
WARNING: The information you have given constitutes an official statement. Federal law provides severe penalties… to anyone making a false statement…
So, if the applicant decides not to volunteer this information, can it be truly voluntary, if he can be prosecuted for making “a false statement”?
The applicant will have to decide in this coming week, whether DD FORM 2807-2 is a literary work of NON-FICTION or FICTION.
Huh? I'm totally lost, Unka Bill. If it's what he wants it counts as a good thing, dontchaknow. Maybe I should stop trying funny and supportive in the same response?
posted by ry on May 27, 2008 11:27 AM
"Voluntary" as in "Removing your shoes in the airport security screen" voluntary? As when you don't, you get sent to the "secondary screen" where you may end up taking your shoes off anyway voluntary? Or voluntary as in the "Never Again Volunteer Yourself" service I was in. Whatever, that's one form where whatever you put in/don't put in will be scrutinized in detail when the candidate goes through whatever security rating process there is these days for a security clearance. When they fill out the form. Again. And discrepancies are noted, discussed, mangled, mashed, and explanations are due for said discrepancies. On the pain of jail time, reduction in rank, and severe discharge from parts of the said military anatomy.
posted by JoeC on May 27, 2008 11:44 AM
I think this purported DD Form 2807-02 makes absolutely no sense. But that never stopped them before. Stop and think, SECDEF Dr. Robert Gates issued a directive for the the removal of the mental health questions for a security clearance. Now you have this question #16, if it starts here, you can bet it is somewhere in the Military Jacket of each of its members. My big question is this- What does this say to our all volunteer force?
JoeC, I haven't travelled in many, many years. You talk of a "secondary screen". Is this the one, they put on a long sleeved glove and tickle your tonsils the long way? At least, this is the way it feels.
As I look at this, I have that not so quiet voice in the back of my mind, screaming, "What the [REDACTED]!
Grumpy
posted by Grumpy on May 27, 2008 3:36 PM
Interesting form. Sounds like it's basically you don't have to put any info in here but if you miss any sections or lie you will be in trouble and will be disqualified. This should be part of the initial recruitment screening process not something applied after that point. Some of these conditions are so common as to be silly and assumes one has current contact and records from doctors years ago.
A lot of potential here for misunderstanding and lying. If this really is an official form you military dudes need to clean up your administrative processes.
Dunno Ry, in the D&D's Moral Alignment Compendium, the applicant will be more of a Lawful Neutral, than Good (Goodie-Goodie-Two-Shoes). The applicant will be happy with all of your comments.
posted by Boquisucio on May 28, 2008 6:48 AM
What's that saying? "Face it you're really neutral evil."
Didn't John forward on what I had on this Boq? NOt safe for this type of talk in this forum. try my gmail account so I know which email is you and I'll tell you what little wisdon I have on the issue.
posted by ry on May 28, 2008 12:41 PM
My ancient version of Acrobat Reader showed a blank page for that, so I'm commenting from ignorance, here.
I'm thinking of earnest, socially awkward types like myself (borderline Aspies) who would have been hoicked in by the draft back in the late 60s, and told
to get with the program and fit in, or else.
These days, there is silliness in the mental and physical requirements, methinks.
SMA Kicks Off 'All-American Week' Photo by Sgt. Jacqueline M. Pryor May 20, 2008
The 82nd Airborne Division Commander, Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth O. Preston lead the 82nd up and down Longstreet Road on Fort Bragg, N.C., during a division run, which kicked off All-American Week, Monday. This marks the Division's first All-American week since 2006 because all but one brigade combat team was deployed in support of Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom last year.
SMA means "Sergeant Major of the Army," the Army's senior enlisted soldier.
Seeing this photo brought to mind these quotes:
Please see The Times of February 4. Is it really true that a seven-mile cross-country run is enforced upon all in this division, from generals to privates? ...It looks to me rather excessive. A colonel or general ought not to exhaust himself in trying to compete with young boys running across country seven miles at a time. The duty of officers is no doubt to keep themselves fit, but still more to think for their men, and to take decisions affecting their safety or comfort. Who is the general of this division, and does he run the seven miles himself? If so, he may be more useful for football than war... In my experience based on many years' observation, officers with high athletic qualifications are not usually successful in the highest ranks.
-Winston Churchill, February 4, 1941 inquiry to the Secretary of State for War
Heh.
I then said, that if he was thinking of dying it would be better to do it now, as he could be replaced easily and smoothly: It is always a nuisance if officers die when the battle starts and things are inclined to be hectic. His state of health was clearly not very good, and I preferred him to do the run and die.
-Field Marshal Montgomery, to an overweight officer who said he would die if forced to run seven miles in training.
Montgomery won. The secret, of course, is to control the pace of the run yourself. I will admit, in the 80's and 90's, at least, we did have some senior officers who did their level best to prove to all the youngsters they could run them into the ground, and crucified those in their command who could run just fine according to the standards, but couldn't keep up with the pencil-necked, sunken-chested running geek of a general.
Heh. One of the things that drove my retirement (among others) was the fact that my infirmities were rapidly making it impossible for me to be able to meet the minimum standards in the run (by then, the walk, actually). I could still max sit-ups and push-ups, but, ya just don't do much wrestling in combat, vice the whole fire and maneuver thing. Well, that and the whole looking like Colonel Blimp thing.
Update: Buddy and former Marine Security Guard (the Embassy ones, not some yokel at your local marina) sends this, which he swears by:
Heh, this brings to mind a conversation I overheard at one of our Marine Corps Balls. As usual, we had military liaison guests from the other Allied Embassies present, and one crusty member of the British Aristocracy, ie. Officer Corps was having a chat with our attending Marine Corps Major.
This Marine Major was one of those loathsome "run for fun at lunch bunch", a marathoner and was of the idiotic notion that all Marines should be built like whippets and be able to run 3 miles in less than 18 minutes, or they weren't in shape....
So, the Major was blabbing on about his running prowess to the obviously unimpressed British officer, who listened to this blather and then commented:
"In the British Army, we don't encourage our Officers to run, makes a bad impression on the enlisted personnel don't you know?"
I almost snorted my beer through my nose, and the Major shut up for the rest of the night.
I remember the Brigade Runs we used to do in the 197th Inf BDE (SEP) (now the 3d BDE, 24th IN). You line up everyone, wait about half an hour for the formation to start moving, and then you shuffle along for 4-5 miles. It's no big deal, the pace is hardly grueling for the most part due to the lag involved in a long formation run. Esprite de corps and all that stuff.
At MCAGCC 29 Palms we used to have the New Year's Morning Base Commander's Run.
You haven't smelled stink until you run five miles with a couple thousand guys coming to the road straight from ringing in the New Year all night before.
I've known Ossifers who could run like deer but couldn't lead a starving dog to an Alpo factory and I've known Leaders who were just like John (but could run) -- guess which ones moved up the promotion ladder?
Which reminds me of something somebody once asked in these comments -- Do they place as much emphasis on rifle marksmanship as they do on running? Because I have serious qualms about a commander more interested in how fast I can run as opposed to how well I can shoot...
To Bill - paraphrasing Billy Crystal, it's more important to look good than to actually feel/be good. And those 82nd Airplane Gang guys look mahvalous...
Ain't that the truth, I am not and have never been a runner. I am 6'1" tall with a 31" inseam, all body, short legs like tree trunks. I can carry a ruck all day, but my run is always slow, passing but slow. Does this make me a bad Scout? I think not, as Recon is the first in and the last out, packing the heaviest load. And no, the CDR's that push running don't push marksmanship, land navigation, etc as hard. Being a good soldier isn't all about being an emaciated fitness nut.
PT ability isn't any better (or worse) an indicator of an officer's leadership ability than is source of commission, shoe size, or whether he likes his eggs scrambled or over easy.
Just for the record, GEN David Petraeus could beat a lot of his troops on raw score in a match PT test. But that's as much about the fact that he's just about the most competitive guy you're ever likely to meet as it is about loving PT: the man just flat out HATES to lose. Which is no bad trait in a commander, if you ask me.
On the other hand, I've had other commanders who were big PT studs who couldn't lead a platoon of drunken paratroopers into a bordello on payday.
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...
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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A weird bleg (it is gollum after all): does anyone know much of anything about a Boeing program called Eagle Eyre (alternative spellings possible) that would’ve been concurrent to AWACS development? I’ve been told that not only was it shelved but much of the data on it was ordered ‘lost’, and so I’ve not much hope in any web search engine giving me much on it. But, we’ve got a pretty eclectic and sometimes connected readership here so what the heck. You guys might know something or someone that can clue me onto a book or something.
--
Even though I am (a quasi) one I too have to, every once in a while, say, “Saveusfromtheintellectuals.” Or in John speak, ‘the “Smart Guys” (@55es?) Who Want to Tell Me My Job.’ I love these guys and the work they do, but, sometimes, it takes on the air of arguing about angels and pin dancing. It really does, every once in a while, remind me of the hyper-anal phys-chem guy on my committee who had kittens over my Retro-Synth-Analaysis because I used hybridized orbital models(SP, SP2, SP3 type stuff, and was done in 6 minutes at the time) in my decision making instead of taking 6 days to let a computer chug thru Mol-Orb-Theory and quantum mechanics calculations. Tool.
There is no formula, no ‘best model for all situations’ to understand it, and you still have to tinker with whatever you’ve read and learned. I’d say, if anyone asked me, warfare is as much an art and a science as crystallography (if you’ve ever had to get some ugly , novel compound ready for x-ray diffraction you know *exactly* what I’m talking about (where’s my rubber sacrificial chicken?)).
--ry
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Memorial Day message from Dusty:
Dude,
I'm in Frankfurt with my biological clock turned completely around so I'm gonna crash in about 5 5 minutes. I wish I had a stirring post to offer but I wouldn't do it justice. In Germany on Memorial Day weekend...ironic, that (if you're a WW II buff).
God bless all who have served, are serving and will serve. Theirs is a Special Place in heaven...a place Barack will never see (he may get to heaven, but there are some sunny uplands for The Fallen where only they can go--personal opinion).
My best to you and SWWBO on this holiest of holidays.
Cheers,
Dusty
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Heh. One of these things is not like the other... Ask.com, Yahoo.com, Dogpile.com, Google.com. Mind you, you have to click those *today* for this post to make sense. My fave? Dogpile. -the Armorer
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- FbL
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As the the WWII and Korea generation start moving, in ever larger contingents, to their final bivouacs...
*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 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 that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".
Now this is the kind of criticism I like, ry. Sharp but not mean and with a bit of wit! Even if I do disagree. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to figure just what the flying hell hydronized portable nodules (or something like that) are.
I didn't either, FbL. Normally I have no use whatsoever for "cute," but I must admit, I like what Dogpile does with their cute little mascot. Not just for Memorial Day, but for every major holiday and many lesser ones. I never know what I'm going to see when I load Dogpile on any given day. And I load it a lot because it's my regular search engine.
posted by wolfwalker on May 26, 2008 4:16 PM
IMO, Yahoo wins, hands down.
Dogpile was cute, Ask was good, Google... Zips mouth to avoid being in violation of the Rulez.
posted by Jon The Mechanic on May 26, 2008 7:23 PM
Ry
SAAB 2000 with an Ericsson AEW+CS system was called an Eyrie. It was offered to Pakistan during the 90s. Piccie
Cheers
posted by J.M. Heinrichs on May 27, 2008 4:10 PM
That's not what I was thinking of JMH, but thanks. Something older. Kind of a flying UCAV handler.
It was of little strategic value to fight this far from the American mainland and it can be argued that it was in fact counter to the US war effort to expend resources when they were fighting a war they were not winning.
Two things saved New Zealand froma real invasion. A handful of Australian territorials on the Kakoda Trail and the US Navy getting into a fight in the Coral Sea they had little real expectation of winning. Although it uasually assumed that the Japanese had intended to invade Australia next their actual target was New Zealand from which they planned to isolate Australia. The currency for the ocupation had already been printed.
In stead of Japanese, we got Marines. A lot of them never got home again.
From here they left and fought in the Pacific War eventually driving the Japanese Empire back to its own islands;
Old Marines have passed down the tales of favored stations, training areas, and liberty ports. Haiti, Shanghi, Paris (WW1), Australia, New Zealand, and others...
Of these host Nations, the peoples Down Under, the Aussies and the Kiwis remain strong allies, scrappy in a fight, remembered for their hospitality, and secure on that list of folks we Marines would Stand The Line with in a heartbeat. Don't even need to think about it.
An essay by Denizen Bloodspite. For me, it's diesel on a morning so cold it snaps your nosehairs. That will bring back a flood of memories.
A Time of Remembrance. That is Memorial Day, yes?
So let us remember, as I remembered. This morning, behind a truck as my mind drifted.
Manama, Bahrain. 1991.
Diesel. The smell reminds me.
It’s a smell you never get out of your system, I think.
In the early morning hours at a motor pool the smell will fill the air like a lady with too much perfume, the smell fills a room.
Sickly sweet. That’s what diesel always smelled like to me. But with it comes the regular rumble of various instruments of warfare in to a symphony.
The deep rumble of a Bradley Fighting vehicle giving a bass line for the others to follow. The M-88 Hercules giving a deeper throaty sound as they check the tow package. HMMV’s all around are revved by smiling faces, black smoke spewing the scent of diesel throughout the yard. They are the trumpets, the brass, and the high sound for this orchestra. HEMTT’s, deuce-and-a-halfs, and a 5 ton give the french horns and trombones due promise.
Voices.
The voices carry like the smell. You can hear laughter, you can hear curses. Barking of orders. The shout of someone smashing finger or griping. They are the woodwinds.
Amidst this walk a few stern faces. They motivate. They chide. They push. They encourage. They are the first chairs, the band leaders. They are the NCO’s. I was one of these.
“No one is more professional than I.” That is the start of our creed. Competence is our watchword.
With a word we turn smiling faces in to one of chagrin. Terror. Or explosive laughter. But we are not the only ones in this orchestration.
In the center of it all stand 4. A unit's Father, Son, Holy ghost and a disciple as it were, albeit they do not walk on water, but one could explain how to do it, another would order you to do it and the last would make you think you can do it. The First Sergeant, Warrant Officer, Executive Officer, and Unit Commander.
They are the conductors. In the center of this organized chaos and mass of movement stand these men. They will walk, talk, and speak as if they are one of you but they are not. From them come the decisions, the orders, that omnipotent string of words that will spring a group of men in to action like no other. They bring the gospel, and we NCO’s will deliver it.
But beneath the façade, under the brim of their hats, in your eyes you can see it, as thick as the revving HMMV.
Added to our symphony, now, is another sound. A ratcheting sound almost like a child with a spinning noise maker. It’s our Oboe. Our gleaming black hardware of life and death.
The M4 Carbine is a gas-operated, air-cooled, magazine-fed, selective fire, shoulder-fired weapon with a telescoping stock. We didn’t have SPOMOD yet, but when we got it at the end of our deployment, it turned an already viciously sleek weapon in to a work of combat art.
The sound is my boys. My Men. My comrades. My friends. Charging Handle back. Release.
Charging Handle back. Release.
It distributes life and death. No, not that it spares those it does not kill.
It spares the wielder. It spares the families at home from receiving a chaplain at the door. It spares the children from crying, and wives and husbands from sitting up at night quietly looking at old pictures.
But with great power comes greater responsibility and this is no different. So we have trained. And we have fired. And we have executed, and we have repeated our instructions, and we have rolled in the dirt, sand and muck until our M4 has become an appendage, a part of us.
The vehicles are not ours, but they are part of us.
The Bradley is not mine, though in a few hours I may wish it were. The heat blasts across us like a painting, slow, sleek, and with the sand and dust you can watch it scrape across the humid land like a giant hand.
The General did not want us here. But we were here. To do our duty, no mater what that duty may be. For, as has been said before, we were soldiers. And young.
We are to be what will later be called a Force Multiplier. Eyes and Ears. We are to be Ceaser, or rather CSAR, Combat Search and Rescue. FID. Foreign Internal Defense.
But this is not a story of action. It is one of memories, like my own personal yellow brick road with which I will skip down with my heart, my courage, my mind all hand in hand to that place where I was young, and bigger than I am.
“Are you bigger than yourself?”
I was challenged that by my instructor at John Kennedy’s school of higher learning.
“Are you bigger than yourself?”
We asked that now of ourselves, of each other. 12 men side by side awaiting our personal green lights.
The unit we are to move out with continues scrambling to their vehicles.
We too have a Captain. An Executive officer. But ours stand quietly beside us. Not even a hint of a smile beneath camouflaged faces, painted like some deranged child hood clown gone horribly wrong to create a dark persona, who hours ago held his children close as he boarded the plane.
Later our 12 men would become 3, as we break off in to smaller battles. Smaller wars. ODA teams. Recon. Then we would be whole again. A living organism with 12 minds, 24 hands , 24 hours, and 12 beating hearts pounding a rhythm to the beat of the Bradley tank in acts of peace and aggression.
My captain loved to say before an operation. “We were the Devils Brigade. Now we are the Devil.”
We have no horns. No pitchfork. We wear brown, or green not red. But we are fluid and singular in our action. We are a wave. We are the wind dust covered wind. We move not for ourselves. Not for glory or honor, or love or any other grandiose reason placed down in so many books.
But to free the oppressed. De Opresso Liber.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. We recite this as our motto within our team. It is our prayer. Our release.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. It is a mantra. A beat of its own. We chant it quietly, out loud. The regular Army soldiers look at us oddly. Like we are madmen. But we know it is we, who are sane.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. The beat increases. We say it louder. We match the thrum of vehicles. Yea though I walk through the valley of shadow of death I will fear no evil because I am the baddest sunuvabitch in the valley.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. Almost shouting now. We gather around as one. Slapping our magazines with steady rhythm. We crouch, like a football team huddle, practically screaming at each others faces. In to the valley of death rode the 600. 12 will come back. 12 always come back.
Si vis pacem, para bellum. Other soldiers stop and clap with us. The chant is louder. We are going to war. We are going where many men have gone before, and we will return. For we are brothers. In arms. In Blood. In peace. In war. We are Spartans. We are warriors. We are our country. We are soldiers.
Bloodspite,
I didn't ever go mech, but I was airborne infantry. The camo, the weapons, (M-16-A1, not M-4's,) then the M21-D system and ghillie suits. The smell of camo sticks and breakfree, hot metal and gunpowder. I remember, and thank you for your service.
Thanks,
Alan Briley, RN
posted by Alan D Briley on May 26, 2008 5:43 PM
I wasn't Mec Infantry either, but we got attatched to various units pretty regular during Desert Storm/Shield. Stormin' Norman wan't crazy about us but we did our job just the same as ordered.
Either way I thank you both. Sincerely. I was having a hard time coming up with something to say, so I figured I'd just give what I see in my mind every Memorial Day.
An excellent post. I only wish I was so eloquent. You hit it dead on. Those smells are something that you never forget. I started in Jeeps, so the smells of gasoline, motor oil and GAA are forever etched into my mind as well. Those sights, sounds and smells are reminders, no matter what level you rise to, if you were a real leader, they will bring you back to your roots.
‘We pledge allegiance’: 44 service members earn U.S. citizenship on Memorial Day
Welcome, Americans!
By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
CJTF-101 Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (May 26, 2008) – The poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty beckons “Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free,” but on this Memorial Day, quite the opposite was true as 44 members of the U.S. military marched forward to become America’s newest citizens.
In the presence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, U.S. Immigration Service’s acting director Jonathan Scharfen, and Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, 44 service members from 21 countries swore oaths of allegiance and became U.S. citizens.
“On behalf of President Bush and a grateful nation, I say welcome,” said Chertoff to the new American Citizens.
With the swearing in of these 44 service members, 312 military men and women have gained citizenship while deployed to Afghanistan since beginning the War on Terror, said Stacy K. Strong, Deputy District Director of the American Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.
According to a May 2008 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s fact sheet, USCIS has naturalized more than 39,085 service members since the beginning of the war.
“There is no honor greater than presiding over an oath ceremony and there is no better place to do it than here,” said Chertoff. “ You have all earned your citizenship through your service. Starting today, America is as much your country as it is mine.”
Under an executive order, legal permanent residents actively serving in the U.S. military, and legal permanent residents who were on active duty on, or after Sept. 11, 2001 and honorably discharged, are immediately eligible to apply for naturalization.
One Soldier expressed his feelings toward becoming a U.S. citizen.
“This feels really great – closure to the ‘history’ chapter in my life and the beginning of my future,” said Army Pvt. Mark Paguio, 23.
Paguio, a Philippine native, led the other service members in their recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. “Becoming a U.S. citizen has opened many doors,” he said.
In unison, the Soldiers and Marines raised their right hands and swore to support and defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies, and to bear arms when required by law. For the service members who are all currently serving in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom or the International Security Assistance Force, the oath was merely an affirmation of what they have worked so hard to secure.
“This day means everything to me,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Artem Starovoyt, a Ukraine native who now resides in Philadelphia. “I have been out on the front lines doing what I can for my nation – and now I can officially call America home.”
The service members came from 21 countries: Jamaica, Columbia, Philippines, Peru, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Australia, Poland, Ghana, Iran, Mexico, El Salvador, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Tobago, Germany, Cuba, Nigeria, St. Vincent-Grenadines and Ukraine.
Heh. They pledged more than allegiance. They pledged theirs lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor...
Not that I expect you to click and read every link - but the "Surge" is represented in a sense. The list runs in order the posts were posted - and the time spread between them has lengthened, and more people who were not combat casualties, but rather the casualties of time and wear appear towards the end of the list. A trend that continues, hopefully, into the next year.
We go to the garden three times a year, sometimes more. In the garden, flowers bloom all year round. Over the hill, down into the valley, across the little wooden bridge that sits above a stone lined creek. Then, over the next hill, down by the tree. A little later, around the corner and up on the next hill, we walk to the places that we know well, the symmetrical paths guiding our feet.
It's hot now, the sun above us with a slight haze settled over the rolling hills. We hold a quiet conversation, pausing now and again before moving on. Sometimes we walk in silence, each contemplating their own thoughts or, maybe, as I am, holding a silent conversation with those we walk among.
I noticed the couple walking towards us along the path. White haired, the man holding a small arrangement of flowers in one hand and his hat in the other, she with a paper in her hand; they walked as I did, head down, counting:
58.......57.......56......
"Are you lost?" I asked as we met on the path.
The lady looked at the paper, bewildered, and then to me, "Do you work here?"
"No, Ma'am. But I have been here many times," I replied. The older gentleman, in his jeans and checked shirt, was looking down at his hat, then out over the garden. I glanced back to the lady, helpfully.
"Oh. We have, too," she said. "Come every year, but it seems like it keeps changing." I know what she meant. We come every year and it seems like it just keeps growing. There's always a new addition in the garden.
"Are you looking for someone?" I prompted again as I felt a drop of sweat trickle down past my sun glasses.
The man never spoke. "Our dear friend. The lady said section 58. I thought it was on the end of a row, but..." She gestured half heartedly.
"What month and year?" I smiled helpfully and then glanced across the field to get my bearings. The year that section of the garden was added is plainly visible on stark white markers.
"Um...2005...May, I think."
"Oh. I know where that is. I'll show you the way." We had already been to all the places in the garden we needed to go. I knew them well and all the places in between.
I turned back along the path and down back towards the bowl of the valley. Earlier, the thunder had rolled across the hills, echoing like cannon, disturbing the quiet, before a few large drops had fallen. I picked my way carefully along the path, avoiding the bare areas where grass had not yet grown in the new additions. Head down, counting again:
When I first came to the garden I didn't know how to read the stories written in the stone. Now I know. I read them quietly to myself as we went along.
Two young men came up the path in a cart, "Are you finding everything alright?" These polite caretakers are the reason that the garden looks so beautiful all year long.
"Yes. Thank you." I gestured to the older couple who approached more slowly. "They're looking for their friend."
"What's his name? We can look him up for you." They stopped and one young man stepped out, pulling out a book.
I turned to the lady as she approached, the man still silent, standing behind. "What's his name?"
"David...David Leonard Buckles." She looked back to the silent man who stayed where he was.
"Just a minute." The young man flipped the book open. One page. Two pages. "Almost there." He ran his finger down the page, near the bottom he stopped. "Ah...David L. Buckles. Section 58, Row 9, 16." He closed the book and looked up. "In this section, go west...ah...back up the hill. The numbers are on the back of the stones." The stones always face east in the garden. Towards the sunrise so the sun will always be on their faces.
The lady must have still looked confused, "Here, I'll show you." He placed the book back in the cart and took the lady's arm. The other young man followed behind in the cart.
"Thank you," I said as they passed.
"Yes. Thank you." The lady echoed somewhat relieved. She turned back a little to me as they walked, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." I watched them go, a few yards back up the hill towards the silent man. He put his red hat back on, the one with the yellow writing: USMC. Still silent, he raised his hand. I raised mine in acknowledgement. In that moment, I knew him. Then he turned and walked on.
I looked out over the valley, watching the others who moved quietly through the garden of stone with their flowers and small gifts, pausing here and there to read the stories, bending down to place their offerings or straighten a flag. A young woman sat near a stone while a boy stood fidgeting near by.
I watched my mom walk back towards me through the stones, along the grassy path, "I found Fred. Somebody's already been to visit."
"Oh." I heard the chimes from the chapel on the hill start to chime the Armed Forces Medley. We knew so many here in the garden.
Every time I come to the garden, I learn something new. Why the stones faced east. How the sections were organized. How to read their stories. I had always admired the long rows of stone. I knew that the position of each stone was measured out to form precise lines like a military formation on the parade ground.
This time, I got "it". The "it" we're supposed to get when we honor all those who have fought for our nation and are now gone. Not sadness or grief, nor pride or gratitude nor even peace. Not even simply satisfaction for doing what should be done.
They rested here in military precision, the stones a measured distance apart, the last formation, but they had already been relieved from their posts. Their job was done.
What were the words? They were floating around on the edge of my memory. Oh. Yes...
He breaks the bow and shatters the spears...
An odd feeling struck me. Odd because I was standing in the garden of stone, a place where those who had lived through battle now rested and those who remained often still grieved.
It was...happiness.
"What time is it?"
"Hmmm?" I cocked my head and listened to the chimes fade away on the last notes of the Navy song, Anchors Aweigh. "A little after two, I think. Are you ready to go?" We had a birthday party to get to.
I took her arm and we left the garden. But, we'd be back soon to visit again, learning the additions, admiring the flowers and reading the stories as we walked to the places that we knew well. Next time, I'll remember all the words.
Leavenworth National Cemetery
Psalm 46:9-10
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
...Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Psalms 30:5
Thank you and rest well.
posted by Cricket on May 26, 2008 8:44 AM
Kat,
The young men were being PC with their comment about facing east. The bodies are facing east to face the returning and Risen Christ.
posted by Azygos on May 26, 2008 1:40 PM
It's often difficult to know what to say. We in Australia feel for your soldiers for our alliance has been long and many are the struggles we have shared. Remembering them is important to us too, though our official remembrance is on another day. Still any day can be good for remembering, can it not?
Kat you are such a good writer here, you show the compassion and quiet honour in a living setting like few can.
A few years ago I bought a special t-shirt that I only wear once a year, on Memorial Day. It's black. The front has a picture of a flag and a few soldiers who appear to be ready for battle. The words on the back, however, are the reason I bought the shirt, and only wear it once a year:
"What else can you so to our Veterans on Memorial Day other than Thank You?"
If cease fires in the name of peace actually produced peace the Middle East would be the most peaceful place on earth by now.
.
Mebbe it's just Clobbering Time.
.
Just sayin'
.
"The Iraqis don't want Saddam back - they want the
stability. But they want the stability without being
fed into industrial chippers."
.
-The Armorer, on Hugh Hewitt, 27 December 2006.
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Every deployed military service member and veteran has one final, over arching mission: to come home as physically and mentally fit as possible. While we are quick to recognize that physical wounds occur in combat, we aren't always willing to look at our mental or emotional health, but it is imperative for completing the mission. By working together, we can make "coming home" a successful mission.
Please review the following mission information:
PTSD: Facts and Information
NCPTSD Fact Sheet: The Impact of Wars in Afghanistan and IraqReturning From a Warzone: Guide for Military Personnel for Transitioning Home
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Returning From a Warzone: Guide for Families on Transitioning Home
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unless quoted from other sources. This site does *not* have
the Rumsfeld Gates Seal of Approval and we doubt he knows (or
cares) it exists! Though we *have* seen the Official Army Blog Training Brief, and we know that the *Counter-Intel* people know it exists... [Waving vigorously] "Hi fellas! How are ya?" However, we *do* know the blog is read at the White House. Because we got invited there. Kewl, huh?
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Notable Quotes
"It's not difficult to understand why
somebody might pick up an AK-47 against us. Maybe we killed
his father in the first Gulf War, maybe in this Gulf War,
maybe he's just a dick.
~Sgt. Reginald Abram
Third Armored Cavalry Regiment in western Iraq.
Quoted in the Asia Times, Oct. 24"
Ex-Sgt Shep - a Canadian commenting on the deserters:
Time for these so-called "resisters" to go home and face the music. I don't want my tax dollars going to support these bozos who volunteered and then decided they didn't want to play by the rules they agreed to. I'd have a lot more time for them if they decided to make their stand without turning tail and without abandoning their oaths and their comrades (although I suspect their comrades are better off without them.)
We'll drive 'em to the border. You guys pick them up.
President Bush on terrorists in Iraq:
"They can't whip our militaries. What they can
do is get on your TV screens and stand in front of your
TV cameras and cut somebody's head off, in order to
try to cause us to cringe and retreat. That's their
strongest weapon." . . .
Joe Honan, Castle Afghan Correspondent Sez
Two things that were going through my mind were: Uncle Joe never went through this to bring his Luger back from the ETO, and what use was it voting for Republicans all my life if I can’t just mail a gun back from a war zone? Where are we, Canada?
Carrie Sez:
" Perhaps we should have another category of conservatives besides paleocons and neocons.
"Narcissocons" with the motto "We are always on our minds". If you happen to be one, you are not allowed to have or spend the older quarters because there's a MEXICAN EAGLE on the back. Oh the horror." . . .
Marc Danziger (Armed Liberal)
"As most of you know, I'm a liberal Democrat (pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, pro-progressive taxation, pro-equal rights, pro-environmental regulation, pro-public schools) who supported and supports the war in Iraq. As I tell my liberal friends, "Did I miss the part where it was progressive not to fight medieval religious fascists?"
Princess Crabby on Iraq:
" Maggie said:
"If you believed an incident such as this could change your mind then
you really weren't supporting OIF/OEF for the right reasons." " . . .
Red Ensign Bloggers - Fighting to Keep Canada Free from
the Yoke of Excessive Political Correctness!
The Baron (as he was called throughout his military career) was born in Long Beach, California in 1925. Baron attended Hollywood High School (how cool is that, eh?) and was drafted into World War II out of Los Angeles City College Art School. He served as a medic, earning a Combat Medical Badge fighting in the Pacific and CBI theaters. 
© Pamela Bobik
