Jason Dunham, Corporal, USMC, Medal of Honor

This isn't news, really. We knew it was coming. But now it has happened.

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2007 - President Bush today presented the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest decoration, to the family of Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, who died shielding his fellow Marines from a grenade blast in Iraq in April 2004.

"With this medal, we pay tribute to the courage and leadership of a man who represents the best of young Americans," Bush said before presenting the medal to Dunham's family at the White House.

Dunham, who grew up in Scio, N.Y., was the leader of a rifle squad with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, in Iraq. Dunham's squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in Karabilah on April 14, 2004, when a nearby convoy returning to base was ambushed. When Dunham's squad approached to assist the convoy, an Iraqi insurgent jumped out of a vehicle and grabbed Dunham by the throat. As Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground, he noticed that the enemy fighter had a grenade in his hand. Dunham ordered his Marines to move back, and when the enemy dropped the live grenade, Dunham took off his Kevlar helmet, covered the grenade with it, and threw himself on top to smother the blast.

Dunham initially survived his wounds, but died eight days later at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., with his mother and father at his bedside.

"By his selflessness, Corporal Dunham saved the lives of two of his men and showed the world what it means to be a Marine," Bush said.

Dunham is the second servicemember in the war on terror and the first Marine since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor. His mother, father, sister and two brothers were at the ceremony today, which was attended by Cabinet members, Defense Department and Marine Corps leaders, members of Congress, past Medal of Honor recipients, and members of Dunham's unit.

Bush spoke about Dunham's upbringing in upstate New York. Dunham was a star athlete who was popular and a natural leader. His father, a dairy farm worker, and his mother, a school teacher, were devoted parents. "He grew up with the riches far more important than money," Bush said.

Dunham joined the Marine Corps on July 31, 2000. It was in the Marines that he learned honor, courage, commitment and leadership qualities, Bush said. "As the leader of a rifle squad in Iraq, Corporal Dunham led by the values he had been taught," he said. "He was the guy everybody looked up to; he was a Marine's Marine who led by example."

Bush noted that Dunham's mother called the Marine Corps her son's second family. Now that family is embracing her and the rest of the Dunham family as they deal with their loss, Bush said.

Since World War II, more than half of those who have earned the Medal of Honor have lost their lives in the action that earned it, Bush said. "Corporal Jason Dunham belongs to this select group," he said. "On a dusty road in western Iraq, Corporal Dunham gave his own life so that the men under his command might live. This morning, it's my privilege to recognize Corporal Dunham's devotion to the Corps and the country and to present his family with the Medal of Honor."

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

President George W. Bush presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to Dan and Deb Dunham for their son, U.S. Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, during a ceremony in his honor at the White House Jan. 11, 2007. Cpl. Dunham gave his own life in April 2004 by jumping on a grenade during an insurgent attack in western Iraq to save the lives of men under his command. DoD photo by Cherie A. Thurlby. (Released)

The citation has not yet been published, as far as I know. This URL is the placeholder at Marine Corps News.

Increasing ground forces.

Well, that will put some more pressure on Recruiting Command... that said - we had 740,000 soldiers in my VOLAR (old term, Volunteer Army) army of the '80s, when there were fewer Americans than there are now (not counting the illegals, either). We're not talking about going back to that era.

Of course, that was also when we had the economy we'd inherited from President Carter.

Oh, wait - the Dems are back in charge of Congress. So, in a few years, especially if they win the White House, I expect meeting those numbers won't be all that hard.

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2007 - The active-duty Army and Marine Corps will grow by 92,000 personnel over the next five years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a White House news conference today.

"The President announced last night that he would strengthen our military for the long war against terrorism by authorizing an increase in the overall strength of the Army and Marine Corps," Gates said. "I am recommending to him a total increase in the two services of 92,000 soldiers and Marines over the next five years."

The breakout is 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.

The increase will make permanent the 30,000 temporary increase in Army end-strength and 5,000 increase in the Marine Corps. Then the services will increase in annual increments of 7,000 for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps.

The Army has a current end-strength of 512,400, with the Marines at 180,000. Under Gates' proposal, the Army's end-strength will grow to 547,000 and the Marines to 202,000.

"We should recognize that while it may take some time for these new troops to become available for deployment, it is important that our men and women in uniform know that additional manpower and resources are on the way," Gates said.

The increase will give soldiers and Marines more "dwell time" at home, officials said. Currently, units are on close to a one-to-one deployment to dwell time schedule. The increase in end-strength will reduce the stress on deployable active duty personnel.

Army and Marine officials said the services cannot grow forces overnight. Currently, the active duty Army recruits 80,000 young Americans each year with the Marines bringing in 39,000.

Recruiting officials said that right now, only three of 10 young men and women in the 19-14 year old cohort meet the standards to enlist in the military.

Those young men and women have a lot of demands for their services, an Army official said, and incentives for enlisting and for service may need to be "plussed-up" to encourage these people to enlist. The services also may need to put more recruiters on the street.

Training the individuals in the proper military occupational specialties is also a potential choke-point. Both the Army and Marine Corps training establishments have some growth potential, and can probably expand to handle the influx, officials in both services said.

DoD Announces Changes to Reserve Component Force Management Policy

The secretary of defense announced today a policy change in the way the department will manage reserve component forces.

The first aspect of the policy change will involve the way the department manages deployments of reserve forces. Currently, reserve deployments are managed on an individual basis. In the future deployments will be managed on unit basis, allowing for greater unit cohesion and predictability for training and deployments.

Interested in the rest? It's in the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry.

Something you might find interesting...

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2007 - A new law that took effect Jan. 1 changes the way the remains of servicemembers killed in combat are transported and handled.

The 2007 National Defense Authorization Act states that the primary mode of transportation for remains of servicemembers being returned to the U.S. is military aircraft or military-contracted aircraft. This is a change from the past, when commercial service was used to transport the remains of fallen troops.

"It was a provision in the law, and I think ... there was some interest to make sure that the remains were moved in an expeditious manner," Air Force Col. Michael Pachuta, director of morale, welfare and recreation policy for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said in an interview.

Every servicemember who dies in a theater of combat is transported by military aircraft to Dover Air Force Base, Del., for processing and burial preparation, Pachuta explained. This law changes the way the remains are transported from Dover to their place of burial.

In a memorandum to senior military leaders, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England wrote that this change is to ensure the transportation of
fallen servicemembers is given priority. England instructed the military services and departments to work together to ensure air transportation arrangements are handled properly and efficiently.

The law also directs that an honor guard escorts servicemembers' remains from Dover to their final resting place. The servicemember's next of kin can request that commercial air transportation be used for the remains, or that the honor guard not escort the remains, Pachuta said.

Another recent change that is giving more recognition to the remains of fallen servicemembers is the use of honor covers on coffins, Pachuta said. The honor cover is a reinforced cardboard cover that fits on top of the airline industry's standard air tray for coffins. The cover is embossed with an American flag, and the Defense Department seal on both ends.

The idea for the honor covers, which the Army has been using since October, came from feedback from family members and military members who had escorted remains, Pachuta said. "Our intent certainly is to make sure that those handling the remains along the way understand that this is a fallen servicemember and certainly should be handled expeditiously but also with care and respect," he said.

The Army designed the honor covers in cooperation with the Air Transport Association, so they are standardized throughout the airline industry, Pachuta said. The covers are not used more than once and are treated to make them waterproof. When the remains reach their final destination, the honor cover is removed and an American flag is placed over the coffin, he said.

Tension in the Ranks in Blighty

CAPT H sends: Colonel sacked for rebuke over visits to injured.

Sean Rayment, writing in the Sunday Telegraph:

A high-flying Army officer has been sacked for rebuking a senior commander who failed to visit injured troops in hospital.

Col Julian Clover, 43, was dismissed from his post as a staff officer at the Army's Land Command headquarters after clashing with his superior over the need for senior officers to visit troops injured in Afghanistan and Iraq at the Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham.

His sacking has sent shock waves through Land Command, the biggest Army headquarters in Britain, and has raised concerns that some senior officers are "out of touch" with the concerns of the rank and file.

There's more to the story.

Brig Bruce Brealey, 47, who had previously served in the Royal Artillery, was on a rota of senior officers who had been asked to visit Selly Oak hospital in November to check up on the soldiers' welfare and to deal with any complaints they might have. It is understood, however, that before he was due to travel to the hospital he delegated the visit to Col Clover, who at the time was an assistant chief of staff with responsibility for media operations at the headquarters.

After visiting the hospital, Col Clover had a meeting with Brig Brealey in which he expressed his view in a "forthright and uncompromising manner" that it was not acceptable for senior officers to delegate the responsibility of visiting injured troops to junior officers. The two officers were known by colleagues to have had a difficult working relationship.

Brigadier Brealy is referred to by a fellow officer as a "process man" whilst Colonel Clover has made a career in unconventional operations. A clash of personalities.

I'm no Brit, so I may be wrong, but I read this rather as Brigadier Brealy is a Stuffed Shirt Rule-bound Garret Trooper, while Colonel Clover is rather more results-oriented. I can see, being a Brigadier, how your schedule might be pretty full and it's hard to carve out the time to do things like that. Who knows what the travel time is to the hospital?

Of course, that's why you have a vehicle with a driver, and a cell phone, etc - and a laptop. No reason you can't work while in the vehicle going to and fro. And I suspect the hospital might just allow you some leeway in visiting hours, so you could go after work.

And, I suspect, this incident was merely the straw that broke the camel's back for the Brigadier, what with that unruly subordinate. The Brigadier undoubtedly has a story.

Absent any more information, however, I frankly don't care. Bad Brigadier. Sit, stay! You can't find time in your schedule to go visit soldiers? To show you actually care for soldiers - and make the hospital people know you care for soldiers, especially wounded ones? If you can't muster that kind of professionalism, then, in my book, you are unworthy of your commission.

Worse, the man's a Gunner. An Artilleryman. A Redleg (which no doubt was *some* of CAPT H's motivation for sending me the story).

Meaningless as it is, I shun you, sir. I call upon Saint Barbara to withdraw her patronage from you.

Unless you've got a far better reason than the story indicates. If so, I'm sure Saint Barbara will take that into consideration. However, if I hear of you suffering a horrible accident involving a barbecue gone wild... or something similar - well, we'll know Saint Barbara's opinion, won't we?*

This isn't about Colonel Clover - wronged or not. He's getting by on his 70K ($135K USD) salary just fine.

This is about the soldiers, wounded soldiers, you didn't have time for.

Shame, Brigadier. Shame.

You can read the whole story here.

If someone can show me the Brigadier's side of the story, I'll be happy to run with it.

*Note to unbalanced personalities. Don't help the Saint. She doesn't need it. Let her be the judge. Don't you do a thing. -the Armorer

Drudge: ISRAEL PLANS NUCLEAR STRIKE ON IRAN

Me: D-uh.

And Syria.

And Egypt.

And Saudi Arabia.

And Jordan (well, maybe not, but probably).

And... they still have their Iraq plan in the safe, too.

Just like we have nuke target folios for... Russia. China. North Korea.

And they're secret, too.

The Israel Defense Force General Staff would be incompetent not to have a plan.

The question - thus far unanswered... is it a CONPLAN, or an OPLAN. Contingency, vice Operation. The current one, or an old one, if contingency.

If it's an OPLAN, *then* it's a story. And whoever leaked it should be locked into a very small, dark, hole. With rats.

Well, actually, if it's the current CONPLAN, whoever leaked it should be locked into a very small, dark, hole. With rats. Because there's a lot of intel analysis (and the reverse engineering thereof) locked into that document, depending on what it *actually* is.

Frankly, even an old CONPLAN gives away stuff. Same hole. With rats.

Otherwise, *yawn*.

Of course, if it's a sanctioned leak - then the target isn't Iran. It's us. To keep the West focused on the threat - and what Israel may choose to do about it - without our permission (which they don't need) or agreement (which they would like to have). And the plan may only contain data they want to share with us, anyway.

Jay, over at Stop the ACLU is running a reax post. Okay Jay, that's my reax.

Until you tell me it's an OPLAN, I'm not interested, except in that warrior geek way that I'm always interested in stuff like that.

Well, that's not entirely true. The old targeteer in me would like to see it, just to see what the Israelis consider the target set to be. But I wouldn't share that with you. I'd just giggle quietly in the corner playing with my data.

Oooo. Bad image.

Buddies, source, differences by.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Get upset if you're too busy to talk to them for a week.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are glad to see you after years, and will happily carry on the same conversation you were having last time you met.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Never ask for food.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are the reason you have no food.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. And Mrs.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Call your parents mom and dad.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and tell you what you did was wrong.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Would be sitting next to you saying, "Damn...we screwed up...but man that was fun!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have never seen you cry.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Cry with you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Keep your stuff so long they forget it's yours.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds ass that left you behind.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, "I'm home!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are for a while.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Are for life.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Have shared a few experiences...
MILITARY FRIENDS: Have shared a lifetime of experiences no Civilian could ever dream of...

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, "You better drink the rest of that, you know we don't waste...that's alcohol abuse!!" Then carry you home safely and put you to bed...

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk crap to the person who talks crap about you.
MILITARY FRIENDS: Will knock them the hell out for using your name in vain.

H/t, Dom J.

Mind in the Qatar

Since Trackbacks aren't working yet (still looking for a blog-mechanic!) MajChaz of Mind in the Qatar asked me to post these two gems... and today's H&I is already pretty long, so I'll put 'em up here.

Long Live Military History (Word!)

Long Live Military History

Saving a disappearing portion of Academia

A long important part of the study of history, has been the study of the subset of military history. It is incredibly important to understand both U.S. and global military history, as many significant events across time have involved and been driven by military influences of one form or another.

However in the increasingly leftward tilt of the ivory tower of higher education, military history is "...dead at many other top colleges and universities as well. Where it isn’t dead and buried, it’s either dying or under siege..." This according to John Miller in his National Review article "Sounding Taps" from earlier this fall.

Read that here.

And his suggestion we quit trying to fix the MSM, but simply supplant it.

Much has been made over the last couple of years (and especially in the last several months) about the major media's (aka main-stream media, drive-by media, or alien-media nation) inability to provide balanced news coverage about major events shaping our world....especially in Iraq.

Several times I suggested that a "Good News Hour" would do wonders to combat all the negative reporting, and possibly avoid a decline in public opinion on Iraq. Unfortunately we have turned that corner, and can only now hope to regain ground. Truth and good news still have a place in our media environment.

Perhaps as Glenn Reynolds suggests, the Davids born of the blogosphere could produce an adequate alternative. The Alternative Media Network (AMN) if you will. In my mind, a lot of the ingredients for the recipe are already in place....

Start with some hearty 'Army of Davids' stock, add heaping cup of Pajamas Media ingenuity, mix in a bushel each of Bill Roggio's and Milbloggers, and finish with a dash of Paul Harvey.

Read the rest of that, here.

With trackbacks hosed, don't be shy about asking for links. They may not all make it - but hey - it makes life easier sometimes when the Muse is on vacation.

On the origins of some military traditions...

...laid out for you in preparation for President Ford's funeral.

By John J. Kruzel American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 28, 2006 - Military tradition will be evident throughout the events associated with the Dec. 26 death of former President Gerald R. Ford, as the services join the nation in bidding farewell to their former commander in chief.

Ford's three-stage state funeral will begin tomorrow [today] with the former president's remains lying in repose at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif. He will then be honored in the nation's capital, and finally in his home state of Michigan, where he will be buried. Ford's casket will arrive Dec. 30 at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. A motorcade will travel through Alexandria, Va., where Ford resided while serving as a congressman and vice president. After a pause at the World War II Memorial -- Ford served in the Navy during the war -- the motorcade will proceed to the U.S. Capitol, where the former president will lie in state.

Ford's coffin will be draped in a U.S. flag, with the blue field over his left shoulder. The custom began in the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when a flag was used to cover the dead as they were taken from the battlefield on a caisson.

Graveside military honors in Michigan will include the firing of three volleys each by seven servicemembers. This commonly is confused with an entirely separate honor, the 21-gun salute. But the number of individual gun firings in both honors evolved the same way.

The three volleys came from an old battlefield custom. The two warring sides would cease hostilities to clear their dead from the battlefield, and the firing of three volleys meant that the dead had been properly cared for and the side was ready to resume the battle.

The 21-gun salute traces its roots to the Anglo-Saxon empire, when seven guns constituted a recognized naval salute, as most naval vessels had seven guns. Because gunpowder in those days could be more easily stored on land than at sea, guns on land could fire three rounds for every one that could be fired by a ship at sea. [This section appears to be incomplete. IIRC, the purpose of firing the salute was to prove your guns were empty as a gesture of good faith, and assuring the land-based guns the first shot. The same reason that when Navy ships enter harbor they have the crew standing in whites around the hull - to show that not only are the guns empty, they are un-manned. Sailors correct me if I'm wrong. -the Armorer]

Later, as gunpowder and storage methods improved, salutes at sea also began using 21 guns. The United States at first used one round for each state, attaining the 21-gun salute by 1818. The nation reduced its salute to 21 guns in 1841, and formally adopted the 21-gun salute at the suggestion of the British in 1875.

An "order of arms" protocol determines the number of guns to be used in a salute. A president, ex-president or foreign head of state is saluted with 21 guns. A vice president, prime minister, secretary of defense or secretary of the Army receives a 19-gun salute. Flag officers receive salutes of 11 to 17 guns, depending on their rank. The rounds are fired one at a time.

A U.S. presidential death also involves other ceremonial gun salutes and military traditions. On the day after the death of the president, a former President or president-elect -- unless this day falls on a Sunday or holiday, in which case the honor will rendered the following day -- the commanders of Army installations with the necessary personnel and material traditionally order that one gun be fired every half hour, beginning at reveille and ending at retreat.

On the day of burial, a 21-minute gun salute traditionally is fired starting at noon at all military installations with the necessary personnel and material. Guns will be fired at one-minute intervals. Also on the day of burial, those installations will fire a 50-gun salute -- one round for each state -- at five- second intervals immediately following lowering of the flag.

The playing of "Ruffles and Flourishes" announces the arrival of a flag officer or other dignitary of honor. Drums play the ruffles, and bugles play the flourishes - one flourish for each star of the flag officer's rank or as appropriate for the honoree's position or title. Four flourishes is the highest honor.

When played for a president, "Ruffles and Flourishes" is followed by "Hail to the Chief," which is believed to have been written in England in 1810 or 1811 by James Sanderson for a play by Sir Walter Scott called "The Lady of the Lake." The play began to be performed in the United States in 1812, the song became popular, and it became a favorite of bands at festive events. It evolved to be used as a greeting for important visitors, and eventually for the president, though no record exists of when it was first put to that use.

The bugle call "Taps" originated in the Civil War with the Army of the Potomac. Union Army Brig. Gen. Daniel Butterfield didn't like the bugle call that signaled soldiers in the camp to put out the lights and go to sleep, and worked out the melody of "Taps" with his brigade bugler, Pvt. Oliver Wilcox Norton. The call later came into another use as a figurative call to the sleep of death for soldiers.

Ford will be buried with full military honors at his presidential museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 3.

(John D. Banusiewicz of American Forces Press Service contributed to this article. Information from Web pages of the Military District of Washington and Arlington National Cemetery was used in this article.)

I like young Wales.

No, not a typo-damaged lust for under-age cetaceans... rather young Prince Harry of A Squadron, the Blues and Royals.

Prince Harry has threatened to quit the Army if commanders refuse to send him to the front line.

He told senior officers before recently passing out of Sandhurst as a Second Lieutenant: "If I am not allowed to join my unit in a war zone, I will hand in my uniform."

Good on you, Lieutenant. That's what I want to see in a young officer.

Of course, it isn't that simple, now is it?

Like it or not, Prince Harry is 3rd in line for the Throne of England. That makes him a very lucrative "kill or capture" target.

Okay, it's a dangerous business, isn't it? The Royal Family have thus far not been too shy about risking their own flesh and blood in service, witness Prince Andrew in the Falklands.

So, the concern twists itself to another angle - would Lieutenant Wales' presence put his troops at greater risk, as the jihadis try to score the Big One?

That is a concern expressed by the senior leadership, for whom such things really are important.

The embarrassment for the Army caused by him quitting would be matched by uproar at the notion that while ordinary citizens are allowed to that their main problem is not whether Harry can take the pressure of coming under fire in action – but whether the lives of the men fighting alongside him will be more at risk because he is regarded as a ‘trophy target’ by insurgents.

One experienced commander said: "Second Lt Wales will, as far as is possible, be treated like any other officer but there has to be a line drawn as to whether the men he leads might experience extra danger due to his presence. Decisions will be taken by commanding officers based on an accurate risk assessment at the time."

The Sun is reporting that Prince Harry may go to Afstan with his unit. And, that soldiers are supportive of his deploying.

Officially, the Ministry of Defence insists that a final decision about whether second lieutenant Harry will be allowed to fight in Iraq has yet to be made.

The Prince has always said he is determined to do battle with his 100-strong unit, A Squadron of the Blues and Royals — part of the Household Cavalry.

They begin a six-month tour of Iraq in the spring. And before that, they are expected to take part in war games and exhaustive preparations for conflict.

The decision over the young Royal is deemed so important it will be made by the Army’s top man, Chief of the General Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt.

But a bandwagon of popular support is growing among the ranks to allow Harry to fulfil his dream of active service. Despite alarm over the possibility of putting the Prince’s life in danger, top brass will find that hard to refuse.

I say Lieutenant Wales is either a member of the unit, or not. If he is, then he should deploy with them, and not send them out with a newbie who hasn't trained with the unit.

If it turns out that every splodey-dope jihadi with a belt of explosives want to martyr themselves - that can be sorted out on the ground over there, based on the actual risks, vice the "might be a problems".

It's a war. Let's not forget the moral(e) aspects. There are some considerations that transcend.

Let Wales fight.

H/t, Heartless Libertarian.

You find the most interesting things...

...in the most unlikely places.

LTG Petraeus (CG here at Fort Leavenworth) was interviewed by the German Spiegel (Mirror) Online.

Spiegel asks...

SPIEGEL: General Petraeus, you were in charge of combat operations in Iraq, you supervised the build-up of the new Iraqi security force and now you oversee the training and education of Army officers here at Fort Leavenworth. Would you agree that you are trying to impose a sort of a cultural revolution on the United States Army?

LTG Petraeus' answer will be soup for Ry's soul:

Petraeus: There is quite a big cultural change going on. We used to say, that if you can do the "big stuff," the big combined arms, high-end, high intensity major combat operations and have a disciplined force, then you can do the so-called "little stuff," too. That turned out to be wrong.

This little snippet caught my attention:

SPIEGEL: You propagate the idea that young officers should go to graduate school. Why does a soldier need a master's degree?

Petraeus: We're talking about how to react to unforeseeable, non-standard tasks, we're talking about environments that are very different to those we're used to. You have to work in a foreign language, you have to negotiate with people who come from another religious background or who don't even share what we would call the same core values. Now here you have a setting quite similar to graduate school, which takes you out of your intellectual comfort zone -- and that really is something a young officer should experience.

You know, we in the Army, we have to admit, that we're living sometimes a sort of a grindstone cloister existence. We work very hard; indeed, we have our noses to the proverbial grindstone. And we tend to live a somewhat cloistered existence much of our lives. So we have to try to raise, as one of my colleagues once put it, our sights beyond the maximum effective range of a M-16-rifle. Graduate school and other experiences that get us out of our intellectual comfort zone help us do just that.

Heh. While I agree, and emphatically, I sent this response to the SAMS (School of Advanced Military Studies) graduate buddy of mine, Jim C. who sent me this link...

Heh. And those of us who did raise our sights above the proverbial M16 post-and-peep were rewarded exactly how...?

And Jim, who is something of a warfighting intellectual himself (at least the government pays us decent dollars to do this for them... now) responded thusly:

I believe we were shown the door.

Indeed. I agree with LTG Petraeus' responses in the piece. I only hope he (or someone like him in stature) is really working the other side - the officers who sit on the promotion boards. From our era, a not insignificant number of whom don't have combat patches. And I hope he finds a way to institutionalize it so that it lasts beyond this period of combat, though the history of the Army does not offer much hope of that.

One of the reasons I blog, beyond gun pr0n, or "the more kinetic aspects of history" as Matt describes the stuff at the Castle - to be a little ember, casting a small glow in a forgotten corner near the disused lavatory in the third sub-basement. You know the one - the one with the sign that says "Beware of the Leopard!"

Marines Charge Eight in Connection With Haditha Deaths

Let it all settle out in court. Good to see DoD making the connection between the leaders and the led, and that the officers will face a court, too.

By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21, 2006 - Four Marines have been charged in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians in Haditha Nov. 19, 2005, and another four Marines have been charged with failure to properly report and/or investigate the deaths of the Iraqi civilians.

Col. Stewart Navarre, chief of staff of Marine Corps Installations West, announced the charges and specifications during a news conference on Camp Pendleton, Calif., today. All of those charged were members of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

"The Marine Corps takes allegations of wrong-doing by Marines very seriously and is committed to thoroughly investigating such allegations," Navarre said. "The Marine Corps also prides itself on holding its members accountable for their actions.

"We are absolutely committed to holding fair and impartial proceedings in full compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice," he said. Navarre said the charges stem from an incident that occurred after an attack on a four-vehicle Marine convoy from the battalion's Kilo Company. The convoy was moving through Haditha when it was ambushed by insurgents employing an improvised explosive device and small arms fire, Navarre said.

"One Marine was killed and two were wounded by the explosion," the colonel said. "Over the next several hours, 24 Iraqi men, women and children died in the vicinity of the IED explosion."

The next day, 2nd Marine Division issued a press release stating that 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in an IED explosion, and Marines and Iraqi Army soldiers killed eight insurgents in a follow-on firefight. "We now know with certainty the press release was incorrect, and that none of the civilians were killed by the IED explosion," Navarre said.

In February, Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, initiated an investigation. "This investigation focused on the circumstances of the attack and whether the Marines involved followed the Rules of Engagement and Law of Armed Conflict," Navarre said.

In March, Marine Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, commander of coalition forces in Al Anbar province, initiated a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation, to determine if there was any criminal responsibility for the deaths of the Iraqi civilians.

Later that month Chiarelli ordered Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell to conduct another investigation to look at three aspects of the incident: official reporting of the events and follow-on actions by the chain of command; training of Marines in the Rules of Engagement and the Law of Armed Conflict; and whether the command climate in 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, encouraged the disciplined application of the Rules of Engagement and the Law of Armed Conflict.

"In May 2006, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service also began a criminal investigation into the follow-on actions of the chain of command," Navarre said.

Bargewell ended his inquiry June 15, 2006. He concluded that the Marines were adequately trained on the Rules of Engagement and Law of Armed Conflict but that reporting of the incident up the chain of command was inaccurate and untimely. The report went to Chiarelli, Army Gen. George Casey, the commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, and finally to U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command for appropriate action, Navarre said.

Those charged are:

Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich is charged with unpremeditated murder, soliciting another to commit an offense and making a false official statement.

Marine Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz was charged with five counts of murder and one charge of a false official statement.

Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum is charged with murder, negligent homicide and assault.

Marine Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt is charged with three counts of murder.

Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, was charged with three counts of violation of a lawful order and dereliction of duty.

Marine Capt. Lucas M. McConnell has been charged with dereliction of duty.

Marine Capt. Randy W. Stone was charged with failure to follow a lawful order and dereliction of duty.

Marine 1st Lt. Andrew A. Grayson is charged with dereliction of duty, making a false official statement and obstructing justice.

Thanksgiving in the Wilderness

Heidi's Thanksgiving, 2006. Via Heidi's Mom.

Click the picture for a larger version.

Motivators.

Heh. Looks like we're gonna get we've been caught by All Things Beautiful in the Weblog Awards voting. She's been creeping up on us all week, with a strong surge last night.

Sigh. Cannon just don't sell like they used to...

It's all Bill's fault for not posting more often. Funny sells!

Secretary Rumsfeld says goodbye.

From email at work yesterday.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2006 - For these past six years, I have had the opportunity -- and, I should add, the privilege -- to serve with the greatest military the world has ever known.

To all of the men and women in uniform, all across the globe, I wish it were possible for me to meet with each of you personally today so I could look you in the eyes, shake your hands and express my heartfelt gratitude for your service, and to give you some sense of what you have given me -- pride in our mission and an abiding confidence in our country and in those of you who volunteer to risk your lives to defend us all.

As I complete my second tour as secretary of defense, I leave knowing that the true strength of our military lies not in our weapons, but in the hearts of the men and women in uniform, in your patriotism, in your professionalism, and your determination to accomplish the mission.

President Abraham Lincoln once said, and I quote, "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way." That remains as true today as it did during President Lincoln's time. I have seen countless examples of this resolve when I have met with those of you serving in this long struggle against violent extremists.

I remember visiting a base near Fallujah, where Marines had been engaged in some of the most intense house-to-house fighting since World War II. It was two days before Christmas. A staff sergeant asked me why there wasn't a way he could extend his tour beyond his unit's service limit in Iraq.

And, I think back to a young man I met at Bethesda naval hospital. He was in the very early stages of his recovery from multiple wounds suffered in Iraq. He looked up at me with a tube in his nose, and he said with force: "If only the American people will give us the time we need, we can do it. We are getting it done."

And a soldier I met in Afghanistan not long ago who said, "I really can't believe we're allowed to do something this important." Well, I feel the same way. I can't believe I have had the chance to be involved in something so important to the safety of the American people and the future of our country.

What you are accomplishing is not simply important -- it is historic.

When the cause of human freedom required men and women to stand on the front lines in its defense, you stepped forward to liberate more than 50 million citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq.

You captured or killed tens of thousands of extremists -- taking the fight to where they live, rather than waiting for the extremists to attack us again where our families live; and you helped alleviate the conditions that foster extremism in places like the Horn of Africa, the Philippines and elsewhere so that your children and grandchildren will not have to face the challenges that we face today.

This month has two important anniversaries -- the free elections of the Iraqi national assembly and the seating of the very first democratically elected president in Afghanistan's long history. We all remember the images of Iraqis proudly raising their purple fingers in the air after voting in their first free elections and the images of the Afghan girls singing with joy as their new president took the oath of office. Those were historic chapters in the saga of human freedom, and you made them possible.

The long struggle we are in is complex; it's unfamiliar; and it's still little understood, leading some to believe that there is no need to go on.

The enemy is counting on us to falter and to fail. You are the ones who live the successes and who endure the setbacks of this struggle, who find your daily missions a personal test of will. And you are the ones who, above all, know that the cause of freedom is well worth the price.

In 10 or 20 years, when you are talking to your children or to your grandchildren, you will look back on your service and at what you have accomplished with a great sense of pride. You will know that you were part of a truly proud history. Indeed, you were the makers of that proud history and an inspiration to the generations that followed.

It has been the highest honor of my life to serve with you -- the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. You define the American spirit. You have helped millions triumph over tyranny, during this time of great consequence.

You have my eternal respect, and you will remain in my thoughts and prayers always. May God bless you and your families, and may God continue to bless our wonderful country.

Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Here's hoping you live long enough, Mr. Secretary, to see how it all turns out.

MOTHER, SON AND BROTHER-IN-LAW JOINING KANSAS NATIONAL GUARD TOGETHER

News of the Kansas Guard.

Serving one’s state and nation runs in Bill Knitig’s family. Knitig is a former Marine and member of the Kansas National Guard, retiring from Detachment 1, 170th Maintenance Company in Goodland in 2000. Picking up his mantle of service are three members of his family: his daughter, Patricia Langley; her son, Jack Mayfield and Knitig’s son-in-law, Damon Rickard, who made the decision to enlist in the Kansas National Guard together. The three are from Grainfield, east of Colby.

All three will begin the process to become members of the Kansas National Guard on Friday, Dec. 15 at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Kansas City, Mo., 10316 NW Prairie View Road.

For Langley, the decision to join the Guard came because “It was time for a change in my life, plus I wanted to do something to serve my country.”

“I kind of toyed with the idea of joining back in 1990,” said Langley, but her life’s circumstances weren’t right for her at that time. “My daughter was just a year old, then. I did go to vo-tech at that time.”

Langley, who just turned 39, said that the education benefits offered by the Guard played a part in her decision to join, in addition to the extra income and the chance to learn a new skill. Langley will be joining the 170th Maintenance Company in Goodland. She said she’d like to go into vehicle maintenance.

“I thought about maybe learning refrigeration,” she said, “but now I think I’d like to go into electrical generator repair.”

Langley said she’s received a lot of support from family and friends regarding the decision to join. She hopes to make the Guard a new career. “I’d like to retire with it,” said Langley.

Good on 'em.

Happy Birthday to the National Guard.

By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2006 - The National Guard turns 370 years old tomorrow, and the National Guard Bureau is celebrating with a Web site dedicated to the organization and its history.

The site, www.ngb.army.mil/features/birthday/index.html, chronicles the Guard's history, starting in 1636 when the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which functioned as the colony's legislature, ordered existing militia companies from the towns surrounding Boston to form into three regiments: North, South and East.

"These first Minutemen answered the call, banding together for the common defense, an effort which grew nationwide to protect towns, states, and ultimately the nation from all enemies, civil, natural and foreign," Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, wrote in a letter on the site.

The American colonies adopted the English militia system, which obligated all males to possess arms and participate in the defense of the community, according to the site. The need for a colonial militia was ratified in the Constitution, and since then, Congress has enacted several militia and defense acts to strengthen the National Guard.

"Today, more than 50,000 citizen-soldiers and airmen are serving overseas as part of the global war on terror," Blum wrote in his letter. "Over 9,000 are serving here at home in domestic missions such as supporting our nation's efforts to secure our borders, guarding critical infrastructure, and providing emergency response to our governors.

"Not unlike those Minutemen 370 years ago, today's Guard members are citizens who believe that an organized militia is essential to the common defense. With centuries of courage, commitment and tradition behind them, the National Guard proudly remains always ready, always there."

In a letter commemorating the birthday, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thanked the members of the National Guard for serving valiantly in times of war and peace. "We simply could not sustain current operations without the National Guard," Pace wrote. "The courage and sacrifice of every Guard member are truly inspiring. Your outstanding service as citizen-soldiers comforts those in need and protects our homeland."

The National Guard has made up a significant portion of the forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. At one point in 2005, half of the combat brigades in Iraq were Army National Guard, according to information on the Web site. The Guard is playing a more active role than ever before, integrating with active forces in combat, humanitarian and peacekeeping missions, information on the site says.

The Web site lists information from each period in the National Guard's history and details on some state-sponsored events commemorating the 370th birthday.

Locally, the Kansas National Guard marked it's 151st anniversary of service to the State and Nation.

Kansas Guard units serving the nation this year:

Units and where they went or are:

Currently Deployed:

731st Transportation Company - Operation Iraqi Freedom
714th Security Force Company - Operation Iraqi Freedom
635th Regional Support Group - Operation Enduring Freedom
HHB, 130th Field Artillery Brigade - Operation Enduring Freedom
Embedded Training Team - Operation Enduring Freedom
1st Battalion, 108th Aviation - Operation Iraqi Freedom
HHB, 35th Division Artillery - Operation Enduring Freedom
Battery B, 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery - Operation Iraqi Freedom
35th Military Police Company - Operation Enduring Freedom

Completed Deployments this year:

2nd Battalion, 137th Infantry - Operation Iraqi Freedom
1st Battalion, 127th Field Artillery - Operation Iraqi Freedom
184th Civil Engineering Squadron - Operation Jump Start
35th Military Police Company - Operation Enduring Freedom
190th Air Refueling Wing Security Forces - Operation Enduring Freedom
1st Battalion, 635th Armor - Operation Enduring Freedom
24th Medical Company - Operation Enduring Freedom

Serving the State: This has been a comparatively light year for natural disasters in Kansas (unless you were a victim of one). The National Guard, with other agencies, mans the State Emergency Management System and participates, in one way or another, in all them, even if no units are activated in support. This year the major events thus far have been:

Butler County Wildfires
March wind storm
Late March storms and fires
Late November storms

And there has been a price. Specialist John Wood was killed in Iraq this year.

And, as exemplified in this letter by Major Roger Aeschliman, of the "First Kansas Volunteers" Kansas Guard troops will risk their lives to help children. Any children. Anywhere.

Way to go, Guys and Gals of the National Guard of the United States, with a extra nod to those who hang out in Kansas!

Heh. I wondered when they would show up.

On the memorial post for PFC McGinnis we found a troll-bomb, left in the usual fashion, anonymously.

IP Address: 217.189.244.109
Name: olfi
Email Address: queeeee@aol.com
URL:

Comments:

One more poor gay who died for the lies of George W. Bush, Donald
Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and company.
America, wake up!
:-(

Ry, who crossed the threshold soon after and stepped in the troll-flop first, answered with:

'poor gay who...' Wow. That's pretty random. How do you know the guy was gay? Rather immaterial to the heroism of the guy.

It's just to bad we only find out about these guys, people we should know, posthumously. Guys like this should be the rolemodels for kids in school, gay or not, rather than Allen Iverson or 50 Cent.

There is no greater sacrifice than laying one's life down for the sake of another. McGinnis has done that in an exponential fashion(going to Iraq and protecting his fellows).

So, what have YOU done today, olfi, other than whine?

Well said, Ry.

Now, when I read it, my spidey-sense tingled. Just something about it said... German.

I think "gay" is a typo, but I could be wrong. But the IP maps to Telefonica Deutschland, in Verl (not that Olfi is necessarily in Verl, my IP maps to Roadrunner in Virginia).

I'm guessing that Olfi is not, nor has he been, a member of the Bundeswehr contingent in Afghanistan. Otherwise he'd know that PFC McGinnis didn't die for any political abstraction or personage.

He died so his buddies would live, pure and simple. That's the way it is, where the rubber meets the road.

As exemplified by the actions of Technical Sergeant Arizona Harris, Engineer and top turret gunner of the B-17 Sons of Fury, as described in Donald Miller's book Masters of the Air:

Harris met his end on the way back from St. Nazaire on January 3, 1943. Sgt. P.D. Small, a tail gunner in another of the 306th's [Bombardment Group] bombers, observed Harris's final minutes. Small saw four white parachutes snap open just before Sons of Fury hit the water. The gunners who remained on the ship must have gone to the radio room, the safest place to be in a crash. But two guns were still blazing, Harris's twin .50s. Then Sons of Fury made a perfect belly landing in the freezing waters of the Bay of Biscay. As sheets of white water rolled over the wings and the plane began to drop out of sight, the top turret guns were still spitting flame "as fast as the feeding arms would pull the shells into the guns." Arizona Harris was trying to protect the pilot and copilot, who were in the water and under fire from Fw 190's, "the steel gray sea boiling under the rain of bullets." Harris must have felt the winter water fill his turret and climb to where it began to cut off his breath, yet he kept firing until the sea swallowed the hot muzzles of his guns."

Or any of those soldiers, Marines, and sailors I listed in the McGinnis post.

Rare is the soldier who dies in combat for his politics. His politics might have gotten him to the battlefield, but they rarely get him through a fight. So, on a memorial post, keep your politics to yourself. If you have nothing good to say, then say exactly that - nothing.

You want to send me an email, or leave a comment on the H&I Fires post - that's entirely appropriate. But don't walk into the church and fling poop during the service, so to speak. That's just childish.

I'm sure that Olfi felt that he was sadly compelled to note that the sacrifice was in vain, and he was simply doing his duty to point it out to those of us blinded by a slavish devotion to the evil Bushitler. And sorrowfully surfed away, knowing he had done what had to be done, and done so manfully! Taking full accountability for his actions. Well, except for that leaving no legit contact data because, well, someone might send him a note or something that wasn't, oh, laudatory. Feh. I *never* leave unsigned comments, anywhere. If I'm not willing to accept the feedback, then I'm not going to leave the comment. Whatever your motivations, Olfi, you're a coward.

Which just makes it all the more bemusing that he closes his comment (which I have elided from the memorial post, as I will all comments like that on a memorial post) with an ethereal remnant of Germany's Nazi past, where "Germany Wake Up!" was an electoral rallying cry of the Nazis. You might better recognize it as "Deutschland Erwache!" and it graced the banners of Nazi standards... An unfortunate turn of phrase for a tut-tutting German.

Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis

Someone you should know.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq – Private First Class Ross A. McGinnis packed only 136 pounds into his 6-foot frame, but few have ever matched his inner strength.

McGinnis sacrificed himself in an act of supreme bravery on Dec. 4, belying his status as the youngest Soldier in Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

The 19-year-old amateur mechanic from Knox , Pa. , who enjoyed poker and loud music, likely saved the lives of four Soldiers riding with him on a mission in Baghdad .

McGinnis was manning the gunner’s hatch when an insurgent tossed a grenade from above. It flew past McGinnis and down through the hatch before lodging near the radio.

His platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas of Longview , Texas , recalled what happened next.

“Pfc. McGinnis yelled ‘Grenade…It’s in the truck,’” Thomas said. “I looked out of the corner of my eye as I was crouching down and I saw him pin it down.”

McGinnis did so even though he could have escaped.

“He had time to jump out of the truck,” Thomas said. “He chose not to.”

Thomas remembered McGinnis talking about how he would respond in such a situation. McGinnis said then he didn’t know how he would act, but when the time came, he delivered.

“He gave his life to save his crew and his platoon sergeant,” Thomas said. “He’s a hero. He’s a professional. He was just an awesome guy.”

Three of the Soldiers with McGinnis who were wounded that day have returned to duty, while a fourth is recovering in Germany .

For saving the lives of his friends and giving up his own in the process, McGinnis earned the Silver Star, posthumously. His unit paid their final respects in a somber ceremony here Dec. 11.

McGinnis was born June 14, 1987, and joined the Army right after graduating high school in 2005. He had been in the Army 18 months and made his mark even before his heroic deed.

“He was a good kid,” said C Company’s senior enlisted Soldier, 1st Sgt. Kenneth J. Hendrix. “He had just gotten approved for a waiver to be promoted to specialist.”

He also appeared on the Nov. 30 cover of Stars & Stripes, manning his turret.

Besides his military accomplishments, McGinnis leaves his friends and family with memories of a fun-loving, loyal man.

Private First Class Brennan Beck, a 1-26 infantryman from Lodi , Calif. , said McGinnis made others feel better.

“He would go into a room and when he left, everyone was laughing,” Beck said. “He did impersonations of others in the company. He was quick-witted, just hilarious. He loved making people laugh. He was a comedian through and through.”

While having a witty side, McGinnis took his job seriously.

“He was not a garrison Soldier. He hated it back in garrison,” Beck said. “He loved it here in Iraq . He loved being a gunner. It was a thrill, he loved everything about it. He was one our best Soldiers. He did a great job.”

Beck has memories of talking all night with McGinnis about where they wanted their lives to go, and said McGinnis always remembered his friends.

“When I had my appendix removed, he was the only one who visited me in the hospital,” Beck said. “That meant a lot.”

Another 1-26 infantryman, Private First ClassMichael Blair of Klamath Falls , Ore. , recalled that McGinnis helped him when he arrived at Ledward Barracks in Schweinfurt , Germany .

“When I first came to the unit…he was there and took me in and showed me around,” Blair said. “He was real easy to talk to. You could tell him anything. He was a funny guy. He was always making somebody laugh.”

McGinnis’ final heroic act came as no surprise to Blair.

“He was that kind of person,” Blair said. “He would rather take it himself than have his buddies go down.”

The brigade’s senior noncommissioned officer, Command Sgt. Maj. William Johnson, also had high praise for McGinnis.

“Anytime when you get a Soldier to do something like that - to give his life to protect his fellow Soldiers - that’s what heroes are made of,” Johnson said.

It also demonstrates, Johnson continued, that the ‘MySpace Generation’ has what it takes to carry on the Army’s proud traditions.

“Some think Soldiers who come in today are all about themselves,” Johnson said. “I see it differently.”

The Silver Star has already been approved for McGinnis’ actions Dec.4, and will be awarded posthumously.

Well done, PFC McGinnis. Requiescat Im Pace.

However, I have a question. Is the Silver Star a final award, or an interim? Why do I ask? Glad you asked. This is why:

*ANDERSON, JAMES, JR.
*ANDERSON, RICHARD A.
*AUSTIN, OSCAR P.
*BACA, JOHN P.
*BARKER, JEDH COLBY
*BARNES, JOHN ANDREW III
*BELCHER, TED
*BELLRICHARD, LESLIE ALLEN
*BLANCHFIELD, MICHAEL R.
*BOWEN, HAMMETT L., JR.
*CARTER, BRUCE W.
*COKER, RONALD L.
*CONNOR, PETER S.
*CREEK, THOMAS E.
*DAHL, LARRY G.
*DAVIS, RODNEY MAXWELL
*DE LA GARZA, EMILIO A., JR.
*DICKEY, DOUGLAS E.
*FERNANDEZ, DANIEL
*FLEEK, CHARLES CLINTON
*FOLLAND, MICHAEL FLEMING
*FOSTER, PAUL HELLSTROM
*FOUS, JAMES W.
*FRATELLENICO, FRANK R.
*GUENETTE, PETER M.
*HARVEY, CARMEL BERNON, JR.
HERDA, FRANK A.
*HOSKING, CHARLES ERNEST, JR.
*HOWE, JAMES D.
*INGALLS, GEORGE ALAN
*JENKINS, ROBERT H., JR.
*JOHNSON, RALPH H.
*KAROPCZYC, STEPHEN EDWARD
*KELLOGG, ALLAN JAY, JR.
*KINSMAN, THOMAS JAMES
*LANGHORN, GARFIELD M.
*LAW, ROBERT D.
*LEISY, ROBERT RONALD
*LONG, DONALD RUSSELL

What do these 39 men have in common? They all, in one way or another, fell on grenades to save the lives of others around them. Some were involved in hairy fights, some were isolated incidents. Few of them survived.

In other words, they all acted as did PFC McGinnis.

The difference? All the names listed above, except for PFC McGinnis, recieved the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. And that's only from the A-L list, not the M-Z list.

And that doesn't include WWII or WWI, which I don't have time to go through.

So, I hope this is an *interim* award. I've asked. I'll let you know if I get an answer.

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

Update: Glad I asked. I just got this (of course, right *after* I posted the above) from a buddy and long-time reader who is in-country and in a position to know.

John,

Just wanted to give you a heads up that PFC Ross McGinnis, 1-26 IN, was KIA on 04 DEC 2006 here in Baghdad. His parents will receive his Silver Star (hopefully interim) at the funeral. He is being submitted for the Medal of Honor. AIF got a grenade into his M1151 through the top hatch.

He yelled "Grenade" and shielded his comrades by throwing his body on the grenade. Everyone in that vehicle walked away; some were pretty hurt, but nonetheless, were alive.

I hope this award doesn't drag out for two-plus years.

C

Good. And ditto on that timliness thing.

As ever, Matt does it better. More story here.

50 Heroes from 50 States.

DoD, responding to pressure from the blogs and others, is finally getting their "Honor the Heroes" meme working. They've launched a new website: 50 Heroes From 50 States.

The Armorer wishes to highlight our regional representatives. Denizens should feel free over time to honor the ones from their areas - on their blogs and link 'em here in the H&I Fires post!

Kansas:

While serving as the battalion surgeon for a Marine unit from January to September 2005 in the Al Anbar province of Iraq, Dr. Gratton was responsible for the health and well-being of 1,700 Marines, sailors and Iraqi soldiers. During his deployment, Gratton provided specialized medical care to more than 1,000 patients, and organized material and personnel support for more than 500 Iraqi army personnel. On May 7 alone, he supervised and treated 11 casualties injured in an IED attack in Haditha. In addition, Gratton provided trauma care to the battalion’s 345 troops wounded in action, 150 of whom were in critical condition and had to be evacuated. On Aug. 28, 2006, Gratton received the Bronze Star Medal for his work.

Missouri:

During her deployment at Kirkuk Air Base from March 28-July 10, 2003, Master Sgt. Whitaker helped establish the first air-control service in northern Iraq since 1990. The service supported about 4,800 combat actions, including covert operations, humanitarian airlifts and medical evacuations. She also supervised several covert flight operations using tactical radios and night vision goggles, and developed explosive-ordinance disposal procedures for the base. She co-authored airfield operating procedures for aero-medical evacuation of wounded coalition forces that resulted in the rapid evacuation of more than 86 critically wounded soldiers and airmen. In May 2006, Whitaker became the first woman in the Missouri Air National Guard’s history to receive the Bronze Star Medal.

Nebraska:

Then-Cpl. Mitchell was involved in the same fight during the battle of Fallujah on Nov. 13, 2004, as Sgt. Maj. Kasal (see Iowa). Several wounded Marines were trapped inside an Iraqi home known as the “House of Hell” with numerous insurgents waiting to ambush the incoming troops. Mitchell organized his men to assault the building, charged, and quickly took firing positions. Mitchell sped through the kill zone, getting hit as he went. He killed an enemy fighter with his combat knife, and called in support through a small, barred window. With information supplied from Mitchell, the Marines suppressed the insurgents’ attack, and extracted the wounded Marines inside. Mitchell was one of the last to leave, despite being injured. On April 25, 2006, Mitchell was awarded the Navy Cross.

Iowa:

Then-1st Sgt. Kasal was assisting a platoon in Fallujah on Nov. 13, 2004, when heavy gunfire broke out in an Iraqi home known as the “House of Hell.” Marines quickly began exiting the building as Kasal rushed in to assess the situation. Kasal was hit repeatedly as he grabbed a wounded Marine stranded in the line of fire. He then gave his medical supplies to the other Marine instead of dividing the limited materials. The insurgents threw a hand grenade close to the Marines to force them to come out from under cover. Kasal used his own severely injured body to protect the other Marine from shrapnel. Despite losing about 60 percent of his blood from more than 47 wounds, Kasal survived. On March 23, 2006, Kasal was awarded the Navy Cross.

Arkansas:

First Lt. McCarty’s platoon was patrolling in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad on Nov. 20, 2004, when a group of insurgents attacked. As the enemy fighters inflicted a massive assault on the 26-man team, McCarty directed a counterattack. At one point, McCarty charged and destroyed an enemy machine-gun team without any support. In all, his team stopped an enemy three-man machine-gun team and a force of about 75 insurgents. McCarty’s actions prevented the capture of an Iraqi police station. On Feb. 4, 2006, McCarty was awarded the Silver Star Medal. He was previously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Army Commendation Medal with Valor.

Oklahoma:

Staff Sgt. Payne’s battalion was finishing an operation on Haifa Street in Baghdad on Sept. 12, 2004, when a vehicle-borne IED exploded into the rear of a Bradley fighting vehicle. As the blast disabled the Bradley and trapped men inside, insurgents began firing down onto the street. Payne directed his squad into a position to provide cover fire while he and another soldier raced to help those stuck inside the damaged vehicle. Payne climbed atop the Bradley and helped two of the crewmen out of the turret. He reached inside the compartment and began pulling the trapped infantrymen out one by one. As the battle lulled, Payne and his soldiers loaded the injured up for evacuation. For his actions, Payne received the Silver Star Medal on Feb. 27, 2005.

Colorado:

Navy SEAL Petty Officer Dietz was sent on a mission to kill or capture the enemy militia leader Ahmad Shah, aka Mullah Ismail. After the terrorists found the team, Dietz helped others keep the large enemy force at bay. Dietz was also severely wounded in the firefight, but also continued to hold his ground, giving one of the other SEALs the chance to escape. The other SEAL was able to evade the Taliban fighters and was recovered by U.S. forces a few days later. Dietz died in the firefight.

Dietz was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross on Sept. 13, 2006.

News of the Armed Forces Of, and In, Kansas.

MILITARY PERSONNEL WILL BE HONORED AT CITY COUNCIL MEETING DEC. 12, 2006 Personnel from five branches of the U.S. military will be honored at the Topeka City Council meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2006. Personnel from the Kansas Army National Guard, U.S. Army Reserve, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Kansas Air National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard will be presented with Military Personnel of the Year awards from the Topeka Military Relations Committee.

Receiving the awards will be Maj. Edward G. Keller, Kansas Army National Guard; Spc. David J. Hawkins, U.S. Army Reserve; Staff Sgt. Jason P. McCaffrey, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve; Master Sgt. Sherry L. Hertlein, Kansas Air National Guard and Petty Officer Thomas M. Underwood, U.S. Coast Guard.

The committee sponsors the award, but the recipients are selected for the honor by the military branch they represent, according to Dave Fisher Jr., chairman of the Topeka Military Relations Committee,

“These individuals are being recognized not only for their contributions to the defense of our country, but also as good citizens within the community,” noted Fisher.

Fisher said the Topeka Military Relations Committee was formed by a group of businessmen who “recognize just how important the military is to Topeka.” The committee also includes representatives from each military branch in Topeka. The committee’s goal is to promote the military within the community and to act as a liaison between the military and the community.

Each honoree will receive a plaque that includes a likeness of Ad Astra, the Native American statue on top of the Kansas Statehouse dome.

The City Council meeting will begin at 6 p.m. in the City Chambers, 215 SE 7th, Topeka.

Congratulations to Major Keller, Specialist Hawkins, Staff Sergeant McCaffrey, Master Sergeant Hertlein and Petty Officer Underwood!

Kewl. The USNS Alan Shepard.

Navy to Christen USNS Alan Shepard

The Navy will christen the USNS Alan Shepard, the newest ship in the Lewis and Clark class of underway replenishment ships, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006, during an 8 a.m. PST launching at General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), San Diego, Calif.

The ship honors the first American in space, Rear Adm. Alan B. Shepard Jr.Like the legendary explorers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, for whom the first ship of the class was named, Shepard bravely volunteered to explore the unknown and became the first American in space. Thus began one of the most challenging endeavors in human history: the manned exploration of space.

Shepard graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in 1944. He served aboard destroyers in the Pacific during World War II and later entered flight training, receiving his designation as a naval aviator in 1947. Shepard served several tours in fleet squadrons and was selected to attend the Navy Test Pilot School in 1950. He logged more than 8,000 hours of flying time.

In 1959, Shepard was one of seven men chosen by NASA for the Mercury manned space flight program. Two years later, he became the first American to journey into space in the Freedom 7 spacecraft launched by a Redstone rocket on a suborbital flight. He reached an altitude of 116 miles.

In 1963, he was designated chief of the Astronaut Office with responsibility for monitoring the coordination, scheduling and control of all activities involving NASA astronauts. Shepard made his second space flight as spacecraft commander on Apollo 14 in 1971. He was accompanied on the third U.S. lunar landing mission by Stuart A. Roosa, command module pilot, and Edgar D. Mitchell, lunar module pilot. Shepard logged 216 hours and 57 minutes in space, of which 9 hours and 17 minutes were spent in lunar surface extravehicular activity. He resumed his duties as chief of the Astronaut Office in June 1971 and served in this capacity until he retired from NASA and the Navy on Aug. 1, 1974.

After his Navy and NASA careers, he entered private business in Houston and served as the president of the Mercury Seven Foundation, a non-profit organization now known as the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation that provides college science scholarships for deserving students. Shepard died July 21, 1998, at the age of 74.

John H. Sununu, former governor of New Hampshire, will deliver the ceremony's principal address. Laura Churchley will serve as sponsor of the ship named for her father. The launching ceremony will be highlighted in the time-honored Navy tradition when the sponsor breaks a bottle of
champagne across the bow to formally christen the ship "Alan Shepard."

The USNS Alan Shepard is the third ship in the Navy's new 11-ship T-AKE 1 Class. T-AKE is a combat logistics force vessel intended to replace the current capability of the T-AE 26 Kilauea-Class ammunition ships, T-AFS 1 Mars-Class combat stores ships and, when operating with T-AO 187 Henry J. Kaiser-Class oiler ships, the AOE 1 Sacramento-Class fast combat support ships.To conduct vertical replenishment, the ship will support two military logistics helicopters.

Designed to operate independently for extended periods at sea while providing replenishment services to U.S., NATO and allied ships, the USNS Alan Shepard will directly contribute to the ability of the Navy to maintain a worldwide forward presence. Ships such as Alan Shepard provide logistic lift from sources of supply either in port or at sea from specially equipped merchant ships. The ship will transfer cargo (ammunition, food, limited quantities of fuel, repair parts, ship store items, and expendable supplies and material) to ships and other naval warfare forces at sea.

The USNS Alan Shepard is 689 feet in length, has an overall beam of 106 feet, a navigational draft of 30 feet, and displaces approximately 42,000 tons. Powered by a single-shaft diesel-electric propulsion system, the ship can reach a speed of 20 knots.As part of the Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force, the ship will be designated USNS. The term stands for United States Naval Ship. Unlike their United States Ship (USS) counterparts, USNS vessels are manned primarily by civil service and civilian mariners working for the U.S. Navy Military Sealift Command, Washington, D.C.

I would just note that Shepard went into space on an *Army* rocket.

This might pique some interest.

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2006 - Just in time for the holiday season, Marvel Comics' "The New Avengers" and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service have teamed up to bring troops stationed around the world another free, military-exclusive comic book.

Marvel Comics, a division of Marvel Enterprises, Inc., is a member of America Supports You, a Defense Department program highlighting ways Americans and the corporate sector support the nation's servicemembers.

"The New Avengers: Letters Home" is scheduled to arrive in U.S. exchanges around Dec. 20 and overseas, including the 53 BX/PX facilities throughout operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, shortly thereafter. It's the fourth installment of the military-only comic book series.

"Due to their limited availability, collectors have historically shown great interest in these special AAFES/Marvel Comics editions," Army Col. Max Baker, AAFES chief of staff, said. "If the past is any indicator, 'The New Avenger: Letters Home' issue should go quickly."

Available exclusively at AAFES stores, the newest issue once again features Marvel's superhero Captain America, who, because his regular supporting cast is away for the holidays, is joined by Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider and special guest, The Punisher. When Hydra takes over a military communications satellite, the superheroes spring into action to ensure troops' e-mail messages to loved ones make their way home.

Because of the highly collectible nature and the anticipated demand for the 36-page comic, AAFES officials advise that "The New Avengers: Letters Home" is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Book Review: Sea of Thunder, by Evan Thomas.

I like Simon and Schuster. They send me books to read.

This is a title I would not have bought, simply because of competition for shelf space and time, but I'm glad I got it to read. Made me expand myself a bit.

The book is Sea of Thunder - Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941-45, by Newsweek journalist Evan Thomas.

I've not read a quick-reading one volume history of WWII in the Pacific, except in context of the land campaigns. So I've read several detailed histories of some of the battles covered here, but I've never really had a sense of the overall flow of the Naval Campaign. I say naval campaign in caps there because the book is not about MacArthur's Navy, the 7th Fleet, nor does it touch on the land campaigns much, except where needful.

This is the story of the maneuverings, nautical and political and personal, of the Big Blue Fleet, mostly when under the command of Admiral Halsey, and the Imperial Japanese Fleet, as they strove to achieve the Decisive Battle in the Pacific Theater, told via the wartime careers of 4 naval officers. Admiral Halsey, commander of the Big Blue Fleet. Commander Ernest Evans, skipper of the USS Johnston, a ship and captain made famous in the Last Stand of the Tin-Can Sailors at Leyte Gulf. Admiral Takeo Kurita, commander of the Second Fleet on it's last, ill-fated sortie, and Admiral Matome Ugaki, commander of the biggest battleships ever built, the Musashi and Yamato, and who would achieve a sad fame as "The Last Kamikaze".

Thomas makes good use of Japanese sources to give the reader a far more nuanced view of the Japanese Navy and it's commanders and sailors than I have read elsewhere (a failing that may be more due to my soldierly, vice naval, interests). It was especially eerie to see the witless paranoia and fantasy that the Japanese Imperial Staff engaged in that mirrored that of the German General Staff, comprised, as both were, of people far too removed from the fighting and who held their positions due to being good staff weenies and game-players than deep-thinking strategists.

He also strips away any lingering pedestals for Halsey and Evans, applying as he does, the one thing about the book that annoyed me. Evans lets his "90's kind of guy" sensibilities suffuse his writing, as he makes sure we all know that these guys were, in many ways, uncultured, sorta uncouth, and racist (especially Halsey). I don't mind truth-telling. It's far more useful to know that Halsey was so affected by the stress of his job that he had psychosomatic illnesses and yet kept on doing his job, than the image of an unbreakable man at the helm. Humanizing these men is a good thing. There are just moments in passing where Evan's lets his sensitivities mar his prose, to my ear. Your mileage may vary.

[Update: Heh. I fell into my own rhetorical trap - *I* still think Halsey did a great job overall, and that Evans *earned* his Medal of Honor, whatever we after-the-fact guessers have to say. They were the "Man in the Arena" many of us are the cold and timid souls who know neither victory of defeat. That said - you have to be able to look past the aura and see the truth, to both try to learn from the mistakes, and, in the final analysis - makes great people greater, as you learn of the real cost of doing what at the time seemed so easy, because we wanted it to appear that they were Olympians. -the Armorer]

But if that's the only complaint I have, it's not much.

I suspect my compadres of the Naval community will not find much in here that is new or revelatory, aside from the Japanese perspective. I admit to being a little surprised at the unity of command issues and long-running sore of strategic comms, and how Naval Tradition (with those caps) got in the way at times, but no more so than happened with MacArthur. I was completely unaware of the effective incompetence of the highest levels of the Japanese armed forces, simply because I really had never paid attention to the Japanese side of the war from the operational and strategic end of things.

My recommendation? If you like military history and aren't looking for geek-level reading, it's worth the money. If you aren't that up on the naval campaign in the Pacific in WWII, and would like an easy-to-read precis on the last gasp of the Gun Club Admirals and the rise of carrier warfare, as well as an interesting window into the Japanese, this book will fit that niche. If you've never read naval history before, this is a good introduction to the subject - well written in an easy to read style, and decent history from a substance perspective. If you're a serious naval historian/geek, unless the Japanese side of this is new to you, there isn't much in here for that level of reader, except that if it's a subject you last read about in Samuel Eliot Morison's history of the war some time ago, it might be a good way to revisit the topic and refresh those neurons. Especially if you've moved from junior officer to more senior officer in the intervening years. Revisiting the subject might cause you to see some things you didn't notice the first time.

A good Christmas gift for the naval enthusiast in your group who doesn't already know enough to write a book themselves... In other words, if I hadn't read it already, it would have been a good choice for me! (Thanks, Leah!)

Sea of Thunder, by Evan Thomas. Released November 2006 by Simon and Schuster. List $27, online $18.90 or less.

Coming up later this week: Masters of the Air, by Donald Miller.

For all of you warriors away from home today... and those who await your return...

This may be from last year - but it doesn't look a whole lot different this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

AR RAMADI, Iraq – 1st Sgt. Daniel Calderon, 1st. sergeant for Headquarters and Service Company, serves Marines during Thanksgiving here at the Hurricane Point chow hall Nov. 24.

Photo by: Cpl. Shane Suzuki Submitting Unit: 2nd Marine Division
Photo Date:11/24/2005

Old soldiers, fading away.

Ry sent me an email stream. It starts with two lines.

89th Division Association from WWII is dissolving. The greatest generation is slipping away.

Ry added:

We can't let that go unnoticed can we? I'm going nuts trying to write the China sub thing, keep Al's kids in line over at GX40, and answering HE. Can't we tap someone else to do this? Pleeeeeeease? ry

I suppose we can't, Ry. But we'll take it as a *good* thing, in a bittersweet way.

The 89th Infantry Division, also known as the Rolling W and/or the Middle West Division, was raised at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, August 27, 1917, as a part of the National Army (the National Army was a distinct formation, raised for the purpose of the war, it essentially evolved after the war into the Army Reserve). The division was recruited in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri, and had a Donovan in it - my grandfather, a 2nd Lieutenant of Field Artillery. The Institute of Heraldry (the Army's official insignia designer) descriptions of the divisional patch aver that this patch designated the "Middle West" Division, as it can be read as an "M", turn it and it can be read as a "W". The description adds that the letter can also be read as a Greek sigma, the symbol of summation; and the circle implies the ability to exert force in any direction and to resist in any position. The unofficial explanation is that the "W" patch, created during World War I, pays tribute to the first three commanders of the 89th Division, Major Generals William Wright, Leonard Wood, and Frank Winn. Larry the Cable Guy stole the Division motto and southern-fried it... the motto is "Get it done! vice Larry's "Git 'er done!"

In World War I the division deployed to France in 1918, and received campaign credits for Lorraine, St. Mihiel and Meuse Argonne. (Say the last out loud - just where did the moose go?)

When the Army Reserve was created, the Division was reactivated as a component thereof in 1921. It was recalled to active service in 1942 at then-Camp Carson, Colo. - and designated as the 89th Light Division. As the Division trained and organized, doctrine changed as a result of war experience and the division was reorganized and re-designated as the 89th Infantry Division in 1944.

The Division landed in France at Le Havre on 21 January 1945, They spent several weeks in pre-combat training before moving into the line near Echternacht on 11 March. On 12 March the Rhineland offensive kicked off, and the 89th crossed the Sauer and thence to and across the Moselle River on 17 March. The Division crossed the Rhine on 26 March, between the towns of Kestert and Kaub. In April, the 89th attacked toward Eisenach taking the town on 6 April. The next objective was Friedrichroda, in the heart of much-ballyhooed National Redoubt in Thuringia. The city was secured by 8 April. The Division continued to move eastward toward the Mulde River, capturing Zwickau by the 17th of the month. The advance halted on 23 April, and from then until VE-day, the Division saw only limited action, engaging in patrolling and general security. With only 57 days in combat, the division got off comparatively lightly in WWII (though not for any of the casualties and their families, certainly).

Killed: 222
Wounded: 692
Missing: 91
Captured: 1
Battle Casualties: 1,006
Non-Battle Casualties: 1,074
Total Casualties: 2,080
Percent of T/O Strength: 14.6

Earning the following awards:
Legion of Merit: 5
Silver Star: 45
Soldiers Medal: 1
Bronze Star: 164

I would note things were different then. Now, there would be a lot more Bronze Stars (due to changes in how the medal is awarded (a policy under review, btw) and, of course, every LTC would have to have a Legion of Merit these days).

It was the Rhine crossing at Oberwesal where the 89th gave us one of the iconic pictures of World War II. The baby-faced Lieutenant up in the front of a landing craft, looking back at the soldiers in the boat.

Less well known is the picture of what he was looking at...

The Division reactivated in 1947 with headquarters in Wichita - They were re-designated the 89th Division (Training) in 1959 - and again re-designated the 89th United States Army Reserve Command (ARCOM) in 1973.

In 2003 all Regional Support Commands were re-designated to Regional Readiness Commands.

In its 2005 BRAC Recommendations, DoD recommended to realign the Wichita US Army Reserve Center by disestablishing the 89th Regional Readiness Command. This recommendation was part of a larger recommendation to re-engineer and streamline the Command and Control structure of the Army Reserves that would create the Northwest Regional Readiness Command at Fort McCoy, WI.

I would note the Grand Army of the Republic no longer exists, either.

And the American Legion is actually struggling, in many areas, as is the VFW, though the GWOT will probably help in that regard.

Truth is, the Rolling W saw it's combat in WWI and II. And in WWII it was only 57 days of combat, with the highest award being some 45 Silver Stars.

And it hasn't seen action since. It hasn't been a true division since 1959, when it converted to a readiness command, and is going to dis-establish altogether as a result of the 2005 BRAC.

There simply isn't much of a binder anymore, as the last of the WWII veterans die out.

It's sad in a way, but it's also indicative, in the same way the passing of the GAR was, of the passing of an era.

Flip side, the societies of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 82nd, 101st Infantry, 1st Armored, and 1st Cavalry Divisions are all doing fine, as are the newly combat bonded elements of several National Guard divisional and brigade societies (which in some aspects is more important, as those guys are actually much more visible to the public eye and the bindings of their communities than the Regulars). But since we no longer have combat formations (except SOF) in the Reserve, and haven't had functional divisions (we've got some named such, but no *real* divisions) in the Reserve, this is not an unexpected outcome. In many ways, the Reserve is the bastard stepchild of the Army for good or ill.

Be wistful, not sad. It's combat that binds those associations - take solace in the fact that some of our old soldier's associations are fading away, and not growing strong with new blood.

In other words, today, be thankful that thus far, our wars since WWII have not taken an Army the size of the ones that fought WWI and WWII. Because in the final analysis, that's why the 89th Division Association is fading away. It's a Band of Brothers in a family that has not had to keep growing. In a very real sense, they did their job. And so, just as the Grand Army of the Republic is a memory marked by monuments and encampment medals for sale at militaria shows and antique shops, so to will the 89th Division hopefully never need to be resurrected and sent into battle for the Republic.

Sometimes, you can believe a sailor... or aviator.

Sometimes. Like when Lex and Bill talk about landing on "pitching decks in the twilight gloaming on a wine-dark sea" or other verbal diarrhea...

Pacific Ocean (Nov. 10, 2006) - Pilots hover in an SH-60B Seahawk assigned to the "Wolfpack" of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light Four Five (HSL-45) while waiting for the perfect time to land aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Preble (DDG 88) during rough seas. Preble is currently participating in Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX). U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ron Reeves

Hey! I'm "that guy!"

I remember as a kid going to parades, displays, shows, etc, and seeing some guy or group of guys with Really Cool Stuff - whether it was a classic car, military vehicle, airplane, cannon...

Yesterday, I realized I am now "that guy" to some kids. And a few envious adult males, too... heheheheheheheh.

As the Rotary Technical made its way to our slot in the Leavenworth Veteran's Day parade, we passed a float full of kids, and one of 'em sang out with "Swwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!" while looking at the Vickers (shown here all kitted out for the several ad-hoc classes conducted while waiting for our turn to start down the route).

Gotta love Leavenworth - driving from the Castle to the Riverfront Community Center and thence to the line-up spot, we passed cops in cars, cops on foot. And they all waved, no one reached for his pistol or grabbed his radio... I should add that the Leavenworth Rotary Club sponsored a pancake breakfast that morning as a fund-raiser - but disabled veterans (on their word, no other proof required, though for at least 3, wheelchairs spoke loudly) got breakfast for free. Not surprisingly, probably about a quarter of the club membership would qualify on those grounds... this *is* Leavenworth, after all.

The Veteran's Day parade here is huge for a town our size (I think). 35K in population (and since males outnumber females, I'm guessing the prison population is in that count). We had over 170 entries in the parade. And an entry might be one vehicle or 15. It takes 2.5 hours to run the whole thing through.

The weather was excellent, the turn-out was great. We started with a fly-over by two F-16s from the Iowa Air Guard, one being piloted by a Leavenworth High School graduate, and then the parade started. We had mounted units, bands, youth drill teams, lots of classic cars carrying vets.

The local Patriot Riders showed up, with an interesting take on POW/MIAs.

The 35th Infantry Division showed up, with some recent OIF returnees.

We had artillery! And firetrucks!

Halfway through the parade, at 11AM, everything came to a stop, and they played Taps.

After that, my crew did their "dash 10" PMCS checks (especially on the trailer), and we loaded up the ammo into the Vickers.

Then off we went. The Order of Rotary, Militant, went over well with this crowd. Many were the murmurs and exclamations of awe, interest, and envy. Only one disapproving pinch-faced Blue Stater (in spirit, anyway). Much was the disinformation given by men to their women and children. I learned that I owned a Gatling Gun, a water-cooled .50 cal machine gun, a Maxim (which is true, I do own one, but this isn't it... though it *is* a derivative), to a Browning M1919, and perhaps the best was the one who confidently told all around that it was a Mark 19 belt-fed grenade launcher...

A couple of people stayed with me for a city block, taking pictures. They didn't *look* like ATFE agents...

Oh, and there was one kid who said - "So that's what Santa does on his time off!"

I have no idea what prompted that.

A good time was had by all, and I've been told I'll do it again next year. Mebbe instead of the Vickers, I'll mount the M18 57mm Recoilless Rifle... and I apologize to my Aussie visitors - I know the block on the slouch hat is execrable.

USAREUR Becomes well, a *lot* smaller...

Cold Warriors! Brats! Take a look here, as some Cold War Military Archaeology...

Oh, for normals: USAREUR - United States ARmy, EURope.

Take a look at those numbers...

Cold War - 858 installations in 38 communities and almost a half-million people (including families). I lived there for over 13 years all told (including when we still had troops in France).

Current: 234 installations (which can mean a radio tower on a hill, too) in 14 communities with around 125k people.

Future (2010 or so): 88 installations in 5 communities, and around 70K people.

Every place I was stationed, or lived, in fact, where I was born, have been or will be, returned to the Germans. The high school my sister graduated from no longer exists.

Easier to read version? Click here.

No OPSEC was harmed in the posting of this message.

Kansas National Guard News

The First Kansas Volunteers are coming home today!

Welcome home, Roger and the rest of ya!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Nov. 7, 2006
No. 06-118
2nd BATTALION, 137th INFANTRY COMING HOME NOV. 9
Approximately 450 soldiers of the Kansas National Guard?s 2nd Battalion, 137th Infantry (Mechanized) will be welcomed home to Kansas on Thursday, Nov. 9. The ceremony which is tentatively scheduled for 2 p.m. (See Note) will be held at the Kansas Expocentre, 1 Expocentre Dr., Topeka.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the adjutant general, will greet the soldiers and welcome them home after their year-long deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The public is encouraged to attend and support the soldiers as they return from their deployment.

The soldiers will be released to join family and friends at the conclusion of the ceremony.

The battalion is headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., and has units in Wichita and Lawrence.

While in Iraq, the unit was responsible for operating the Joint Visitor?s Bureau (JVB) in Baghdad and for providing security for the many high level visitors that pass through Iraq. They were also responsible for area security for the JVB and areas near Baghdad.

Approximately 350 soldiers from the battalion were mobilized to Germany in 2002 for force protection duty under Operation Enduring Freedom.

NOTE: The 2 p.m. time is based upon current travel arrangements for the unit. Due to unforeseen circumstances this time could change.

Message from the Gov:

November 9, 2006

Our nation will pause once again on Saturday, November 11 to honor the veterans who have served our nation and the cause of freedom.

All across our state, communities will stop to reflect and remember our military veterans and what their service means to us and to our nation. This year it is especially relevant to do so since so many American men and women are in harm?s way overseas.

In Kansas we have a proud tradition of supporting our veterans, and I have been privileged as governor to hold a Veterans Day ceremony inside our Capitol each year to honor those who have served. I hope you will join me for this year?s ceremony.

The traditional time for Veterans Day ceremonies is 11:00 a.m., but we have consciously set a 9:00 a.m. start for the Capitol ceremony so attendees can also attend other commemorations later in the morning.

Since this year?s ceremony will occur on Saturday, it provides an opportunity to bring family and friends to help honor our nation?s veterans. I look forward to seeing you on this important day, but if you?re not able to attend a Veterans Day ceremony, I?d ask that you pause for a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. in honor of our veterans? service.

Kathleen Sebelius
Governor of the State of Kansas

Myself and the Castle Vickers will be riding in the Leavenworth parade.

Contrary to what it looks like...

This is not a deck crewman with a fancy control-line helo model... nor is it a crewman of a japanese bomber flying over a WWII aircraft carrier (besides, that war was mostly in black and white...)

No, this is guys I'm jealous of - EOD *and* they get to do stuff like this - dangle from ropes totally at the mercy of Bill Tuttle-types.

Of course, there are few people I'd rather be at the mercy of, if I have to be at the mercy of anybody...

Red Sea (Nov. 3, 2006) Explosive Ordnance Disposal 1st Class Christopher Courtney assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Six (EODMU-6), Det. 16 assist his team members during Special Purpose Insertion Extraction (SPIE) training from an SH-60 helicopter. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) is deployed in support of Maritime Security Operations (MSO) and the global war on terrorism. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Miguel Angel Contreras

A scalp, sorta.

Abu Ghraib claims another officer scalp. Well, pulls on his hair really hard.

For the record - I predicted this would be how it went down for General Sanchez. He should have taken the hint, and retired some time ago. But GO egos can keep them from acknowledging the obvious.

Just like the rest of us.

Army general retires, blames Abu Ghraib Associated Press McALLEN, Texas - Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who served a tumultuous year as commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, retired from the Army on Wednesday, calling his career a casualty of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

"That's the key reason, the sole reason, that I was forced to retire," Sanchez said for a story in Thursday's editions of The (McAllen) Monitor. "I was essentially not offered another position in either a three-star or four-star command." [Armorer's Note: And it's fully sufficient a reason, in and of itself, General.]

Sanchez had been a candidate to become the next commander of U.S. Southern Command but was passed over after the prisoner abuse scandal exploded into an international controversy. He was criticized by some for not doing more to avoid mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Best of luck in your future endeavors, General. But with the size of your retirement check, don't expect too much sympathy from around here.

I still think Colonel Pappas got off too easily.

Just sayin'.

You can read the rest here.

Villainous Company.

Go.Read.Cassandra.

John Kerry, Not Presidential Material, reason #456,987,321

U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Benny Hubbard, the district Sgt. Maj. for Gulf Region South, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, shakes hands with an Iraqi child prior to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Salah Hadi Obid Elementary School in Afak, Iraq, Oct. 11, 2006. The construction of the school was funded, contracted and inspected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Dawn M. Price) (Released)

Compare and contrast SGM Hubbard's efforts with students to... the junior Senator from Massachusetts...

Kerry then told the students that if they were able to navigate the education system, they could get comfortable jobs - "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq," he said to a mixture of laughter and gasps

Oh, yeah, he said it. Don't wanna believe the journo? Listen to it here, courtesy Bill. I wonder what SGM Hubbard thinks about that comment?

Soooo, the 299,870,000 Americans not currently serving in Iraq all have advanced degrees, eh?

Well, let's be more accurate. Using the CIA factbook data on the US, 2005 data.

There are 134,813,023 men and women of military age (18-49).

There are, roughly, 130,000 troops in Iraq (a number that fluctuates, work with me here).

by David Dismukes October 27, 2006 Army recruits express their motivation during a platoon competition at an obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.

Which means there are 134,683,023 people of military age who have managed to avoid the trap at the moment. Oh, I know, I'm not accounting for the entire military, nor those who have been to Iraq and gotten out, etc - but we're talking ROM snapshot here.

Oops. That's everybody of the right age. That doesn't take into account *fit* for military service.

Pvt. Charlie Lonno from B Company, 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry crawl through a mud filled pit with barbed wire overhead as part of an obsticle course on Fort Benning's Sand Hill Tuesday, Oct. 17. The Micronesia native is on his fifth day of Basic Training. Photo by David Dismukes

That changes things. Now we're down to 109,305,756 boys and girls for the recruiters to prey on. Of whom 109,175,756 aren't in Iraq, apparently having negotiated that hard-to-navigate educational system and found themselves free from being compelled by poverty to serve - there apparently being no other reason to serve, in Senator Kerry's world.

Drill Sgt. Primus Brown instructs Soldiers from B Company, 3rd Battalion, 30th Infantry as they learn to high-crawl through a sand pit as part of an obsticle course on Fort Benning's Sand Hill Tuesday, Oct. 17. The Soldiers are in their fifth day of Basic Training. Photo by David Dismukes

So... 0.0011893243755617041796042287105173% of the "fit to serve" population are apparently unable to hack it, eh, Senator, and find themselves with no choice but to take King George's Shilling and fight and die for Empire? Terrible great risk, ain't it?

This is Halloween - let's try to make it scarier for the kiddles, so they can feel even better about what a horror they are escaping.

Let's just restrict it to those coming of military age in a year... that gives us a 2005 estimated population of 4,180,074. Let's cheat, and say that all 130,000 troops in Iraq are 18 year olds. That gives us 4,050,074 of these kids whose scholastic abilities have enabled them to escape the clutches of the recruiters, since exactly 0% of them have come to the attention of their local draft boards... I bet that gives us a scary number for Halloween!

Ooooooh. 0.031099927896013324166031510446944

Just sayin'.

That's it. My scary Halloween post.

U.S. Military Academy Cadet Third Class Jason Schreuder spent 12 hours carving his contribution to the new Army Strong campaign. Photo by Leslie Gordonier

Apparently, I'm not the only one to notice...

Stop the ACLU
Captain's Quarters
Snerk - and Cassandra - and here I thought I was finally gonna have a post with more column inches than hers... nope.

And, as SWWBO notes - the services are, ahem, somewhat better edumacated than the population in general...

Education Level. The Military Services value and support the education of their members. The emphasis on education was evident in the data for FY 2002. Practically all active duty and Selected Reserve enlisted accessions had a high school diploma or equivalent, well above civilian youth proportions (79 percent of 18-24 year-olds). More important, excluding accessions enlisting in the Army or Army Reserve under the GED+ program (an experimental program of individuals with a GED or no credential who have met special screening criteria for enlisting), 92 percent of NPS active duty and 87 percent of NPS Selected Reserve enlisted recruits were high school diploma graduates.

Given that most officers are required to possess at least a baccalaureate college degree upon or soon after commissioning and that colleges and universities are among the Services’ main commissioning sources (i.e., Service academies and ROTC), the academic standing of officers is not surprising. The fact that 87 percent of active duty officer accessions and 95 percent of the officer corps (both excluding those with unknown education credentials) were degree holders (approximately 17 and 38 percent advanced degrees) is in keeping with policy and the professional status and expectations of officers. Likewise, 81 percent of Reserve Component officer accessions and 91 percent of the total Reserve Component officer corps held at least a bachelor’s degree, with 23 and 34 percent possessing advanced degrees, respectively.

There's a Heritage Foundation Study available here.

An extract:

A pillar of conventional wisdom about the U.S. military is that the quality of volunteers has been degraded after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Examples of the voices making this claim range from the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Daily News [1] to Michael Moore’s pseudo-documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Some insist that minorities and the underprivileged are over­represented in the military. Others accuse the U.S. Army of accepting unqualified enlistees in a futile attempt to meet its recruiting goals in the midst of an unpopular war.[2]

A report published by The Heritage Foundation in November 2005 examined the issue and could not substantiate any degradation in troop quality by comparing military enlistees in 1999 to those in 2003. It is possible that troop quality did not degrade until after the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, when patriotism was high. A common assumption is that the Army experienced difficulty getting qualified enlistees in 2005 and was subse­quently forced to lower its standards. This report revisits the issue by examining the full recruiting classes for all branches of the U.S. military for every year from 2003 to 2005.

The current findings show that the demo­graphic characteristics of volunteers have contin­ued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. Quality is a difficult concept to apply to soldiers, or to human beings in any context, and it should be understood here in context. Regardless of the standards used to screen applicants, the average quality of the people accepted into any organiza­tion can be assessed only by using measurable cri­teria, which surely fail to account for intangible characteristics. In the military, it is especially questionable to claim that measurable characteris­tics accurately reflect what really matters: cour­age, honor, integrity, loyalty, and leadership.

Again, just sayin'.

Senator, despite the fact that you simply cannot grow past it - whatever Iraq is... IT ISN'T VIETNAM!

For Valour.

Canadian Star of Military Valour - Canada's second highest combat award (after the Victoria Cross).

CAPT H and Damian Brooks both pointed out this to me - Canada awards her first *indigenous* awards for heroism in combat. As we have sometimes had a common language come between us, Damian explains:

FYI, John, these medals were created in 1993 (took us that long to figure out we should have our own distinct military honours system), and haven't been awarded until now - 13 years later.

In case the terminology south of the border is once again different: "bravery" can be equated to courage, and CF members have been awarded bravery medals before, but "valour" is considered courage in the presence of the enemy, and thus no decorations until now.

Fair enough. Go visit The Torch and see some soldiers you should meet:

Sergeant Patrick Tower, S.M.V., C.D.
Sergeant Michael Thomas Victor Denine, M.M.V., C.D.
Master Corporal Collin Ryan Fitzgerald, M.M.V.
Corporal Jason Lamont, M.M.V.

Well done, gentlemen!

Be sure to read the whole post - the stuff at the very end is informative, illustrative, and illuminating - if you follow the links.

Medal of Military Valour.

They're playing my tune, now.

Here's an interesting collection of stuff from yesterday's MSM articles... a little window into the minds of the 4-baggers (that's 4-Star Generals for you normals).

First up, the Army. Heh. You could always call us auld pharts back... it's all we know how to do. Which Ry keeps kicking me in the teeth about.

Warfare skills eroding as Army fights insurgents By David Wood Sun reporter Originally published October 24, 2006 WASHINGTON // Pressed by the demands of fighting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army has been unable to maintain proficiency in the kind of high-intensity mechanized warfare that toppled Saddam Hussein and would be needed again if the Army were called on to fight in Korea or in other future crises, senior officers acknowledge.

Soldiers once skilled at fighting in tanks and armored vehicles have spent three years carrying out street patrols, police duty and raids on suspected insurgent safe houses. Officers who were experienced at maneuvering dozens of tanks and coordinating high-speed maneuvers with artillery, attack helicopters and strike fighters now run human intelligence networks, negotiate with clan elders and oversee Iraqi police training and neighborhood trash pickup.

The Army's senior leaders say there is scant time to train troops in high-intensity skills and to practice large-scale mechanized maneuvers when combat brigades return home. With barely 12 months between deployments, there is hardly enough time to fix damaged gear and train new soldiers in counterinsurgency operations. Some units have the time to train but find their tanks are either still in Iraq or in repair depots.

Read the rest of the Sun article here. Interesting for all the ghosts of arguments seen in this space...

Speaking of being auld...

How many of these can you remember, old guys?

Did I mention Auld Guys?

Like, oh, 1SG Keith? Who is... 50 this day? No, I didn't mention that. Nope. Not me...

* Your name is on the back of a Unit Crest in the Graf O-Club. Yep
* You inventoried nukes at a NATO site and understood the 1 meter
rule when you found out they really were warm to the touch. Big Check!
* You know the Klosterbrauerei Kreuzberg beer really had a two
beer limit. uh-huh
* You know what GDP means and still remember where yours was and how long it took to occupy. Which one?
* You remember when we had tactical nukes and really planned to use them. Yepper. Did the planning, too.
* You remember spending hours in MOPP4 and doing M256 kits. Yep.
* You remember when the M8 Claymore and M72 LAW were part of CTT. Check.
* You remember when ARTEPs were 36 hours and you had fun. Heh. Fun?
* You remember what the hell a "1K zone" was. Something you went looking for after you busted into the 10K zone...
* You remember "ducks," and they weren't feathered. Got me here...
* You remember when Carl Vuono was CG (8th ID(M)) and Max Thurman was head of recruiting command. Betrays the source of this doc - a Pathfinder!
* You know what a Gama Goat and GOER were and could fix an M151A2 to run off one prop shaft. Yep, and I know that 3 cylinder 2 stroke diesel engines are deafening - worse than shooting cannon... damn things *shriek*!
* You remember snow chains on a deuce and a half. ...and putting the M151 the ditch, too, when the supply truck chains came off!
* You remember the monastery in Wildflecken. Through snow-blinded binos.
* You remember POMKIS, where your site was, and what was in it. Well, *I* remember POMCUS (Pre-positioning Of Materiel Configured In Unit Sets)... and I knew where my stuff was (near Weert, Holland), but we never drew our stuff, we always drew the stuff they wanted to move and service after that REFORGER.
* You had a license for an M-1941 stove. Still do. And for an M7 Priest, M3/16 Half-track, M24 Chaffee, and M-47 Patton, since we're on the subject.
* You remember when "c" rations came in cans and were the 1SGs cigarette supply. Check.
* You remember what a P38 is used for. 38 punches to open a can. Still have mine, have since 1972... made by Shelby, in Mallin, Oh.
* You remember everyone had a "reel to reel". I still do - in the basement somewhere.
* You remember when the Israelis were bad ***** and we all wanted to be like them.
* You remember when Saddam Hussein was our loyal ally. Well, not *really*.
* You remember jungle fatigues - and when they fit you. We liked 'em in the First Foot because we got to wear our unsubdued Big Red One on 'em...
* You remember when Airland Battle was a new concept, and everyone religiously read 100-5. And now I have a copy of FM3-0.
* You know what the "Cap Weinberger Doctrine" was.
* You remember green tabs strapped a " Pistol, Caliber .45, Automatic: M1911A1" Actually, I traded mine to the VTR driver for his M3A1 Grease Gun...
* You can remember Team Spirit and REFORGER were every year. I never did a Team Spirit (Korea) but I did 7 REFORGERs, 5 in Germany and 2 from the states.
* You can remember what REFORGER stood for - and they were happy to see you. Well, not all of 'em were happy. The Mercedes driver who pulled too close to the M1 on their first REFORGER near Wurzburg - he wasn't too happy to see us!
* You remember when the M16 was a plastic carbine, and you hoped for an M14. I still hope for an M14 - which is *still* serving, btw!
* You remember beer and cigarette machines in the barracks. Yep.
* You remember Happy Hour at the club - before MPs were waiting at the gate. And girls actually came to the clubs...
* You can remember going to the Club at Graf, drinking, and watching Margaret.
* You personally know Margaret. Heh. I know the Lieutenant who *married* Margaret... then there's the time Dave Cutler didn't wash his hand for two weeks... because he got to rub the oil on Margaret...
* You know what a "Smokey" at Hohenfels is.
* You know Herb at Hohenfels.
* You know the difference between the VRC46, VRC47, PRC77 and VRC160 and the requisite installation kits.
* You know what a CEOI is and you can encrypt grids. Who needs to shack a grid when ya got BLACKHORSE?
* You remember when NTC was a new and cool concept.
* You have never heard of a yellow stress card.
* You remember when as a new LT/CPT you could go out and train your soldiers and not have an OC tell you how screwed up you were.
* You remember battalion commanders and 1SG's who were Vietnam Vets.
* You remember battalion commanders who drank, swore and mentored.
* You remember battalion commanders who were ruthless about tactics, but didn't give a crap about admin BS. Nope, not *that* old.
* You remember as a LT/CPT you had raters and senior raters who actually had the balls to rank you in their profile - to your face. Hey, I've got an OER in my file that doesn't *have* a profile...
* You remember when 60% selected on promotion boards was - awesome.

H/t, auld Jim C.

I can't wait to read what Bill brings to this discussion.

Soldiers with two of their favorite things...

Dogs and children.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Sandoval, from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, juggles a soccer ball before giving it away to a boy in the Maghdad district of Kirkuk, Iraq, Sept. 30, 2006. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet) (Released)

An Iraqi boy salutes the camera while U.S. Army Pvt. Aaron Croussore provides security during a visit to a local street market in Kirkuk, Iraq, Sept. 25, 2006. Croussore is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Steve Cline) (Released)

A Soldier from the 549th Military Police Company takes a rest with his sniffer dog during Operation Medusa in Mosul, Iraq. This photo appeared on www.army.mil. by Sgt. Thomas Wheeler October 12, 2006

Pretty much true of any soldier,

any era...

even Generals... and dogs mourned their soldiers.

Faithful Friend Mourns American Hero -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Along with the many millions to mourn the passing of American hero, General George S. Patton, Jr., is his dog "Willie," the late general's pet bull terrier. Bad Nauheim, Germany. International News Photos [NWDNS-208-PU-153C(14)]. Picture reproduced courtesy Still Picture Branch (NWDNS), U. S. National Archives.

As we mourn (and honor) them...

There are some exceptions, of course - people who, as a rule, see dogs as rather something else. Just another reason to disrupt their plans for the world, if the opportunity presents.

Major Ryan Worthan... someone you should know.

Silver Star awardee receives Nininger Award for Valor October 12, 2006

Maj. Ryan L. Worthan was awarded the inaugural Alexander E. Nininger Award for Valor at Arms by the U.S. Military Academy’s association of graduates.
Maj. Ryan L. Worthan was awarded the inaugural Alexander E. Nininger Award for Valor at Arms by the U.S. Military Academy’s association of graduates for demonstrating conspicuous valor and gallantry while serving with the 10th Mountain Division in action against al-Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas on Sept. 29, 2003, at Shkin Fire Base in Afghanistan.

Worthan received the Silver Star earlier for his leadership during a 12-hour battle at the fire base, which served as a choking point of enemy fighters coming out of the mountains on the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. Worthan’s actions led to more than 20 al-Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas being killed after he ordered several Apache attack helicopters and an A-10 Warthog gunship into the area.

“I’m honored beyond words to represent the U.S. Military Academy and to represent my classmates,” the 1997 West Point graduate said. “I have a ton of classmates who have received valor awards and have fought many more battles and, in my opinion, many tougher battles than I.

As Worthan addressed cadets during his award ceremony, he gave thanks to 1945 USMA graduate Doug Kenna, who endowed the Nininger Award. Nininger, a 1941 West Point graduate, received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions in the Philippines during World War II.

“Kenna’s thoughts on why we should have this award are very forward thinking,” Worthan said. “His vision was for this to be a long-term award for cadets to identify with junior leaders, that in the future may be received by lieutenants who the cadets will know, allowing them to identify with the awardees.”

Worthan credits West Point as a place that taught him great fundamentals for leadership and confidence.

*NININGER, ALEXANDER R., JR.

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 57th Infantry, Philippine Scouts. Place and date: Near Abucay, Bataan, Philippine Islands, 12 January 1942. Entered service at: Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Birth: Gainesville, Ga. G.O. No.: 9, 5 February 1942. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy near Abucay, Bataan, Philippine Islands, on 12 January 1942. This officer, though assigned to another company not then engaged in combat, voluntarily attached himself to Company K, same regiment, while that unit was being attacked by enemy force superior in firepower. Enemy snipers in trees and foxholes had stopped a counterattack to regain part of position. In hand-to-hand fighting which followed, 2d Lt. Nininger repeatedly forced his way to and into the hostile position. Though exposed to heavy enemy fire, he continued to attack with rifle and handgrenades and succeeded in destroying several enemy groups in foxholes and enemy snipers. Although wounded 3 times, he continued his attacks until he was killed after pushing alone far within the enemy position. When his body was found after recapture of the position, 1 enemy officer and 2 enemy soldiers lay dead around him.

Note for Fred Reed...

...here's your Army, preparing to frag its officers.

More than 300 Soldiers of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, participated in the Army’s largest-ever reenlistment ceremony held during a deployment Oct. 14.

More than 300 Soldiers reenlist in record breaking ceremony
By 4th Brigade Combat Team,
25th Infantry Division, Public Affairs

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait (Army News Service, Oct. 16, 2006) – On the way to a yearlong deployment in Iraq, 307 Soldiers of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, participated in the Army’s largest-ever reenlistment ceremony held during a deployment Saturday.

Headquartered at Fort Richardson, Alaska, the unit ceremony took place at Camp Buehring, where the Soldiers stopped for final preparations before entering Iraq.

“This ceremony says a lot about the personal courage and selfless service of these paratroopers,” said Command Sgt. Maj. David Turnbull, command sergeant major for the 4th BCT, 25th Inf. “They understand they have a tough mission ahead of them and are still willing to commit themselves to continue in the Army.”

The large turnout underscores the service’s new campaign slogan, “Army Strong,” said the brigade’s commander, Col. Michael X. Garrett.

“Many are going to attribute this record-setting event to reenlistment incentives. But, on the eve of deploying north to Iraq, these paratroopers show that it is on a much more personal level,” Garrett said. “These paratroopers have seen something in someone, somewhere – whether it was a squad leader, platoon leader or commander – that led to this moment.”

Cpl. Brian Anderson, a recon scout with the unit’s 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, said he reenlisted for much the same reason as his comrades.

“I am reenlisting for the same reason as any other paratrooper here in this formation. I want to serve my country and I love the Army,” he said.

Of course, it isn't your Army, is it, Fred? And hasn't been, since, oh, 1980 or so, but you wouldn't recognize that, would you? Doesn't fit the 1972 template you're still carrying around.

Happy Birthday, Sailors!

061013-N-2970T-002 Pacific Ocean (Oct. 13, 2006) - Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Markus Ramirez, assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2), prepared the cake shown to honor the U.S. Navy’s birthday, commemorating 231 years of heritage. The cake was cut on the ship’s mess decks by the oldest and youngest crew members along with the ship’s commanding officer, Capt. Brian Donegan. Essex and embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is currently underway for their annual fall patrol. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Marvin E. Thompson Jr. (RELEASED)

The SecNav Sends:

SECNAV Navy Birthday Message to the Fleet Story Number: NNS061012-18 Release Date: 10/12/2006 6:20:00 PM

Special message from Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- America is an amazing success story. From our humble origins we have grown, prospered, and offered freedom to generations of Americans. We cherish our independence, our liberties, and our way of life, and like generations before, we unwaveringly defend these bedrocks from those who would do us harm.

Since 1775, when the Continental Congress of the United States recognized the need for naval forces, the United States Navy has been vital in protecting our national security. The heroism and courage of the Sailors that have fought our nation’s wars since the earliest days of the republic is alive today in each and every one of you; as we once again confront an enemy that openly targets our freedom and our way of life. Your willingness to serve, your steadfastness in the face of pressure, and your inspiring example of courage in confronting danger are what protect us from those who plot our destruction.

The fact that we live in an increasingly dangerous world is a sobering thought. We have faced great peril before, and we have prevailed. From those in Iraq and Afghanistan, to those deployed at sea and ashore around the world, to those at home who are responsible for recruiting, training, supplying, and providing intelligence to the warfighter, you are all engaged in a noble and worthy endeavor to preserve our way of life and keep America safe.

On this 231st Birthday of the United States Navy, take unique pride in knowing that your service and your sacrifice continue to do honor to a great nation. Your nation, fellow Americans, and our friends and allies around the world respect and appreciate your commitment.

It is my honor and privilege to be your Secretary as we celebrate this birthday. May God bless you, your families, and the United States of America.

The Usual Suspects weigh in, unsurprisingly... well, except for this one, and this one, and this one, at least as of this posting... I guess we can give the west coasters some slack, due to the time zones... of course, this East Coaster doesn't have that excuse... (but I like his Floating Frog).

What do you guys think?

I've got some thoughts - but not enough battery left to express them. I'll add mine later. Who knows, they might even have some thought behind them!

Miami Herald
October 6, 2006
Military Debates Raising National Guard's Status
Two generals oppose promoting National Guard chiefs to the level of other military branch heads, but backers said it ensures the Guard gets its fair share.

By Drew Brown
WASHINGTON - Two senior U.S. generals said Thursday they disagree with a proposal that would elevate the chief of the National Guard to the same rank and status as the heads of the other military branches and provide the Guard with its own budget. NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones and Gen. Lance Smith, commander of Joint Forces, said the measures would complicate the military chain of command and cause disagreement between the active-duty forces and the National Guard.

''My gut feeling is that it would be divisive, and I think creating a separate service, if you will, would be counter to the good order and discipline of the armed forces in general,'' Jones told the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves. With the passage of the 2007 defense bill last week, Congress asked the commission to examine the issue as it reviews the role of the National Guard and Reserves. Congress created the 13-member body last year to consider whether changes are needed in the way part-time soldiers and airmen are organized, trained, equipped and paid.

Advocates of putting the National Guard on equal footing with the active-duty military say it would ensure that the Guard gets its fair share of funding and equipment. Currently, the Army National Guard and the Air Force National Guard report to the Department of the Army and to the Department of the Air Force, respectively. The chief of the National Guard Bureau, who oversees both Guard divisions, is a three-star general who acts as an advisor to the four-star generals who head the Army and the Air Force.

Under the proposal, however, the National Guard chief also would hold four-star status and be given a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a six-member panel that coordinates military policy. Army and Air National Guard, with more than 455,000 troops, have provided nearly half of the combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, virtually all of the peacekeepers in the Balkans and thousands for border security, disaster relief and other domestic missions.

The Iraq war has taken a toll on National Guard equipment stocks. Stateside units have only about one-third of the trucks, Humvees and other equipment they normally would have because most of their gear has been left in Iraq. The price tag for rebuilding those stocks has been estimated at $21 billion. ''It is one of the largest military forces, and it has the most missions,'' said John Goheen, of the National Guard Association of the United States. ``Yet it has no voice at the top of the Pentagon.''

Legislation proposed this year by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Christopher ''Kit'' Bond, R-Mo., also would require that the deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, which oversees all military operations in the United States, come from Guard's ranks. The final version of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill stripped out those provisions and required only that the National Guard commission look into the issue and come up with a set of recommendations.

In a Senate floor speech last week, Leahy said that gutting the proposal signaled to the National Guard that Congress is ``not interested in truly supporting them.'' Jones recommended that pay and mobilization procedures be streamlined for part-time troops to ease the call-up process and to ensure that once they are called up, Guardsmen and Reservists receive the same pay and benefits as active-duty troops.

Albuquerque Tribune
October 5, 2006
Top Officer: Guard Not Needed On Joint Chiefs
By Michael Gisick
America's highest-ranking military officer says he opposes a push backed by Gov. Bill Richardson to name a National Guard officer to the country's top council of generals. Richardson said last month that the Guard deserves a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recognition of its increased role in the nation's defense. But during a stop in Albuquerque on Wednesday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace said the Guard is already adequately represented on the council.

Adding a National Guard general would be "counter-productive," Pace said. The Joint Chiefs, made up of six U.S. generals, advises the president on military policy. It includes representatives of the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, as well as a chairman and vice-chairman. Pace said the Army and Air Force National Guard are represented by the generals from those branches. Giving the guard components a distinct voice in the council would impede efforts to develop a "joint voice," he said.

Pace praised the Guard's performance and said the military "could not do what we've been asked to do without the Guard and Reserves." Richardson and other governors have expressed concern that the Guard - traditionally used by states to respond to natural disasters - has been stretched thin by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Richardson has said that placing a Guard general on the Joint Chiefs would give the Guard more say in its future and recognize that it is no longer a "secondary" military force.

As many as 40,000 National Guard troops were deployed to Iraq in 2004, about 40 percent of total U.S. troop strength there, though that number has declined since then. Members of the New Mexico Air and Army National Guards have made about 5,000 individual deployments since 2001, said Lt. Col. Kimberly Lalley, a New Mexico National Guard spokeswoman. That includes deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, the U.S.-Mexico border, Latin America and elsewhere, she said.

The New Mexico National Guard has about 4,000 members, Lalley said. Pace's comments on the Guard came after a luncheon speech Wednesday at the Rio Grande Inn in Old Town. Pace, the first Marine Corps general to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, acknowledged a recent surge in violence in Iraq, which he attributed to increased operations against insurgents by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Pace said the U.S. has enough troops in Iraq but that a greater number of competent Iraqi troops need to be trained, a process he acknowledged hasn't always gone well. "Clearly," Pace said, "many of the Iraqi forces we've trained haven't (had) the loyalty we'd want to the central government." That comment came after one audience member, who identified himself as a Marine Corps veteran, asked Pace how long the United States would put up with "this nonsense from the Iraqis."

Many Iraq analysts, including some within the U.S. military and intelligence communities, have issued increasingly dire warnings in recent months that sectarian violence and death-squad killings have left Iraq spiralling toward all-out civil war. But Pace praised the "courageous" leadership of Iraq's civilian leadership and said many Iraqi troops were performing well. He said the United States was determined to succeed in Iraq.

A handful of quiet protesters stood outside the hotel before Pace's speech. Terry Riley, a member of the group Veterans for Peace, said he was concerned the U.S. veteran's health care system still wasn't prepared to deal with returning service members. Several other protesters held signs declaring U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, and President George W. Bush were "terrible on national security" and "disgracing our intelligence." Wilson and her opponent, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, attended Pace's speech. The speech was sponsored by the Kirtland Partnership Committee.

Nice work if you can get it.

by NASA October 2, 2006 Astronaut U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey N. Williams is assisted by Russian search and recovery personnel after landing in Kazakhstan. Williams, who was in space for six months, was the primary flight engineer and NASA science officer aboard the International Space Station. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.

JSC2006-E-42734 (29 Sept. 2006) --- Astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams, Expedition 13 flight engineer and NASA ISS science officer, is assisted by Russian search and recovery teams on the steppe of central Kazakhstan on Sept. 29, 2006. Americans who also helped are out of the frame. This came a short while after the landing in the Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft following undocking earlier in the day from the International Space Station. Williams and cosmonaut Pavel V. Vinogradov, Expedition 13 commander, spent 183 days in space while Anousheh Ansari, spaceflight participant, spent 11 days in space and 9 days on the ISS under a commercial agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

Heh. No one told me this was a job option when I enlisted...

Well, actually, that's not true. I actually did have a degree that might have allowed me to apply - except we weren't taking people who needed no stinking glasses! Only fit for fodder, we four-eyes.

So, aside from propaganda purposes... why *do* we have Army Officers In Space? 8^) Colonel Williams is not the only one...

Heh.

Fred nails me, I guess. This is what Owen has been trying to get across: War is too important to be left to the likes of me.

GI Joe is the go-to guy.

Further, and I want to say this carefully, officers often are not quite adults. They can be (and usually are) smart, competent, dedicated, and physically brave, and some are exceedingly hard men. But there is a simple-mindedness about them, an aversion to the handmaidens of introspection, a certain boyishness as in kids playing soldier. A lot of make-believe goes into an officer’s world. Enlisted men, grown up, see things as they are. Officers are issued a world by the command and then live in it.

Note the heavy emphasis of the military, meaning the officer corps, on ritual and pageantry. It is adult kid-stuff. Three thousand men building a skyscraper just show up, do their jobs, and go home. The military wants its men standing in squares, precisely at attention, thumbs along the seams, with brass perfectly polished. It wants stirring music, snappy salutes, and the haunting tones of taps, “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full, sir.” This is justified as necessary for discipline. It isn’t. A gunny sergeant has no difficulty maintaining his authority without the hoop-la

Officers remind me of armed Moonies. There is the same earnestness, the same deliberate optimism-by-policy. Things are going well because doctrine says they are. An officer is as ideologically upbeat as Reader’s Digest, and as unreflective. This is the why they don’t learn, why the US is again flailing about, trying to fight hornets with elephant guns. “Yessir, can do, sir.” Well, sometimes, and sometimes not. It is not arrogance, more like a belief in gravitation.

Read the rest, here.

Of course, Fred doesn't know that many officers, methinks. Not well. There is some superficial truth here. And a lot of "I'm just sooo much smarter than you," too.

Of course, I'm doubly-damned. I'm a stupid officer, and one who wasn't successful by most lights. So I'm a real piece of fluff.

Hmmm. One thing, Fred, and your buddy Jim (not to be confused with my buddy Jim) - Vietnam was fought with a draftee Army, not a professional one. It's an important difference many of your age cohort can't quite wrap their minds around. Re-enlistment rates are still holding - which is not a support for your thesis, really.

Sure, there are always malcontents. And many of them have good reason to be. That doesn't mean they're ready to start refusing orders or lobbing grenades into tents.

Okay. Check still comes at the end of the month.

H/t, Jim C, who was marginally more successful than I... ;^)

The story of C Company

CAPT H sends us to this article in the Toronto Star.

It starts out like this:

The story of C Company Sep. 30, 2006. 05:44 AM MITCH POTTER MIDDLE EAST BUREAU

PANJWAII DISTRICT, Afghanistan—One must turn back time several generations to find Canadian soldiers in the state that Charlie Company finds itself today. Not since the Korean War has a single Canadian combat unit been so cut to pieces so quickly.

Either of the two events that rocked their world in the dust-caked hills of southern Afghanistan one month ago might qualify as the worst day of their lives. That they came back-to-back — one disastrous morning followed by another even worse — is a matter of almost incomprehensibly bad fortune.

The epic double-whammy — a perfect Taliban ambush of unprecedented intensity, followed one day later by a devastating burst of "friendly fire" from a U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthog — reduced Charlie to a status of "combat ineffective." They were the ones to fire the opening shots of Operation Medusa. But even as the massive Canada-led assault was gathering steam they were finished.

The soldiers left standing are not the same today as the ones who deployed to Afghanistan with nothing but good intentions barely seven weeks ago, as part of 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, based in Petawawa, Ont.

A few are emotional wrecks, too fragile still to speak of what transpired during that fateful Labour Day long weekend. Others bleed anger from their every pore.

Some cling to wounded pride, anxious for it to be known that if not for enormous self-sacrifice, the volume of Canadian blood shed these two mornings would have been vastly greater.

Others are disillusioned, having come to regard their work in Afghanistan as a mission impossible. And others still are more driven than ever to succeed, if only to lend greater meaning to the loss of their fallen Canadian brothers.

The survivors of Charlie Company are closer now than they were before. And the other thing they have in common is a need to tell their story, which they do today for the first time.

Read the whole thing via the link above. What makes it blogworthy is John's take on it:

This is from a "PROGRESSIVE" newspaper, whose support for the Afghan war is very soft. They tend to support the idea that we should be conducting "peacekeeping" and "development" operations in a safer corner of the country; or be trying to sort out Darfur, where we have no integral access. Any place where war is not a factor.

I was intrigued that the reporter managed to satisfy his editors with the requisite horror of "blood shed in an unnecessary cause", while hinting that C Company has not really been broken/destroyed by this battle, and the pers were regirding themselves for further combat.

Cheers
John

I went looking for pictures to support this post, and so I went to the Canadian Department of Defence news website. Two things struck me this morning.

1. Their web banner is much more... militant than the old one (which I wish I had saved, now).

2. Their photo site (at least at the moment, these things tend to be pretty dynamic) seem spend an awful lot of space on their casualties and associated ramp ceremonies (at least if you type in "Afghanistan" as a keyword) and other picture selections and captions seemingly try to emphasize how safe they're trying to make it. Like this one.

English/Anglais AR2006-P008 0044 16 Sept 2006 Kandahar, Afghanistan Light Armored Vehicles (LAV’s) provide safe a mode of transportation in addition to continous perimeter security for Canadian soldiers patrolling in and around in the Panjwaii District approximately 30 kilometers west of Kandahar City as part of Operation MEDUSA.

Op MEDUSA was conducted with an aim to clear insurgent forces from the Panjwaii District. TF 3-06 BG was the main manoeuvre unit in Op MEDUSA, which also had significant participation from US, Dutch and UK air and ground forces, as well as the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. Op MEDUSA commenced on 2 September 2006.

Task Force Afghanistan is part of Canada’s contribution to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. This mission is about Canadians and their international partners helping Afghans rebuild their lives, their families, their communities and their nation. Canadian operations will work to improve the quality of life of Afghans by providing a secure environment in which Afghan society can recover from more than 25 years of conflict.

The Canadian Forces (CF) contribution in Afghanistan comprises about 2,000 soldiers, most of whom serve with Task Force Afghanistan at Kandahar Airfield and Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar City. Additional personnel are assigned to Kabul, various military headquarters, and civilian organizations.

Photo by: Sgt Lou Penney
TFA OP ATHENA
Imagery Technician

It's cherry-picking, to be sure, just going with my gut on first impressions this morning.

Mind you - our national characters are different, and the DND has a much different political/social environment to operate in - I just found the difference between their pictures and captions and ours bemusing.

This one's for Bill.

September 28, 2006 Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division and a Kiowa helicopter move past an oil fire during a convoy to Al Jawala, Iraq. Photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet

That was for Bill, this is for some others of us, too.

Basic Training - where people like Bill, myself, and the Heartless Libertarian prepared people for this, by running them, among other things, through things like this.

Caption for picture 1:

U.S. Army Soldiers move to their next objective during a morning raid in the Tameem district of Ramadi, Iraq, Sept. 3, 2006. The Soldiers are with Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division based out of Baumholder, Germany. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jeremy T. Lock) (Released)

Caption for picture 2.

U.S. Army Soldiers make their way through an obstacle during the confidence course portion of basic military training at Fort Jackson, S.C., Sept. 20, 2006. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Denise Rayder) (Released)

(Yeah, it's a clumsy post - but I'm going to be doing a bunch of work on my photohost today, and bandwidth issues are likely, but I wanted to credit the pics)

Girl Scouts to Cav Scouts.

CJ of A Soldier's Perspective sends:

Can you hook a brother up? I'm in the final week of taking orders for Girl Scout cookies to send overseas to 2 Marine units. This is my second year doing this. Last year we shipped over 100 boxes to Army units in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our goal this year is 200. We've already gotten orders for 60 boxes in just over a week. Would you mention this on your site for anyone that would like to help send GS cookies? I would greatly appreciate it.

I will gladly hook a brother up. Click here, people. That's an order!

Update: CJ sends a clarifier...

Thank you mucho. The more the merrier to get involved. If we get enough cookies to go around, I have six Marine units I can send cookies to. Just make sure everyone knows that the cookies only cost $3.50 per box. The extra money is to pay for shipping and boxes (the flat rate doesn't hold much unless we take them out of the box...bad idea). If there is enough money left over, we'll just add purchase more boxes. I don't want to give anyone the idea that I'm selling Girl Scout cookies for $5.

Not just another statistic...

...but an interesting casualty regardless.

Lt Perez's death means no more or no less than any other warrior's - but she filled an interesting demographic niche.

WEST POINT, N.Y. - The first member of West Point's "Class of 9-11" to die in combat was buried at the military academy Tuesday, two weeks after she was killed by a bomb at the head of a convoy in Iraq.

2nd Lt. Emily Perez, 23, was leading a platoon when a roadside bomb exploded Sept. 12 south of Baghdad. She was the first female West Point graduate to die in Iraq and the highest-ranking black and Hispanic woman cadet in the school's history.

"She was like a little superwoman, so full of energy and life," said Meghan Venable-Thomas, a senior who was on the track team and in the gospel choir with Perez.

Read the rest here.

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

SFC Paul Smith - still in the news. Navy News.

Birgit Smith, widow of Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, and her son David pose just moments after the 377-foot, 40-knot, Navy ship "Freedom" was launched Sept. 24. Smith is the sponsor of the littoral combat ship. by Lt. Col. Leela Dawson September 26, 2006. This photo appeared on www.army.mil

From the Army News Service:

Army widow christens Navy ship, 'Freedom'

Birgit Smith, the widow of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, christens Freedom (LCS 1) with the traditional smashing of a champagne bottle across the ship’s bow. Freedom is the nation’s first Littoral Combat Ship in an entirely new class of U.S. Navy surface warships.

MARINETTE, Wis. (Army News Service, Sept. 26, 2006) – The Navy christened and launched the nation's first Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS-1), at the Marinette Marine shipyard Sept. 24.

Birgit Smith is the ship’s sponsor. She is the widow of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery and gallantry above and beyond the call of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Birgit broke a champagne bottle across the ship's bow to formally christen the ship, which then made a dramatic side-launch into the Menominee River.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chief of Naval Operations, put Birgit’s selection as sponsor into perspective for the assembled crowd by referring to a letter her husband wrote home from Iraq.

In preparation for the christening and launch of the U.S. Navy's first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Freedom, Birgit Smith, widow of Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, and her son, David, place personal items of importance into a cylinder that will be be welded into the ship's mast for good luck. By Lt. Col. Leela Dawson September 26, 2006.

“When I think of his words ‘I am prepared to give all that I am’ and the way he did exactly that, it reminds me of the true high cost of living in America, the price of freedom,” he said. “Paul paid that debt for us. His valor reminds us that we must be ready to defend freedom whenever and wherever it is challenged.”

Col. Thomas P. Smith (no relation) commanded Smith’s unit – the 11th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division – and nominated Smith for the MOH.

“As I learned how special the “sponsor” of a ship is to the Navy and the ongoing relationship Birgit will have with the ship and her crew, I was truly humbled,” he said. “As the Navy leaders and crew got to know Birgit, I think they realized how special she is and how fitting their choice was for this honor.”

Mullen noted that ships “really do take on the spirit of their sponsor. And I for one will take great comfort that when Freedom’s crews sail into harm’s way, your quiet strength will go with them,” Mullen said to Birgit.

The 377-foot Freedom is capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots and can operate in water less than 20 feet deep. The ship will act as a platform for launch and recovery of manned and unmanned vehicles. Its modular design will support interchangeable mission packages, allowing the ship to be reconfigured for antisubmarine warfare, mine warfare or surface warfare missions on an as-needed basis.

“Just a little more than three years ago she was just an idea, now Freedom stands before us. And on this morning, we christen her, send her down the ways and get her ready to join the fleet next year,” said Mullen. “It comes none too soon, because there are tough challenges out there that only she can handle.”

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and Fort Stewart, presents a gift in honor of Medal of Honor recipient, Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith to the prospective commanding officers of the future-USS Freedom, Commanders Michael Doran and Donald Gabrielson for placement on the new ship. By Lt. Col. Leela Dawson September 26, 2006.

Freedom acknowledges the enduring foundation of the nation and honors American communities which bear the name Freedom. States having towns named Freedom include California, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

But, as Mullen made clear, Freedom also acknowledges new challenges faced by the Navy in the war on terror, and will complement the vision of a global “1,000-ship navy” built upon ad hoc maritime partnerships.

“Freedom will know how to fight, but she can also be a friend,” said Mullen. “I am convinced that if we pool resources together, as partners and friends, we can best tackle many of the tough maritime problems we face. The Freedom class will fit perfectly into such partnerships. Her shallow draft and agility will allow her to go, when asked – deep into green and brown water – where we, our allies, and emerging partners face some of the most difficult challenges.”

Freedom will be manned by one of two rotational crews, blue and gold, similar to the rotational crews assigned to Trident submarines.

Freedom will continue to undergo outfitting and testing at Marinette Marine until it is commissioned in 2007 and eventually homeported in San Diego, Ca.

(Editor's note: Information compiled from Department of Defense and Department of Navy releases.)

Apropos "Burying Clausewitz"...

Ori Brafman offers a different take on the subject - supportive of throwing over Clausewitz, but with a different analogy: Spiders versus Starfish.

Cut off a spider's leg, and you'll have a seven-legged cripple. Cut off its head, and you'll kill the spider. But cut off the starfish's arm, and not only will it regenerate, but the severed arm will actually grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this remarkable feat because, unlike spiders, they lack central control—their organs are replicated across each arm. Starfish are decentralized.

Just like in nature, there are also starfish on the battlefield. Starfish forces don't have a leader, clear structure, or defined hierarchy. These seemingly chaotic qualities make Starfish unexpectedly resilient.

Read the rest here.

H/t, CSM M.

A good war story.

Pte Johnson Beharry VC is the first person since 1965 to be awarded Britain's highest award for gallantry while still alive. A 27-year-old native of Grenada, who came to Britain in 1999 and joined the British Army in 2001, he was a member of the 1st Battalion Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment when he was posted to Iraq in April 2004. He was awarded the VC on March 18, 2005. This is his story, taken from his soon to be published book, 'Barefoot Soldier'.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

The more things change...

...the more some things just stay the same.

A visual essay on soldiers and soldiering is below the fold, thoughtfully tucked there for you dial up visitors with long graphic load times. Just click on Flash Traffic/Extended Entry

Someone you should know.

A casualty local to the Castle's Demesne (local in midwestern terms).

Kansas Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Bernard Lee Deghand, 42, was killed by small arms fire Friday while conducting combat operations as part of Operation Mountain Fury, said Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, adjutant general for Kansas. He left behind his wife, his daughters Jami and Emma, and his stepson, Craig.

You can read the rest here: Karla sends.

You want an encapsulation the impacts of Transformation, the kind of war we find ourselves in, the ability of the Volunteer Force to allow us to conduct this war without a full-fledged buy-in by the American people (and mind you, I'm not sure that fighting this war *with* a WWII-level of commitment would work, under the circumstances) - in many ways, it's all right in this paragraph:

Deghand was a member of the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 35th Division Artillery Embedded Training Team, Bunting said. His unit was involved in training Afghan soldiers in mechanized infantry tactics using armored personnel carriers.

National Guard Division Artillery Headquarters personnel teaching mech infantry tactics. Back in the 80's, when I wrote two of HHB 25th DIVARTY's AT training assessments, never would I have guessed that they'd find themselves one day training the Afghan Army in mech infantry tactics.

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

It's not softer, it's better...

And in many respects, I'm sure that's true. Still, you've all had it easy since I went through the last hard basic in the 70's...

U.S. Army trainees take swings at each other during a hand-to-hand combat competition as part of basic combat training at Fort Jackson, S.C., Aug. 9, 2006. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Stacy L. Pearsall) (Released)

Ah, pugil sticks. Now *that* was fun. At least it was if you were a wrestler and noseguard... and no, I don't know why it's a US Air Force photo of BCT troops at Fort Jackson.

Army training not easier. By Bridgett Siter Fort Benning Bayonet

FORT BENNING, Ga. (Army News Service, Sept. 7, 2006) – Lt. Col. Scott Power was in the last hard Ranger School class in 1989. Lt. Col. Chris Forbes was in the last hard Officer Basic Course in 1988. And Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Gaskin, he was in the last hard basic training in 1995.

“So goes it for every Soldier in the history of the Army. No matter when they came through basic training or Ranger School or whatever, they came through the last hard class,” said Power, who sums up his command philosophy to all the drill sergeants under his command at 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, with this message to naysayers and those who believe basic training has gone soft:

“I’m not impressed with leaders who think they have to abuse their Soldiers to train them to standard. I’m not impressed with leaders who think the lack of abuse makes basic training soft,” he said. “We were all in the last hard class – get over it. We do things differently now, and we’re producing Soldiers every bit as good as we ever have.”

A recent spate of letters to the Army Times from Soldiers lamenting the weakening of training, particularly basic and one station unit training, has those in the know – like Power, Gaskin and Forbes – mad as the word they no longer use when addressing new Soldiers.

“I’ve had it up to here with people who say basic training isn’t what it used to be, as if that’s a bad thing,” Power said. “We don’t need to use profanity. We don’t need to demoralize these guys who have volunteered to be here, knowing full well they’re joining an Army at war.

“We’re graduating Soldiers who meet all the standards. We stand behind what we put on Pomeroy Field,” he said, referring to the Sand Hill parade field where nearly 9,000 Soldiers graduate from the Basic Combat Training Brigade each year.

Another 20,000 graduate annually from the Infantry Training Brigade.

Power, Forbes, the commander of the BCTB’s 2nd Battalion, 54th Infantry Regiment, Gaskin and his fellow drill sergeants from 3 Bn., 47th Inf., Regt., addressed the frustrating accusations of a “dumbed-down” basic training last week.

Forbes insists it’s a misconception based on widespread misunderstanding about changes during the past few years. Take the issue of fitness standards, for example. It’s common knowledge, he said, that Soldiers are now only required to pass the PT test with a “50-50-50,” or 50 percent of the push-ups, sit-ups and 2-mile run on an age-based scale, to graduate from basic training.

“But what they don’t say, those who complain about it, is that these Soldiers must pass (advanced individual training) 60-60-60. They have to meet Army standard,” he said. “And the reason for that is we finally recognized that it didn’t make sense to break a Soldier trying to get him to standard in nine weeks rather than build him up in 13. We’re thinking smarter and producing Soldiers more fundamentally fit.”

Power elaborated on the subject of fitness. He’s repeatedly heard complaints about Soldiers doing push-ups on their knees. It’s a particular sore point with Power, because the media has hyped the misconception by printing photos of Soldiers in this position with no explanation.

And there is an explanation.

“We used to push them till they dropped,” he said. “We know better now. Now, when they reach muscle failure, they go to their knees instead of going to the ground. Using the modified technique is actually tougher than the old method; they can’t quit at muscle failure, they have to modify and keep going. We’re building a more physically fit Soldier.”

Power said claims of being among the last “old-school” basic trainees has traditionally been a matter of pride, a matter of jest, among Soldiers. But when they take it seriously, or the media takes it out of context, the facts get distorted or simply ignored.

“Standards change, they always have,” he said. “When I took my first PT test in 1984, we used the old three-event standard; push-ups 68, sit-ups 69 and the 2-mile run, 13.07. Two years later, the standards increased. It got tougher. So you want to talk about ‘back in the day?’ How far back do you really want to go?”

Gaskin, a 29-year-old combat veteran, said it’s the new Soldiers who ultimately pay for the spread of misinformation.

“They come here expecting summer camp, because that’s what they’ve heard. The first couple of weeks are a culture shock,” he said. “I say to anybody who thinks basic training is soft, raise your right hand, come on out and check it out for yourself.”

Gaskin insists basic training is actually “150 percent tougher” than it was when he attended 11 years ago. Back then, he said, training included a form of hazing Soldiers commonly call “smoking.” Gaskin called it unnecessary.

“Now we’re producing fit Soldiers who are ready for combat,” he said, “because they’ve trained with body armor, they’re geared up constantly, constantly doing battle drills and urban operations training and the kind of first-aid training that will actually save lives on the battle field, not the band-aid approach I learned in basic.

“Soldiers today will graduate knowing the kinds of things I didn’t learn till I got to my first duty station, and then some of it, I didn’t know a year later,” said Gaskin, who has been a drill sergeant for nearly a year. “I told myself it would never be that way if I was responsible for training. The worst thing that could happen to me is to know I had a Soldier here for nine weeks and he goes off to combat and something happens to him because of lack of training.”

Want to read the rest? Hit the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry.

Another Cold Warrior recognized...

Air Force sergeant receives posthumous honor for secret mission Associated Press McCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. - Air Force Tech. Sgt. Roscoe C. Lindsay died in 1959 carrying the secret of a mission he flew over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Now, the Air Force has recognized his service with the Distinguished Flying Cross, its eighth highest honor. Lindsay's widow, Loy Lindsay of Coffeyville, accepted the medal Friday in a ceremony at McConnell Air Force Base.

"He certainly deserved it, and I'm so happy for him," she said. "I wish he could be here."

Roscoe Lindsay died of a heart attack at age 38.

Seven years earlier, in September 1952, he was one of 12 crew members on a flight to determine if the Soviets were building a base that would pose a nuclear threat to the east coast of the United States.

The mission was so secret that they were instructed not to use their radios for the entire 15-hour flight. Crew members were also told that if they were shot down or captured, there would be no rescue attempt.

The crew successfully completed its mission, on which Lindsay served as an aerial photographer.

Because of the flight's classified nature, it was largely unknown for decades. In 2000, the government declassified details of the mission, and crew members began sharing their story.

Soon after, Lindsay's grandson, Patrick Logan, read that the lead pilot on the mission, Lt. Col. Roy Kaden, was trying to track down other crew members or their families. He wanted the crew to receive military honors.

Kaden, who lives in Arkansas, contacted Logan, who lives in Missouri, and told him: "I've been looking for your family for 40 years." Kaden lobbied to secure the Distinguished Flying Cross for Lindsay.

Col. T. Harrison Smith, vice commander of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell, presented the medal Friday to Loy Lindsay.

"I'm just in awe of all of it," she said of the ceremony. "I'm just speechless."

Snerkiture...

From the WashTimes today:

The U.S. Armed Forces will meet wartime recruiting goals for the fiscal year that ends in two weeks, military officials said yesterday.

Despite Washington's heated political debate on the worthiness of the Iraq war, frequent overseas war deployments and daily casualties, officials say a sufficient number of young men and women are signing up with the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in fiscal 2006 to maintain an active-duty force of about 1.4 million.

The Army, which has suffered the largest death toll as the chief provider of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports that it has exceeded a goal of 70,200 recruits by signing up 72,997 as of August. Officials say they expect to meet a Sept. 30 goal of 80,000 for the fiscal year.

And hey, the Army has had to make *changes* man. Real sacrifices, in order to make it happen!

Hitting the mark in a time of war has cost the Army more money -- and style. In June, it raised the maximum age for recruits from 38 to 42, and says it has attracted scores of veterans. And it relaxed tattoo rules. Now, body art can extend above the neck. "We learned more and more teenagers have tattoos, so we relaxed the tattoo policy," said Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

The kids just aren't getting the message, are they (hat would be the anti's message)? Why? Because we aren't advertising accurately! Lookit the unfair kinda stuff we do (well, this is *actually* the Guard...) to sucker these kids in - no dead bodies, no ruined villages, nothing. No amputees scuttling around like maimed beetles. Because, lord knows, the VRWMC (Vast Right Wing Media Conspiracy) has been hiding all that bad news... well, that and we're letting 'em have tattoos, even if it makes the Sergeants Major apoplectic...

by Sgt. Jim Greenhill September 6, 2006. High school students from around the country ride down the Missouri River in a raft built by North Dakota Army National Guard Soldiers from 957th Multi-Role Bridge Company during Lewis and Clark Youth Rendezvous activities. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.

Meanwhile, over in Navy Land... they're ripping off the Coast Guard for their ad campaigns...

As Frequent Commenter, Proud Coastie Dad, and supplier of Coastie Content Larry K observed:

There is a Navy Ad ( I believe it is appearing in Popular Mechanics at least) that looks like this…

Compare it to this picture and caption:

NEW ORLEANS (Aug. 30, 2005) - Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn Beaty, 29, of Long Island, N.Y., looks for survivors in the wake of Hurricane Katrina here today. Beaty is a member of an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter rescue crew sent from Clearwater, Fla., to assist in search and rescue efforts. U.S. Coast Guard photograph by Petty Officer 2nd Class NyxoLyno Cangemi

Google the name Shawn Beaty and click on images and you can see this image is out all over as a USCG picture.

For shame, sailors. For shame!

Of course, then there is *this* Navy ad...

(by the way, just go to the Coast Guard website, click on the "Photo's and more" link, login (instructions provided) do a search on "Beaty" and that photo shows up... to include the fascinating first name of the photographer!

Of course - it's all a ripoff of this recruiting poster... (H/t, High Desert Wanderer)

;^D

Hmmm, wonder who his muse is...?

September 8, 2006 Soldiers from Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, pause at the end of a patrol near Wynot, Iraq. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.

Interesting mix of weapons in the picture. Back in my early days there'd have been nothing but M16s and 1 M203. Wonder how long after this war winds down it will be back to something like that... because the budget drives all - and then the people who carp about the budget being to large turn around and carp about the force being under-equipped when committed - and *never, ever* understand, much less accept responsibility for, "you go to war with the Army you have, whether or not it's the Army you want or need."

General (ret) Michael Davison.

Someone you should know - if only for this:

Scruggs recalled how, in January 1982, the retired general sat silently through an emotional four-hour meeting and then, at the opportune moment, offered a compromise.

"We have an unconventional memorial," he told the group. "Let us add a traditional element to symbolize the American fighting spirit."

His proposal, pairing Maya Lin's V-shaped black granite wall with figures of three soldiers in combat, was met with immediate approval.

"He was a think-out-of-the-box kind of guy," Scruggs said. "He was also very smart. He waited until the end of the day, when everybody was very tired, before he made his suggestion."

Not that the *rest* of his career wasn't interesting...!

The Blog of War

You should, of course, buy it. Over on a discussion page, Captain Kevin doesn't like the book much. At all, really. Captain Kevin opines thusly in response to a comment I made on the thread he started on the book:

My point is simple.... this book is a loser written by a bunch of warmongers who have ruined this Country. Now they want to profit from that and I will continue to exercise free speech to stop it.

Good luck.. you may all get rich off of this like a lot of war profiteers do but that does not make it right.

The only thing I am disgruntled about is that the ilk that wrote this book are part of an organization of leaders who took a great institution (The Reagan era Army) and ruined it in about 5 years. Congratulations.. thanks to this group, the Army is now a train wreck.

This is my response.

Wow, that little group of people ruined the country? All power to the little guy! Okay, yeah, I'm snarking your hyperbole.

Heh. You might be surprised at the people in the group of contributors who are not fans of Rumsfeld, et cie. You might also be surprised to find there are a few in that group who were *not* fans of invading Iraq. Of course, for the soldiers among 'em, that became rather a moot point after the March Upcountry started, didn't it? Then it became the job, like it or not. Remember, the soldier, once he's volunteered, doesn't get to pick and choose which war he will fight, as Lieutenant Watada is probably about to discover to his rue.

The book isn't about making the case for the war, or arguing the conduct of the war - it's about the soldiers, their families, and the fighting of the war, and doesn't pretend to be anything else, really. It's simply about the war, and the people who are fighting it - whether in country or waiting for someone to come out of the box.

In a sense, you are making that argument that, from what I gather from what you've said here, only voices that protest the war and find fault with it, that speak only in negative terms and breathlessly condemn Bush on every page can possibly have any value and opinions which don't match your view should be shouted down (reflexively, we don't need to read no steenking book) if not outright suppressed.

Y'know, I too am a veteran of the Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton Army... and up through Bush 1 it was a fine Army for fighting a huge horde moving west out of Eastern Europe, or engaging and destroying pretty-looking 3rd rate wannabes like, well, let's face it - most standing Arab armies, however brave their individual soldier might be. Then, starting under Bush 1 and continuing under Clinton, we dismantled and tinkered with that Army - and since we didn't see any huge immediate threat, we tinkered and dilly-dallied and muddled our way through, as our national and service politics essentially demands we do in times of no obvious Damocles's Sword.

And thus, we got to go to war with the Army we had, vice the one which was just perfectly tuned for the job. Of course, we've *never* had that Army...

And I'm still up to my armpits in Bush 2's Army, where I work every day. And I'll tell ya Captain Kevin - the junior officers of this version are smarter and much better at their jobs than my peers of the early 80's - because they've been challenged in ways we never were. They've had to work in environments we never really did. And while yes, a lot of 'em are tired, and the equipment is particularly so - they still have better gear than we did, and they are much smarter, subtle, and experienced in it's use than we are. They're better warfighters than you or I ever were. The question of are they fighting this war in the best way - well, that's not the subject of the book, and is still rather a roaring subject of debate, isn't it?

Certainly, everybody can use a rest, and everybody would like to come home, and have their scariest moments be zero-illum brigade attacks down the central corridor at NTC or night jumps at the JRTC, or CALFEXes in Poland.

But you're putting a lotta stuff on a book that is simply by the people fighting the war and their families - and where most of the 'support' shown is for the soldiers doing their jobs, and awe at how difficult those jobs are.

That's all it is.

To draw a different parallel for you - the book is perhaps better compared to a book of the experiences of the First Responders, professional or volunteer, who waded and boated around New Orleans after Katrina - and not page after page after page of slamming Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Chertoff, and Bush. It's more about the people doing the job they had handed to them, one or two of whom might move on to be the Russ Honore's of the next disaster, than it is a bashing of the people who send them into harm's way.

Sorry the book isn't what you think it should be - I recommend you write that book yourself. Perhaps you'd like to put forth the effort that Douglas Brinkley did, and write The Great Deluge -equivalent for The Global War on Terror.

The Armorer's Messkit...

Yesterday was my Rotary Club's annual picnic. Which is occasion to break out Arsenal stocks - not weapons, this time - but rather the Castle's 1952-vintage Officer's Armorer's Mess Kit.

Held every year at the Hunt Lodge on Fort Leavenworth, it's a time to play horseshoes, give out some awards, and eat grilled steak with a table full of potluck sides.

The Hunt Lodge is a beautiful location, and a beautiful building. Originally built by DB inmates as a parole barracks and mess hall, it was taken over in the 1920's by the Officer's Club and was used as an annex. Now it's a special events location, for parties, wedding receptions, unit Organization Days, etc. It's an Armorer-friendly environment because it's just over the hill from the skeet range, so there is a soothing background noise of shotguns firing and, if you move just into the woods, the gentle roar of spent birdshot rattling down the leaves...

The other purpose of this post (other than to put the shiny pate on the web) is to highlight this Rotary activity, hosted by the Rotary Club in Lacey, Washington, as forwarded to us by the Heartless Libertarian:

Military support march grows. Event planned for Saturday 9 SEP 06

LACEY - Thousands of residents are expected to show up Saturday for the fourth annual march to benefit military families. The event steadily has grown since the Rotary Club of Hawks Prairie created it in 2003. A local business owner at the time had lamented about the plight of his niece, a member of the Army Reserves whose four-month deployment caused emotional and financial strain. In its first three years, the march raised more than $100,000 for programs that assist military families. The Rotary Club has set a goal of $50,000 this year; as of Friday, it had raised $45,000. The number of corporate sponsors and marchers also has increased, said Andrew Oczkewicz, one of the event organizers. "Now we have people calling us who want to be involved, not the other way around," he said. He expects 5,000 marchers on Saturday; last year, 2,500 marchers participated. This year's march promises to be the biggest in other ways as well. The prelude to the parade will feature music, speeches, a helicopter rappelling display and two, perhaps three, aircraft flyovers. And Fort Lewis' official color guard will lead the 2-mile march for the first time. The march will feature five honorary grand marshals, including Norma Melo, school liaison officer at Fort Lewis, whose husband was killed in Iraq during a suicide attack on a mess tent in December 2004. Another honoree, Lance Cpl. Shawn Seeley, is a Marine from Kent who was injured while serving in Iraq but remained in the corps and has become an instructor. Fort Lewis is appreciative that there are people in the surrounding communities that support the families regardless of the political divisiveness of the conflict, Melo said during a telephone interview Monday. She said the average American has sacrificed little during this war - except, perhaps, to have to pay a little more at the gasoline pump - while military families have seen spouses and loved ones killed, injured and emotionally traumatized by their experiences in the war zone. “I don't think Americans have felt that pinch," she said. "Military families have felt it." Marines will raise an American flag sent to the Rotary Club by a commander who was serving overseas. The rear detachment commander of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, will read a letter from Col. Stephen Townsend, the commander of the unit that is now serving its second yearlong deployment in Iraq. Gov. Christine Gregoire will attend the event, accompanied by her husband, Mike, a Vietnam veteran. U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., also will participate.

If you go

The fourth annual Military Family Support March will begin assembling at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
The first event on the stage will begin at 9:30 a.m. and the march will start about 10:20 a.m. and last about 40 minutes.

Where: Wal-Mart parking lot, 1401 Galaxy Drive N.E. The two-mile parade route will take marchers down Galaxy Drive and west on Martin Way before returning.

Photo offer: Free portraits of military families will be offered when they present a valid military identification during the event.

For kids: This year's event will feature an expanded kids zone with inflatable play areas, free coloring books and snacks, face-painting, clowns and appearances by several local and national mascots.

Donations: Contributions in any amount are welcome but not required.
Individual or team participants also can register for the march by sending an e-mail to mil.family.march@hawksprairierotary.org

More information: www.militaryfamilymarch.com

Good on ya, guys!

1SG's are just cuddly teddy bears...

...and ya gotta snerkle at the budding plumber's butt there, too!

September 1, 2006 1st Sgt. Mario Terenas, from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, shakes hands with an Iraqi boy in Ribiyah during a patrol. Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell L. Klika

If you haven't seen this...

...you should.

Follow Israeli Infantry in a night attack. It's long, but worth it.

Some of you vets will find your palms sweaty.

Note to the narrating journalist - they are. They are just as scared as you.

Note the chaos - the not knowing what, exactly is going on. That's how most soldiers see combat - and what we try to ameliorate with Blue Force Tracker, individual radios, ubiquitous night vision... but at the point of contact, yer always lonely.

[Update: Looks like the link may have exceeded the bandwidth, or someone asked that it be removed.

Mebbe if you check back later it will work. You can try a right click and save as - that worked for me - but could also be because I've played it before and the file is stored on my machine (though I did flush the cache to check)]

Unusual Strike Packages.

From an email.

In October 1965, CDR Clarence J. Stoddard, Executive Officer of VA-25 "Fist of the Fleet", flying an A-1H Skyraider, NE/572 "Paper Tiger II" from Carrier Air Wing Two aboard USS Midway carried a special bomb to the North Vietnamese in commemoration of the 6 millionth pound of ordinance dropped. This bomb was unique because of the type... it was a toilet!

The following is an account of this event, courtesy of Clint Johnson, Captain, USNR Ret. Captain Johnson was one of the two VA-25 A-1 Skyraider pilots credited with shooting down a MiG-17 on June 20, 1965.

I was a pilot in VA-25 on the 1965 Vietnam cruise.

The 572 was flown by CDR C. W. "Bill" Stoddard. His wingman in 577 (which was my assigned airplane) was LCDR Robin Bacon, who had a wing station mounted movie camera (the only one remaining in the fleet from WWII).

The flight was a Dixie Station strike (South Vietnam) going to the Delta. When they arrived in the target area and CDR Stoddard was reading the ordnance list to the FAC, he ended with "and one code name Sani-flush".

The FAC couldn't believe it and joined up to see it. It was dropped in a dive with LCDR Bacon flying tight wing position to film the drop. When it came off, it turned hole to the wind and almost struck his airplane. It made a great ready room movie. The FAC said that it whistled all the way down. The toilet was a damaged toilet, which was going to be thrown overboard.

One of our plane captains rescued it and the ordinance crew made a rack, tailfins and nose fuse for it. Our checkers maintained a position to block the view of the air boss and the Captain while the aircraft was taxiing forward.

Just as it was being shot off, we got a 1MC message from the bridge, "What the hell was on 572's right wing?" There were a lot of jokes with air intelligence about germ warfare. I wish that we had saved the movie film.

CDR Stoddard was later killed while flying 572 in Oct 1966.
He was hit by three SAMs over Vinh.

Now, the humorless anti's would demand an investigation into the war crime.

MGS getting to Units.

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (Army News Service, Aug. 29, 2006) – A long wait is over for Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) crews of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

The 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, received its complement of MGS vehicles last month after more than a year of waiting. They are the first vehicles to be fielded in the Army.

“I think its going to give the infantry a whole new dimension of what they can do. Armor and infantry have kept each other at arm’s length for years and years," said Sgt. 1st Class David Cooper, an MGS platoon sergeant with B Company, 2-23 Inf. "We’ve got some growing pains, but once we get out there and they see what we can do, we’re going to be everybody’s friend.”

Each infantry company is slated to receive three vehicles, though crews don't expect to operate together except on rare occasions.

The vehicles carry crews of three, and are equipped with a 105 mm main gun and a state-of-the-art fire control system. The MGS also has an onboard coaxial machine gun that’s fire controlled.

“You can literally shoot smiley faces with it at 900 meters,” said Cooper. “Even minus the big gun we can give the infantry a lot of support.”

The 105 mm is capable of firing four types of rounds: SABOT, a depleted-uranium armor-piercing round; HEAT, high-explosive anti-tank; HEP, high-explosive plastic; and a canister round. The rounds are loaded using a hydraulic auto-loader in the rear of the vehicle.

The HEP and canister rounds give Stryker units new capabilities, especially in urban areas. The HEP can blow holes in reinforced concrete walls, but unlike the rounds from an Abrams, won’t continue through the target and into surrounding buildings. The canister provides as effective anti-personnel capability.

“The vehicle’s basic role is to support the infantry. It’s not there to take on tanks or go toe-to-toe in the wide-open desert like we did with the Abrams,” said Sgt. 1st Class William Ozmet, an MGS instructor from Fort Knox, Ky. “Its primary function is blowing a hole in the wall or blowing up bunkers.”

Over the past year, the crews have been training with TOW-ITAS Humvees or other Stryker variants. Finally having the vehicles gives the crews a chance to delve into training.

“I can actually start focusing on our training, both on our mission tasks and working with the infantry,” said 1st Lt. Christopher Lilley, the MGS platoon leader in B Co.

The MGS also comes equipped with training software that allows Soldiers to train on various engagements in their own vehicles, instead of going to a simulator somewhere else.

Once the 4th Bde. completes training, instructors from General Dynamics Land Systems will move on to equip and train Soldiers in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Training for those units may change according to lessons learned here, but the vehicle itself is expected to remain mostly unchanged.

“I’m confident that this will turn out to be a successful piece of equipment for us, the infantry and the Army,” said Lilley.

Lieutenant Watada...

Got the following comment to my post at Milblogs.

Rick (coming in from a [bogus] Yahoo Germany email address) left this:

The trial is certainly a show, but because that's the only way to wake up some Americans from their materialistic comas. You don't see much coverage in the media about this guy, but you certainly see how people complain about waiting 6 hours for fuel standing next to their gas-guzzling, ozone corroding SUV.

And you people always find it so easy to find some hidden agenda to attribute such actions. What about good old fashion patriotism? The kind this great country was founded upon. I don't see you people questions Bushy boy’s hidden agenda. Where are the WMDs?? Where is Bin Laden? LOL you people...

My reponse? This:

Rick - I was born in Germany and lived there over 15 years. Spare me the "materialistic" jibes. You germans like your creature comforts and toys, too. Just because you tax yourself to a level where you can't have as many... well, that's more making a virtue of a vice than true virtue.

As for the rest of your comments - guess who doesn't read too many milblogs.

I thought it was bad, from a leftist dialectic perspective, to engage in "you people" lumping into categories? I guess not - as long as the people in question aren't... your people.

Moving along -

If Lieutenant Watada wishes to self-destruct, he has that right. But he doesn't get to support one campaign, Afghanistan, and refuse to fight in another, Iraq. Like it or not, it's the same war, in both general and technical senses.

If you'd like to bring up an example from German history, it would be like a German officer agreeing to fight in Russia, but refusing to go fight in, say, Cyrenaica, because, well, he didn't think the fight in Africa was right, and what the heck, the British hadn't done anything to him, he was from Pomerania and the threat there was from the East.

Or, better yet, a US officer refusing to fight Germany in WWII, because, well, only the Japanese bombed the US, so he'll only fight in the Pacific.

Soldiers don't get to choose their fights in that regard. It's all or nothing. And setting the precedent that they can is lunacy, and the road to a Banana Republic.

If Watada was both principled *and* smart, he would have deployed, and then waited for orders to attack an Iraqi target - and *then* refuse. He could have possibly forced a trial about the legality of the Iraq campaign at that point.

But he's not very savvy, his lawyers less so - except for the purpose of establishing Kerry-esque credentials - in that he chose to not obey a deployment order - allowing the government to set the the terms of the trial over missing movement, and failure to obey a perfectly valid and legal order - which is where he screwed up from the perspective you seem to espouse.

The "hidden agenda" is simply watching what Lieutenant Watada and his camp are doing, and drawing all the inferences from that we need.

Patriotism? Perhaps. And if so, a version that is as dangerous as blind, unthinking support - moreso, since it sets the terms that the soldiery get to choose, not their civilian masters. At least in the blind, unthinking support version, they're doing what they're told, and that can, in the event, be modified by electoral outcomes - not the decisions of people in uniforms with guns.

Would you support Lieutenant Watada if he had refused an order to deploy to Kosovo? Another "optional war" fought without UN sanction?

Do you *really* want me deciding where I'll fight? Remember - a popular bumpersticker among military personnel in 2003 was "Iraq first, then France." Nothing to stop us from rolling into Germany a third time in 100 years, eh?

Yet - you don't really fear that, and you don't fear it based not on people like Lieutenant Watada, eh?

Bad, bad terrorists! Sit! Stay!

During their recent deployment to Iraq, the soldiers of the 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division of the National Guard ran into a particularly heinous form of booby trap - one that preys on the victims of General Order #1, which prohibits alcohol to deployed soldiers....

As long as the soldiers are doing this... morale is okay. You can click here for a larger version.

[And if you're the soldiers who put this together - I'd love to hear the story - whether or not ya wanna share it publicly, which is your call. In fact - I'd love to collect more stuff like this - an aspect of the war that is under-reported!]

Milblogging, Canadian-style...

Meet Matt in Afghanistan.

What a stir.

Over the past couple days, this blog has been temporarily offline at the request of my higher-ups in the forces. Agreeing with this request, I took the posts offline for the time being and talked with my mom.

"Mom," I said over MSN Messenger, "I've been asked to take my postings offline for a little while as (my higher-ups) deal with blogging in camp."

My mom didn't have to say anything, but knowing her my whole life, I knew she would be hurt that I wouldn't be allowed to post anything for the time being.

"I can have a blog though, mom," I said to her, "I just need to list it with the Army."

Heh. Like *we* haven't been here before. Mebbe the Canadian Army Higher-ups should call their Southron cousins.

Not that Damian Brooks hasn't been trying to get 'em energized.

To our syrup-swilling, plaid cap wearing, northron brothers blogging from the 'Stan or elsewhere, I offer up this advice.

The Milblogger ROE, courtesy Yankee Sailor.

It's good to see clueless leadership not attuned to the young soldier is *not* an exclusive to the middle of the continent...

Excalibur...

A press release detailing the Army's effort to continually refine (and keep tactically relevant) the artillery inventory. A subject of some discussion around here of late.

Successful Testing of GPS-Guided Artillery Projectile Puts Raytheon-BAE Systems Bofors Excalibur Closer to Fielding (Source: Raytheon Co.; issued Aug. 18; 2006)

TUCSON, Ariz. --- The Raytheon Missile Systems and BAE Systems Bofors' Excalibur team successfully test-fired two global positioning system (GPS)-guided 155 mm artillery projectiles that functioned as intended against simulated tactical targets Aug. 10. The program is a cooperative effort between the United States and Sweden.

These firings represent completion of the "Guided Gunfire B" (GGB) test series that validates system performance of tactical rounds under a variety of conditions.

"Having completed this phase of testing, we are on track for fielding Excalibur to meet the urgent need of our deployed ground forces for a cannon-delivered precision munition," said Army Col. John Tanzi, Training and Doctrine Command System, manager-cannon.

Heh. I knew John Tanzi, back in the day. The rest is in the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry.

...the perils of the sea.

This isn't "new" news, since it happened last week, but I'm betting most of today's readers haven't heard it, unless they are local to the homeport (Seattle) or have an interest in those who go down to the sea in ships. I saved it for today, because today is generally the day of our highest visitor count of the week.

BM2 Duque swears the oath on Healy’s forecastle as LT Hill administers his reenlistment. Photo from the USCGC Healy website

Two Coast Guard divers die in Arctic Ocean

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEATTLE -- Two divers aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy died during a routine dive operation in the Arctic Ocean about 500 miles north of Barrow, Alaska, the agency said Friday.

The cause of deaths was being investigated, the Coast Guard said.

Lt. Jessica Hill, 30, of St. Augustine, Fla., and Petty Officer 2nd Class Steven Duque, 26, of Miami, had entered the water Thursday afternoon to examine the ship's rudder, which is done often as it operates in Arctic ice.

Complete story here.

The picture was taken in the last week of July. Fair winds and a following sea, sailors.

Now is the time at Castle Argghhh! when we dance: In Memoriam.

[Update: I have been asked to note that Steven Buque was 22 years old, not 26 as stated in the article.]

More thoughts by ry/gollum

I was not nearly as verbose and wandering with this, but I won’t torture everyone by putting it on the front page. You masochists can find out what I have to say below the fold. -ry

[Go ahead, read it. It won't hurt you... just click on that Flash Traffic/Extended Entry thingy -ed]

Denizen Ry's View of Civilian Casualties...

...and some other stuff.

Ry demonstrates why he doesn't blog.... i.e., an endless post. Brevity, thy name is not Gollum. That said, it's a worthy read, I don't agree with all of it, and I will respond later.

I find a serious flaw in the argument put forward in the comments so far (carry over from the threads on this post and this post for those wondering what the farqing hell I'm talking about) in that all the focus is entirely upon the value of innocent dead and the concept that the existence of innocent dead meaning something nefarious and illegal happened.

There is no talk of the necessity of bad things to happen to end a horrible situation. Something that happens in everyday life whether it be divorce where families are torn asunder to lead to a state of greater stability for both kids and adults; or in a chemical reaction where at the point a reaction, the metamorphosis, really takes place is the most destructive time in the whole process. It denies by inference that really terrible but legal actions were taken in fights that the proponents of this position would support, like the attack on Thionville during WW2. This line of thought has become devoid of capital J Justice, bereft of the idea that there are costs for everything (TANSTAAFL) [There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch - a Heinlein reference for those who were scratching their heads. -ed] and Justice in particular, and ignores what the rules (largely Geneva, which embodies the ethical and legal philosophy of war) actually say about pursuing goals and the costs of a civilian populace may be submitted to during war.

Instead all we have is talk about dead civilians and how horrible it is, how evil it is that they died. We’re receiving commentary that seems to infer that no matter what the injury was and is it can never justify things like the attack on Qana or the horrific scenes of warfare we’ve seen in Lebanon. Yes, these things are terrible. Civilians who didn’t deserve to die are dead--- some by sheer accident while others by true spite--- but that in and of itself does not change it from jus ad bellum or jus in bello to war crimes and an always illegal act. We’ve lost sight what some of our predecessors, The Great Generation, took as a given: life isn’t fair, bad things happen to good people, and sometimes terrible---but not in themselves essentially evil-- things must be done to secure a better world. The forces of change are always destructive in one sense or another. Change has costs.

We've gone from one flawed paradigm (caring only about winning that existed before Abraham Lincoln came up with what became the Laws of Land Warfare, and interest only in the Rich and Powerful and Large Events) to another terrible paradigm (over stressing populism and Avg. Joe; and making success and failure be about how few civilians are killed regardless of objectives and other real world results---and it happens on both sides of the aisle around here---with a hefty helping of anti-colonialist induced self-hatred tossed into the mix.). By now focusing solely on civilian casualties, by going utterly and irredeemably populist with our prism we’ve lost the ability to see the bigger picture and how Justice is secured in that bigger picture. The bad guy is measured solely in how many civilians killed. He who kills more is the bad guy. By forgetting the bigger picture we’ve said bye-bye to reason and waved at Justice as we blew the popsicle stand.

We’ve moved to a shallow rubric by which we decide good and evil. A rubric that is so shallow that it allows for nothing more than deploring death in time of war as evil and always evil instead of an unfortunate event that should be mourned and treated with dignity. Creating a better peace is not something to be considered. Initial injury is not to be considered. Aims of the war, the necessity of harm to achieve said aims, and questions of jus ad bellum are not to be considered. Just civilian death is the metric. Every discussion will be, and must be, brought back around to innocent dead as nothing else matters. All because we have moved beyond the thinking of our benighted predecessors who only thought about the Mighty and Great Events and have begun to focus on The Ordinary Guy Who Gets Trounced.

The rest is in the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry.

Answering the mail, part 3.

Target attack criteria, bad choices in.

I've already had this discussion in the comments of my two previous posts on artillery this week, but it won't go away, so I'll bring it to the front.

Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee (who got me the trip to Mexico to retrieve the Rodgers, may his tribe increase!) sent me this link, wanting to know if, in fact, this was a cluster bomblet.

It isn't, in a narrow technical sense. But before we rush off to crow about inaccuracy in the media, let's take a break. That is an M80 M42 [good catch from an otherwise pointlessly rude commenter - the M80 has a self-destruct mechanism - and one is being retrofitted to the M42/48 series of grenades. -the Armorer] Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition. While not from a cluster bomb, it *is* from an artillery round. I'm familiar with the round, and it's contents, these being held in Castle stocks in their inert form.

If the Israelis were shooting DPICM into inhabited areas, they are open to just criticism of their fire orders.

Bad decision on the part of whoever made the call to shoot DPICM. If you are shooting DPICM, you are automatically creating a low-density minefield, due to the dud rate (officially 2-4% depending on the conditions in the target area) of the submunition.

I can see an argument being made by the Israelis that in fact, there is less collateral damage than if you shoot HE at a target in an urban area. Perhaps, depending on construction of the buildings - but HE has a much lower dud rate (nothing is perfect), the effects are over after it hits, and there is no lingering explosive package awaiting discovery by children. And an unexploded HE shell is a lot harder to pick up than a DPICM submunition.

Recording your targets... I don't expect this to happen - but the Israelis should also share their mission fired reports with the Lebanese government, so that EOD can go clear areas targeted with DPICM.

It's just not a good shell for attacking areas that are/will be occupied by non-combatants or OWN TROOPS. The use of dud-producing munitions such as DPICM during Operation Iraqi Freedom in early 2003 caused maneuver problems for the Marines, and caused lingering casualties among Marines and civilians in those areas after operations were ended. This may have been true for Army units as well, I don't have any info on that. Target attack decisions have to be made with cognizance of subsequent operations and events. I know we used to train this with Fire Support Officers back in the day - I assume we still do. I discussed some of that in my post yesterday.

Mind you - if Hezbollah didn't *shoot* from inhabited areas, the Israelis would have had less reason to shoot back into inhabited areas, too.

While I don't support the Israeli choice of ammuntion, I do support their right to shoot back. And find it disingenuous that most of the whining is about what the Israelis shot, and not equally about wherefrom Hezbollah shot.

The League of Disgruntled Majors.

Count me among them. Brothers, Sisters, we March!

THE MANIFESTO OF THE LEAGUE OF DISGRUNTLED MAJORS

We are the League of Disgruntled Majors, a loosely affiliated group of officers in the United States Army. We are comprised mostly of Major’s, though we are certain that there are Lieutenant Colonels and some senior captains who align themselves with our beliefs. We have even found we have compatriots of similar grades in the other armed forces of the United States. We are mostly those who work behind the scenes of an operation to make it successful. We seldom march at the head of formation, kick in doors, fly aircraft, or drive tanks, though we support those who do daily, with little fanfare. We are planners, logisticians, communicators and coordinators. To steal a phrase from the special operations community, we are “quiet professionals” who do our jobs well, though are seldom recognized for it. For our efforts, we are infrequently praised, and frequently disdained by those we support and those we help make successful.

We are patriots. We serve because we love our country and because we agree with most of its policies, though some may be flawed. We agreed to give up personal comfort and personal freedom to serve a cause which we believe to be a higher calling. We serve to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the necessarily the political party currently in power, regardless of their ideology. We serve the American Ideal.

We have forgone Glory. Many of us used to be Soldiers who kicked in doors and took the fight to the enemy, though we do it no longer. Those we support use the M4 Carbine and up-armored Humvee gun-truck as their weapons. We use MS Office, a laptop, and an internet connection. You will not see us in a Time-Life photo spread on images of war. We will not be interviewed for TV, unless it is on a 3:30 AM C-SPAN airing of a congressional subcommittee meeting investigating US Army expenditures on Non-Tactical Vehicles leases in a theater of war. We wear the combat patches on our right sleeves, but those who go off the installation to patrol the streets wonder if we actually deserve them. We are certain we do.

We are “They”. We are the shadowy “They-people”. When something goes wrong or a new policy is released, and those around us say “They screwed it up” or “They said we have to do it this way”, we are “They”. We work in invisibility…until something goes awry, then we are in a spotlight hued red by anger and frustration. Those we support don’t necessarily know what they want, but they will know when they see it, they want it yesterday, and lots of it…They don’t care how much it costs, until they get the bill.

We are Cannon-fodder. When we do our jobs well, we are frequently found at fault for it. When we fulfill our obligations, we are deemed “roadblocks”. When we are successful, we are viewed as unsuccessful. Those we report to don’t understand what we do, and have no intention of trying to. As a result, when it comes to advancement, evaluations, assignments, and awards, we are frequently at the bottom of the heap. We are perpetually “center-mass” in order to help build the profile for those our raters do understand. We have reached the point where this surprises us no longer. We will simply keep our heads down, keep working, and see what happens, come what may. We will fulfill our obligations and do our jobs, expecting no accolades from those we support. We know that the army expects more commitment from us then it will provide to us (paraphrased from the Army Training and Leadership Development Panel Report, lest we be cited for Plagiarism).

Ambiguity – Mediocrity – Sarcasm. These are our watch-words. Ambiguity, because if we are lucky, the climate will we operate in will be Ambiguous at best. Mediocrity, because regardless of the quality or timeliness of our output and contribution, those we support will view our efforts as mediocre, at best, compared to their own. And Sarcasm, because at times the only way to survive to fight another days is through the biting balm of sarcastic humor.

Our Pay-off. Why do we put up with it and why do we continue? Why not hang up our seat-worn uniforms and join the civilian sector? Because in the end we know our jobs are important and that that our Army would not be successful without us. But more importantly, we know that prior to leaving the Army and entering the retirement rolls, we will be in the most powerful positions in the Army. No… we won’t be generals or commanders, or even high powered staffers. We will likely still be majors, passed over twice, sitting in dimly-lit offices in the basement of the pentagon, with longer than regulation haircuts, rumpled uniforms, unkempt mustaches and a bottle of scotch in the bottom right-hand drawer of our desks. We will be the most powerful men in the army because we will be majors getting ready to retire with nothing to lose by telling you exactly what we think, consequences be damned…We will be the most dangerous men in the Army.

©2006 LODM

Oops! I need to add, *I* did not create this. It came from Disgruntled Majors in Iraq, via email to a brother here in the land of the Big PX! Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea. [Update: I have been in contact with the Grand Poobah of the LODM, however.]

Update: The Legion of The Damned, also known as the League of Disgruntled Majors, numbers many fine folks who retire with a Silver Oak leaf. Not on their shoulder, but on their MSM ribbon. While that punk LTC they work for gets a Legion of Merit for suggesting that they change UAV to UAS.

There have been Disgruntled Majors throughout history. Colonel W.C. Hall describes one such - with The True Story of Horatius At The Bridge.*

*H/t to Jim C for good timing on the Horatius link.

Annoying officer attitudes, #34,565

This is a great picture.

It's clever. It's funny (especially to a combat zone resident). It's also very counter-productive from an Information Operations perspective.

It plays right into the hands of the enemy, like it or not.

If I were an officer in that chain of command responsible for that vehicle, I'd feel compelled to do something about it.

Probably not enough as far as a resident of Foggy Bottom or a MSM talking head is concerned, but a change that would make a 180-degree difference in the take-away from the pic.*

H/t, Strategy Page.

*When digitally manipulating pictures (as this was) for the purposes of influencing public opinion the Armorer recommends Adobe Photoshop®! Also, take credit for your work.

Road signs you don't commonly see...

...unless yer one of us.

One of the many things I liked about Fort Irwin was the historical nature of these signs. I can't find my pic of the PzIV sign...

Given my recent interest in the Mexican Navy...

From Strategy Page today.

AMPHIBIOUS OPERATIONS: The Mexican Helicopter Carriers August 13, 2006: The United States is giving Mexico two recently decommissioned amphibious ships. The two (formerly USS Ogden and USS Cleveland) are Austin class LPDs that entered service in the 1960s. These are large ships, 570 feet long and displacing 17,000 tons. The flight deck can hold half a dozen large helicopters, and support simultaneous landings and takeoffs. The well deck can hold up to 24 landing craft (like AAVs), or four lighter type boats, for transferring cargo and personnel. These ships require a crew of 420, and can carry up to 800 combat troops.

What would Mexico do with these two ships? Mexico has a very long coastline, which is not well-endowed with ports or even good sheltered harbors. A couple of Austins would be very useful in the event operations have to occur in such areas. In a word, disaster relief and coastal patrol. These LPDs are basically floating patrol boat and helicopter bases. The troops berthing spaces could be used for storing relief supplies, in addition to the space already available for some 2,000 tons of supplies and equipment. There are also seven cranes on board (one 30-ton and six 4-ton cranes). The elevator from the flight deck to the hanger deck can carry eight tons. There are tanks for 224,500 gallons of aviation fuel and 119,000 gallons of vehicle fuel.

To build new, the Austin class ships would cost about a billion dollars each. They cost the U.S. Navy about two million dollars a month to operate, but the Mexican navy, with a lower operating tempo and lower labor costs, could probably operate them for about half a million dollars a month each. The Mexican Navy is probably the most professional of their services, and is highly regarded by American officers and sailors who have worked with them. This probably played a part in the decision to hand over these two large ships.

The only weapons carried were four automatic cannon for stopping anti-ship missiles or small boats. These have already been removed. Mexico would probably mount a few heavy machine-guns.

The Mexican Navy is probably the most professional of their services, and is highly regarded by American officers and sailors who have worked with them.

I can't speak to the Mexican Army and Air Force - but I'll second this sentiment about the Navy from the article. The Mexican Navy personnel we were dealing with at Lazaro Cardenas regarding the BAM Cuitlahuac/USS John Rodgers were every bit the professionals. It's always great fun working with people who *really* know their stuff, and who have a good time doing it.

If these ships have in fact been decommissioned, it's been very recently. The USS Cleveland was in the news as late as two weeks ago, on her way to the Seattle SeaFair.

Coast Guard News.

From Larry K, a proud father of a Coastie:

Retired Master Chief Petty Officer Mark McKenney has officially decreed roughly eight acres of land in West Harwich, Mass., including a main house and two apartment buildings, to the Coast Guard to be used in the future for housing and Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) purposes.

The dedication will occur on the 40th anniversary of the first two Coast Guard members who were killed in Vietnam aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Point Welcome, where McKenney served as a gunners mate.

BZ, Master Chief.

For more on that story, click here.

For more on the USCGC Point Welcome and an explanation of the picture that accompanies this post, click here.

War's a tough business.

1. Complacency kills. It's hard to maintain the edge. And it is really hard for junior leaders to impose discipline when it seems mindless and mundane. Until after the rocket lands. How many of *you* guys, as junior leaders, would have allowed this situation? I know it would have been hard on me not to have allowed it.

"We had already been there a week and there had been a siren almost every hour, and it had already started to become routine. We joked among ourselves that wherever we were was a safer place to be than Kiryat Shmona. In any case, for soldiers in the field, there is no hiding place."

Hence that seemingly mindless anal obsession with helmets, body armor, etc. Read the rest of the story here.

2. Playing by the rules. The fighting in Lebanon has been a textbook example of how bias creeps into reportage. Not many western journalists embedded with Hezbollah, and those that may be aren't necessarily going to report what they see accurately. That whole "hack off the head thing" don't ya know. But they'll report whatever Hezbollah wants them to see. The Israelis are more security conscious than we are, I think - but they still give journalists a comparatively free rein.

So - just what *are* the Israelis supposed to do when the enemy fights like this, hiding their stuff in and amongst the civilians? Just sit back and take it, I suppose. Withdraw to the original, arbitrarily set boundaries (which would then allow rockets free reign through all of Israel) and wait for the knife? Sigh. There are no easy answers, but the main counterargument to what Israel is doing seems to be - "Would you all just quit that and let them kill you, please?"

This *is* Europe's fault. Oh, sure, the US is Israel's greatest and most reliable ally - but the whole region in it's current configuration is the result of European diplomats standing around maps, ignorant of the region except as it related to Imperial interests (that includes German and French and Italians, not just Brits).

But their response to it isn't as impressive as their weak, do-nothing-until-they-forced-the-US-to-respond response to the Balkans, and *that* was in their own backyard.

Anyway, in the spirit of providing the other side not often seen on TV (or ignored by editors because it's poorly written [that's for you, Owen]) - here's some Israeli-provided footage of Hezbollah rocket launchers and their employment.

No doubt created by teenagers with movie-making software. Sigh. Just inoculating against that particular snark.

Right click and save as, please. Do my hosting service a favor and don't stream it.

Katyusha launcher being destroyed. This is missile/bomb footage. Note the location of the launcher.

Launchers, reputedly in Qana (*that* I can't verify). Qana or no, they're launching from near populated areas. Remember - the response to this *used* to be artillery bombardment or strings of 250, 500, or 1000 pound bombs. Now it's generally a single guided weapon. Which is, of course, insufficient restraint. Apparently delivering pizza and flowers is the proper response. Meanwhile, the system being attacked is... an area fire weapon fired without regard to serious targeting of military targets. Mainly because Hezbollah feels anything they aim at is a legitimate target. But no fingers get wagged in their faces. Except seemingly as an afterthought.

Being a family member of a deployed soldier.

I've been off and on tracking some discussions of how, well, um, "weak and wimpy" some military family members perceive other military family members to be.

Whiny, bitchy, complaining. Wusses.

Many of those observations are spot on. But many of them also take on a tone of moral superiority I find grating. Really grating. Just as those people find the whining grating.

I've been on both sides of this. I've been the deployed service member. I've been the kid waiting for Dad to come home. I've done from within the military womb, so to speak, living in quarters on base - and I've done it isolated from all that, essentially living out on our own - and that during an increasingly unpopular war - Vietnam 68-69.

My parents decided that moving to Denver, so we'd be near the grandparents, would be a good idea while Dad was gone. Denver at that time did have Fitzimmons, the huge Army orthopaedic center, and Lowry AFB. But when you live off post, out on the other side of a large city, you might as well be alone. And the nature of how Vietnam was handled at that time, via individual replacements, vice unit rotations, meant that battalions like my father was commanding did *not* have an in-place family support structure. While all the soldiers were together, their families were scattered all across the country.

And even if you lived on base in quarters, you didn't necessarily know anyone else connected to the unit. Mom was the battalion commander's wife - and she knew not one other family member from the battalion. There were none in the area.

Mom had been an Army wife for 18 years. It was her second war. It was going to be Purple Hearts 3-7, and another medal for heroism (not always popular with the distaff side, given the kind of behavior represented...).

And ya know what? It was *hard* We got anonymous phone calls from a$$holes. We had The Telegram. Watching the news was difficult. For the most part I didn't have any trouble in school, but my sister, older than I and in the 9th grade, took some serious crap from kids who knew only what they got from the news and their parents and peers - and it was chic to be anti-military, so my sister was an easy target. Throw puberty on top of that fire, too.

I probably had it the easiest.

No, Mom didn't whine, though I know there were nights with tears, especially after one of those a$$hat phone calls. And the anxiety level crept up a *lot* during Tet '68.

Where am I going with this... well, my sense is the Regular Army is doing much better coping with this war than we did with Vietnam, when it comes to families.

I suspect the Guard is doing very well in some places, and not well in others, depending how well integrated the units are in their communities. And the Reserve... I suspect despite the best efforts of well intentioned people, the Reserve, due to it's scattered nature, is having the hardest time coping.

I guess I'm getting to this - many deployed family members, by nature, nurture, and location, are coping pretty well. Others, unprepared and more paralyzed by fear and confusion, are not handling it well. And it manifests as whining, griping, and anger. And if you've tried to negotiate TRICARE or the military bureaucracy from a position of knowledge... imagine how frustrating it must be to people dealing with it remotely, for the first time.

Okay. For those who are coping, and just can't figure out why others don't just "ruck up and soldier on"... get off your high horse and knuckle down and support these people in whatever way you can - but, geez, Louise, quit the farking sniping and griping from your end. It isn't helpful. It just makes others feel bad, and is a particularly venal form of bullying. If you've nothing to contribute - then don't. Tune it out, ruck up and soldier on yourself. But don't pile on. Skip the blog, dump/block the email.

Because *You* annoy the ones of us who *do* happen to be perfect, much more than the whiners... because I expect more from you.

Just sayin'

Coast Guard Day!

*(for the story behind the artwork - hit the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry)

To the Men and Women of the Coast Guard:

Today marks the 216th Birthday of our Coast Guard. This anniversary offers us a moment to celebrate our rich history, reflect on our past and focus on our future. The Coast Guard’s unique legacy as America’s lifesaver and maritime guardian evolved from the selfless courage and unflinching determination of our predecessors. It is in their honor that we celebrate today. In 1790, Congress authorized secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton to build a fleet of ten cutters to secure our freedom and protect our coast. For the next eight years, the Revenue Marine was the nation’s only naval force. Over time, it evolved and acquired new responsibilities to meet the growing needs of a democracy in the early years of a new nation.

The world has changed dramatically since 1790 and continues to change with every day. The global war on terrorism, the Maritime Transportation Security Act, The Homeland Security Act, the National Strategy for Homeland Security, and the National Strategy for Maritime Security have given the Coast Guard additional areas of mission emphasis. Meeting those new maritime security demands, while sustaining the trust and confidence of the public we serve in preserving our maritime safety and exercising our maritime stewardship duties, requires us to continually challenge ourselves and improve the way we do business. By focusing on superior mission execution in all that we do, our active duty, reserve, civilian and auxiliary men and women are meeting these challenges head on, often times in unique and innovative ways. I am proud of these tremendous efforts and your hard work.

With the arrival of our 217th year of continuous service, we can look forward to the promise of more opportunities to serve America, and even more challenges. I reaffirm my commitment to each of you on this special day to ensure that our Coast Guard men and women are the most versatile workforce in government, equipped with the most capable fleet of ships, aircraft and boats, along with the most effective systems that will support them. We have an extraordinary legacy of excellence as America’s Coast Guard. We will build on that legacy. We will rise to meet the challenges facing us. And we will remain always ready.

Happy Birthday and Semper Paratus!

Admiral Thad Allen

What he said!

Corporal Robert J. Mitchell, Jr

...someone you should know, but won't read about in the NYT - at least not in the parts of the paper people actually read.*

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (July 28, 2006) -- His desert utilities shredded by shrapnel and streaked with his own blood and that of his fellow Marines, Cpl. Robert J. Mitchell Jr. limped out of the cement block house in downtown Fallujah, Iraq, and into the annals of Marine Corps history.

The day was Nov. 13, 2004, and according to the Marine Corps’ official account of the fierce, close quarters battle, Mitchell ignored his own wounds and repeatedly braved enemy fire to administer first aid to and evacuate other Marines wounded in the fight.

Nearly two years after that fateful day, in a solemn ceremony at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Mitchell received the Navy Cross from Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force. The Navy Cross is the nation’s second-highest award for battlefield heroism.

“This is a truly special occasion,” said Sattler, addressing the assembled Marines and guests after presenting the award. “Valor comes in a scale, and all the Marines, Sailors, and veterans here today know how rare of an occasion this is.”

As a cool, dry wind snapped the flags around the parade deck, Mitchell choked back tears as he thanked God, his family, and his fellow Marines for their support and attending the ceremony.

Mitchell joined the Marine Corps in early 2001, and was on his second tour in Iraq with the 1st Marine Division when Coalition forces launched a joint U.S.-Iraqi offensive to reclaim Fallujah from insurgents who had fortified the city.

Dubbed Operation Al Fajr (aka Phantom Fury), the assault on Fallujah kicked off on Nov. 8, 2004, and quickly turned into a bloody, street-by-street contest with then-Corporal Mitchell and his fellow Marines in Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, in the thick of the fighting.

Day by day, Mitchell and his squad pushed through the city, methodically clearing pockets of enemy resistance as they progressed. During an assault against an insurgent strong point on Nov. 12, Mitchell was shot through the right tricep, but ignored the wound to help destroy the fortified position, and later refused medical evacuation to remain with his squad.

The next day, an assault against a squat, cement house had gone horribly wrong and several wounded Marines lay trapped inside with several well-fortified insurgents waiting in ambush positions. Mitchell’s squad got the call to come and assist.

“When the call came, we knew we had to get them out,” said Mitchell. “That became the mission – the only mission.”

Once on the scene, the Iowa native quickly established a casualty collection point and organized his men to assault the building. Then-1st Sgt. Bradley A. Kasal, the senior enlisted Marine from another company, joined Mitchell’s squad, and together, they charged the building and took up firing positions.

The first floor of the house was littered with dead or dying insurgents, and the wounded Marines lay further inside. Other enemy fighters were in fortified positions on the roof looking down through a skylight, creating a kill zone between Mitchell and the wounded Marines.

Covered by suppressive fire, Mitchell raced through the kill zone toward the wounded Marines as the rooftop insurgents showered the room below with rifle fire and grenades. Shrapnel from one of the grenades peppered the back of Mitchell’s legs, but he made it to the stranded, wounded Marines.

“It was great to see him come in,” said Cpl. Jose Sanchez, an infantryman from Houston, Texas. “Until he got there I was switching between treating Carlisle [Lance Cpl. Cory] and providing security. When Corporal Mitchell came in, he took over the medical treatment and I could focus on firing at the insurgents.”

A trained combat lifesaver, Mitchell went to work on Carlisle’s bullet-mangled leg. With his medical supplies running out, he once again orchestrated suppression of the insurgents on the roof to allow a corpsman and another Marine to sprint through the kill zone.

By this time, both Kasal and another Marine, Pvt. 1st Class Alex Nicoll, had been seriously wounded by rifle fire and grenades, and were holed up inside a small room across the kill zone Mitchell had crossed only moments before.

Leaving the wounded Marines in the care of the corpsman, Mitchell once again braved the kill zone, and like before, the insurgents sprayed the short, treacherous path with bullets and grenades. One bullet smashed into Mitchell’s M-16A4 assault rifle, shattering the weapon before ricocheting down and into his right leg. More shrapnel slashed Mitchell’s legs and face, yet he remained on his feet and made it to Kasal and Nicoll, who was Mitchell’s former roommate and longtime friend.

Blooding profusely but apparently unmindful of his wounds, Mitchell began treating the others, applying ban