November 15, 2009
Apache Takes Out IED Emplacement Team With A Hellfire Missile In Iraq
AH-64 Gunship Takes Out IED Emplacement Team With A Hellfire Missile In Iraq.
Checking in with our troops and various images from AFGHANISTAN
Staff Sgt. Steven Dubois of Remus, MI and the U.S. Army First Battalion, 26th Infantry loads a rifle magazine with ammunition at firebase Restrepo. Dubois' tattoo reads "For The Fallen" and lists the names of 17 of his friends who have died in combat during his tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Why Winning Matters
by Chuck Holton Boots on the Ground
I don't claim to be an expert on the war in Afghanistan. But for the last month or so, I've had the privilege of living with a bunch of people to whom I would give that classification - men and women who are in the war zone, putting their lives on the line every day.
And from my conversations with these experts, I've come to the conclusion that there are three main reasons why winning in Afghanistan is vital to our nation and to all those who claim the Christian faith. (Let me be clear that I don't count those two groups as one and the same, but neither are they mutually exclusive.)
Two of the reasons we need to win are practical, and one is philosophical.
1. The Taliban
If the world body were to abandon Afghanistan tomorrow, the country would revert to Taliban rule in very short order. This isn't because the Afghan people necessarily desire to live under extreme Sharia law. But without anyone to protect them from the Taliban, these brutal extremists will have free reign over much of the country, with the Panjshir valley a notable exception.
The opium trade would flourish, giving the Taliban millions in cash with which to extend their military reign of terror, and America's enemies like Al Qaeda would have won a vital strategic location from which to plot and execute attacks on our interests around the globe.
2. Opium
Ninety percent of the world's illegal opium comes from Afghanistan. Not only does every kilo of heroin produced there materially benefit those who have sworn to destroy us, every kilo actually DOES possibly destroy some small part of Western civilization by ruining lives that might otherwise be productive.
We need to be in Afghanistan for the same reason we need to be in Colombia - and have been for more than two decades. Heroin is an insidious weapon that poisons free societies. We need to be investing heavily in countering this threat around the world - not just in Afghanistan, but especially there.
3. Freedom
For some people in America, saying "we're over there fighting for freedom" has become a worn-out phrase since 9/11. But from a Christian standpoint, consider this: There isn't a single established Christian church in Afghanistan today. About 99 percent of all Afghans are Muslim.
And they should have every right to BE Muslim if that is what they choose, but that's the point - there is no choice in Afghanistan today. If an Afghan wants to be Buddhist, or gnostic, or Christian, or anything other than Muslim, he either hides his beliefs or potentially forfeits his life.
The last time I checked, our Declaration of Independence still reads,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...
I see nothing in this assertion that excludes men who don't happen to be Americans. I'm not saying this war is some kind of religious crusade to spread Christendom to the uttermost parts of the earth - but I'm saying America was founded on the belief that every man deserves the right to control his own destiny. And that's not a right enjoyed by most Afghans today.
Why does this matter to our national security? America has always stood as a beacon of hope for the opressed around the world. It is this fact that has made our nation great - we stand for liberty. Many countries enjoy bountiful natural resources. Many cultures embody a strong work ethic. These traits don't set the United States apart - liberty does.
Once that light begins to fade - so too will America.
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A U.S. Army Pilot flying a UH-61 Blackhawk helicopter, drops ammunition and water to U.S. Soldiers, from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, following a three hour gun battle, in Waterpur Valley, at Kunar province, Afghanistan, Nov. 3, 2009. (U.S. Army Sgt. Matthew Moeller/Released
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U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment and Afghan soldiers wait to leave Patrol Base Hasan Abad ,in the Garmsir district of Helmand province, Afghanistan
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US Army (USA) Soldiers assigned to 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Assault), prepare to search a taxi truck, loaded with civilians, at a vehicle check point located near the village of Sulamain Khel, Afghanistan. USA Soldiers are operating 18-miles from the Afghanistan and Pakistan border
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Spc. Matthew King of Lompoc, California reads a card from his mother during a rare mail call in Forward Operating Base Zerok in Paktika province, Afghanistan. Conditions are harsh for the soldiers of the 3-509 US Army's 25th Infantry Division and their Afghan Army counterparts at the Zerok field base near the border with Pakistan. The troops stationed at the base frequently patrol the adjacent mountains on foot and endure frequent attacks by militants, as well as living without showers or laundry for months.
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U.S. Army Soldiers awake, in their hasty fighting position, after a night patrol in the mountains, near Sar Howza, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, Sept. 2009. The Soldiers are deployed with Bulldog Troop, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith/Released
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Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
November 14, 2009
Soldier ReUnited With His Dog
His dog's name is Gracie.
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Wild Thing's comment........
This is such a feel good video. I love it!!!!
.....Thank you Rhod for sending this to me.
Rhod
Vietnam War Veteran
25th Inf Div 66 and 67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 13, 2009
USNA Subbed Mids To Look More Diverse
USNA subbed mids to look more diverse
By Philip Ewing
Staff writer
Naval Academy leaders removed two midshipmen from a color guard that performed at the World Series last week because they were white men, and replaced them with a non-white man and a white woman so the academy could present a more “diverse” profile, according to several sources, a move that has reportedly angered mids and alumni.
As it turned out, the color guard still ended up all white because the male replacement forgot parts of his uniform.
Two white, male members of the color guard learned Oct. 28 they were being replaced with a white woman, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, and a non-white man, Midshipman 2nd Class Zishan Hameed, on orders of the school’s administration, according to an internal e-mail message provided to Navy Times by an academy professor. With a national television audience, Naval Academy leadership worried the color guard it planned to send wasn’t diverse enough, the e-mail said.
However, after the color guard arrived in New York for the game Oct. 29, Hameed, whose family is from Pakistan, realized he had left his dress shoes and cover in Annapolis. Midshipman 1st Class Aaron Stroud regained his place and served as a rifleman for the presentation of the colors. Allaire carried the other rifle and the four original members marched with the flags.
Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. Joe Carpenter responded to questions about the midshipmen replacements in a written statement Thursday after the color guard story was first reported on the blog “CDR Salamander.”
Carpenter quoted a statement from Naval Academy Commandant Capt. Matt Klunder, who said he wanted to respond to questions about why some of the members of the color guard weren’t able to march at the World Series.
Academy officials actually sent an eight-person color guard to the baseball game, Klunder said, but the full squad couldn’t perform after Hameed forgot part of his uniform, because color guards need an even number of members. So it wasn’t that the academy administration yanked members of the color guard because they were white men, it’s that Hameed’s “uniform inventory problem,” as Klunder called it, meant that only six mids could march, instead of eight.
But a Naval Academy press release on the morning of the game said six mids were presenting the colors at the World Series, and identified them all by name. Stroud and the other white male mid who had been cut went to the game, according to the e-mail obtained by Navy Times — fortunate, because Stroud was needed to take Hameed’s place — but they never expected to be able to march that night.
Carpenter said the initial press release included only six names because the public affairs office didn’t know who else would be joining the World Series color guard. When it learned the names of the other two, the public affairs staff decided it would be too late to put out an updated announcement, he said.
The administration’s decision upset many of the mids, according to the e-mail. But after Klunder heard complaints about the situation from alumni and family members, the brigade’s company commanders were ordered to tell their midshipmen they were forbidden from discussing the color guard story with people outside the Yard, according to a source familiar with the situation who was not authorized to discuss it.
The source said current midshipmen and alumni were frustrated that one of them was denied the chance to march at the World Series, despite having earned it, and that the administration was trying to squelch discussion of it.
Carpenter said he didn’t know who told the midshipmen not to talk about the situation.
The Naval Academy color guard, which is a voluntary extracurricular group, has 28 total members from all four classes.
Naval Academy Changed Color Guard to Appear More Diverse at World Series
Naval Academy leaders are under fire after altering the composition of the military color guard at a World Series game last month so the group wouldn't be made up only of white men.
Capt. Matthew Klunder, commandant of midshipmen, disputed that version of events. He said he considered replacing two members but decided to add two extra people instead, expanding the group from six to eight members.
Only six people ended up participating in the Game 2 routine at Yankee Stadium, Klunder said, because one of the two additions — Midshipman 2nd Class Zishan Hameed — forgot parts of his uniform. The color guard performs in even numbers, he said.
Color guard members were upset by the decision to change the makeup of the group .
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Wild Thing's comment..........
This news item has been a hot topic on USNA Grad sites and is just what it seems. The fact that one of the “replacements” forgot his hat and shoes makes it even more illustrative of the kind of things that are going on at USNA and in the military.
At least this event didn’t get anyone killed, but the PC bent of our military leaders(who are no leaders) inspired by their political bosses is going to be the death of our great military.
Diversity isn’t a strength, character and performance are strenghts.
I really hate to see this kind of thing happening. The military more then anything else needs to be free of this kind of thing. Men and women that serve have their lives at risk and they don't need this put into the mix.
How about individual qualifications instead of quotas? PC and diversity seems to rule everything in this country.
The P.C. crap invades the military mostly from the Congress and the Administration and it is imo part of the reason we have 13 dead soldiers at Fort Hood.
As Nick ( Angry Old Salt) said about this story :
"internally the Navy I know and love wants to treat everyone the same regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin - it is Congress and Big Navy though that decided that equality isn't enough.But this is about PC crap and it is an enemy of our military in all branches."
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:49 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 12, 2009
" Remember Me" ~ A VERY Special Video
Music is "Pacific Wind" by Ryan Farish
The video was put together by a young lady of 15 years named Lizzie Palmer.
God Bless Lizzie for stepping up to the plate and using her talents to support our soldiers in such a dramatic way. Would that there were 1,000 more just like her. She's done more to help win the war on the homefront--where it is currently being lost--than all the chicken-necked RINOs in Congress put together.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
I have posted this before, last year. But I really believe it is something that should be seen more often.
It truly is an awesome video.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 11, 2009
No Decision on Troop Increase
Foxnews: "I wanna bring you a bit of Breaking News courtesy of Major Garrett, he is now reporting in terms of a decision on whether to deploy more troops to Afghanistan...Major has said that the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has said this morning that the President has actually not yet made a decision at this point, there are some reports out there (that would be CBSNEWS that hit the Drudgereport yesterday at 5:00p.m.)from other media outlets that he was very close to or had made a decision and it would be in the neighborhood of 30K, Major is saying that he is being told that the President HAS NOT made a decision, any announcement will not come until after the President returns from a trip to Asia...He does not return to the United States until the 20th of November"
Barack Obama will likely hold off deciding his strategy and troop strength levels until December, according to a New York Times report on his upcoming meeting Wednesday with his national security advisers.
This would make four months since Obama's hand-picked Afghan General Stanley McChrystal made an urgent request in August for 40,000 to 80,000 reinforcements, warning the war would be lost within twelve months without them.
Obama recently asked for new troop level options and for reports on the provincial Afghan governments.
Obama has made numerous excuses for delaying his decision, most prominent of them the election controversy over Hamid Karzai's reelection as Afghanistan's president. The election was resolved last week. Obama's latest excuses were his Asia trip this week and a Nato meeting on the 23rd, until the Times article raised a new excuse--the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November:
Officials said that no decision was expected from Mr. Obama on Wednesday, but that he would mull over the discussions at the meeting during a trip to Asia that begins Thursday. Mr. Obama is not due back in Washington until next Thursday. Officials said that it was possible that he could announce his decision in the three days before Thanksgiving, which is on Nov. 26, but that an announcement in the first week of December seemed more likely.
Wild Thing's comment.........
God help our troops, please. Their commander-in-chief won't.
Obama took the 3 am phone call; rolled over, said wake me at noon. Obama thinks he can get away with voting “present” on the Afghanistan War - troop request.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:48 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 10, 2009
A Tribute To The United States Marine Corps ~ Happy 234th Birthday
Nov.10, 1775 – Nov.10, 2009
The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James T. Conway delivers the 234th Marine Corps Birthday message. " Carrying On A Legacy Of Valor "
It honors all Marines past and present. A special tribute to today's Heroes, Cpl Jonathan T. Yale, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines and LCpl Jordan C. Haerter, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. These fine Marines were KIA 22 April, 2008. Their heroic actions that day, saved the lives of over 50 Iraqis and Marines. They were both posthumously presented the Navy Cross for Extraordinary Heroism on February 20th, 2009. The Navy Cross is our nations second highest award for valor in combat. Jonathan was 21 years old, Jordan was 19 years old.
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Authorized by an Act of Congress dated Nov.10,1775, the U.S. Marine Corps has served as an integral arm of the Department of the Navy since the Revolutionary War. From its legendary founding at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, the Marine Corps has won reknown as America’s "Soldiers of the Sea".
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"Retreat Hell! We've Just got here!" Attributed by MajGen Ben Fuller to Col Frederick M. "Dopey" Wise, CO 2d Bn., 5th Marines, 2dDiv, AEF in France, on being informed that the French troops were retreating and being advised to do likewise, Wise reportedly erupted with an expletive.
"Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?" GySgt. Daniel J. "Dan" Daly, USMC near Lucy-`le-Bocage as he led the 5th Marines' attack into Belleau Wood, 6 June 1918
"I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." 1stLt. Clifton B. Cates, USMC in Belleau Wood, 19 July 1918
"The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle."
Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, U.S. Army, Commander of American Forces in World War I
"What shall I say of the gallantry with which these Marines have fought! Of the slopes of Hill 142; of the Mares Farm; of the Bois de Belleau and the Village of Bouresches stained with their blood, and not only taken away from the Germans in the full tide of their advance against the French, but held by my boys against counter attacks day after day and night after night. I cannot write of their splendid gallantry without tears coming to my eyes." MajGen James G. Harbord, USA, in his book, "Leaves from a War Diary"
In the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the Marines made their famed assault on Chapultepec Palace in Mexico City, which would be later celebrated by the phrase "From The Halls of Montezuma" in the Marines' hymn.
During World War I veteran Marines served a central role in the late American entry into the conflict.The Fifth and Sixth Marine Regiments fought their way to everlasting glory at Belleau Wood, creating the Marines' reputation in modern history. While its previous expeditionary experiences had not earned it much acclaim in the Western world, the Marines' ferocity and toughness in France earned them the respect of the Germans, who rated them of stormtrooper quality. The Corps had entered the war with 511 officers and 13,214 enlisted personnel, and by 11 November 1918 had reached a strength of 2,400 officers and 70,000 men.
In World War II, the Marines played a central role in the Pacific War, executing a series of daring amphibious landings on such islands as Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning." Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC, Tarawa, 21 November 1943.
During the battle of Iwo Jima, photographer Joe Rosenthal took the famous photograph of five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, having come ashore earlier that day, said of the flag raising, "...the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years." The acts of the Marines during the war added to their already significant popular reputation. By war's end, the Corps expanded from two brigades to six divisions, five air wings, and supporting troops, totaling about 485,000 Marines. In addition, 20 defense battalions and a parachute battalion were set raised.[37] Nearly 87,000 Marines were casualties during World War II (including nearly 20,000 killed), and 82 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
"By their victory, the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Divisions and other units of the Fifth Amphibious Corps have made an accounting to their country which only history will be able to value fully. Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue."
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, U.S. Navy
The Korean War (1950-1953) saw the hastily formed Provisional Marine Brigade holding the defensive line at the Pusan Perimeter. To execute a flanking maneuver, General Douglas MacArthur called on Marine air and ground forces to make an amphibious landing at Inchon. The successful landing resulted in the collapse of North Korean lines and the pursuit of North Korean forces north near the Yalu River until the entrance of the People's Republic of China into the war. Chinese troops surrounded, surprised and overwhelmed the overextended and outnumbered American forces. X Corps, which included the 1st Marine Division and the Army's 7th Infantry Division, regrouped and inflicted heavy casualties during their fighting withdrawal to the coast, now known as the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
"Don't you forget that you’re Marines - First Marines! Not all the communists in hell can overrun you!" Col Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, rallying his 1st Marines near Chosin Reservoir, Korea, December 1950
Marines would continue a battle of attrition around the 38th Parallel until the 1953 armistice. The Korean War saw the Corps expand from 75,000 regulars to a force of 261,000 Marines, mostly reservists. 30,544 Marines were killed or wounded during the war and 42 were awarded the Medal of Honor.
The Marine Corps served an important role in the Vietnam War taking part in such battles as Da Nang, the Relief of Hue City, and the Battle of Khe Sanh. Individuals from the USMC operated in the Northern I Corps Regions of South Vietnam. While there, they were constantly engaged in a guerrilla war against the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) and an intermittent conventional war against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). Portions of the Corps were responsible for the less-known Combined Action Program (CAP) that implemented unconventional techniques for counter-insurgency and worked as military advisors to the Republic of Vietnam Marine Corps. Marines were withdrawn in 1971, and returned briefly in 1975 to evacuate Saigon and attempt a rescue of the crew of the Mayagüez.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 led to the largest movement of Marine forces since World War II. Between August 1990 and January 1991, 24 infantry battalions, 40 squadrons (more than 92,000 Marines) deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Desert Shield. The air campaign of Operation Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991, followed by the main overland attack Feb. 24 when the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions breached the Iraqi defense lines and stormed into occupied Kuwait. Meanwhile, the threat from the sea in the form of Marine Expeditionary Brigades held 50,000 Iraqis in check along the Kuwait coast. By the morning of Feb. 28, 100 hours after the ground war began, the Iraqi army was no longer a threat.
"I can't say enough about the two Marine divisions. If I use words like 'brilliant', it would really be an under description of the absolutely superb job that they did in breaching the so-called 'impenetrable barrier'. It was a classic - absolutely classic- military breaching of a very very tough minefield, barbed wire, fire trenches-type barrier." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, U. S. Army Commander, Operation Desert Storm, February 1991
Today's Marines remain a vital link in America's fighting forces on land, at sea and in the air. They pride themselves on professionalism, brotherhood, esprit de corps and being "First To Fight". They serve with distinction on the ground and in the air above Iraq and Afghanistan.
"These are my recruits. I will train them to the best of my ability. I will develop them into smartly disciplined, physically fit, basically trained Marines, thoroughly indoctrinated in love of Corps and country. I will demand of them, and demonstrate by my own example, the highest standards of personal conduct, morality, and professional skill."
"Drill Instructor’s Creed" as it appeared in the Parris Island "Boot" newspaper, Aug. 31, 1956
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:49 AM | Comments (12)
November 08, 2009
Semper Fi Join Me In Project Valour-IT ~ Marine Team!
By Cordell Keith Haugen
He was sitting on a park bench, hunched and looking low. It was hard to imagine how he'd looked so long ago. His beard was long and shaggy now; his sparse hair white as snow but his steel gray eyes were piercing and I turned away to go.
He looked lonely and forgotten and maybe homeless too. Like life had dealt him a bad hand maybe quite a few. He was probably abandoned by those who didn't care I wondered what had happened. What drove him to despair.
He said, "Son, I'm a Leatherneck, of wars before your time." His eyes grew still more piercing as he looked deep into mine. "Your uniform says you're a Devil Dog, the man I've waited for. And there's something I want to tell you -- things I've never said before."
The tattoos on his weathered arm read "Mom" and "Semper Fi." "Let's sing our hymn together, son, once more before I die." As we sang of Montezuma's halls and the shores of Tripoli, the old man stood straight and tall and he looked down at me.
"Bury me at Arlington; put an EGA upon my chest. Tell all the world I died for them that I was one of the best. I was with the Fifth on Iwo and I fought in Korea too. During that ugly war in Vietnam, I stood proud, and cheered for you.
"Get me a straight edge razor, lad and give me a good clean shave. I want to look my very best as I go to my grave. Cut my hair; shine my boots; let me borrow your best blues. You have them back after I'm gone and all my medals too.
"I don't want no flowers, an American flag will do. My life was lived and given for the Red and White and Blue. Whisper 'Semper Fi' my boy, so loud that all will hear. Fire them rifles in the air; they're music to my ear."
As he told me his last wishes. I saw him standing tall. I could see the ribbons on his chest, in the dim light of the Mall. And as he closed his steel gray eyes, I thought about the Corps. He'd lived the life of a real Marine, who could ask for anything more?
"Whisper 'Semper Fi,' my lad," his voice lingered in my mind I thought about all my buddies, those I'd left behind. Today, I'd met a real Marine, a hero through and through.
Forgotten by his country, but not by me and you.
Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries. Items supplied include:
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Posted by Wild Thing at 04:48 AM | Comments (3)
Military Releases Names of Dead and Wounded in Fort Hood Shooting~ We will never forget !
At an Army press conference at Fort Hood, the names of the 13 victims from the shooting rampage were read out loud. A spokesperson said these were more than names, they were heroes.
The fatal victims of the Ft. Hood shooting, as released by the Department of Defense on Saturday:
Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, Havre de Grace, MD
Maj. Libardo Caraveo, 52, Woodbridge, VA
Cpt. John P. Gaffaney, 54, San Diego, CA
Cpt. Russell Seager, 41, Racine, WI
Staff Sgt. Justin Decrow, 32, Plymouth, IN
Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, Kiel, WI
Spc. Jason Hunt, 22, Tillman, OK
Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, Mountain City, TN
PFC Aaron Nemelka, 19, West Jordan, UT
PFC Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, IL
PFC Kham Xiong, 23, St. Paul, MN
Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, Chicago, IL
Michael G. Cahill, Cameron, TX [civilian]
Day is done,
gone the sun,
from the lakes
from the hills
from the sky,
all is well,
safely, rest,
God is near.
Fading light,
Dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky
Gleaming bright,
From afar,
Drawing, near,
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise,
For our days,
Neath the sun
Neath the stars
Neath the sky,
As we go,
This, we, know,
God is near.
Anysoldier.com compiled a list of wounded from various news reports as follows
http://www.anysoldier.com/WhereToSend/
Sgt. Patrick Blue III, 23, of Belcourt, N.D., was hit in the side by bullet fragments during the attack
Amber Bahr, 19, of Random Lake, Wis., was shot in the stomach.
Keara Bono Torkelson, 21, of Ostego, Mo., was shot in the back left shoulder.
Alan Carroll, 20, of Bridgewater, N.J., was shot three times.
Reservist Dorothy “Dorrie” Carskadon of Rockford, Ill., was critically injured.
Staff Sgt. Joy Clark, 27, of Des Moines suffered a gunshot wound
Spc. Matthew Cook, 30, of Binghamton, N.Y., was shot in the abdomen
Staff Sgt. Chad Davis of Eufaula, Ala., was wounded.(?? one of ours? attempting to find out...)
Pvt. Joey Foster, 21, of Ogden, Utah, was shot in the hip
Cpl. Nathan Hewitt, 26, of West Lafayette, Ind.
Pvt. Najee Hull, 21, of Chicago was shot three times, once in the leg and twice in the back.
Justin Johnson, 21, of Punta Gorda, Fla., was shot in the chest and leg.
Staff. Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, of Richmond County, N.C., was shot multiple times.
Shawn Manning, 33, formerly of Redman, Ore., was shot six times
Army 2nd Lt. Brandy Mason, of Monessen, was wounded.
Reserve Spc. Grant Moxon, 23, of Lodi, Wis., was shot in the leg.
Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, of Killeen is the Fort Hood civilian police officer who was shot multiple times by the suspect.
Sgt. John Pagel, 28, of North Freedom, Wis., who was shot in the arm and chest.
Chief Warrant Officer Chris Royal, 38, of Eclectic, Ala., was shot three times.
Maj. Randy Royer of Dothan, Ala., was shot.
Pvt. Raymondo “Ray” Saucedo, 26, of Greenville, Mich., had a bullet graze his arm.
George Stratton III, 18, of Post Falls, Idaho, was shot in the shoulder.
Patrick Zeigler, 28, of Orange County, Fla., was critically wounded
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (5)
November 07, 2009
Thank you Sgt Kim Munley ~ American Hero!!!!
Sgt Kim Munley has been hailed a heroine after taking on the lone gunman who went on a shooting spree at a huge military base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others.
Texas police officer is a hero for shooting Fort Hood killer Nidan Hasan 4 times during his killing rampage.
A police officer who intervened to stop a shooting spree at America’s biggest military base was hailed today a heroine as she received treatment for the wounds received in a shoot-out with the gunman.
Major Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist due to be posted to Afghanistan, shot dead 13 people and wounded 30 others after opening fire with two handguns at Fort Hood yesterday afternoon.
But the death toll from the rampage could have been far worse had it not been for the actions of Sergeant Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer stationed at the base who was the first on the scene as Major Hasan picked off his victims.
Sergeant Munley managed to hit Major Hasan four times but was herself hit by a bullet that passed through both her legs, according to witnesses.
Fort Hood shooting: Kim Munley hailed for bravery in shooting Hasan
Mrs Munley was one of the "first responders" who returned fire after army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on the rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood base in Texas.
She shot Hasan four times but was herself wounded in the gun battle. Her condition is now stable, according to military officials.
"They both exchanged fire and both were wounded," said Col John Rossi during a press conference at the giant base. "Her efforts were superb." The colonel also praised "the heroic efforts of our great soldiers at the scene".
The police officer has been praised for her bravery and for preventing what could have been an even worse massacre.
Hasan, who was about to be posted to Afghanistan, was found alive and taken under armed guard to a nearby hospital.
He was in a serious but stable condition and not in imminent danger of dying. He was unconscious and on a ventilator.
Mrs Munley is married to Matthew Munley, a staff seargeant who has done two tours of Iraq, and they have a three-year-old daughter Jayden.
The family home, on a street near Fort Hood, has many empty homes because those who live there have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Her brother-in-law Bryan Munley said: “There’s nothing that stands in her way. It completely makes sense that she did what she did. Without her, there would have been a lot more people killed. She is definitely a tough woman.”
Neighbours recalled that she thwarted burglars who tried to break into her house last year, telling them: “If you come in I’m going to shoot.”
Erin Houston said: “I just felt more protected knowing she was on my street.”
Her father Dennis Barbour and stepmother Wanda Barbour run a fishing tackle shop in Carolina Beach, North Carolina.
Wild Thing's comment........
Thank you Sgt. Kim Munley, for saving more lives at Fort Hood, being courageous enough to incapacitate the perpetrator Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, while being wounded. Our entire and very grateful nation is extremely proud of you, Sergeant Munley.
You Muslim's a woman shot your unclean brother like the rodent he is!
Bush would have already hailed her as a hero … Obama is to busy saying I, I, I to acknowledge anyone else as a possible spotlight center.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (10)
Fort Hood Survivors and More On TERRORIST Nidal Malik Hasan
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The 13 people killed when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, included a pregnant woman who was preparing to return home and a newlywed who had served in Iraq.
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Fort Worth soldier was hero in Fort Hood rampage
Pfc. Marquest Smith, a former Fort Worth resident who joined the Army just over a year ago, was in a small cubicle inside the Soldier Readiness Center when he heard popping sounds. A bullet tore through the cubicle wall and lodged in the heel of his boot.
Within 15 minutes, the 21-year-old soldier was rushing through the chaos in the huge processing center to pull four wounded victims to safety and help take them to the hospital. The gunman fired toward him from across the room as Smith was fleeing the building.
Other tales of heroism spread throughout this grief-stricken base Friday as it struggled with the aftermath of the worst attack ever at a U.S. military installation. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, who arrived at Fort Hood with new Army Secretary John McHugh, called it "a kick in the gut."***
Eight of the wounded were treated and released, and of the 30 originally hospitalized, 23 — including the alleged gunman — remained in hospitals late Friday. Thirteen flag-draped coffins were placed aboard a C-17 and flown to a military installation in Dover, Del., for final funeral preparations.
McHugh, who succeeded Pete Geren of Fort Worth as army secretary Sept. 21, told reporters that the FBI and Defense Department are conducting a joint investigation into Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was felled in an exchange of gunfire with a civilian policewoman.***
Hasan, who sustained at least four gunshot wounds, was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio at mid-afternoon, the Army said Friday night.***
Col. John Rossi, at mid-evening Friday, said Hasan apparently fired more than 100 rounds of ammunition from his two handguns, a 5.7 mm semiautomatic and an older model Smith & Wesson .357-caliber revolver.
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Bernie Goldberg saying that if Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan was a "White Male Christian" instead of a Muslim, his religion would be the top story in the mainstream media. But because he is Muslim, most of the mainstream media refuse to even consider that his Islamic beliefs are central to his commit a terrorist act.
Shooter advised Obama transition
Fort Hood triggerman aided team on Homeland Security task force
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama's transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.
The Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University published a document May 19, entitled "Thinking Anew – Security Priorities for the Next Administration: Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force, April 2008 – January 2009," in which Hasan of the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine is listed on page 29 of the document as a Task Force Event Participant.
Hasan received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University School in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.
Noting that the Obama administration transition was proceeding, the GWU Homeland Security Policy Institute report described on the first page the role of the Presidential Transition Task Force as including "representatives from past Administrations, State government, Fortune 500 companies, academia, research institutions and non-governmental organizations with global reach."
While the GWU task force participants included several members of government, including representatives of the Department of Justice and the U.S Department of Homeland Security, there is no indication in the document that the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition, other than to serve in a university-based advisory capacity.
Daniel Kaniewski, deputy director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University affirmed to WND in a telephone interview this morning that the Nidal Hasan listed as attending the meetings of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force was the same person as the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood massacre.
Kaniewski said Hasan attended the meetings in his capacity as a member of the faculty of the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, not as a member of the HSPI Presidential Task Force.
Kaniewski believed Hasan applied on the institute's website to attend the meeting and was accepted because of his professional credentials.
Kaniewski could not tell WND whether or not Hasan made comments from the audience that influenced the task force recommendations or not.
He further confirmed Hasan had attended several meetings held by the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University and that the institute is currently searching conference records to see if it is possible to determine what additional institute conferences he attended.
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Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.
Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.
Did the president's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.
If the president's communications apparatus can't inform -- and protect -- their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president's party and supporters.
All the president's men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic.
Wild Thing's comment........
Amazing ithat a Chiacgo nbc wrote the article about Obama. Good for them. I posted this video the other day and we all commented on it. But this article is good and really points out what a total FAILURE Obama and how he could care less. He should not even need a team of people to tell him to "act" sorry or sad or outraged. Damn HIM!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (9)
November 06, 2009
Ft. Hood Primary Shooter ( JIHAD ) Major Malik Nadal Hasan Is Still Alive
Fort Hood Press Conference -- Primary Shooter Major Malik Nadal Hasan Is Still Alive -- FOX News
The gunman, first said to have been killed, was wounded but alive in a hospital under military guard, said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. He was shot four times, and was on a ventilator and unconscious, according to military officials. "I would say his death is not imminent," Cone said.
The man was identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old from Virginia.
The suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army's sprawling Fort Hood, post officials said. In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.
Information on Fort Hood Terrorist Malik Nadal Hasan
Military officials say the suspected shooter is not dead, as was originally reported. He is alive, and has been treated for his wounds.
Military officials say the suspected shooter at Fort Hood was a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for six years before being transferred to the Texas base in July.
The officials had access to Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan's military record. They said he received a poor performance evaluation while at Walter Reed.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because military records are confidential.
Federal law enforcement officials say the Hasan came to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.
The Virginia-born soldier was single with no children. He was 39 years old.
He is a graduate of Virginia Tech University, where he was a member of the ROTC and earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1997. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. At Walter Reed, he did his internship, residency and a fellowship.
Colleague Terry Lee on Fort Hood Shooter Malik Nadal Hasan -- He Wanted Muslims to "Stand Up"
Below is complete video of the Press Conference, including the questions from the media:
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MUSLIM DENIAL......again ! ~ Wild Thing
Al Siddiq, president of the Islamic Center of Waco, followed the unfolding news of the Fort Hood tragedy anxiously, as a veteran of the U.S. Army himself, as a friend of some Muslim soldiers currently stationed at the Central Texas post and as a Muslim who has become wary of backlash.
Siddiq said the Muslim Islamic community is very concerned that the shooter on Fort Hood was a Muslim because Muslims tend to get all thrown into the same category. Since 9/11, Siddiq said, when an individual Muslim acts stupid, it affects the entire Islamic community. The concern is backlash against other Muslims, he said.
“We’ve been very fortunate in Waco,” Siddiq said. “But there’s always a backlash.” Siddiq said he had a great experience in the U.S. Army, both in Korea and stationed at Fort Campbell.
“That’s what hurts me the most,” he said. “The Army has accommodated Muslims. Not any other Army can offer what the U.S. Army offers.”
Siddiq said what he has heard is that the Fort Hood shooter may be a convert to Islam. He said he thinks the problem some converts have is not based on the Islam religion, but on the resentment toward the U.S. government that they bring to their faith.
Malik attended prayer services nearly every day in Silver Spring for several years. Six months ago Hasan came to the attention of the FBI because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings.
After lauding a Muslim U.S. Army soldier who killed comrades in Kuwait in 2003, Hasan wrote in an online posting, “If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers … that would be considered a strategic victory.”
At Fort Hood, Hasan exhibited a troubled state of mind. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan at the psych ward at Fort Hood, told Fox News that about six months ago he heard Hasan say, "Maybe the Muslims should rise up and fight against the aggressor," in Iraq and Afghanistan -- referring to the U.S. Army
Authorities said the gunman was shot but was not killed. Two other soldiers suspected in what appears to be the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base were also apprehended, officials said.
Tom Hunt, himself a former Army sergeant who was stationed at Fort Hood, said his son called about an hour after the shooting to tell him he was safe.
James Hunt, 27, serving with the 510th Combat Engineers, was with his platoon at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center where soldiers who are about to be deployed undergo medical screening. He is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in January.
But because James had broken his foot several weeks ago, he was sent outside and told to get some extra paperwork that would clear him for deployment. James was waiting in the parking lot of the center when the shooting started, his father said.
“Everybody started running and shouting, and he saw the wounded come out,” Tom Hunt said. “He didn’t hear the shooting, but he said it was ‘a bloody mess.’”
Hunt said his son told him he loaded up many of the wounded and drove them to the hospital. The wounded relayed what they saw inside when the shooting happened.
“They were telling him that one guy was shouting something in Arabic while he was shooting,” Tom Hunt said. “He couldn’t say much more than that.”
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Wild Thing's comment.......
This is an outrage against our Servicemen on OUR soil.....this person is a terrorist.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:55 AM | Comments (20)
Clinic Cat MAX On Orders to Luke Air Force Base
Max, a 21-pound gray tabby cat, is on official Army orders to the Luke Air Force Base Veterinary Clinic in Glendale, Ariz. Not only does he increase the morale of the staff and visitors to the clinic, he also officially provides "Fat Cat Security and Pest Control" as stated in his orders
Clinic cat on orders to Luke Air Force Base
56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. (AFNS)
During the past ten years, the Luke Air Force Base Veterinary Clinic has seen six civilian and military veterinarians come and go, as well as countless veterinary technicians and other workers. But there has been one constant, and his name is Max.
Max, a 21-pound gray tabby cat, was brought into the vet clinic in July of 1999 after he was discovered in a gutter.
"He was a six-week-old kitten when he arrived," said Joan Seifert, 56th Force Support Squadron veterinary clinic office clerk. "Nobody called and said they were missing a kitten, so he hung out here and we decided to make him our clinic cat. We got him neutered and declawed in the front, and he has been living here for the past ten years."
When Max first started his duties as clinic cat, he would roam the office all day, interacting with pets and their owners. He even helped the staff with some of their more difficult patients.
"We had a chihuahua in here one day, and we were trying to get him into a cardboard carrier," Ms. Seifert said. "Every time we tried to put him in the box, the chihuahua would try to bite us. Max must have heard us struggling, so he came running around the corner and batted the chihuahua in the face. The dog was so baffled, we were able to close the carrier."
Max isn't concerned with size, either. Big or small, he takes on all comers.
"Earlier this year, I was outside just before the sun came up," Ms. Seifert recalled. "I was looking for Max and started to walk out toward the parking lot when I saw what I thought was a dog trotting toward me. All of a sudden, as the 'dog' got close, I saw it was a coyote. I started backing up toward the door. By that time, Max had spotted the coyote. He let out a shriek, puffed up and took off after him. I screamed, 'No, Max, no!,' but he just took off after it and came in a few minutes later looking like, 'It's ok, I took care of it.'"
But, Max is just doing his job. He is on official Army orders to Luke to provide "fat cat security and pest control." He also searches out lizards, spiders or any other pests that are brave enough to roam in or around the clinic.
"He is on a calorie-controlled diet, but he supplements it pretty good with all the lizards he catches and eats," Ms. Seifert said.
Though Max is a perfect bodyguard and exterminator at the clinic, he also plays an important role in base public relations. At least once a week, an Airman, family member or civilian will come to the clinic asking if the staff still has "that big cat."
"We had a colonel from the Aerospace Medical Squadron call up and ask if Max was available because he wanted to bring his family over to see him," Ms. Seifert said. "I told him I would check his schedule and of course Max was free. The colonel brought his family over to see him."
The vet staff also recalled a little girl who lived on base. Her family didn't have pets, so her father would bring her to the clinic to play with Max. Other Luke members bring their cameras and snap photos of him.
"He plays into it when he knows he is getting attention or when people come and take photos," said Michaela Debelius, 56th FSS veterinary technician. "He loves it."
Debelius' husband, Staff Sgt. Ralph Debelius, 56th Equipment Maintenance Squadron Air Ground Equipment mobility manager, visits Max every day.
"I am a big cat person and he increases my morale on a daily basis," Sergeant Debelius said. "He is really friendly, and he has this kind of feisty attitude. He has a lot of personality and is great for a good laugh."
Max's charm isn't reserved only for humans, either. He's also made friends with a few of the military working dogs who are housed right next to the kennel. When one of them, Kisma, comes over for an appointment, Max will jump up on the table right beside him and cuddle up.
Kisma's handler, Senior Airman Steven Bruner, 56th Security Forces Squadron MWD handler, says he has never seen anything like it before.
"They told me before I came over here for the first time, that Kisma was pretty friendly with the cat," he said. "I was surprised."
Max has grown and changed with the clinic over the years. Now, instead of roaming the clinic freely, Max has a large, fenced area in the back of the building where he can hang out.
"If we have him out on a clinic day, when customers start to come in I say 'OK Max, come on in the back,' and he comes," Seifert said. "Cats are trainable. It takes a lot of patience and they have to want to do it, but he listens better than a lot of people's dogs do."
Max would be offended if he knew he was compared to a dog, but he does seem quite canine-like as he sits at the front door of the clinic waiting to be let in.
"He sits there and meows until you let him in," Mrs. Debelius said. "And he meets us every day at the door to say good morning."
And ready to protect the clinic's staff from coyotes and lizards alike.
Wild Thing's comment.......
Love this story. The Vet we go to for Sebastian and Missy has his cat at work each day. There are also a lot of soldiers and Air Force from McDill Air Force Base here that go to the Vet we go to.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:48 AM | Comments (4)
Afghanistan ~ The Soldiers Speak
From The Washington Times
Special forces for special Afghan rescues
Dangerous missions to save severely wounded
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | A cool wind rushed through the open back doors of the Black Hawk, rattling the ventilators, IV tubes and defibrillators as the rescue helicopter banked sharply and rose into the sky.
It was headed for a site on Kandahar's Highway 1, dubbed "Death Highway" by coalition troops, where a powerful improvised explosive device had just struck a U.S. convoy.
The mission - to pick up the dead and wounded - was all too familiar for the members of the Air Force's 55th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, better known as the Guardian Angels, based at Kandahar Air Field.
"This is the toughest thing we do, but we bring everyone home and we leave no one behind," said Capt. Steve Colletti, director of operations, before donning his gear and boarding the HH 60G Pave Hawk, a modified Black Hawk helicopter.
"Every time we pick up injured troops, it hits us deep in the heart," he said. "We've become the 911 response for southern Afghanistan - whether that's our troops or Afghan citizens."
The past week has brought plenty of heartache for the medical combat specialists, considered the "special forces" of the Air Force. A day earlier, they had spent an afternoon airlifting 17 severely wounded members of the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team to the trauma center at Kandahar Air Field. One American and one Afghan soldier were killed in that IED attack.
For the nearly 68,000 already here, the debate is not academic.
It "was a pretty bad day," said Maj. Ben Conde, from Denver, who flew the missions to rescue the 17 injured troops and bring home the two killed in action. "It was a day we never wish would happen again."
"These aren't numbers, these are our family, our brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children," said Pararescueman Vincent Eckert, from Tucson, Ariz. "We've kind of become a jack of all trades. These are the things we do so that others may live. We're not bomb droppers - our mission is to save lives."
The members of the squadron are called pararescuemen or parajumpers - PJs. All are trained trauma medical technicians who can perform battlefield surgery - including amputations - under enemy fire.
If necessary, the PJs parachute to their victims. Trained to work in almost any weather, they are physically fit enough to perform rescues deep underwater or high in the mountains.
During the Vietnam War, PJs recovered downed pilots in enemy territory and developed a tradition of getting two green feet tattooed on their bodies, representing the mark the helicopters leave on the ground.
In Afghanistan, the group rescues troops, brings sick Afghans from remote locations to big field hospitals and helps others in need of medical treatment.
On Saturday, members of one unit lingered after finishing a shift. Some worked out in a makeshift outdoor gym, while a second shift prepared for the long night ahead.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Schollard, 28, a pararescueman from Tuscon, played his guitar and joked with his buddy, Staff Sgt. Scott Dowd, 27, also a pararescueman from Tuscon.
Only 45 minutes after the second shift arrived, pagers went off.
Immediately the flight engineers, gunners and medics grabbed their M-4 carbines and medical gear and rushed to two helicopters.
On one Black Hawk, Capt. Colletti sat on one side and Senior Airman Lucas Ferrari sat across from him. They clutched their weapons closely to their chests and flung their feet out through the open doors as they watched the ground below, flying over Kandahar's mountains and above the red desert that would lead them to the casualties.
Kandahar city disappeared in the distance.
A billowing cloud of pink smoke rose into the sky from a road near a small farming compound.
Capt. Colletti and Airman Ferrari pointed below and put their thumbs up.
"We're here," Capt. Colletti wrote down on his notepad, which he kept in his ballistic vest. He pointed his weapon down toward the fields where insurgents were still firing on the Army convoy as the rescuers arrived.
The Black Hawk circled strategically, banking sharply, with the wreckage below framed through the open door. Smoke billowed from the site of the explosion.
The rescuers jumped off the second helicopter before it landed on a ravine, kicking up dust and dry grass.
Senior Master Sgt. David Swan, 42, from Corning, N.Y., and Staff Sgt. Joshua Keyes, 30, of Alturas, Calif., rushed to a wounded soldier without hesitation. The soldier, nestled in the litter, was stabilized on the helicopter by the medical team.
The helicopters flew back to Kandahar Air Field's trauma hospital.
The soldier, although severely wounded, survived. The Washington Times is withholding his name until his relatives can be notified.
A second flight was even more difficult. The rescue unit was flying back to retrieve the remains of a dead soldier, whose name The Times is also withholding.
The squadron placed the young man's remains in a small black bag, carried the bag on board the chopper and draped it with a U.S. flag, then lifted off from the highway where he had taken his last breath. There was silence on the flight back.
From the sky, the villages and farmland looked benign, even beautiful. Some Pashtun villagers circled the area where the convoy was struck. A small group cheered as the body was loaded onto the craft. Others watched silently.
"It never gets easy," said Master Sgt. Swan, after the group had returned back to base. "This past month has been hard on our troops. We do our job and we never leave anyone - not anyone behind."
Wild Thing's comment.......
I don't understand how Obama and those like him can sleep at night, knowing their indecision is costing the lives of our warriors our heroes. There must be a special place in hell for people like that.
Prayers for the friends and families of the fallen and wounded.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:45 AM | Comments (2)
November 05, 2009
Deadly Mass Shooting At Fort Hood Army Base In Texas
At least 7 are dead and 30 were injured after 3 gunmen opened fire on a crowd at Fort Hood in Texas.
Reuters reported:
At least seven people were killed and 12 wounded in a shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas, U.S. Army base Thursday, local media reported.
One gunman was in custody and another was on the loose at the military base, one of the largest military installations in the world, local media reported. There could be a third shooter involved, MSNBC reported.
Via FOX News– The FBI says terrorism was not involved. The shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Ft. Hood. 6 of the 7 victims were military.
The base is still on lockdown.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) reports on MSNBC that there may be 30 wounded.
McClatchey reports that the shooters used M-16 rifles.
KCEN-TV in Waco
KCEN-TV reports that about '500 military personnel are moving sacross the base' in order to secure it. Two suspects now in custody.
KWTX-TV and CNN reporting nine dead.
KCEN-TV is now reporting that there are two additional areas reporting shots fired. This is unconfirmed.
Reporting - 12 dead and 31 wounded.
UPDATE:
SNIPPET: “KILLEEN, Texas - Officials at the Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen say 12 people are dead and about 30 are wounded in a mass shooting on the Fort property.
WATCH LIVE COVERAGE NOW
According to officials, a soldier carrying two handguns opened fire at about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Soldier Readiness Center at the post in Killeen, Texas.
“It would be an environment that would be very susceptible to casualties or injuries,” Killeen City Manager Connie Green said.
Officials said the gunman was shot and killed after quick response from security officers.
At least two other soldiers were taken into custody.
Army personnel said a civilian police officer was among the deceased. At least six of the wounded were military.
“We’re praying that those who are injured … are not seriously injured,” Green said.
The Fort Hood public affairs spokesman said the Army has set up a special operations center to handle the response.
The official base Web site posted a message that it is on lock down and in an emergency situation. It also urged people to stay indoors.
Nine schools on the base — seven elementary and two middle — are included in the lock down.
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Military Major Malik Hassan, a convert to Islam, originally from Virginia, is the Prime Suspect and now dead, killed by two PD Ofc
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
The general said there were "eyewitness accounts of more than one shooter," and the others were tracked to an adjacent facility.
Cone said that a gunman entered a facility known as the Soldier Readiness Facility, where soldiers who are preparing to deploy go for last minute medical check ups and dental treatment. Sources told ABC News that the soldiers gathered there were getting ready to deploy to Iraq.
The gunman used two handguns, Cone said. He wasn't sure if the shooter reloaded the weapons during the attack.
"The gunman opened fire and essentially due to the quick respond of the police forces was killed," said Cone.
The shooter was killed by civilian law enforcement and one police officer died in the shootout, Cone said.
The gunman's suspected accomplices were taken into custody in an adjacent facility known as the old SportsDome Complex.
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OMG...OMG....Fort Barack Obama Gives "Shout-Out" Before He Comments on Shooting -- FOX News
Wild Thing's comment......
Prayers for the victims and their families. I will update as things come on the news.
I am not positive , but I think this is the Facebook for the shooter that was shot.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Malik-Hassan-Malik/1008970609
He is convert no less; the most dangerous type of jihadi. In a sane version of America, all madrassas and mosques would be shut down immediately !! And also when anyone in our military converts to Islam they should be kicked OUT asap!!!!!! Isalm is not religion, it is a LAW they follow, it is dangerous to our troops and to all of us. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK! Like the Muslim convert grenade thrower in Kuwait. He didn’t want to fight against his Muslim brethren.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 PM | Comments (21)
November 04, 2009
In Country With the Our US Army and US Air Force
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U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Stephen Barnes continues with his mission even thought the crotch of his pants were ripped off during a dismounted patrol across the Tangi Valley in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan Aug. 29, 2009. Barnes is a squad leader assigned to 1st Platoon, Apache Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Teddy Wade /Photo Released) 10/29/2009
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U.S Army Spc. David Oliver, of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, is enjoys his last cigarette before going out on a mission at Forward Operating Base Lane in Zabul province, Afghanistan, Oct. 11, 2009. The 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe is deployed throughout southern Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tia P. Sokimson/Released) 10/30/2009
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U.S. Air Force explosive ordnance and disposal technicians, and U.S. Army Sgt. Zachary Cleland, a combat engineer assigned to Alpha Company, Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, talk after finding an improvised explosive device during a patrol in the streets of the Tangi Valley in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan, Aug. 28, 2009. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Teddy Wade / Released) 10/29/2009
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An Mi-35 Hind helicopter fires its 12.9mm gatling gun during a training sortie over southern Afghanistan . U.S. Airmen with the 438th Air Expeditionary Training Group use the helicopter to train Afghan aviators while deployed to Kandahar Air Field. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Angelita Lawrence/Released)
[The Gatling gun, lower left pointing upward, is inactive here.]
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (7)
November 02, 2009
The Warrior Song
No matter what branch of the United States Armed Forces you serve under or have served under, this song is dedicated to you.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
Love it, it is so great to see people making things like this video. And doing songs like this.
.....Thank you BobF, for sending this to me.
BobF
SMSgt, USAF
1973 - 1999
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:46 AM
November 01, 2009
F18 Air Strike and a Walk Through Abandoned Taliban Training Camp
F/A-18 Hornet catches jihadist firing rockets at US base in Iraq, uses its M61 Vulcan gatling gun to turn them into pieces and spread them across the desert.
Anyone want to move in??? LOL NO thanks!
The Pakistani military has taken members of the media on a tour of what it says is an abandoned Taliban training camp in the volatile Swat valley.
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Posted by Wild Thing at 12:48 AM | Comments (4)
October 27, 2009
U.S. Troops Hope Afghanistan Sacrifices Not In Vain
Army Sgt. 1st Class Teresa R. Coble, 27, of Germantown, with the 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment from Fort Bragg, N.C., continues to work while in a bunker at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan on Thursday, during the second rocket attack in a week.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Teresa R. Coble
U.S. troops hope Afghanistan sacrifices not in vain
Doubts, determination to finish mission fill days
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
The sirens blared as a Taliban rocket attack rattled troops across Kandahar Air Field for the second time last week.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Teresa R. Coble and other members of her unit at the base's media-support center hit the floor, lay flat on the dusty cement and protected their heads with their hands. Later, the unit moved to cement-reinforced bunkers until the all-clear sounded.
While the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan and Afghans prepare to vote for president for the second time in four months, some of those already braving rockets and bombs worry that their mission has lost the support of the U.S. public and that their sacrifices - and those of their fallen comrades - have been in vain.
"What about the troops who died giving their lives for this mission?" Sgt. Coble asked as she waited for the rocket alert to finish.
By next August, Sgt. Coble, 27, from Germantown, will have served more than 30 months combined in Iraq and Afghanistan, far from her only child, five-year-old Troy Davis.
"We would not be honoring the lives of the troops who died if we left here without finishing our mission, and many troops are concerned that the American people have forgotten why we came here to begin with," she said.
"If we left Afghanistan right now, its equivalent to somebody going up to help a rape victim, engaging in a fight to help that rape victim, then giving up because they didnt want to get hurt themselves and allowing that rape to continue," she said. "Because essentially thats what the Afghan population is: They are victims, and we need to follow through with what we promised."
Others interviewed by The Times were less supportive of the eight-year war and less certain that adding more U.S. forces would defeat a tenacious and growing Taliban insurgency or reduce corruption in the Afghan government. Several asked not to be named so that they could voice their opinions candidly without retribution from their superiors.
One young soldier, who had arrived at Kandahar Air Field from a forward operating base along the Pakistan-Afghan border, said his unit had suffered a number of casualties.
"I used to believe in what we were doing here," the soldier said. "I'm not too sure anymore. It's just we don't know what the endgame is. We've been getting hit hard out here. What are we here to win? I have to believe that what Gen. [Stanley M.] McChrystal is doing is going to work.But who knows how long that will last before someone else decides to change the game plan again? I mean, do the people in Washington even remember we're here?"
Others said they had difficulty working with some members of the Afghan National Army, which they described as disorganized and in some cases untrustworthy. Gen. McChrystal, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, seeks to increase the size and quality of the Afghan army as the mainstay for Afghan security in the future.
"I don't trust them," said one U.S. soldier who said he had worked closely with Afghan military personnel during multiple tours in Afghanistan. "They make it impossible for us, and we have to work around it. I understand that we're trying to aid the Afghans in securing their own country, but we're up against some of the worst corruption I've ever known. It puts our lives in danger."
In Kabul, Army Maj. Pedro Espinoza said he supported Gen. McChrystal's plans and believed in the mission despite its difficulties.
"I have hope in what we're doing here," Maj. Espinoza said, as he donned armor in preparation for the short ride from International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters to Kabul airport. "Look, if I didn't have hope, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. It's as simple as that."
Polish Col. Jacek Rolak, who was also in the convoy, wasn't as hopeful. He joked with Maj. Espinoza and said he was grateful to be leaving Afghanistan.
"I'm not too sure things will work out the way we would like," Col. Rolak said. " I'm not sure what's going to happen, or how good any strategy is in Afghanistan. Guess we just wait and see."
U.S. troops here deal daily with death and injury, seeing comrades hurt and watching flag-draped coffins go through forward operating bases on their final trip home.
Many are also haunted by the faces of Afghan people the U.S. is trying to help.
In Kabul, Army Pvt. 2nd Class Logan Purtlebaugh sent e-mails to her family from the comfort of her bunk bed. Her Myrtle Beach pink blanket, books strewn on her bed and periodic breaks to brush her long, blond hair made the 19-year-old seem more like a university student in a dorm than a soldier in a barracks. The young chaplain's assistant with the 82nd Airborne, 4th Brigade, at Camp Lindsey, not far from Kandahar Air Field, was on a nine-day break in the Afghan capital.
The policy debate back in Washington was not on the mind of this soldier from Bloomington, Ind.
Instead, she was thinking about the accidental death of an Afghan child she recently had witnessed in Kandahar.
"It's the first time I'm dealing with death," said Pvt. Purtlebaugh, who is on her first deployment. "I'll never forget what happened."
She folded down her laptop and stared into the darkness.
"He ran out in front of the MRAP [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle], and there was no time for the driver to stop," she said. "The little boy's head was decapitated. It was horrible for everybody involved. Especially for the family of the boy."
The young victim "seemed to be about the same age as my seven-year-old sister, Madison Purtlebaugh," she said. "I really miss home, but this is where I want to be. I believe in the Afghan people. I have hope despite everything."
Sgt. Coble urged Americans to think about the sacrifices U.S. troops have made in Aghanistan and the consequences of narrowing the mission before it has more time to succeed.
"We're not just numbers," she said. "I'm not going to say morale is high with everything going on at home. We're here for a reason. This is not a draft military. When people go out on the streets in America and say, 'Bring our troops home,' it infuriates me. Don't go out there talking about bringing our troops home, let us decide when to come back home. We're here because we want our children, my son, to have a safer world, and we know the risks."
Morale dips for American Marines in Afghanistan
A mile from South Station, an outpost of US marines in Helmand province, the tribal chief was openly hostile. “The Americans threaten our economy and take our land for bases. They promise much and deliver nothing,” he said.
“People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader of the Baluch tribe, who rules like a medieval baron. “Young people are turning against them and in time will fight them.”
Inside South Station, soldiers are proud of the progress they have made. Until they arrived, this remote part of Helmand had not had a government presence for years. But many are pessimistic about where the conflict is heading.
“I’m not much for this war. I’m not sure it’s worth all those lives lost,” said Sergeant Christian Richardson as we walked across corn fields that will soon be ploughed up to plant a spring crop of opium poppy.
A New Yorker who joined the marines after 9/11 and served two tours in Iraq, Richardson, 24, said his men had achieved much. “You can see we are making progress, slowly. But when we leave, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda will surely return.”
With enough effort, resources and time, the marines are confident the population can be won over. But, with the platoon’s influence limited to a small area around their base, many soldiers wonder if the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may simply outlast them, or if the US and Afghan governments have the resolve to send enough troops to win.
Third Platoon, Charlie Company of the 2nd Light Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion, came last July to Khan Neshin, as far south as Nato soldiers have reached in Afghanistan. It was part of a summer offensive by more than 4,500 troops of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which has joined British and other forces trying to turn the war in Helmand.
Although they have read the manuals on counterinsurgency and heard generals speak about how to defeat the Taliban, the reality has been bloody, painful and frustrating.
The platoon knows there are at least 20 booby-trapped bombs on the high ground around the base. More than half the men have already been caught in blasts. One marine explosive expert was killed; others suffered broken legs and amputated feet. Three have survived two explosions and come back to fight again.
General Stanley McChrystal, the US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, says the mission is to protect the population and isolate them from the Taliban, but the marines are finding it no easier to defeat the Taliban than it has been for the British, who have fought in the province for three years. Villagers are rarely willing to express a simple opinion, let alone inform soldiers where the enemy is hiding. One marine described the way the Taliban blended with the population as “unbelievably frustrating”.
In terrain crisscrossed by canals with weak and narrow bridges, the platoon has to approach villages on foot. Even when they have surrounded the Taliban, the marines have found the enemy has an uncanny ability to slip away in the ditches. All this adds to the strain of facing improvised explosive devices, which are the main threat.
“We are all brothers here,” said Lance-Corporal Corey Hopkins, 22, from Georgia. “And it hurts to see your brother hurt or put him in a bag for the last time. It pisses you off. It makes you mad. You know people out here know what’s going on, but they won’t tell you.”
The marines hope to open a school and provide medical facilities. They are also offering to pay Khan and others to provide jobs to improve the canal system.
Later, a marine intelligence officer said the drug economy and the feudal system made the strategy of winning hearts and minds extremely complex. As drug producers, men such as Khan had a “working relationship with the Taliban”.
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Wild Thing's comment..........
This treatment of our troops by Obama as their CIC is absolutely unacceptable, all the while Zero touts his latest idea, “muslim technology fund”. Unbelievable, and UNFORGIVABLE.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:48 AM | Comments (16)
October 25, 2009
Portrait Does Justice to a Soldier's Sacrifice ~ Thank You Army Sgt. Rich Yarosh !
Army Sgt. Rich Yarosh stands near an oil-on-canvas portrait of himself Friday at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Yarosh, 27, was left scarred and disfigured after an explosion while he was fighting in Iraq three years ago.
Portrait Does Justice to a Soldier's Sacrifice
Arlene Coffman stared at the man in the painting. He had no ears, no nose, no eyebrows. Instead of smile lines by his eyes there was scar tissue. Tears welled in her eyes.
"It's incredible. It's hard to describe because it's so moving," said Coffman, 64, visiting here from Pebble Beach, Calif. "Most portraits bring emotions. This one is emotional in a different way."
The face in Coffman's gaze belongs to retired Army Sgt. Rich Yarosh. On Sept. 1, 2006, he was in the turret of a Bradley assault vehicle when it hit a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He and two other soldiers were engulfed in flames. One later died. Yarosh suffered burns on 60 percent of his body, lost part of his right leg and has limited use of what's left of his hands.
Three years later, most of it spent in an Army hospital, and after 35 surgeries, his scarred countenance is now proudly featured at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery here. The painting is one of 49 finalists out of 3,300 entries in the museum's second Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. It will hang in the building for the next year with iconic images of presidents, scientists and celebrities.
"I didn't want the depiction of his injury to overwhelm the depiction of his humanity," said Matthew Mitchell, the Amherst, Mass., artist who painted Yarosh as part of a project called 100 Faces of War Experience. Despite the soldier's obvious wounds, said Mitchell, "He's a whole person."
That's something Tony Bass recognized. A portrait of the New York psychoanalyst stares across the second floor gallery toward Yarosh's. Both men were among the first to view the paintings when the competition exhibit opened to the public Friday.
"There's a sense of his having survived this horrendous trauma, a sense of his spirit coming though," said Bass, 58. "The eyes and the stance – it's an amazing picture of someone prevailing in the face of almost unbelievable tragedy."
Museum curator Brandon Fortune, who organized the competition, said Miller's portrait of Yarosh was "quite traditional" in its head-and-shoulders composition. "It has gravitas, that dignity that really gives it its power," she said.
"He looks calm, like he's dealing with it," said Carmen Diaz, 66, of Alhambra, Calif. "He's gone through the worst in life and yet he can smile. He can sit for this. He's going on."
Yarosh, now 27 and back home in Windsor, N.Y., didn't accept his new look easily. He didn't see his face until five months after the explosion – and then only by accident when he glimpsed himself in the reflection from a laptop computer screen.
"It took another six months to get used to it, especially to going out in public," said Yarosh, who says he still scares little children sometimes. "I'm so used to it now. I still get looks but it doesn't bother me."
Several visitors wandering the gallery seemed drawn to his portrait. Many stopped to read Yarosh's own words about his ordeal in Iraq: "That day started the same as every other day, but that day has never ended."
The portrait is "beautiful but also alarming," said Odile Schalit, 24, of New York. She wondered what it would be like to lose control over her own face, that most basic ingredient of identity. Then, gesturing around, she said, "After seeing this, so many of the other portraits seem so self-indulgent."
Yarosh said he always wanted to sit for a portrait and is thrilled with the one Mitchell painted. He says the artist captured him "perfectly," even though his lack of ears and a nose meant Mitchell had to paint "totally outside his box" to convey the soldier's character.
"It's more than just a portrait, more than just a painting," Yarosh said. "It's a story."
Museum volunteer Heidi Whitesel, 67, of Gainesville, Va., said it was fitting that the soldier's portrait hung among those of others who made a difference in history. Their achievements, she said, were often made possible by the sacrifice of those in the military.
"He's transformed his personal tragedy into an inspiration for others," she said. "It helps us to walk a little more in the shoes and have less fear and more respect."
Some visitors chatted with Yarosh, who arrived before the museum opened. Others, though obviously moved by his likeness, seemed ill at ease when they realized he was nearby. Some glanced his way before moving to another gallery.
For a few, the portrait was political, a reminder of the horrors of war and the wrongness in particular of the one in Iraq. ( ASSHOLE COMMENT ~ Wild Thing )
"Every kid standing in line to go in the Army should look at this," said Bill Meyer, 72, a retiree from Baja, Mexico. "It makes me very glad I chose not to go in the service." ( ASSHOLE comment!!! ~ Wild Thing )
Kathryn Chase, 58, of Austin, said, "It's wonderful someone is recording these tragic stories. I'm very opposed to that war but really respect the people sacrificing in it."
Yarosh said he is "not a symbol of the war gone wrong" and remains "100 percent proud of my service" in Iraq. He hopes those who see his portrait come away with the same sense of pride.
A group of parents and their home-schooled children from Woodbridge, Va., who were on a field trip shared Yarosh's pride and were also grateful for his sacrifice.
"This reminds me that our life is so easy compared to the soldiers fighting the war on a daily basis," said Linene Kleppe, 36, whose husband is in the Air Force but whose job working with satellites has kept him off the battlefield. She asked her four children what they thought about the painting.
"I don't really know," said daughter Madigan, 8. Staring more intently, she added, "He looks like he's been in a lot of battles.
"He's just a guy with an Army shirt on," said her brother McCoy, 6. "He's happy. He's not scary."
Yarosh's father holds a photo of the soldier taken before his injury in Iraq. On Sept. 1, 2006, the Bradley assault vehicle Yarosh was manning hit an explosive device. Engulfed in flames, he jumped from the top of the vehicle and rolled around on the ground to try and snuff out the fire. Yarosh eventually fell into a water-filled canal, where the flames were extinguished. He suffered burns on more than 60 percent of his body.
Yarosh's body is covered in scar tissue, and he's lost parts of his nose, ears and his right leg. His fingers are permanently bent and rigid.
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Wild Thing's comment.........
This is a wonderful article minus the two scumbag assholes two comments. A story about an American Hero and I am honored to post this story!!! Thank you Army Sgt. Rich Yarosh for your service to our country, I can sit here in safety because of you sir.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:49 AM | Comments (3)
October 24, 2009
Wounded Warriors Return to Iraq for a Bit of Closure & Camaraderie
Wounded Warriors Return to Iraq for a Bit of Closure & Camaraderie
Wild Thing's comment........
Recently on Fox News, Julie Banderas featured a special segment of wounded warriors who returned to Iraq for a homecoming, of sorts, to try and find some closure of their time in the battle. What a touching story this was, and what a reminder it is that we owe our very freedoms to these men and woman so we may enjoy the lives we are currently living.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (6)
October 21, 2009
The U-2 Dragon Lady Endures
Staff Sgt. Austin P. Dibenedetto, 380th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, gears-up for the U-2's departure, Oct. 18
The Lady Endures
Story by 2nd Lt. Kidron Vestal
The year was 1968.
The Tet Offensive began in Vietnam. Simon & Garfunkel premiered the soundtrack to The Graduate. Martin Luther King 'had a dream.'
The U.S. Air Force had a vision. The plane known as the U-2 Dragon Lady, Aircraft No. 068-0337, came on board to offer strategic, aerial capabilities equal to none. It exceeded its 25,000th hour of flight, Oct. 18, in a mission out of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, Southwest Asia.
America's premier, high-altitude intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance plane is the second U-2 to reach this milestone. Aircraft No. 068-0329 clocked a quarter of 100,000 hours, April 4, also of the 380th AEW. These two are the first of 33 U-2 airframes worldwide to achieve this feat.
The plane, with a wingspan of 105 feet, is maintained by military members and civilian contractors. Many elements come together on this piece of equipment, manufactured by Lockheed Martin.
Superintendents help oversee the maintenance operations of their dedicated crew chiefs, and assistant dedicated crew chiefs, who care for the plane as though she were their own.
"Every day, they come to work knowing they are responsible for the most critical high-altitude intelligence asset in the world, and they are dedicated to ensuring every mission is delivered on time and ready for the fight," said Capt. Vaughan Whited, 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron officer-in-charge.
This celebrated plane has overcome much in its 41 years. Over the course of Aircraft No. 0337's life, it has bellied in three times, each requiring a major overhaul.
Capt. Whited said, "The technicians and contractors continue to synergize their best maintenance practices in order to ensure she keeps flying strong."
The plane's design is accommodating for the ISR mission, not necessarily for an ease in maintenance. This makes No. 0337's achievement even more remarkable.
Tech. Sgt. Dave Wright, 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron expeditor, says the airframe is more labor-intensive than others, given its age and the changes in technology over time. When designed, some things were not considered, he said.
"Most aircraft have access panels and a hydraulic system that is easily accessible. The U-2 does not," said Sgt. Wright. While this might appear as a blunder, there may be a good explanation.
Col. Ricky R. Murphy, 380th Expeditionary Maintenance Group commander, said, "The U-2 is unique in that to maximize combat capability, there's no redundancy in the primary systems on the aircraft...as to minimize weight and maximize loiter time over the area of operations."
There are various platforms of ISR systems, with cameras that capture the broadest, most in-depth imagery of anything out there, said Capt. Whited.
Because of their maintenance, the systems are, "Consistently reliable every time," said Col. Murphy.
Ten thousand five-hundred feet of Kodak film is used on the weapon system, in addition to digital and satellite documentation. Artistry for this airframe is not limited to such imagery, however.
Staff Sgt.'s Jason A. Ortiz and Michael L. McVey, 380th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, sketched with chalk symbolic designs on the airframe, prior to the flight.
Consistency was a highlight of the day, echoed by Chief Master Sgt.'s William K. Renner and David E. McGuigan, 380th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron (Chief McGuigan, Group).
"Looking at it long-term shows you how you have consistent maintenance practices over time," said both gentlemen near-simultaneously. Four decades of 'getting it right' led us to Oct. 18.
Success did not come by accident. Every factor for attention is considered, even for the operator.
Given the aerial elements that the pilot will face at 70,000 feet, Lt. Col. Robert B. Wehner, 380th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, received pure oxygen for one whole hour prior to flight. Thus, his pre-flight inspection was executed by another pilot, as is the practice for every U-2 mission.
"There is a huge amount of trust there for a pilot, between the maintainers and other pilots," said Capt. Whited.
Even with the layered workload, he continued, "Many have said the U-2 is the most demanding and rewarding aircraft anyone could fly."
The Dragon Lady was once assigned to the CIA, and flew special operations worldwide. After a reassignment to the Air Force, the U-2 was present for every major allied contingency to date. She is used for diverse missions as well, including the mapping of wildfires in California and providing oversight to the Counter Drug War in Panama years back.
Over the years, the wingspan grew, the cockpit was upgraded, and the engine became more fuel-efficient. Other than that, the plane is the same as it was when embraced by the Air Force.
For the pilot who flew the Dragon Lady into its honored status, Colonel Wehner said, "If that airplane feels as good as I do, I guess that's a good thing for both being 41 years old."
The men and women of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing support Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (4)
October 12, 2009
Camp Keating 12 Hour Battle ~ Interviews Of Our Heroes
THIS WAS BEFORE THE ATTACK HAPPENED.
" I forgot I had this, but was looking through all of my pictures and videos of COP Keating since it's been in the news lately (COP Keating is gone now). This place will always hold a special place in my heart as this is where I felt most at home when in Afghanistan. I was trying to make a video diary for my mother and put a face on the men of the 6-4 cav because she was sending care packages to them, but I stopped because I just felt like an intruder. I meant to go back and do a sactioned video diary with the Mayor of the base, but never got around to it. "
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US forces leave isolated Afghan base after attack
On the day of President Obama’s glorious Nobel Appease Prize victory, a Taliban henchman gloats in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Kamdesh siege. The battle marked the largest loss of U.S. life in a single skirmish in more than a year. Besides the eight Americans slain, three Afghan soldiers and an estimated 100 insurgents died, according to NATO.
Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the U.S. bombarded the outpost with airstrikes after leaving, as well as the local police headquarters.
“This means they are not coming back,” Mujahid said. “This is another victory for Taliban. We have control of another district in eastern Afghanistan.”
“Right now Kamdesh is under our control, and the white flag of the Taliban is raised above Kamdesh,” Mujahid said.
A senior official of the Nuristan provincial government confirmed Taliban forces were in control of the village and Afghan police and soldiers had withdrawn from the district. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Provincial police chief, Gen. Mohammad Qasim Jangulbagh, said the pullout “has had a direct affect on the morale of Afghan forces.”
“If Afghan soldiers are losing support, how can they stay there?” he asked. “We need the coalition to send their forces back. We need more police, more soldiers.”
The battle marked the largest loss of U.S. life in a single skirmish in more than a year. Besides the eight Americans slain, three Afghan soldiers and an estimated 100 insurgents died, according to NATO.
Nick Paton Walsh joins U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as they come under attack.
Interviews with soldiers at Combat Outpost Keating (Aug 2009)...THIS VIDEO IS FROM CNN AND THAT AWFUL Michael Ware!
Wild Thing's Comment........
CIC Obama did NOTHING! Other then giving the Generals and our troops the FINGER!
The Taliban must have enjoyed the CNN * piece because it gave them perfect intel.
And when someone from the outpost informed the local village elders that the camp would be closed in two weeks-
what did the wonderful locals do-the ones are guys are giving their lives to protect ?
They ran to the Taliban and ratted out our guys.
Attack soon , before they leave.
We have a CINC who has been and continues to be - Derelict in his duty .
That conclusion is inescapable and glaringly obvious .
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U.S. soldiers recount fierce Afghanistan battle
The assault began at dawn, as bullets and rockets peppered the remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan.
The insurgency was so fierce, according to one soldier, that the troops couldn't get to their mortars to fire back.
"They were under heavy enemy contact," Sgt. Jayson Souter said, describing the October 3 attack that pinned his comrades at Combat Outpost Keating, a remote base in Nuristan province.
Four servicemen -- Souter, a fellow soldier, an Apache helicopter pilot, and a gunner -- talked to a military reporter about their roles during the Keating attack in an interview posted by the Department of Defense on Facebook and NATO's International Security Assistance Force YouTube Channel.
The United States says about 200 insurgents -- mostly local fighters, with some Taliban organizers and leaders -- had been planning the attack for days, hiding mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns in the mountains.
The battle started early on October 3 and lasted for 12 hours. At the end, eight American soldiers and more than 100 militants were killed and buildings at the outpost were destroyed.
Fire support officer 1st Lt. Cason Shrode said the initial round "didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary." There was a lull and then there was a heavy attack.
"We started receiving a heavy volley of fire. Probably 90 seconds into the fight they ended up hitting one of our generators so we lost all power," Shrode said in the interview posted online by the Defense Department. "At that point I knew that this was something bigger than normal."
Troops called in air support. Helicopter gunner Chad Bardwell said he had to confirm the fighters he saw on ridgelines were the enemy because he had never seen such a large group of insurgents. ( from Wild Thing ...this is because of the R.O.E and how they have to be careful not to fire on civilians which is BS! It is getting our troops killed! )
"We tried to stop them as they were coming down the hill. ... We were taking fire pretty much the entire day," he said in the Defense Department interview.
Chief Warrant Officer Ross Lewallen, the Apache pilot, said a few aircraft were damaged in what was a "time-consuming endeavor" governed by tough terrain. He said the morning battle was "significant," but later troops were able to identify targets and eliminate larger weapons.
"One of the primary reasons for the fight taking so long is that it is an extreme terrain," he said in the same interview.
Lewallen said the valley sits beneath mountains to the west and north.
"There's a lot of cover so you really can't detect the enemy until they start moving again," he said, adding that it was tough for medical evacuation aircraft to land "because we were still trying to control" the outpost.
The intense assault on Keating led to fires. There were five main buildings at the post and four of them burned. Soldiers eventually ended up going into one building.
"The next morning it was pretty much ash besides that one building. I mean that's the way to describe it. Most of it had burned down. So we were pretty much at one building and the rest was just a shadow of what it used to be," Shrode said in the Defense Department interview.
Lewallen said what came together was "air-ground integration."
"All the training we've done before deploying here; it really clicked that day," he said in the interview. "We started realizing that the guys on the ground knew what they needed to tell us to get the job done. It made things that much easier."
He disputed media reports suggesting that there weren't enough weapons and troops. He said 40 minutes into the fight, air power arrived.
We had everything we needed. It was just a big attack with a lot of people. Bad things happen -- but I think we did well, under the circumstances."
Reflecting on the fight, Souter said, "Everybody basically came together and in the mix of it all, they were donating blood for the wounded that we had. They all pulled together to make sure that we can pull our boys out of this."
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Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews -- from the soldiers who were there, and the pilots who flew in. Interview by ISAF Media.
NATOs main role in Afghanistan is to assist the Afghan Government in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance. It does this predominately through its UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force.
Since NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, the Alliance has gradually expanded the reach of its mission, originally limited to Kabul, to cover Afghanistans whole territory. The number of ISAF troops has grown accordingly from the initial 5,000 to around 50.000 troops coming from 42 countries, including all 28 NATO members.
ISAF is a key component of the international community's engagement in Afghanistan, assisting the Afghan authorities in providing security and stability and creating the conditions for reconstruction and development.
Part 1
Pilots and Soldiers talk to a military reporter about their roles in the recent insurgent attack on Combat Outpost Keating near Jalalabad, Afghanistan and give detailed accounts of the events of this specific attack. Part 1 of 5.
Interviewees:
• 1st Lt. Cason Shrode (US), Fires Support Officer
• Chief Warrant Officer Ross Lewallen (US), Apache Pilot
• Sgt. Jayson Souter (US)
• Chief Warrant Officer Chad Bardwell (US), Apache Gunner
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Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews-2
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Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews-3
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Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews-4
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Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews-5
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Camp Keating - after the attack 1
Camp Keating, Afghanistan (former Kamdesh PRT)
Outside 360-degree view of the now abandoned and destroyed Camp Keating in Kamdesh, Afghanistan. This footage was taken in 2007. The bridge was just outside the base, immediately above the HLZ. The Camp Keating perimeter is outlined in HESCO barriers.
The strength, courage and steadfast determination of the US personnel who lived, fought and died here should never be forgotten.
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after the attack 2
Camp Keating, Afghanistan (former Kamdesh PRT)
Wounded U.S. Soldiers Refused to Leave Taliban Fight
( ABC News' Karen Russo was the only reporter to get to the scene of this bloody firefight between U.S. troops and hundreds of Taliban insurgents when she went in on a MEDEVAC helicopter. Here is her report: )
Flying into the besieged Afghan base during a nighttime firefight this weekend was a harrowing mix of overwhelming noise, stomach dropping maneuvers and shadows hurrying through the gloom.
When the chopper lifted off moments later with three wounded soldiers, it left behind others who were wounded but refused to be MEDEVACED out of the combat zone so they could return to fight with their buddies.
Fighting raged at two remote U.S. outpostsnear the Pakistan border this weekend, that left eight U.S. soldiers dead and 24 wounded. The battle was fought from Friday night through Sunday as hundreds of Taliban insurgents and their allies tried to overrun the Americans.
During the fighting, the insurgents succeeded in breaching the outer defense of the base at times before being repelled with the help of attack helicopters, fighter jets and drones. It was the bloodiest battle in a year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
During the fight, the MEDEVAC team at a nearby base waited - with both patience and frustration.
MEDEVAC teams are known for flying into some of the most deadly areas in the world to rescue injured soldiers. MEDEVAC helicopters are unarmed so they often need supporting aircraft to protect them, and sometimes the cover of darkness is their only defense.
On Saturday night, the team finally received the go-ahead as the sun set. Within moments of receiving the call, we rushed to the helicopter and quickly sped to the outposts.
As we were flying into the attack space, the MEDEVAC team with one medic and a doctor were preparing for the oncoming patients, setting up IV's, pulling out medical equipment and making other last minute preparations.
Apache helicopter gunships escorted us as we neared the combat zone to ensure our safety as we hovered at 10,000 feet awaiting word to descend. When word came, we plummeted in a corkscrew manner, making the descent in a matter of seconds, landing in a valley at the bottom of steep mountains. It felt very vulnerable to attack.
One of the pilots said that even though he had night vision goggles and ordinarily he can see in that sort of situation, because the fighting was intense there was so much smoke it was actually fogged over and it was difficult for him to see. Fortunately he could make out the landing zone, but it was touch and go.
Once on the ground, I hopped out of the chopper, but could see little other than smoke wafting through the moonlight, likely from a fire that was burning much of the base. Then I could make out the shadows of soldiers as they carried the wounded towards the helicopter.
Any noise of the conflict was drowned out by the propellers of the helicopter. The area smelled of burned out pine trees something one solider described as "death and hell."
Three wounded soldiers, one U.S. and two Afghan, were carried down the steep incline and quickly placed on the helicopter.
Some of the injured refused to be MEDEVACED out of the combat zone and continued to fight despite their wounds, according to soldiers at the base. Soldiers told the MEDEVAC crew that troops were donating blood during the battle, so it could be transfused into wounded comrades.
Between the gloom of night and the smoke, it was too dark to see much and the roar of the chopper made it almost impossible to hear commands.
I was quickly sort of touched by a crew member to get on the flight. I hopped on and even before I was on, the medical team was already working on the wounded.
Doctors wore night vision goggles, but still found it difficult to see. One doctor said it was like working by touch.
We were on the ground for a little more than five minutes, but in the chaos of noise and darkness, it felt like it could have been anything from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.
Moments later, the chopper lifted into the air and flew to the nearest medical facility. Despite the heroism of the crew, one of the soldiers died after reaching the facility. It wasn't immediately announced whether the soldier who died was American or Afghan.
The eight American troops killed in the battle were all from Fort Carson in Colorado Springs:
"In the deadliest day for Fort Carson since Vietnam, eight soldiers from the post’s 4th Brigade Combat Team died in Afghanistan on Saturday when insurgents attacked a pair of remote outposts in Nuristan province.
The Army hasn’t identified the dead, but several military sources confirmed that all eight were from the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade, which went to war in May and in recent days began withdrawing from remote areas to better provide security in cities and villages.
“My heart goes out to the families of those we have lost and to their fellow Soldiers who remained to finish this fight,” Col. Randy George, the brigade’s commander, said in a statement late Saturday. “This was a complex attack in a difficult area. Both the U.S. and Afghan Soldiers fought bravely together; I am extremely proud of their professionalism and bravery.”
Please take time to read the profiles of the American soldiers who died in the siege at Kamdesh.
The Colorado Springs Gazette tells their stories HERE and also HERE
Many were fathers. All were patriots. They were stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. They leave behind grieving wives, girlfriends, young children, family, and friends. Remember their names. Remember their heroism:
Spc. Stephan Lee Mace, 21
Sgt. Joshua Kirk, 30
Pfc. Kevin Thomson, 22
Spc. Christopher T. Griffin
Spc. Michael P. Scusa, 22
Sgt. Vernon W. Martin
Sgt. Justin T. Gallegos, 22
Sgt. Joshua M. Hardt, 24
Spc. Mace’s family is speaking out. Let’s pray the White House is listening:
Stephan Mace of the Army’s 61st Cavalry Regiment knew the Taliban would be waiting for him when he returned to eastern Afghanistan in September.
During a two-week leave in early September, the 21-year-old specialist sat on his father’s couch in Winchester, Virginia, and discussed his concerns over Forward Operating Base Keating in Kamdesh District, a region known as a Taliban stronghold.
“He talked about the village next to the base, that it had 300 Taliban, and they couldn’t do anything about it because they were in mosques hiding or with other civilians,” says his father, Larry Mace.
“They knew they were there and they couldn’t do anything about it and they killed them.”
Added comment from Wild Thing,
In comparing the size of the area......South Vietnam was 62,000 square miles, heavy foliage in the jungles and tunneling . Afghanistan is four times as big at 252,000 square miles,much of which is extremely mountainous and challenges even modern warplanes. That is, the enemy on high peaks know the helos must fly in a certain valley to come to support a besieged forward operating base.
Think about the number of troops and warplanes we had in VN, at 62,000 square miles, compared to a much smaller number in Afghanistan, at 252,000 square miles.
Those combat support aircraft are spread mighty thin, and flying times are long.
For combat casualties, this is BAD. It’s like being shot in West Texas, and being medevaced to Houston for treatment, via a slow helicopter. In Iraq, from wounding to hospital is measured in minutes, in Afghanistan, it may be HOURS.
Obama needs to realize this and listen to the General that has been boots on the ground and knows. Unlike Obama that cannot even take the oath of office without messing up. He needs to understand our troops have got to OWN the mountain areas not only the lowlands.
The location of Camp Keating reminds me a lot of like Dien Bien Phu. It too was set in a bowl surrounded by hills.
With Obama as CIC it is a Kluster Foxtrot!!!
He McCrystal not needed in talks taking place in DC re strategy - told him to wait - after all, he had basketball to play. Then he comes out with the Taliban not really an enemy, has role in Afghanistan’s future and let's leave the Taliban alone and only go after the al-queda and add into that the stupidest R.O.E. that I have heard of totally dangerous to our troops.
And let's not forget this as well....from another date where Obama is at faullt with his .R.O.E.'s
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
‘We’re pinned down:’ 4 U.S. Marines die in Afghan ambush
U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.
“We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today,” Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter’s repeated demands for helicopters.
Survivors in Afghanistan Need Immediate Help - 56 Soldiers Lost EVERYTHING
Please join me in contributing to the Combat Outpost Keating Relief Fund.
Mothax at the American Legion’s Burn Pit blog writes that “[i]n the battle for Combat Outpost Keating, the men of Bravo Troop 361 Cavalry lost every possession they had, save for the clothes on their backs.”
Also Tankerbabe has a list if you want to sent a package and what is still needed.
All personal belongings were destroyed. They lost everything. But the army is attempting to get them new uniforms.
They needed everything from underclothes, all personal hygiene supplies, cold weather gear - remember, they are in the high Hindu Kush mts. = some of the most severe winter weather on earth - and no comfy barracks, etc., - They needed heavy wool socks, wool helmet liners, balaclavas, gloves, long johns, , fleece blankets, etc etc...and they lost their iPods, DVDs, and other little things that helped keep them sane.
That is a lot of stuff to replace quickly for 56 soldiers.
Guess what - within 3 days of flurry - ALMOST everything on the list has been raised and is one the way. Fantastic!
WE KNOW. WE CARE.
Here is where to donate online using your credit card.
Here is where to mail checks:
COP Keating Relief Fund
PO Box 1954
Indianapolis 46206
Here is an online form that you can send in with your checks. Make sure you have COP Keating Relief Fund on the check so we can allocate it correctly.
If you want to send stuff today, and do it completely on your own, please mail to:
CSM Robert Wilson
TF Mountain Warrior
FOB Bostick
APO AE 09354
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (6)
Weapons Failed US Troops During Afghan Firefight
The Army's new rife project was cancled. Here's what the SpecOps guys buy and use - according to what I could find.
SCAR (SOF Combat Assault Rifle) FN SCAR: Mark 16 and Mark 17- Special Forces Combat Assault Rifle (USA/Belgium
FN SCAR-H/Mk.17 rifle prototype in CQC (Close Quarter Combat, short barrel) configuration, 7.62x51 mm NATO version
FN SCAR-L/Mk.16 rifle partially disassembled; note additional quick-detachable barrel
The M240, formally identified as the United States Machine Gun, 7.62 millimeter, M240, is a family of belt-fed, gas operated middle sized machine guns firing the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. The M240 was adopted by the U.S. Military following a world-wide contest for a reliable 7.62 mm machine gun for use as a coaxial weapon for armored motor vehicle applications. The Coaxial edition of the legendary Belgian FN MAG 58 (Mitrailleuse d'Appui General or General Purpose Machine Gun), created by FN Herstal, won this contest. Despite not being the lightest medium machine gun in service, the M240 is highly regarded for reliability, and its standardization among NATO members is also seen as a major advantage. The demonstrated consistency of this weapon, 26,000 Mean Rounds Between Failure (MRBF), makes it the world's most dependable machine gun. ( The Gun Source )
Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight
It was chaos during the early morning assault last year on a remote U.S. outpost in Afghanistan and Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine had quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.
When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.
Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?
Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.
A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war.
Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. "It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn't work correctly," he said.
Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4, aren't new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than 3,000 rounds before any failures occur.
The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a leading critic of the M4, said Thursday the Army needs to move quickly to acquire a combat rifle suited for the extreme conditions U.S. troops are fighting in.
U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can't, already are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.
"The M4 has served us well but it's not as good as it needs to be," Coburn said.
Battlefield surveys show that nearly 90 percent of soldiers are satisfied with their M4s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of the Army office that buys soldier gear. Still, the rifle is continually being improved to make it even more reliable and lethal.
Fuller said he's received no official reports of flawed weapons performance at Wanat. "Until it showed up in the news, I was surprised to hear about all this," he said.
The study by Douglas Cubbison of the Army Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., hasn't been publicly released. Copies of the study have been leaked to news organizations and are circulating on the Internet.
Cubbison's study is based on an earlier Army investigation and interviews with soldiers who survived the attack at Wanat. He describes a well-coordinated attack by a highly skilled enemy that unleashed a withering barrage with AK-47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
The soldiers said their weapons were meticulously cared for and routinely inspected by commanders. But still the weapons had breakdowns, especially when the rifles were on full automatic, which allows hundreds of bullets to be fired a minute.
The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.
Cpl. Jonathan Ayers and Spc. Chris McKaig were firing their M4s from a position the soldiers called the "Crow's Nest." The pair would pop up together from cover, fire half a dozen rounds and then drop back down.
On one of these trips up, Ayers was killed instantly by an enemy round. McKaig soon had problems with his M4, which carries a 30-round magazine.
"My weapon was overheating," McKaig said, according to Cubbison's report. "I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn't charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down."
The soldiers also had trouble with their M249 machine guns, a larger weapon than the M4 that can shoot up to 750 rounds per minute.
Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.
Bogar was killed during the firefight, but no one saw how he died, according to the report.
Wild Thing's comment......
Our troops are brave, well trained professionals and so many have sacrificed their lives for our country. I do a lot of volunteer work with the military and with Veterans. When I meet our troops and Veterans in person, online, at the VA, the Disabled Veterans group or other places I am involved with I truly couldn’t be prouder of them.
I put a few guns for the graphics they are beautiful! The bottom lilne for me is I want the best for our troops whatever it takes, and I could care less what it costs financially.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:49 AM | Comments (9)
October 10, 2009
Obama Is Directly Responsible For The Unnecessary Deaths Of Our Servicemen
Frontline: 10-minute rough cut of the first act of "Obama's War", part one of the PBS documentary
This video is from an upcoming PBS Frontline special called Obama’s War.
This special airs on October 13th at 9PM.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Any American who would leave our men on the battlefield there and not send them the reinforcements they need should be shot.
Obama has tied our military’s hands behind their backs by the restrictive ROE - and the Taliban are taking full advantage of it. Unleash the dogs and let our military do their job!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (10)
Sergeant Jeremiah Workman ~ Thank You!
h/t WOT
His Book:
Shadow of the Sword: A Marine's Journey of War, Heroism, and Redemption
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"Derek Sholl's new song, "When They Come Back" captures beautifully the experience of our returning combat veterans as they struggle to make the transition from warrior to civilian while dealing with the physical and mental wounds they've brought with them from the battlefield. Sholl avoids the ultra-patriotic tone of such songs as Toby Keith's American Soldier and Courtesy of the Red White and Blue for a much more honest and personal accounting of what it means to be an American warrior growing up and following in his father's footsteps.
With his powerful voice setting the emotional tone of the song, and the lyrics speaking honestly and with intensity rarely seen in the pop music scene, "When They Come Back" is destined to speak for a generation. This is a rare gem, one that will stand for years to come. And decades from now, when the veteran is asked by his son or grandson, "What was it like?" the answer will be, "Listen to this song. That's the way it was for all of us."
- John R. Bruning, Co-Author of "Shadow of the Sword"
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Sergeant Jeremiah Workman shares his story at the American Veterans Center's 2008 conference. Workman received the Navy Cross for his actions during Operation Phantom Fury during the Second Battle of Fallujah.
According to the citation, he was awarded for extraordinary heroism, while serving as a squad leader for the Mortar Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Workman, exemplifying the old adage "no man left behind," repeatedly exposed himself to a hail of enemy fire to retrieve isolated Marines trapped inside an insurgent-infested building.
Ignoring heavy enemy fire and a storm of grenades raining down on his position, Workman fearlessly laid down enough cover fire to allow the trapped Marines to escape.
After seeing the first group of wounded Marines safely to a neighboring yard, Workman rallied additional Marines to his side and provided more cover fire for an attack into the building to rescue other Marines still trapped. He continued to fire even after receiving numerous shrapnel wounds to his arms and legs after a grenade exploded in front of him, stated his citation.
Workman's efforts did not stop after the second rescue attack. Ignoring his wounds, Workman once again united his team for a final assault strike into the building to retrieve remaining Marines and to clear the building of insurgents.
"Basically, we got ambushed," he said. "There were insurgents on the second floor in a bedroom. We fought our way up the stairs. There were grenades going off around us (and) small arms fire everywhere."
During the course of the fight, Workman was responsible for the elimination of more than 20 insurgents.
While the citation states he "reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps," Workman does not dwell on the fact that he is a Navy Cross recipient. All that matters in the long run are the lives lost and saved during the war, he said.
"The first thing I thought about was all the Marines we lost over there," Workman said, reflecting on that fateful day. "I don't look at myself as being any different. I did what any other Marine would have done. There are thousands of other Marines over there (in the Middle East) that deserve to be awarded, too."
Workman's modesty is evident to his fellow Marines here as well.
"I have a lot of respect for Sergeant Workman," said Staff Sgt. Jeff Moses, operations chief for Delta Company, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion. "He's been very humble about everything. (What he did) is just amazing."
Wild Thing's comment........
Thank you Sergeant Jeremiah Workman! God bless you!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (13)
October 09, 2009
Mother and Son Serve Together in Afghanistan
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Seth Alderman, a squad leader for the military police in the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, waits for his squad prior to a mission out of Combat Outpost Sabari in the Khost province of eastern Afghanistan. Photo by Pfc. Andrya Hill
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Mother and Son Serve Together in Afghanistan
Story by Pfc. Andrya Hill
Deployed Soldiers have all kissed their families good-bye, and headed off to war with the expectation of learning to handle the constant heartache of missing their loved ones.
However, in a rare exception, two Soldiers in eastern Afghanistan have found unexpected relief from this typical situation by being assigned to the same location at Forward Operating Base Salerno in the Khost province.
U.S. Army Maj. Una Alderman, the chief nurse officer for the 452nd Combat Support Hospital, received deployment orders after her son had already been serving in Afghanistan.
“His mailing address said Salerno, and then I found out that was where I was going. I just couldn’t believe it,” she explained.
Her son, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Seth Alderman, a military policeman with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, out of Alaska, was equally surprised.
“When I came here with 4-25 in March, she was on orders waiting to deploy, but we didn’t know where,” he said. “When I found out she was coming here, to Salerno, I just thought ‘Wow.’ It was a huge surprise to both of us.”
Seth works on Combat Outpost Sabari, just a few miles from FOB Salerno, and convoys between the two locations each month.
“Having her here really gives me something to look forward to when I come to Salerno,” he said.
While their close proximity is unique to the deployed environment, and provides a form of solace in the midst of war, it also enables more frequent visits than they have experienced in the U.S.
“It is nice because I live in Wisconsin, and Seth lives in Alaska. We’ll be able to see each other on a more regular basis here, instead of every year-and-a-half,” Una said.
Both Soldiers said they have tremendous support from their colleagues, and other Soldiers are excited about their opportunity.
“There is a lot of joking around from my Soldiers, but there is also a level of respect. They think, who else’s mom is over here, really?” Seth said.
Combat brings a level of daily danger and with Una working in the hospital, and her son working on the ground, they each have had to face the possibility of continuing their jobs in an unfortunate tragedy.
“I am a mom, he is my son, so I do worry,” said Una.
Despite her motherly worry, Una, with help from others is able to focus on her mission.
“I have a lot of support from the colleagues that I work with, and we will do the job regardless,” she said.
Seth has a half-year remaining in his year-long deployment, and Maj. Alderman has just begun hers. They said they are appreciative of the time they will get to spend together, and are looking forward to the new level of camaraderie, as fellow Soldiers, as well as mother and son.
“I am really proud to be in the Army,” Una said. “The people I am here with are just outstanding Soldiers, so I think it is going to be a very good year, a very meaningful year. Besides my children, this is probably one of the most meaningful things I’ll ever do in my life, and adding that Seth is here, at least until February or March, it makes it that much better.”
Wild Thing's comment..........
Great story!! I have posted several where there is a father and son, or two brothers, etc. But this is the first one of a son and his Mother serving together.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:50 AM | Comments (4)
October 05, 2009
Apache Engage 3 Terrorists in Iraq
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Wild Thing's comment...............
Way to start the day of right! OH yesssssss!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:55 AM | Comments (8)
September 28, 2009
USN SEAL Lt. Daniel Cnossen Needs Our Support
USN SEAL Lt. Daniel Cnossen, WIA 9/8/09 needs YOUR support~SEAL Team One, USNA '02
USN SEAL Lt. Daniel Cnossen is a member of SEAL Team One based in Coronado, CA. He is also a 2002 graduate of the United States Naval Academy
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On September 6th, 2009, Dan returned to Kandahar, Afghanistan. With less than 36 hours on the ground, his team received their first mission task targeting Taliban operatives. During the mission, Dan activated a land mine and lost both legs, and sustained traumatic internal injuries. Currently he is at the National Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland where he is fighting a new battle. Like any other challenge in his life, Dan will face this one with courage and dedication. Already, friends and family have witnessed Dan’s unbelievable strength as he begins what will surely be a long and difficult recovery. Despite the challenges ahead, Dan remains positive and exudes his kindness and true appreciation for friends and family, and for life.
Although known to some as Danny boy or Danger Dan, to others as Cnoss, C-Nasty, Disco Dan, or Batta Bing, and to some just plain Dan, we all know and love Dan Cnossen as a courageous and determined leader, a strong and selfless man, and a dedicated and unconditional friend. Though he can be described as introverted and a bit stoic, Dan’s friends prefer to use the words soft spoken and humble instead. A truly genuine and loyal person, Dan is also known to have a way with words, creating laughter in the wake of his humor, and amazement from his friends and family with his curiosity and zest for life.
His life’s motto, “Life is all about extremes” plays out everyday in both his professional and personal life, and he is excited by and drawn to activities that challenge him both physically and mentally. From the moment he learned about the US Navy SEAL program, he was hooked by the pure challenge, and immediately dedicated himself to preparing for it. In his free time Dan took on many adrenaline-filled adventures: climbing Mount Machu Picchu, Peru; hiking Patagonia’s Torres del Paine, Chile; mountaineering through Samaria Gorge, Crete; free-climbing Mount Whitney, CA; skiing the back country of Mount Baker, WA; and swimming the Mediterranean and Dead Seas. Dan’s sense of adventure has also taken him to Argentina, Uruguay, Columbia, Egypt, Jordan, Guatemala, Turkey, Mexico, and Spain.
Among his local adventures, Dan loves to rock climb and run. Those who know him from the Naval Academy share memories of sneaking off the Navy yard to join Dan on these (and other) extreme excursions. Dan amazed friends when he would sign up for a 50-mile race or ultra-marathon just weeks before a race. Taking on these unbelievably difficult tasks only further exemplifies Dan’s immense mental and physical strength, and true passion for challenge, adventure, and reaching life’s absolute limits. Some people train their entire lives to accomplish what Dan would decide to do on a whim.
Dan was born and raised in Topeka, Kansas on a small farm owned by his grandfather, and spent his childhood working on the farm, reading, running, boxing and playing soccer. Upon arriving at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1998, Dan had never seen the ocean, had never learned how to swim, and could barely make it across the pool. Dan only saw this as yet another challenge, and because he was fully dedicated to succeeding, he sought out friends to help him learn how to swim. Dan would often skip lunch and head to the pool, and immediately joined the Navy Triathlon Team to further strengthen his swimming abilities. But being a member of the team wasn’t enough. By his senior year, Dan was elected a captain, and lead the team to a national championship. Friends watched as Dan woke up at 5am every morning to run, and then return to the gym or pool for a second and even third workout everyday. Each day Dan focused tenaciously on his ultimate goal of becoming a US Navy SEAL.
Upon graduating from the US Naval Academy in 2002, Dan headed to San Diego, CA with several classmates, and immediately began fulfilling his orders to Basic Underwater Demolition and SEAL school (BUDs Class 242). He successfully completed some of the most mentally and physically rigorous training in the United States military, and succeeded in fulfilling his life-long goal. Dan was pinned as a US Navy SEAL, and reported to his SEAL Team, stationed in Coronado, CA.
As a junior officer, he served two deployments in Iraq, one to the Philippines, and supported JSOC with a deployment to Afghanistan.
You can go here to Dan's website and see the Video....if you click at the top where it says updates you can also comment at the guest book or othe next page to give support. ~ Thank you.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
This is from Rob, one of Dan's closest friends:
Family & Friends,
Just wanted to send you all a quick update on Dan...He is doing great and everyday is getting better and better. Yesterday, the ICU took Dan off the ventilator and to everyone's surprise he started talking. Dan remembers pretty much everything in detail, and his spirits are as high as ever. He understands his injuries and is anxious to start his rehab as soon as possible. He was even cracking jokes about the number of pullups he'll be able to knock out.... and how fast he'll be swimming with bionic fin attachments. He will be undergoing a surgical wash out today and will continue his surgical debridement/reconstructive surgeries every other day for sometime, hopefully to be out of the ICU in two weeks or less. He has the verybest surgeons... the White House medical team in fact. He wanted me to pass along to each of you that he loves you all and looks forward to seeing you all soon. Out of respect for Dan's family, and the necessity for Dan to get as much rest as he can while in the ICU, he wanted me to pass along that unless you are family or very close and immediate friend to please wait to visit until he is out of the ICU in 1-2 weeks. So far the support has been tremendous and the NSW community has taken great care of Dan and his family. Please feel free to send cards or notes of support to Dan and the family. As Dan begins the road to complete recovery, please continue to keep his Mother Alice and his Sister Leslie in your thoughts and prayers as well as the men in Dan's platoon as they begin their deployment. A few of us in the D.C. area will continue to be with Dan multiple times a week and I will be sending out a weekly SITREPs for you all. Please feel free to send me contact info of anyone else that wishes to be on the Distro list to track his progress.
Best Regards,
Rob
UPDATES:
September 22, 2009
Dan had passed his swallow test...so now he can drink and eat anything he wants.
Surgery yesterday went really well - they revised the amputation on the right leg, so he now has bilateral above-the-knee amputations. Always looking at the positive, Dan pointed out that he'd rather have both of his legs the same length anyways. The doctors are still trying to find the best way to control his pain, because he can't be on such heavy-hitting pain medications when he leaves the ICU. So they are trying some new options right now to see what will be most effective for him when he moves to the 5th Floor.
September 24, 2009
He has been so sleep deprived, and surgeries every other day take their toll. So, we do appreciate everyone's understanding of his need for privacy, rest, following doctors and nurses' orders and just plain healing over time. It's amazing how his body is healing itself in so many ways. We especially appreciate the special fancy air bed ICU ordered for his body, which just isn't used to spending so many hours flat in bed. The doctors are still working on pain management, and getting Dan off his epidural. He's had a consistent fever the entire time he's been here, and the epidural is the suspected source of the infection, so they're slowly weaning him off it. He's currently in surgery right now to stabilize the back side of the pelvis with surgical pins. Plastic surgery has been consulting on his inner thigh wounds - one leg should close and heal on its own, but the other will require skin grafts. Tomorrow he will go back to the OR again for more wound cleaning - this will be 3 surgeries in 3 days.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (4)
September 24, 2009
Vets For Freedom Petition: Give Our Generals in Afghanistan What They Need!
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The Obama administration is waffling on providing our troops what they need for success in Afghanistan. The internal debate in the White House swings between declaring defeat and sticking it out, but no voices appear to be raised in favor of Victory. So the procrastination drags on and our troops and the people of Afghanistan suffer for it.
Sgt. Daniel Bell, the Missouri State Captain of Vets For Freedom asks that you sign this petition to pressure the president to give General McChrystal what he needs to do the job!
Sgt. Daniel Bell writes…
Fellow Vets for Freedom members:
My name is Sergeant Daniel Bell and I’m the Missouri State Captain of Vets for Freedom. Much more importantly, I served as a Special Operations Medic under General Stanley McChrysal in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Serving under General McChrystal–one of the most frequently deployed service members to Iraq and Afghanistan–gave me a first-hand perspective on this man’s dedication to our country. Whether I was listening to one of his briefs, or flying alongside him on a mission, Gen. McChrystal’s decisive leadership was always evident.
He always instilled confidence in the men of his task force by leading the way–and being on the ground–during dangerous missions. If there ever was a commander who knows what is taking place on the ground, and understands why type of strategy we need to win, it is Stan McChrystal.
There is no military leader I respect more than General McChrystal. Our troops in Afghanistan could not have a more competent and dedicated commander, and I’m committed to doing anything possible to ensure General McChrystal is given the support he needs to turn the tide in Afghanistan.
Please join me in supporting General McChrystal by signing the Vets for Freedom “Give the Generals What They Need” Petition.
Move out and draw fire!
Sergeant Daniel Bell
U.S. Veteran, Iraq and Afghanistan
Missouri State Captain, Vets for Freedom
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Here is what the Petiton says:
To the President
We, the undersigned U.S. war veterans and patriotic Americans, petition you with one simple request:
Listen to the commander on the ground in Afghanistan—General Stanley A. McChrystal—and provide him with the troops he says he needs to win the war in Afghanistan.
By accepting the troop recommendations of General McChrystal—and his boss General David Petraeus—we have a chance to turn the war in Afghanistan around. This is a moment in history we must not miss.
Like General Petraeus in Iraq, General McChrystal is an outside-the-box thinker who thrives in the ambiguity of asymmetrical battlefields. Like General Petraeus in Iraq, General McChrystal has the right strategy—a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan.
In 2007, General Petraeus was given the troops he needed (the "Surge") to win, and Iraq has turned around—resulting in dramatically lower U.S. casualties, a more stable Iraq, and a drawdown of American forces.
General McChrystal—and all our brave Soldiers and Marines on the ground—deserve the same chance to win in Afghanistan. They deserve the additional troops needed to turn a winning strategy into a winning result.
We fully acknowledge that the war in Afghanistan has been tough, and is currently headed in the wrong direction. And as you have said, it has been under-resourced, under-funded, and under-manned for years. You have also said that it is a war we must win. We agree on all fronts.
Unlike Iraq, there was consensus at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan that America must be successful in toppling the Taliban and dismantling Al Qaeda, for the safety of our country. Eight years later, the consensus on the war in Afghanistan is fractured; however we believe—as do you—that the need for victory has not changed.
During this time of domestic uncertainty and global threats, winning the war will require steadfast Presidential leadership; a Commander-in-Chief who is unwilling to be swayed by lagging poll numbers or party leaders who want to block troop increases.
Now is the time for your leadership. If you listen to commanders on the ground, give them what they need, and stand behind our warriors in Afghanistan—we will stand with you. If you don't, and would rather fight the "war of necessity" with one hand tied behind our back, then we will loudly object.
Many—in fact a majority—said the war in Iraq was "unwinnable," yet our troops persevered and turned the tide. Despite the drumbeat of detractors—on both sides of the aisle—this is another war we can win. But we must act now.
We owe it to the Marines and Soldiers slogging it out with insurgents every day to get this right. If we do, they'll fight, they'll persevere, and they'll win. If we don't, we are setting them up for failure. No less than America's greatness—and the legacy of America's finest warriors—is at stake.
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Wild Thing's comment......
This is soooo important. Nick and I both have signed this petition.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:37 PM | Comments (4)
September 23, 2009
Enemy of Troops as CIC Not Listening to Generals nor Troops!
Is It Amateur Hour in the White House?
Analysis: the leak of Gen. McChrystal's report shows the Obama administration is mishandling Afghanistan.
The administration's handling of Afghanistan policy has been amateur hour. The leak of General Stanley McChrystal's assessment of the dire situation there faces President Obama with by far his most serious foreign-policy challenge. It's also a challenge to what appears to be his whole approach to foreign policy.
Buzz about the leak of McChrystal's report focuses on two questions. Who slipped the document to the great Bob Woodward of the Washington Post? That's fun, but not serious. And who's responsible for allowing President Obama to get into this mess? That is serious.
What mess? That, of course, is the administration's immediate spin. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even maintained—under politely insistent inquiry by The Newshour’s Margaret Warner—that while Gen. McChrystal might be making one set of recommendations, the administration is talking with others who disagree. Really? Is Obama running an administration where an analysis required of a four-star general confirmed into his job by the Senate—an analysis drafted by an international civilian and military team of experts recruited for the task—can be second-guessed by some guy someone at State knows in a think tank? What's worrying about this administration is that the answer may be: yes.
In his campaign, Obama opposed the invasion of Iraq but safeguarded his national-security credentials by supporting the war in Afghanistan. A war, he said, America had to win—but to which, he charged, the Bush administration had failed to devote the necessary resources. In office, Obama ordered up a new Afghanistan strategy, and announced this on March 27 as the product of what he called "a careful policy review." Shorn of rhetoric, the new strategy actually accepted all the Bush administration's goals in Afghanistan—defeating the insurgents; preventing Al Qaeda from reestablishing a sanctuary there; working to set up a democratic and effective government; training Afghan forces to take over from U.S. troops; coaxing the international community to give more help. The review even added a new goal: saving Pakistan—or, as the review put it, "assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunities for the people of Pakistan. And to accomplish this breath-taking set of objectives? Obama had already agreed to send another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to safeguard polling in the Afghan presidential election in August. Now, as part of his new strategy, he agreed to send an additional 4,000 troops to train Afghanistan's own forces.
What remains a mystery is whether Obama thought those 21,000 would be enough, or whether he was ducking a tough decision to send the numbers really needed. If he did believe 21,000 would suffice, who was advising him? The strategy Obama adopted—one that he inherited from a rethink all but completed in the last months of the Bush presidency—was what the military calls COIN: counter-insurgency. That means protecting the Afghan population from the Taliban and their allies so they can then be wooed into supporting the government and then, hopefully, turning in the insurgents. Whether counter-insurgency is a plausible strategy in Afghanistan is much debated within the military. But that's the strategy Obama adopted in March. What was always clear was that COIN would need thousands more troops. The mystery is whether Obama realized this.
Even at the start of the year, the then commander in country, General David McKiernan, was asking for 10,000 more combat troops than the 17,000 Obama agreed. The administration decided to defenestrate McKiernan in May. A new strategy required a new commander. Now Obama's new handpicked commander, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has concluded that he will need another 45,000 troops to carry out Obama's strategy. Plus, by the way, a vastly expanded, better organized, and costly effort to carry out the civic improvement projects that are an essential part of COIN strategy.
McChrystal hasn't plucked his demand for troops from thin air. They are the product of what the Army calls a TTT analysis—TTT meaning "troops to task": how many troops to cover X thousand square miles of that desolate country, and protect Y millions of its population. McChrystal's math is that to cover six vital provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan under the most urgent threat from the Taliban and its allies, and to bring security to the Afghans living in them, will take close to 45,000 additional troops. (The analysis allows for U.S. troops to replace European units soon to leave the south, plus a few to shore up the north.) McChrystal was planning to submit this troop demand as an appendix to his overall assessment. Now, at the command of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, McChrystal has submitted to two constraints. He has postponed sending up these calculations until the administration chooses to ask for them. And he has refined his needs into three categories: reinforcements of 10,000, 30,000, and 45,000. The administration will certainly call these "options." They're not; they're "risk assessments." Given only 30,000, McChrystal has calculated, he will have to leave important areas of south and east Afghanistan unprotected. Given only 10,000, more areas will remain unprotected. (McChrystal's numbers, though not formally submitted, are circulating in Washington like samizdat writings banned in the Soviet Union.)
Suddenly, the strategy Obama announced in March is being ditched. Back then, Obama said that Afghanistan had not received (from the Bush administration) "the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently needs." Specifically, he charged, the resources U.S. commanders needed "have been denied." "Now, that will change," he said. As late as last month, Obama was declaring the struggle in Afghanistan "a war of necessity" where victory was "fundamental to the defense of our people."
That, it appears, was then. Now, faced with the bleak assessment of the general he sent out to turn things round, Obama is equivocating, saying: "One of the things I'm absolutely clear about is that you have to get the strategy right, and then make a determination about resources." He has ordered yet another review of strategy, a review which the chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, said was going back to "the first principles, if you will."
What's going on ? The March 27 "White Paper" laid out what Obama called his administration's "comprehensive new strategy."
The administration spin is that the debacle of the Afghan presidential elections, which President Hamid Karzai appears to have won by industrial-strength vote-rigging, has altered the situation. That's nonsense. Everyone knew Karzai would do whatever it took to win. (The U.S. in practice settled for that months ago, having tried but failed to find a plausible competitor to Karzai.) If the U.S. does have vital national interests at stake in the region, those remain, no matter how disputed the Afghan government is (or however ineffective the government in Pakistan). Lousy local governments just make the job tougher.
Now though, Obama and his administration give every sign of being torn, unable to decide to fulfill Obama's pledge to resource this "war of necessity." Meanwhile Obama is losing control of the debate about Afghanistan back home. Congressional heavyweights like Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Armed Services Committee, and Senator John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, have voiced their doubts about U.S. policy in Afghanistan. The administration has been trying to prevent Gen. McChrystal from coming back to give Congress his views. That was always short-sighted; now that his assessment has leaked, it's untenable.
Afghanistan is by far Obama's toughest foreign-policy test. Iran, North Korea and the Israeli/Palestinian impasse are important issues. In each, Obama finds himself confronting a collision between rhetoric and reality. But those are tests of diplomatic adroitness and leverage. Afghanistan too has turned into a test between rhetoric and reality. But Afghanistan is different. It's also a sensitive domestic issue, because what is immediately at stake are the lives of American kids in uniform.
Comparisons with Vietnam may be overblown, and are certainly misguided in detail. But the political parallel seems ever more appropriate. Like Lyndon Johnson, Obama has inherited from his predecessor a messy war with only indirect connections to vital U.S. national interests. LBJ had a soaring domestic agenda, but he didn't know how to handle Vietnam. Obama, with comparable domestic ambitions, appears not to know how to handle Afghanistan. Vietnam sank LBJ's presidency in his first term. Afghanistan could do the same to Obama.
Sangin, Afghanistan
The roads are so littered with enemy bombs that nearly all transport and resupply to this base occurs by helicopter. The pilots roar through the darkness, swoop into small bases nestled in the saddle of enemy territory, and quickly rumble off into the night.
A witness must spend only a short time in the darkness to know we are at war. Flares arc into the night, or mortar illumination rounds drift and swing under parachutes, orange and eerily in the distance, casting long, flickering but sharply defined shadows. The worst that can happen is that you will be caught in an open field, covered by nothing and concealed only by darkness, when the illumination suddenly bathes you in light. Best is to stay low and freeze and prepare to fire, or in the case of a writer, to stay low and freeze and prepare to watch the firing.
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Helmand Province, Afghanistan
With the war increasing, Air Force Pararescue has been crisscrossing the skies picking up casualties.
Images and descriptions from Michael Yon's blog
Thank you Michael for all you do!!!
Troops React to McChrystal Report
The soldiers I have talked to in Afghanistan say they would welcome more troops, as Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended - any help they can get to get out of here and get back home.
The war here is under-resourced, under-funded and until recently largely ignored in favor of the war in Iraq. There is double the number of troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan right now - and many wonder why Iraq was allowed to distract us from the gains made here early on in the war.
But even if more troops are sent to Afghanistan - it’s not enough, they say. The key to winning - whatever that means - is getting the Afghan government and security forces to stand up for themselves and to stop the corruption that is so prevalent here. The soldiers can train Afghan army and police all day long, but until there is a comittment on their part to make things better, it won’t do any good.
The sense is that U.S. and NATO troops are just holding on here, doing what they can during their deployment until the next unit comes along. They understand the need to protect the people - a main tenent of counterinsurgency - but that also means fighting the enemy. And that has become more difficult as McChrystal and Afghan President Hamid Karzai continue to require that Afghan security forces accompany them on patrols and arrests. Simply put, that’s just not a realistic request. There are too few Afghan forces here and the ones that are on the payroll often don’t bother to show up to work.
Still, even if more troops and more Afghan forces were in place to combat the enemy and provide security for the people - many soldiers question the end-game in Afghanistan - especially as Pakistan and other nations continue to provide a safe haven for the bad guys.
As one soldier put it to me: “It’s like a game of whack-a-mole. You hit one and they pop up somewhere else.”
All said, the soldiers here are dedicated. They want nothing more than to make a difference. They want to “win” - not only to make the world a safer place, but for the friends they have lost in this long, deadly war.
McChrystal to resign if not given resources for Afghanistan
by Bill Roggio
Within 24 hours of the leak of the Afghanistan assessment to The Washington Post, General Stanley McChrystal's team fired its second shot across the bow of the Obama administration. According to McClatchy, military officers close to General McChrystal said he is prepared to resign if he isn't given sufficient resources (read "troops") to implement a change of direction in Afghanistan:
Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.
In the last two weeks, top administration leaders have suggested that more American troops will be sent to Afghanistan, and then called that suggestion "premature." Earlier this month, Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that "time is not on our side"; on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the public "to take a deep breath."
In Kabul, some members of McChrystal's staff said they don't understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn't given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.
Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he'd stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.
"Yes, he'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He'll hold his ground. He's not going to bend to political pressure."
On Thursday, Gates danced around the question of when the administration would be ready to receive McChrystal's request, which was completed in late August. "We're working through the process by which we want that submitted," he said.
The entire process followed by the military in implementing a change of course in Afghanistan is far different, and bizarrely so, from the process it followed in changing strategy in Iraq.
For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague "AfPak" assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal's assessment hit President Obama's desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration.
Contrast this with Iraq in the fall of 2006. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired just one day after the elections in early November. The Keane-Kagan plan for Iraq was submitted to President Bush shortly afterward, and encompassed both the assessment of the situation and the recommended course of action, including the recommended number of troops to be deployed to deal with the situation. General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey in early February 2007, and hit the ground running; the surge strategy was in place, troops were being mustered to deploy to Iraq, and commanders on the ground were preparing for and executing the new orders. The first of the surge units began to arrive in Iraq only weeks later, in March.
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration's commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration's waffling on Afghanistan.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Good article, gets into how McChrystal arrived at his numbers. Surprising to find it it Newsweek. It’s being in Newsweek means that the One really is in trouble.
Obama is nothing more then a community organizer if that, he's all about government social welfare programs for the inner city...he’s a military illiterate with a non-American upbringing and no world view....he’s the same as Maxine Waters or Shiela Jackson Lee.
And this was on CNN...."Now, President Obama has to man up and decide: is he going to fight this war or is he going to oversee an American defeat.....said by the vile horrible Michael Ware to the almost as horrible Anderson Cooper.
Obama has no policy for Afghanistan, he ONLY has R.O.E. for our troops.
Damn Barack Hussein Obama to the eternal flames of hell
Michael Yon has also posted Kagans' report (from AEI) re: AfPak. It reflects what McChrystal (and many others) are saying. Bambi better get off his butt and get moving.
Afghanistan Force Requirements (PDF) - Kagan Report
Obama's R.O.E.s
“AMBUSHED MARINES’AID CALL REJECTED”
"NATO-led forces are investigating the death of four Marines in eastern Afghanistan after their commanders reportedly rejected requests for artillery fire in a battle with insurgents, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Tuesday's incident was "under investigation" and details remained unclear, press secretary Geoff Morrell told a news conference. A McClatchy newspapers' journalist who witnessed the battle reported that a team of Marine trainers made repeated appeals for air and artillery support after being pinned down by insurgents in the village of Ganjgal in eastern Kunar province. The U.S. troops had to wait more than an hour for attack helicopters to come to their aid and their appeal for artillery fire was rejected, with commanders citing new rules designed to avoid civilian casualties, the report said."
“WE’RE PINNED DOWN:’4 U.S. MARINES DIE IN AFGAN ABUSH”
We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.
"We will do to you what we did to the Russians," the insurgent's leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.
Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.
U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village.
"We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We've lost today," Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter's repeated demands for helicopters.
Four U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday, the most U.S. service members assigned as trainers to the Afghan National Army to be lost in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Eight Afghan troops and police and the Marine commander's Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that raged from dawn until 2 p.m. around this remote hamlet in eastern Kunar province, close to the Pakistan border.
“GIS TOLD NOT TO RISK CIVILIAN LIVES”
KABUL -- Beginning today, American Soldiers in Afghanistan will be under orders to back down when they're chasing Taliban fighters whenever they think that civilians might be at risk.
"General McChrystal has been given instructions when he left here that, in all military operations, that we redouble our efforts to make sure that innocent loss of life is minimized, with zero being the goal," Jones said, noting that, "In one mishap you can create thousands more terrorists than you had before the mishap."
The new order, however, is likely to draw criticism from some U.S. troops, many of whom feel the rules that govern how they fight the war already are too restrictive.
Many troops here say they depend on air power and heavy weaponry because there aren't enough ground troops to chase Taliban forces on foot. Jones said no additional ground troops will be sent this year, even though some ground commanders want them.
"Everybody had their day in court, so to speak, before the president made his decision," he said. "We signed off on the strategy, and now we're in the implementation phase."
McChrystal's order will instruct Soldiers to "think about what else can we do," said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the military's top spokesman in Afghanistan. "We cannot keep going down the path of putting civilians at risk. ... People want to see changes in behavior."
“OBAMA’S RULES OF ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN COSTING OUR TROOPS LIVES”
Four U.S. Marines died Tuesday when they walked into a well-laid ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter for the Marine commander also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle, which lasted seven hours.
Three American service members and 14 Afghan security force members were wounded.
It was the largest number of American military trainers to die in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
The battle took place around the remote hamlet of Gangigal, in a valley about six miles from the Pakistani border, after local elders invited the U.S. and Afghan forces for a meeting.
American officers said there was no doubt that they’d walked into a trap, as the insurgents were dug in at the village, and had preset their weapons and their fields of fire.
It was a trap alright....but one they could of extradited themselves out of if not for the rules of engagement laid out by Obama's General, General Stanley McChrystal:
Airstrikes by coalition forces in Afghanistan have dropped dramatically in the three months Gen. Stanley McChrystal has led the war effort there, reflecting his new emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties and protecting the population.
NATO fixed-wing aircraft dropped 1,211 bombs and other munitions during the past three months — the peak of the fighting season — compared with 2,366 during the same period last year, according to military statistics. The nearly 50% decline in airstrikes comes with an influx of more than 20,000 U.S. troops this year and an increase in insurgent attacks.
The shift is the result of McChrystal’s new directives, said Air Force Col. Mark Waite, an official at the air operations center in southwest Asia. Ground troops are less inclined to call for bombing or strafing runs, though they often have an aircraft conduct a “show of force,” a flyby to scare off insurgents, or use planes for surveillance, Waite said.
“BAGRAM INMATES CAN CHALLENGE DETENTION: PENTAGON”
The Pentagon is to give some 600 prisoners held in the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, the right to challenge their detention, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday.
"It's basically a review procedure that ensures people go in front of a panel periodically to give them the opportunity to contest their detention," he told reporters.
The inmates would be aided by a uniformed "personal representative" who would "guide them through this administrative process, to help gather witness statements," Whitman added.
“ANALYSIS: WHITE HOUSE POSTPONING HARD CALLS ON WAR”
The Obama administration is holding off major decisions that could put its military forces on a firmer war footing in Afghanistan even as doubts grow about whether the United States can win there.
Many military and diplomatic leaders have urged President Barack Obama to send thousands more Marines, soldiers and pilots to try to reverse Afghanistan's crumbling security situation.
But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has said no decision about adding troops is expected for "weeks and weeks," following what he described as intensive evaluation. The troop decision will be a first indicator of whether Obama intends to double down in Afghanistan, becoming a wartime president in earnest.
“NO DEADLINE FOR TROOPS WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN: OBAMA ADMN”
The Obama Administration has declined to set a deadline for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, arguing that the situation there is different from that of Iraq and 9/11 plotters are still holed up in the Af-Pak region and planning attack against the US.
"We have a different situation in Afghanistan. It is actually the place that - Afghanistan and Pakistan - where the folks who attacked us on 9/11 are holed up and plotting against us still," David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to the US President, told the NBC news channel in an interview.
“MILITARY LEERY OF AFGHANISTAN ESCALATION WITH NO CLEAR GOALS”
As the Obama administration and Congress begin a heated debate about how many more American troops to send to Afghanistan, military observers, soldiers on the ground there and some top Pentagon officials are warning that dispatching even tens of thousands more soldiers and Marines might not ensure success.
Some even fear that deploying more U.S. troops, especially in the wake of a U.S. airstrike last week that killed and wounded scores of Afghan civilians, would convince more Afghans that the Americans are occupiers rather than allies and relieve the pressure on the Afghan government to improve its own security forces.
The heart of the problem, soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and some officials in Washington told McClatchy, is that neither Barack Obama's White House nor the Pentagon has clearly defined America's mission in Afghanistan. As a result, some soldiers in the field said, they aren't sure what their objectives are.
Current officials and military officers who're wary of escalation refused to speak on the record because they aren't authorized to talk to the media and because doing so would be hazardous to their careers.
"Gen. McChrystal's latest assessment reportedly indicates that the situation in Afghanistan is 'serious,' " said former deputy secretary of state and Pentagon official Richard Armitage, referring to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan. "President Obama needs to define, more clearly than he has so far, what our country's objectives in Afghanistan are and his strategy for achieving them. Without that, it's impossible to assess whether the mission requires additional troops."
“U.N. LAWYERS TARGET U.S. TROOPS”
“Justice: As if fighting a war in Afghanistan isn’t hard enough, ambitious global prosecutors have rolled into Kabul looking to charge U.S. troops. Intentional or not, such legalism will sap U.S. morale as it did in Vietnam.
At about the time NATO’s new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, warned NATO’s European members against an early pullout, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, whose body is charged with looking for international war criminals, announced he was looking for new “clients” from anyone with a grievance in Afghanistan.
At a briefing Wednesday in The Hague, Moreno-Ocampo said he had launched a new war crimes inquiry, seeking information about “torture” especially — a European obsession — and had already mined the human rights groups for stories. He added he was also “very open” to more information from foreign governments.
Oh, he’d been evenhanded in his Monday-morning battlefield quarterbacking of course, promising he’d prosecute both Taliban and NATO troops as moral equals.
But it doesn’t take a genius to know what the spotlight-loving attorney (who once launched his own reality TV show back in Argentina) is really after: Americans in the dock as war criminals.
Ground intelligence sources who might have warned them were reportedly more fearful of Taliban retaliation than convinced that American troops would be able to defend them, given the weakening will of the West. They opted to survive.
Now, the latest legalistic block against winning is an international prosecutor looking for NATO troops to prosecute.
Back in 2002, President Bush told the ICC that there wouldn’t be any of that, and he rescinded the U.S. signature from the Rome Statute that would have opened the door to that. Today, there’s a legal battle going on at the ICC to make U.S. troops subject to doing it and there’s no signal from the White House that it will stop it.
Don’t think Moreno-Ocampo won’t do it. His history as a prosecutor suggests an affinity for publicity over justice, which is just what the anti-American crowd wants.
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:40 AM | Comments (15)
September 22, 2009
Happy 62nd Birthday To Our US Air Force September 18th
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The United States Air Force, the youngest of the Armed Forces, a happy 62nd birthday!
Prior to its official founding in 1947, the U.S. military’s air component existed from 1909 under multiple labels such as: Aeronautical Section, Signal Corps, Aviation Section, Signal Corps, United States Army Air Service, United States Army Air Corps, and United States Army Air Forces.
World War II demonstrated the true value of aircraft to the military, and on July 26, 1947, President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, creating the National Military Establishment. The United States Air Force officially stood up as a separate military component, equal to that of the other services, with the swearing in of the first Secretary of the Air Force, W. Stuart Symington.
Happy 62nd Air Force, and thank you for your service.
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq -- Members of the Sather Air Base honor guard post the colors while more than 200 servicemembers stand at attention during the opening of the Air Force's 62nd birthday celebration held at the Al Faw palace here Sept. 18, 2009. Lt. Gen. Mike Hostage, Air Force Central Command commander, was in attendance as well as Maj. Gen. Joseph Reynes Jr., Air Component Coordination Element director, who served as the keynote speaker for the evening. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Johnny L. Saldivar)
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq
More than 200 servicemembers attended a ceremony celebrating the Air Force's 62nd birthday at Al Faw palace here Sept. 18, 2009.
Lt. Gen. Mike Hostage, Air Force Central Command commander, was in attendance as well as Maj. Gen. Joseph Reynes Jr., Air Component Coordination Element director, who served as the keynote speaker for the night.
Upon arrival at the palace, attendees mingled during a social time before proceeding to the ball room for the official ceremony.
For Fairfield, Calif., native Senior Airman Jessica Trackwell, Task Force 134 Detainee Operations executive assistant, the birthday celebration was on opportunity for those in uniform to interact outside of a work environment.
"These events help boost morale of the Airmen out here," said Airman Trackwell, who is deployed from Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. "We get to come together and get to know one another and remember what the Air Force is all about."
Although the atmosphere was light, General Reynes pointed out the seriousness of the event and said there is probably no better place to celebrate the Air Force birthday than at Al Faw Palace with the "great joint team" in attendance.
"Celebrating the United States Air Force's birthday provides Airmen an opportunity to reflect on the exceptional men and women who have built our heritage and to look forward to the challenges that lie ahead," General Reynes said. "Today some Airmen will learn about the history of the Air Force and others will experience a renewed sense of pride. We should all take a moment to remember and honor our history and those who answered our nation's call. We are their legacy."
With another year of service to the United States under its wings, the Air Force will continue its mission to fly, fight and win.
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BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan
Hundreds of Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines celebrated the 62nd Air Force birthday with tradition, solidarity and a show of force Sept. 18 here.
A reveille ceremony was held at 6 a.m.at the base flag poles in Camp Cunningham, named after Senior Airman Jason D. Cunningham, an Air Force pararescueman who gave his life in Afghanistan in March 2002 while saving 10 wounded Army Soldiers.
"While we're celebrating the Air Force's 62nd birthday it is important to remember that we're involved in a joint fight serving the Army and other Coalition ground forces bringing this counterinsurgency to an end in Afghanistan," said Brig. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing commander. "What a fine way to celebrate our heritage; we came from the Army (and) we have the same foundations. We celebrate that heritage by fighting together with our sister services and coalition partners. We're bringing freedom and liberty to this part of the world by taking care of the insurgents' sanctuary to where they cannot run and they cannot hide."
Both coalition members and other American servicemembers said they were thankful for the Air Force's support and efforts for their troops on the ground and in contact with the enemy.
"We have a great working relationship with your pilots and the close-air support we receive from you has no limitations," said Polish Army Lt. Col. Slawomir Warnbier.
Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Wright of the 101st Airborne from Fort Campbell, Ky., echoed Colonel Warnbier's sentiments about the Air Force's role in Afghanistan.
"The Air Force airdrops are providing needed support to Soldiers in the field; getting people and parts to our guys in the (forward operating bases) and in the mountains," Mr. Wright said. The Air Force is doing a great job and it's great to have them out here."
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Wild Thing's comment.....
I am a few days late for this and I apologize. It is the first time that has happened. grrr
HUGE Happy Birthday and a bigger thank you to our US Air Force!!! Love the Air Force, heck I love all of them.
God bless the USAF, buand also to o the US Army Air Corps. They started it all heh heh and thank God they did!
......Thank you SSGT Steve
SSgt Steve
1st MarDiv, H Co., 2nd Bn, 5th Marine Regiment
2/5 Marines, Motto: "Retreat, Hell"
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (11)
Thank you and Welcome Home Patrick!
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"Here are some pictures of myself and brothers while in Iraq 2003. Alpha Company 1-15 Infantry"
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Wild Thing's comment.......
I am so pleased to show you these photo's of Patrick. HUGE thank you Patrick for serving our country!! I heard from him a couple of days ago and was so thrilled to meet him through his email and be able to thank him for all he has done to help keep us the land of the free and for his service to our country to keep us safe.
THANK YOU Patrick!!! And thank you to all the others in the photos as well.
God bless you!!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (10)
September 16, 2009
Phantom Thunder III and Family First Fest At Fort Hood
Here is an aerial photo of just a portion of the riders that took part in the first to be annual Fort Hood Phantom Thunder motorcycle ride. This is the brain-child of LTG Rick Lynch, commander of Fort Hood and a Harley rider.
Safety classes and vehicle inspections were held prior to the ride, then the soldiers were treated to a carnival and pretty much, a day off.
Gather the Family for an afternoon of fun featuring live music by country music duo Martin/Ramey and national country music recording artist Darryl Worley, and a comedy performance by former Soldier Joe Saba.
For the kids, there will be inflatables, pony rides, and face painting.
Enjoy a micro race car track for adults and children! AAFES will be selling motorcycle gear for all you riders from Phantom Thunder.
Bring a lawn chair or blanket and enjoy the sun, sand and a fun afternoon of FREE activities for all ages.
Food, beverages and alcohol will be available for purchase. Family First Fest is FREE and open to all. All events will take place at the Belton Lake Outdoor Recreational Area Live Oak Pavilion. BLORA beach front will be open.
Family First Fest officially kicks off at 3pm, but the work day on Fort Hood ends at 12pm, so come out early for a DJ and beach activities beginning at 12:30pm.
Patrons are encouraged to ride the free on post shuttle to BLORA. The shuttle will be running from 12-9:30pm.
For more information, call 254-288-7835 or visit www.hoodmwr.com
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009
Time: 3:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: BLORA Live Oak Pavilion
Phantom Thunder III and Family First Fest: September 17
Gas up the hog for Phantom Thunder III, a motorcycle safety ride led by LTG Rick Lynch. The ride will depart from Hood Stadium at 1pm and arrive at BLORA at 3pm. Participation is free and open to all. Proper riding safety gear is required.
For more information on Phantom Thunder, call 254-553-3871.
After the ride, gather the Family for an afternoon of fun at Fort Hood’s Family First Fest, from 3pm-8pm at Belton Lake Outdoor Recreational Area Live Oak Pavilion. Family First Fest features an exciting live entertainment line-up: country music duo Martin Ramey, and award-winning country music artist Darryl Worley, best known for hit songs “Have You Forgotten” and “I Miss My Friend”.
Gather the Family for an afternoon of fun featuring live music by country music duo Martin Ramey and national country music recording artist Darryl Worley, as well as a comedy performance by former Soldier Joe Saba. Bring the children to enjoy free inflatables, face painting and pony rides. The fest kicks off at 3pm, but the work day on Fort Hood ends at 12pm so come early to enjoy a pre-party with live DJ and activities beginning at 12:30pm. FREE and open to all!
This event is free and open to all. Food, beverages and alcohol will be sold. In order to alleviate traffic, patrons are
encouraged to ride the free on-post shuttle to BLORA. BLORA is located on North Nolan Road 10 miles from East Range
Road. Access to the park is also possible from FM 439 and Sparta Road. For more information, call 254-288-7835 or
check out www.hoodmwr.com
Future Events:
1st Cavalry Division Fall Festival
Come join us for a fun-filled day for Soldiers & Families of the 1st Cavalry Division
Saturday, 10 October 2009 at the 1st CAV Division Horse Stables from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Mark your calendars!!!
Free Family Portraits
What: Soldiers' Angels - Portraits of Love, Free Family Portraits for Families of Deployed Soldiers. Professional
Photographers are volunteering their time and talent to help send a piece of home to Soldiers abroad.
When: 15-30 September, 2009
Times: 1200-2000 hours Monday through Friday and 1000-1700 on Saturdays
Where: Oveta Culp Hobby Soldier & Family Readiness Center, building 18000, Battalion Ave
Why: Soldiers' Angels (Non Profit Organization) & the Photo Imaging Manufacturers & Distributers Association (PMDA)
collaborated to create a project called "PMDA Soldiers' Angels Portraits of Love." Their goal is to provide 10,000 free Family photos to Families of Deployed Soldiers.
How: Interested Families should call 288-2794 to schedule an appointment for their photo. Each Family photo session will last no more than 15 minutes.
Families must show proper military ID to participate.
Family members must provide the Soldier's mailing address during the photo session.
One 5X7 Family portrait will be mailed to the deployed Soldier at no cost and another free 5X7 photo will be available
for the Family.
Wild Thing's comment.....
This is so cool, I love it. I love that Fort Hood does this for the families and the troops. AWESOME
For those of you that have Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rick-Lynch/100699965545?ref=mf
And this if Fort Hood on Facebook
.... Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:48 AM | Comments (8)
September 15, 2009
Allah Calls Another Home
Terrorists blow themselves up while U.S. gunship holds fire
Wild Thing's comment.......
Now THAT is sweet! Bye Bye!
.... Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (8)
September 14, 2009
American Service Member Shot Over Drink of Water!!
American shot over drink of water
In Kabul, the capital, an American service member and an Afghan police officer got into an argument because the American was drinking water in front of the Afghan police, who are not eating or drinking during the day because of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, said the district chief, Abdul Baqi Zemari.
The police officer shot the American and seriously wounded him, while other American troops responded and seriously wounded the police officer, Zemari said.
Lt. Robert Carr, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed an incident between Afghan police officers and a U.S. police mentoring team. He could not provide information on the conditions of the two men.
Wild Thing's comment......
Because "Mohammed said it", Muslims assume that they can impose their 7th century bullshit on all humanity. This is how a Muslim is toward someone trying to help them from being overwhelmed by even more radical and fanatical Muslims, if that's possible.
There can be no compromise with Islam as Islam will never compromise. Islam will always take anything offered by the West and shit on the West in return. Gratitude is not a part of Islam.
We are in a global war for survival against a fanatical, barbaric system posing as a religion. It is a matter of life or death. And it is going to happen here in our country. We have yet as a country to come down hard on followers of Isalm, they have gotten a free ride in our country and it just gets worse.
This soldier should have been thanked and praised and given the chance to have as much water as he wanted.
Turn it into a parking lot over there and come home!!! And as far as Obama is concerned..... screw Obama and his R.O.E.'s. He can just apologize later, he does that anyway when he speaks about America.
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (15)
September 13, 2009
Senate Panel Seeks End to F-22 Export Ban
Senate panel seeks end to F-22 export ban
September 10th, 2009
A Senate panel urged the Air Force on Thursday to start developing an export model of its F-22 Raptor, the most advanced U.S. fighter jet, even as it voted to end U.S. purchases.
Japan, Israel and Australia have shown interest in buying the supersonic, radar-evading F-22 Raptor, designed to destroy enemy air defenses in the first days of any conflict and clear the way for other missions.
Foreign sales were banned by a 1998 law aimed at protecting the "stealth" technology and other high-tech features said to have made the F-22 too good for money to buy.
If enacted, the measure adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee would let the Defense Department prepare a modified F-22 that protects classified and sensitive information, technologies and U.S. war fighting capabilities.
"The committee urges the Air Force to start this effort within the funds appropriated in Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force, for the F-22 aircraft," a report accompanying the bill said.
Neither Lockheed Martin nor the Air Force had any immediate comment.
Creating an export version would preserve U.S. jobs and an option to buy more F-22s later, without having to pay the full cost of restarting production.
The U.S. Air Force has estimated Japan would have to spend as much as $2.3 billion for development of its own version of the Raptor. For years, Tokyo has sought to buy two squadrons of the F-22, possibly 40 planes, a request that has become more compelling amid tensions with neighboring North Korea.
The bill, adopted 30 to 0 in 15 minutes without debate, largely backed program cuts sought by President Barack Obama. Overall, it provided $636.3 billion for defense in fiscal 2010, which starts October 1.
The measure would kill a combat search-and-rescue helicopter, a presidential helicopter and a missile-defense project called Kinetic Energy Interceptor.
It includes $128.2 billion for "overseas contingency operations," primarily to keep fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The legislation would cap the U.S. F-22 "Raptor" fleet at 187, down from an original Air Force Cold War-era plan to buy as many as 750 of the air-superiority fighters.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, announcing plans to terminate the F-22 on April 6, said doing so was "not a close call." He said the military should gear up more for wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The bill, which must be reconciled with the House of Representatives' version, provided no funds for a second, interchangeable engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The alternate engine, which Obama considers wasteful, would be veto bait, the White House has said. In July, the House approved $560 million for the second engine development as part of its 2010 defense appropriations bill, despite the veto threat.
General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group PLC, partners in the second engine, have said they are confident a House-Senate conference committee will preserve competition for the F-35 engine.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Hawaii Democrat who chairs the appropriations committee and its defense subpanel, told reporters he did not know how the second engine's fate would play out.
"Apparently the Senate is not for it, so we'll go into conference on that basis. But as always, my mind is open," he said.
The Senate panel put rival United Technologies Corp's Pratt & Whitney unit, maker of a fully funded engine for the F-35, a step closer to a monopoly over a projected $100 billion market.
At issue is the engine and its aftermarket for three variants of the F-35, a single-engine Lockheed Martin fighter in early stages of production. It would replace at least 13 types of warplanes, initially for 11 nations.
The Senate committee, in sync with recommendations made Wednesday by its defense subpanel, broke with Obama on Boeing Co's C-17 cargo plane. It added $2.5 billion to sustain the production line by buying 10 more in 2010. The administration wants to end the C-17 program without further purchases.
The House approved $674 million in its defense appropriations bill to buy three more C-17s.
The full Senate could vote on the defense bill as early as next week. House and Senate representatives then meet to mesh their legislation before it is sent to the White House. The House-Senate conference is on track to take place by the end of this month, said Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, the Senate panel's top Republican
Wild Thing's comment........
This an update to my other post awhile back about this.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (4)
September 12, 2009
U.N. Lawyers Target U.S. Troops
U.N. Lawyers Target U.S. Troops
Justice: As if fighting a war in Afghanistan isn't hard enough, ambitious global prosecutors have rolled into Kabul looking to charge U.S. troops. Intentional or not, such legalism will sap U.S. morale as it did in Vietnam.
At about the time NATO's new secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, warned NATO's European members against an early pullout, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, whose body is charged with looking for international war criminals, announced he was looking for new "clients" from anyone with a grievance in Afghanistan.
At a briefing Wednesday in The Hague, Moreno-Ocampo said he had launched a new war crimes inquiry, seeking information about "torture" especially — a European obsession — and had already mined the human rights groups for stories. He added he was also "very open" to more information from foreign governments.
Oh, he'd been evenhanded in his Monday-morning battlefield quarterbacking of course, promising he'd prosecute both Taliban and NATO troops as moral equals.
But it doesn't take a genius to know what the spotlight-loving attorney (who once launched his own reality TV show back in Argentina) is really after: Americans in the dock as war criminals.
The atmosphere that makes a prosecutor like Moreno-Ocampo ambitious enough to go after Americans instead of a real monster like, say, Fidel Castro, can only occur when the West's will has weakened, as Rasmussen warned.
After all, if a war to defend our civilization can be reduced to a series of police-brutality cases, then Afghanistan isn't about victory.
This is underscored by Washington's conflicting aims.
Though our president has rightly boosted the number of troops in Afghanistan, he's created a climate of doubt by declaring the war on terror an "overseas contingency operation" and stating he doesn't believe in "winning." It's poison for morale and gives momentum to the kind of bureaucratic, legalistic and defeatist thinking that preceded our bitter pullout in Vietnam.
Moreno-Ocampo's entry into Afghanistan is a sign that legalism has begun to overtake victory as a goal, at a time when our Taliban foes still believe in victory.
On the battlefield, our troops are increasingly constrained by legalistic rules of engagement.
Case in point: On Tuesday, four U.S. Marines and seven of their Afghani allies walked into a well-planned ambush and were killed in the Kunar province near the Pakistani border.
"We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We've lost today," Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, told his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter's repeated demands for helicopters, McClatchy Newspapers reported.
Rules of engagement condemned them to die because they couldn't get air cover.
According to McClatchy: "U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village."
Meanwhile, all pullout talk condemned those U.S. troops, too.
Ground intelligence sources who might have warned them were reportedly more fearful of Taliban retaliation than convinced that American troops would be able to defend them, given the weakening will of the West. They opted to survive.
Now, the latest legalistic block against winning is an international prosecutor looking for NATO troops to prosecute.
Back in 2002, President Bush told the ICC that there wouldn't be any of that, and he rescinded the U.S. signature from the Rome Statute that would have opened the door to that. Today, there's a legal battle going on at the ICC to make U.S. troops subject to doing it and there's no signal from the White House that it will stop it.
Don't think Moreno-Ocampo won't do it. His history as a prosecutor suggests an affinity for publicity over justice, which is just what the anti-American crowd wants.
Back in 2008, he ambitiously charged a sitting president, Omar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir of Sudan, with genocide, using a public application for an arrest warrant instead of a sealed warrant. The latter would have been more likely to bring justice to Darfur's victims. He went for the TV cameras instead.
Someone like that won't hesitate for a minute to make a big show of putting U.S. troops in the dock for "war crimes" no matter what the impact in Afghanistan. That's defeat.
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Wild Thing's comment......
“rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.”
Obama's hate for America, hate for our military and his love for Muslims is literally getting our guys KILLED. There isn’t a word in the English language or any other language for how mad I am!
Just a reminder to add to this John McCain's treachery in this it is from January 28, 2005.
Citizens for Global Solutions Applauds Senator McCain’s Support of the International Criminal Court
In a BBC Worldservice televised debate before the World Economic Forum on Friday January 28th, Senator John McCain (R- AZ) declared his support for the United States joining the International Criminal Court (ICC), asserting: “I want us in the ICC.”
McCain’s comments drastically change the debate on the International Criminal Court, in part because the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report, expected to be released mid-next week, likely will recommend a UN Security Council referral of the Darfur situation to the ICC.
McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Service Committee, did raise concerns. “I’m not satisfied that there are enough safeguards,” he said. Nonetheless, his declaration at the World Economic Forum was the strongest indication to date that he would be in favor of the United States joining the ICC in the near future.
Speaking alongside McCain was Senator Joseph Biden (D- DE), ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Like McCain, Biden stood in support of the United States inclusion in the ICC, and likewise, expressed a desire to have greater safeguards for U.S. officials. Noting that European Union (EU) states had rejected the safeguards when the ICC’s statute was agreed in 1999, Biden declared, “that can change, should change, will change.”
The BBC World Television debate, in which McCain made his comments, will be broadcast again on The BBC World on Saturday.
McCain’s comments come at a critical time in the history of the International Criminal Court. The administration is debating internally and at the United Nations, the best method for justice and accountability in Darfur, western Sudan. Many observers expect a Security Council a debate over a referral of the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.
Posted by Wild Thing at 08:47 AM | Comments (4)
September 11, 2009
Questions Raised Over Raid to Free Journalist in Afghanistan
Times reporter kidnapped by militants in northern Afghanistan is freed by British commandos
A New York Times reporter taken hostage by militants was rescued from a hide-out in northern Afghanistan early Wednesday in a daring raid that left his translator, a British soldier and civilians dead.
Journalist Stephen Farrell was kidnapped Saturday while interviewing villagers in the northern province of Kunduz about NATO air strikes that reportedly left as many as 90 people dead.
Farrell's interpreter, one of the British commandos sent to rescue them and several others died when a firefight broke out during the raid.
According to the Times, Farrell called an editor at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and declared, "I'm out! I'm free!" The Times did not know about the military operation.
Farrell described to the Times hearing helicopters approach the hide-out as special forces dropped onto the home, prompting his Taliban captors to flee. He and interpreter Sultan Munadi followed, with the translator hollering, "Journalist! Journalist!"
Surrounded by bullets, Farrell dived in a ditch, but Munadi was struck by either allied or militant gunfire.
"He was lying in the same position as he fell," Farrell told the Times. "That's all I know. I saw him go down in front of me. He did not move. He's dead. He was so close, he was just two feet in front of me when he dropped." A spokesman for the Kunduz governor said a Taliban commander, the owner of the house and another woman were killed. British defense officials confirmed one of the commandos also perished.
Farrell, 46, a longtime journalist in the region who began working for the Times in 2007, had wanted to interview villagers near the site where U.S. jets dropped two bombs on tankers hijacked by the Taliban. Reports said villagers collecting fuel from the tankers had died.
Authorities had warned journalists that the area near the tanker strike was Taliban-controlled and dangerous. The Times did not publicize the kidnappings out of concern for the hostages' safety.
Questions raised over bloody raid to free British journalist in Afghanistan
Military officials tonight defended the decision to launch a dramatic raid to rescue a British journalist from the Taliban, in which his Afghan assistant and a soldier were killed, against angry criticism in Afghanistan that the operation had been ordered while talks for his release had already begun.
Gordon Brown hailed the helicopter assault, carried out by the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marines, as an act of "breathtaking heroism" and said the bravery of the soldier who was killed would not be forgotten.
Stephen Farrell, a 46-year-old New York Times reporter who had been held by the Taliban in Kunduz for four days, was freed as a result of the raid in the early hours, but the Afghan journalist working with him, Sultan Munadi, was killed.
There were reports that at least two others were killed, possibly a woman and the owner of the house, but details remain unclear.
Sources in Kabul claimed that at the time of the assault, talks were under way with the Kunduz leadership of the Taliban and a deal seemed possible.
Munadi had been allowed to call home at 10.30pm yesterday. According to his family, his captors made no threats against his life, and told his mother there were just "a few issues" to resolve before he would be set free.
A western diplomat in Afghanistan said Farrell was being held under the orders of Mullah Salam, the Taliban's "shadow governor" of Kunduz.
"He was out of money and open to doing a deal. The plan was to keep negotiations local and appeal to the decency of Afghans to do the right thing and release a civilian journalist. But then MI6 charged in and, with next to zero knowledge of the local situation, decided to launch an operation," the diplomat said.
British officials, however, said the rescue operation, by the Special Forces Support Group flying in US helicopters, had been ordered after intelligence, including intercepts, suggested that the journalists' lives were in imminent danger.
"An opportunity arose and it was seized," said one official.
The New York Times editor, Bill Keller, said Farrell had told him the situation in the Taliban hideout where they were being held had been growing more menacing just before the raid. Keller said he did not know what had triggered the assault, but it is possible the military had intercepted plans to move the journalists or to do something to them.
Moeen Marastial, an MP for Kunduz, said the Taliban had left the British with no choice but to launch a rescue.
"The people in Kunduz had been talking to the Taliban about getting him released. The local people were telling them that they have to release them or otherwise there will be another Nato airstrike and more civilians will be killed. But the Taliban had been promising, promising, hour by hour, but they never released him," he said.
The reporters had gone to a village which had been the target on Friday of a Nato air strike on two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban. The tankers exploded, killing a crowd of civilians, and anti-western feeling in the area was running high.
The New York Times was caught entirely by surprise by the rescue mission.
The newspaper had asked British officials to use force only as "a last resort," according to sources close to the negotiations. However, British officials made it clear to the newspaper straight after Farrell and Munadi were kidnapped that their policy was to carry out raids when they deem fit. The US government seeks consent from the next of kin first.
The first news of the raid came when Farrell called his editor in the early hours of yesterday morning to say he was free.
"We were all in a room, the Talibs all ran, it was obviously a raid," Mr Farrell said, according to the New York Times. "We thought they would kill us. We thought, should we go out?"
He said the two journalists hid behind a wall as the fighting went around them, and at one point Munadi, a 34-year-old father of two, raised his hands and walked into the open, shouting: "journalist, journalist". But he was shot down by "a hail of bullets".
Afghan reporters and interpreters who work with foreign journalists have been incensed by the incident. They congregated at the northern edge of Kabul to honour the return of Munadi's body. "The media community is very angry," said Ali Safi. "They are saying that these foreigners launch these operations only to release their own people."
The raid has heightened an internal Nato debate on how to respond to the kidnapping of journalists working in dangerous areas, often against the advice of Afghan and alliance officials.
"This guy was told not to go in there. He was told by local officials," said a western military source. "But being stupid should not give you a death sentence. How do you decide when not to go in? That's the hard thing? When do you give a bad man with a gun the right to decide. You always go back and get someone."
The source said if a raid had not been ordered, the military would have been criticised for "standing by and doing nothing".
A diplomat in Kabul suggested the British may have acted to make the point that they did not do deals for hostages.
The prime minister said: "Hostage-taking is never justified, and the UK does not make substantive concessions, including paying ransoms. But whenever British nationals are kidnapped, we and our allies will do everything in our power to free them."In the last two years, six foreign journalists have been kidnapped in Afghanistan by insurgents and criminal gangs. Five were released after negotiations and one, David Rohde, another New York Times reporter, escaped after seven months in captivity.
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Wild Thing's comment........
Farrell wanted to do a hit piece about how evil NATO forces intentionally killed innocent civilians. He was warned not to go into the Taliban controlled area but did so anyway. Should have let the Taliban keep him.
It is really stupid to risk the lives of soldiers in the rescue of journalists who are writing stories alleging atrocities by those very same soldiers.
I’d rather see 100 NYT reporters remain in captivity forever than have ONE soldier from our country, or ANY of our allies, die while rescuing them.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:40 AM | Comments (2)
September 09, 2009
Gen. McChrystal and His ROE for Rules of the Road
Hazards of driving in Afghanistan. Jalalabad road in Kabul is the main road servicing Camp Phoenix.
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has issued a directive stating his requirements for all ISAF personnel to adhere to appropriate legal driving procedures and behavior in Afghanistan.
“The manner in which ISAF forces interact with and treat the Afghan people directly correlates to our ability to earn their trust and support. ISAF forces are highly conspicuous when travelling in vehicles and I expect ISAF members to drive in ways that respect the safety and well-being of the Afghan people,” said General McChrystal.
In his guidance, McChrystal emphasizes safe driving to be an essential ingredient in the successful prosecution of the ISAF mission. “Safe and considerate driving represents a visible and tangible sign of our commitment to the people of Afghanistan,” General McChrystal said.
The Theatre Driving Principles direct ISAF personnel to adhere to safe driving practices, such as respecting Afghan traffic rules and regulations, driving at an appropriate speed, and driving defensively. It is the responsibility of every member in the chain of command to encourage and reinforce a culture of safe driving with ISAF, the directive concludes.
Wild Thing's comment.....
"The Theatre Driving Principles direct ISAF personnel to adhere to safe driving practices, such as respecting Afghan traffic rules and regulations"....
I am sorry but .......what??????
Our troops should be given applause for the great driving they are already doing. ( tapping the General on the shoulder.....psssst can you hear me now????? )
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:48 AM | Comments (6)
September 07, 2009
Miracles On The Front Line: Snipers Defy Odds, Death In Afghanistan
Miracles On The Front Line: Snipers Defy Odds, Death In Afghanistan
h/t Pat Dollard
MIANPOSHTEH, Afghanistan
For seven hours, the Marine sniper team waited, crouching behind a concrete block in a dusty courtyard, at the edge of an adobe compound. They were pretty sure that a group of local Taliban militants was on the other side of the compound wall. But the snipers couldn’t strike until they had some proof.
So they stayed there, in silence. They downed energy drinks to stay awake. They urinated in bottles and defecated in bags, so they wouldn’t leave evidence of their presence behind.
Team leader Sgt. Erik Rue kept himself sharp by running scenarios in his head of what could happen next: What if the Taliban burst in, guns blazing? What if they enter unarmed? What if there are children in the way? What if the courtyard is overrun by the militants? Where do we go then?
U.S. Marines and Taliban guerrillas have battled in the villages and compounds of this farming community nearly every day for eight weeks. It’s become one of the epicenters of America’s renewed war effort in Afghanistan. But during most of those shootouts, the two sides have been hundreds, even thousands, of feet apart. On Tuesday, they fought at point-blank range.
And despite all those hours of what-ifs, Rue and his team couldn’t have predicted how this gunfight would play out. By the time it was over, at least two men were dead. Another took a bullet to the chest but escaped unharmed. And another had his gun shot out of his hands. Four more survived what should have been a lethal bomb blast. “It was a fuckin’ pretty eventful day, to say the least,” Rue says.
After waiting for so long, the sniper team decided to try something new to flush out their targets. Rue — a smallish, slight military brat with a clean-shaven head and world-weary brown eyes — whispered into his radio to his headquarters, about a mile away.
Bring some helicopters overhead, he said, and make a low pass. The guys over the compound wall might start shooting at the helos. And then we’ll have proof of their hostile intent. The helicopters — already circling over another group of Marines engaged in a firefight — began to swoop in towards the snipers’ position. They made their pass.
But the men on the other side of the wall didn’t take the bait. If they had guns, they didn’t bother shooting them at the Cobra gunship and the Huey attack chopper.
Staff Sgt. Doug Webb was getting sick of waiting. The tattooed, twitchy Long Island, New York, native wanted to figure out if these guys were Taliban or not. Right now.
He scooted into a small room, adjacent to the courtyard. On the western wall of the room, at floor level, was a yard-wide “mousehole.” Webb lay his chest on the floor, and stuck his face in the hole.
At first, all he could see were ankles and feet. All he could hear were four male voices, speaking Pashto. Then he recognized a single word: “Taliban.” Webb looked up, and saw that one of the men had a vest packed with ammunition. And an AK-47.
Webb came back into the courtyard — and almost got shot himself. He surprised his teammate, Sgt. Nick Worth, who drew a pistol on him. “Whoa!” Webb whispered. Worth returned the gun to its holster.
“Man, I just saw a guy with an old-school mujahideen chest rig and a weapon,” Webb whispered excitedly. But the guy — and his three pals — appeared to be walking away from the snipers on a north-south trail, at the compound’s edge. If the snipers were going to attack, they had to do it right away,
“Fuck it. Now or never,” Rue said. He sent three snipers to the roof, and ran out of the courtyard with three others: Sgt. Ryan Steinbacker, Cpl. Fred Gardner, and Worth. They entered an east-west alleyway, perpendicular to the trail that Webb had spied through his mousehole.
They reached the intersection, and saw one man in the distance to their left. Luckily, he didn’t see them in the alleyway. Then, a second man, wearing brown tunic and a black hat, turned the corner. He was maybe five feet from the snipers. His eyes widened with surprise.
“I gave him half a second. He swung around his AK,” said Worth, who was carrying a Benelli 1014 shotgun. “Then I put four buckshot rounds in his chest.” Rue added a few more shots. The man crumpled to the ground.
A third man in a white robe was in the distance, about 150 feet to the north. He raised his AK-47 and fired at the snipers. Steinbacker dropped to one knee and shot the man with his M4. He dropped.
Almost immediately, a barrage of bullets came flying in directly at the snipers, from the cornfields in the west and from the trees to the east. Clearly, there were more than four militants on the area. Many, many more. And some of them could shoot.
Lance Cpl. Justin Kuhel, positioned on the roof, had the M203 grenade launcher blasted out of his hand. Lance Cpl. Justin Black, next to him, took a shot in the center of his chest. It spun him around. He collapsed on his forearms.
“It felt like I got hit with a hammer,” Black says. He reached his hand underneath his armor plates. Luckily, there was no blood.
But Black was clearly in trouble. “After I got hit, I’m laying there. And I saw rounds hit right in front of me. I thought, ‘Man, this might be it.’”
It was another now-or-never point for the Marines. The fire from the corn was about to separate the sniper groups from one another — and make them much easier to pick off. “Pull back! Pull back!” Rue yelled.
They ran back to the courtyard, and took up guarding positions at the entrances. “Hey, are you all right? Are you all right?” the snipers asked each other.
They gawked at Black’s perforated chest plate, and wondered how the hell he was still alive. The snipers knew he wasn’t the only lucky one; that storm of lead from the cornfield could’ve killed any of them. “I felt invincible until then,” Black says. “Then it’s, ‘Aw, fuck. I can get shot.’”
The gunshots died down, for a minute. Rue’s mind turned to those two Taliban bodies, outside on the trail. American forces could glean valuable information from their weapons, their documents, their radios, their fingerprints. But the Taliban were famous for removing their dead almost instantly.
Once again, it was now-or-never time. Rue and Webb went out to get the bodies. The Marines grabbed the first dead militant by the ankles, and dragged it back into the courtyard. He had his AK-47 still slung across his chest, and a rice bag, filled with ammunition.
Again, the Marines took fire from at least two different positions in the corn. Again, the fire died down. It was time to make a run for the second body. They hurled themselves into the alleyway, and made a right on the trail.
Ordinarily, Marines here have avoided these obvious footpaths; local militants have turned the trails into death traps, filled with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But there was no time to cut through the fields. As they moved, Webb noticed a purple sack. “I bet this guy left us a little present,” he thought. “That’s probably a bomb.”
That’s when the thing exploded.
A thunderous boom rang out. A cloud of dirt engulfed the snipers. Webb fell forward. “I saw a white flash and stars, like I got hit in the face,” he says. Days later, he’s complaining of memory losses. Webb and several other members of the team have been diagnosed with concussions. But somehow, none of them were seriously hurt.
“That’s fucking it! Everyone back inside!” Rue shouted. In a daze, they stumbled back to the courtyard.
Not long after, a handful of infantrymen from a Marine platoon wandered into the compound. They were later joined by the rest of their squad, and a second unit from nearby Echo company.
The firefight continued. But now it was the Taliban who were outgunned. The Cobra and the Huey blasted thousands of rounds into the treelines and buildings that the militants were using as firing positions.
That allowed the sniper team a chance to exit the battle, nearly 12 hours after they had first slipped into that courtyard. Scampering along the side of a canal, they walked out as they entered — in silence.
Rue, for one, is still surprised they made it all back intact. “Being that close to the IED blast and everyone walking away — that’s a miracle,” he says. “Receiving such heavy fire down an exit point without getting shot — that’s a miracle. And two guys getting shot and not getting hurt. That’s in the category of a miracle, too.”
Echo company and the Taliban are still battling around those compounds, more than 36 hours after the sniper team’s initial attack. But the conflict has returned to its normal routine. The two sides are back to firing at each other from hundreds of yards away, not right up-close.
And the sniper team has been confined to base to recover from that harrowing morning.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Thank God for miracles and thank God for our troops.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (8)
September 06, 2009
U.S. Marines in Helmand 2009
Thousands of Marines have descended upon the Helmand River valley in Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold that is known for poppy growing.
LT. Col Christian Cabaniss
" 2nd Battalin Marines, we took terrible in WW11 we got to live up to that ..........I think we are all just trying to live in our big brothers shadow you know WW11, Vietnam and all that that's all its about, its about pride ,no one can else take that away from us. the hard work just began and we will do it every day for the rest of our deploymenrt. They'll know that they did something that they made a difference, you know when they are grandfathers, you know when they are grandparents when they are sitting around on the sofa and are talking to their grandkids 40 years from now, their grandkids wil ask them what they did in afghanistan in the summer of 2009 they will sit up a little bit straighter and talk about what they did how they had a part in a significant role in changing"
video ends there, but I tried to get as much as I could of what he said.... what an awesome man this is, a true leader.....an American Hero!!
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Wild Thing's comment......
The video ends there, but I tried to get as much as I could of what he said.... what an awesome man this is, a true leader.....an American Hero!!
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:49 AM | Comments (4)
DEA "The FAST Team" in Afghanistan
Over a village in southern Afghanistan, an American helicopter circles and lands. Armed men jump out and huddle near a compound wall. A translator speaking through a megaphone announces a police action and says the men are coming in.
It's one of the most politically unstable corners of the world, but the men aren't on a typical mission for troops in Afghanistan. In fact, they aren't even soldiers, and, despite what it looks like, this is not a U.S. military operation. This is the American Drug Enforcement Administration.
"It's never just about seizing and destroying the drugs," team leader Frank Tarentino told "Nightline." "It's really more about the taking down, dismantling, the disruption of organizations. ... This operation will start to generate intelligence and information that will assist for following operations."
For nine years the DEA has quietly toiled away in Afghanistan to stop drug traffickers. But now the agency is at the center of the Obama administration's strategy in Afghanistan.
This elite group of DEA Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team members -- nicknamed the FAST Team -- has taken its drug-fighting expertise to Afghanistan because the country is the source of an estimated 90 percent of the world's heroin.
Money from that drug trade is believed to generate $125 million a year and fund the Taliban and the growing insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as possibly al Qaeda.
Tarentino leads his men on four-month deployments in Afghanistan. Their mission is to collect evidence and build legal cases against drug dealers. Often, they target smaller dealers to build larger cases.
In compounds raided by the agents with "Nightline" cameras rolling, the FAST team seized opium, heroin, hash, weapons and evidence, and arrested several suspects.
In one case, suspects fled, leaving weeping women and children behind, and the tea they were drinking still warm.
In another case, agents arrested a man for possession of hash.
"I need for you to talk to the women, that they are placing the husband under arrest for illegal possession of narcotics," Tarentino told his translator as a suspect was handcuffed and a nearby woman and baby cried.
The arrested man spoke to his family in Pashto.
The interpreter explained that he told his distraught wife that he was only being taken away for questioning -- but Afghan drug laws are strict, and he was likely going to jail for 15 years. The suspect was blindfolded and put in a helicopter.
"We have successfully removed many Afghans, roughly eight, to the U.S. for prosecution," said Tarentino. "Most notably, the largest trafficker in all of Afghanistan is sitting in a U.S. prison right now."
Wild Thing's comment.......
This is the first I have heard about this.
Posted by Wild Thing at 02:45 AM | Comments (4)
August 31, 2009
The U.S.Army Version of the Kite
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Wild Thing's comment........
This is sooooo amazing. Precision parachuting by army paratroops. I love things like this. What feat this is and the practice and timing it took to do such a thing.
AWESOME!!!!!
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:50 AM | Comments (9)
August 30, 2009
Marines Will Not Seek to Reinstate Charges Against Top Officer in Haditha Case
Colonel Chessani has been a scapegoat for 4 years now.
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Mustang Captain Don Greenlaw has been a tireless advocate for the freedom of the 3/1 Marines - he is a great man.
MILITARY: No criminal charges in Haditha deaths for Marine officer
Case against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani will go before Board of Inquiry
The Marine Corps has dropped its pursuit of criminal charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused of misconduct after 24 Iraqi civilians were slain in the city of Haditha in 2005.
Instead, Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn has decided to handle the matter administratively by appointing a three-member Board of Inquiry that will meet at Camp Pendleton this fall.
The board of Marine Corps officers will determine if Chessani should be reduced in rank if it finds he engaged in substandard performance of duty, misconduct and professional dereliction of duty.
Its finding will serve as a recommendation to the Secretary of the Navy, who will make the final decision.
At stake is Chessani's rank after he retires from the Marine Corps, a retirement that has been on hold pending a decision in the Haditha matter. Chessani's retirement pay will not be affected by any decision to reduce his rank, Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Roger Galbraith said Friday.
Chessani attorney Brian Rooney said his client, who remains on duty at Camp Pendleton as a base security officer, is happy the two charges of dereliction have been dropped.
"Colonel Chessani is relieved that the case is out of the criminal realm where it never belonged because he never did anything wrong," Rooney said. "In order to reduce him in rank, the board has to find there was misconduct and we don't believe it will."
Rooney said Chessani's other attorneys plan to call several witnesses they believe will show he reported the Haditha killings up the chain of command and was never directed by his superiors to order a full-scale probe into the events of that day.
"We expect to present a very robust case to the board," Rooney said.
Former Marine Corps judge and attorney Gary Solis said convening a Board of Inquiry to decide Chessani's fate is a rare step.
"This is beyond unusual," said Solis, who teaches military law at Washington's Georgetown University. "I have never heard of a senior officer being subjected to a Board of Inquiry. My guess is that at worst he will be found to have exercised substandard judgment and be admonished."
Chessani commanded Camp Pendleton's 3rd Marine Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, at Haditha when the civilians were slain after a roadside bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005.
Several women and children were among the slain when troops led by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich stormed several homes where they believed the people responsible for the bombing were hiding.
Military investigators later said none of the slain could be tied to the insurgency, prompting an international outcry that led to criminal charges against eight Marines ---- four triggermen and four officers accused of failing to investigate.
Last year, a military judge ordered the charges against Chessani dismissed, citing the appearance of unlawful command influence. A military appeals court later upheld the dismissal.
Solis said recommendations reached by a Board of Inquiry are generally followed by the Navy Secretary, a civilian appointee.
"I would be very surprised if Colonel Chessani is reduced in rank," Solis said. "This is a man who for 18 years has given great and good service to the Marine Corps and risked his life. I don't think his reward for all that will be anything too severe and he may even escape an admonishment."
As for the remainder of the men charged with criminal wrongdoing in Haditha, most of the cases were dropped before trial. The only defendant to see his case go to trial was found not guilty of lying to investigators and trying to destroy evidence.
With Friday's announcement regarding Chessani, the only remaining defendant is Wuterich, who led his squad on a deadly chase through several homes near the bomb site.
Wuterich's trial on multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter and related charges remains on hold while a military appeals court considers whether CBS News should be forced to turn over outtakes of a "60 Minutes" interview with Wuterich.
Wild Thing's comment......
This is great news that they won't try to reinstate the charges.
BUT it is unconsionable that they are even considering that travesty of a Board of Inquiry.
The Colonel DID NOTHING WRONG!!!! He shouldn't have to face the consideration of a reduction of rank. A promotion is in order, not a demotion.
And now they should HANG John Murtha for what he said and especially saying it while we are at war. Can't they do something when a person in goverment so obviously sides with the enemy during war time??? GRRRRRR
Only Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is left and I'm sure his life is hell.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:49 AM | Comments (8)
August 26, 2009
GTMO's 'Floyd the Barber'
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Air Force Tech Sgt. Ronald Comer, an information management specialist deployed here with the 474th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron in support of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, cuts Air Force Lt. Col. John Dulin's hair at Camp Justice, July 13. Comer has been cutting the hair of fellow Airmen since day one of his deployment to JTF Guantanamo. JTF Guantanamo conducts safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detainees, including those convicted by military commission and those ordered released by a court. The JTF conducts intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination for the protection of detainees and personnel working in JTF Guantanamo facilities and in support of the War on Terror. JTF Guantanamo provides support to the Office of Military Commissions, to law enforcement and to war crimes investigations. The JTF conducts planning for and, on order, responds to Caribbean mass migration operations.
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by Sgt. Michael Baltz
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba
Many people have nicknames, and Air Force Tech. Sgt. Ronald Comer is no different. He has earned the nickname of "Floyd the Barber," a character from the Andy Griffith Show.
Comer, an information management specialist with the 474th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron, has been cutting the hair of fellow Airmen since day one of his deployment to Joint Task Force Guantanamo.
"I never cut hair before," Comer said. "The first night here, some guys wanted a haircut and I just started practicing. I now have over 40 customers."
Along with a table of magazines to read while people wait for a haircut, Comer has his own barber's chair, trimmers, razors and clippers.
"I don't charge anything, I am just helping out the guys," Comer said. "It builds morale. It keeps them within regulation and looking good. It also saves them the hassle of sitting in line and getting a haircut. I do get tips every now and then, but it isn't necessary."
Comer has evolved from day one; cutting more than 400 heads of hair since he has been here.
"I can do a fade," Comer said. "I am pretty picky about things, so I try to do a good job. I cut their hair to fit their head. I want them to be proud of it."
Comer is dedicated to keeping his clients looking sharp.
"I can't cut people's hair when they are busy, so I am pretty flexible," Comer said. "I usually cut hair when people have free time or in the evening or on the weekends. I did one last week at 7 a.m."
Comer doesn't claim to be perfect and admits to making mistakes along the way.
"I have put the wrong guard on before, but it all worked out," Comer said casually. "I just cut it shorter."
One person he is sure to take care of is the 474th ECES commander, Air Force Lt. Col. John Dulin.
"It is a great thing he is doing, it allows everyone to look good," Dulin said. "He gives a good haircut. We give him the time and ability to do it."
Dulin said there would not be any repercussions if Comer made a mistake.
"He hasn't messed up my hair," Dulin said. "Yet."
Unfortunately, the females haven't been able to enjoy Comer's haircuts.
"They won't let me cut their hair," Comer said gloomily.
"I am going to start cutting my wife's hair though; it will save me some money," Comer added jokingly.
As far as continuing his new role in the unit, it will not end anytime soon.
"My unit members] want me to keep on cutting their hair when I get home," Comer said. "I have already made a deal with a few of them to keep on doing it on drill weekends."
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:50 AM | Comments (8)
Sister, Brother Reunite in Iraq
Chief Warrant Officer Heath Wieseler chats with his sister, Sgt. Andrea Wieseler, in a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter on COB Speicher Aug. 13. Heath and Andrea spent a few days together after not seeing each other for more than two years.
Sister, Brother Reunite in Iraq
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq
Deployments usually separate Soldiers from their families. However, for one Red Bull Soldier, it provided the chance to reunite with her brother.
Sgt. Andrea Wieseler, a telecommunications sergeant with the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division, hadn't seen her brother, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Heath Wieseler, in more than two years. Heath, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot, is deployed to Contingency Operating Base Speicher with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, 10th Mountain Division.
Andrea's supervisors allowed her to take some time to meet up with her brother.
"I have been waiting for this since the day I arrived in Iraq," Andrea said.
Although Heath knew there would be a possibility Andrea would get the opportunity to come up and see him, she surprised him early. He was on a mission to drop off passengers at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. At the last moment, he was informed he was to pick up passengers to take back to COB Speicher, not knowing one of those passengers was his sister.
They flew to COB Speicher and after Heath landed the helicopter, they greeted each other with a hug and the emotions started to flow.
"It caught me by surprise when I looked back to see her get on the helicopter," Heath said.
It turned out they were able to spend a few days to catch up on old times and have some great laughs.
"Everything worked out perfect," said Andrea. "I was so happy to have him pick me up in his helicopter; he is a real hero to me."
Heath has traveled a lot in his 16 years of active duty. Military training and travel have prevented him from returning to his hometown of Howard Lake, Minn., to see his family.
"It was so great to have Andrea around," Heath said. "It was nice to be with family, someone you can share common things and talk about family back in Minnesota."
The two of them spent time talking, laughing and sharing events of the past two years. Heath talked about his wife Geri and sons Tyler and Trevor, while Andrea shared her experiences of the deployment so far and the friendships she has made.
"I was so excited; it was a dream come true," Andrea said. "I waited a long time for this."
Wild Thing's comment......
What a neat story, I am thrilled they got to see each other in Iraq. That time together will be special to them for the rest of their lives.
God bless Sgt. Andrea Wieseler and her brother Chief Warrant Officer Heath Wieseler.
Posted by Wild Thing at 03:40 AM | Comments (5)
August 23, 2009
2/8 Marines Engage in Six-hour Firefight With Taliban Insurgents
Staff Sgt. James Simmons, a platoon sergeant with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, takes a quick pause during a seven-hour firefight as an U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber drops a 500-pound bomb on insurgent positions here, Aug. 13. Simmons is from Winter Park, Fla.
2/8 Marines Engage in Six-hour Firefight With Taliban Insurgents
by 1st Lt. Kurt Stahl
MIAN POSHTEH
Marines and Afghan National Army soldiers departed their outpost on a combat patrol, Aug. 13, that turned into the largest firefight here since July 4.
The Marines of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, waged an intense six-hour battle with Taliban insurgents who opened fire on the patrol just after 8 a.m.
After moving only about one mile from their combat outpost, the Marines received a heavy volley of enemy gunfire from multiple directions. Without hesitation, the Marines and ANA returned fire to suppress the enemy positions, began maneuvering on the insurgents and call for fire support.
"We sent out the combat patrol anticipating contact," said Capt. E.A. Meador from Laurel, Miss., the company commander. "They always try to hit us in that area."
Within minutes, an AH-1W Super Cobra and a UH-1N Huey were on station overhead to help suppress and engage enemy targets. The Cobra fired several five-inch Zuni rockets into one of the compounds from which the patrol was receiving sustained fire.
The friendly forces maneuvered through thick corn fields with slippery mud while enduring temperatures that exceeded 120 degrees in the afternoon. The muggy heat rose from the corn fields as if it were a sauna, and the Marines sunk into the mud with each step making it feel like weights were attached to their ankles.
"I didn't think it was possible to move so fast through mud like that," said Lance Cpl. Timothy Daughtry, a squad automatic weapon gunner.
In addition to those already challenging conditions, each Marine carried no less than a 60-pound combat load to include body armor, ammunition and water at a minimum. Despite the potential distractions offered by these extreme conditions while under fire, the Marines executed sound judgment calls and made rational decisions without hesitation.
"At the squad and platoon level, the Marines are out there every day and do a phenomenal job," said Meador. "They come back beat and tired, but they are always ready to do it again the next day."
During the engagement, the squad leaders were encouraging and directing their Marines to ensure they were doing everything they could to stay effective and in the fight. No matter how tired they became as time wore on, the voice of experience could be heard across the battlefield.
"Push forward. Keep your dispersion," called out Sgt. Jonathon Delgado, a squad leader from Kissimmee, Fla., as his Marines pressed through the corn field to maneuver on one of the compounds hiding the enemy.
By 1 p.m. – five hours into the engagement – many of the Marines had run out of water. So, water and ammunition redistribution began from those who still had a reserve and continued throughout the remainder of the day as needed.
During the firefight, the Marines were successful in calling in several types of precision ordnance on the insurgent fighting positions, which included rockets fired by the High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems based at Camp Dwyer 15 miles away; 81mm and 60mm mortars; and a 500-pound bomb from a U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber.
"We caught them by surprise with our indirect fire assets and inflicted heavier casualties than in the past," said 1st Lt. Kyle Kurtz from Greensborough, N.C., the company's executive officer.
The Marines and ANA eventually maneuvered up to and cleared the insurgent positions initially used to launch the ambush. One moment they were fighting in open fields, and the next they were clearing rooms the insurgents had used as fighting positions – two very different and challenging combat techniques. One squad, expecting to encounter some resistance, went to clear the western compound where the patrol had initially taken heavy fire. As they entered the compound, the only thing that was they found were brass casings and links from the enemy's machine guns.
"It was tense going through the compound," Daughtry commented. "You never know exactly what is coming around the corner."
Between the sprints across the corn fields under fire to clearing compounds, the Marines felt lucky to have made it through the day unscathed.
"I definitely think I have had an angel watching out for me at times," said Lance Cpl. Josh Vance, a team leader from Raleigh, N.C.
In past firefights here, insurgents have kept their distance when engaging the Marines, but things were different during this battle.
"This was the first time in a while that we were able to close with the enemy so effectively," Kurtz said. "We were within 50-75 meters – right on top of them."
The platoon-sized element that took the initial contact was only one surprise Company E had for the insurgents this day. When they started to run, a second platoon was sent out to meet them.
The Taliban militants displaced to another location they had used to launch attacks from in the past – a large wall. During the follow-on fight, the Marines were able to cut off the insurgents' escape route and deny them the ability to use the wall for effective future attacks.
"It was a very successful day for us," said Kurtz.
Wild Thing's comment......
God bless our troops and keep them safe.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (4)
Paratrooper-in-training John Michael, 7, Turns Out To Watch 82nd Airborne Paratroopers Arrive in Indy
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of Greenfield, Ind., shakes hands with Steve Frazer, President of the 82nd Airborne Division Association while waiting for the arrival of paratroopers from the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 82nd Airborne Division at Mt. Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on Aug. 20. More than 150 paratroopers landed at Mount Comfort in three C-130 Hercules aircraft to kick off off the 63rd National Convention of the 82nd Airborne Division Association, being held this year in Indianapolis....Photo by Sgt. Michael Pryor
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Greenfield, Ind., native John Michael, 7, is dressed for the occasion as he watches a C-130 Hercules aircraft lift off after depositing paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division at Mt. Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on Aug. 20. The arrival of the paratroopers kicked off the 63rd National Convention of the 82nd Airborne Division Association, being held this year in Indianapolis.
Greenfield, Ind. native John Michael, 7, is dressed for the occasion as he watches the progress of an inbound C-130 Hercules aircraft carrying paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division about to land at Mount Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on Aug. 20. The arrival of the paratroopers kicked off the 63rd National Convention of the 82nd Airborne Division Association, being held this year in Indianapolis.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (2)
Paratroopers Arrive in Indiy for 63rd Annual 82nd Airborne Div Association Convention
Paratroopers Arrive in Indianapolis for the 63rd Annual 82nd Airborne Division Association Convention
Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division run off the runway after landing at Mount Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on Aug. 20. The Soldiers arrived to kick off the 63rd Annual 82nd Airborne Division Convention.
Joseph Viserta, from Port Jerbis, N.Y., stands with his grandson, Vinnie the Mt. Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on August 20. Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division landed at the Airfield to kick off the 63rd Annual 82nd Airborne Division Convention. Joseph Viserta joined the Army in 1945.
Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division stand in formation after landing at Mt. Comfort Airfield in Indianapolis on Aug. 20. The Soldiers arrived to kick off the 63rd Annual 82nd Airborne Division Convention.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (2)
August 17, 2009
Puppy of Iraq War's Oldest Fallen Soldier Safe in States
Maj. Steven Hutchison adopted Laia, who was found on the base near Basra, Iraq. The two were inseparable.
His 11-man crew was running errands on an Army base near Basra when Hutchison ordered a lunch break.
The transition team, whose job was to train Iraqi police and soldiers, pulled their armored vehicles into the base's Subway restaurant and ordered sandwiches.
Hutchison paid, as was his wont, and gave the thumbs up to roll out, team members recall. But the logistics advisor threw back a thumbs down.
Soldiers had gathered around the back of one vehicle and were playing with a scrawny yellow puppy, one of the many strays that wander Iraqi streets.
New mission, Hutchison barked. He took the 1-month-old puppy back to his armored vehicle, fed her his turkey sandwich and gave her water from his bottle.
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Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, center, is the oldest U.S. casualty in Iraq. A Vietnam veteran, he was also a psychology professor.
Puppy of Iraq War's Oldest Fallen Soldier Safe in States
We love happy endings, so when we read this heartwarming Los Angeles Times story about a soldier and the stray dog he came to love, we had to share it.
When Major Steven Hutchison was killed while serving in Iraq, he was, at 60, the oldest American casualty in either of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. His unit, who had come to love him like a father, devised a unique way to honor their fallen leader -- and it involved a puppy.
Why join the Army again?
Hutchison had enlisted in the Army in 1966, served two tours in Vietnam and was awarded a Bronze Star before retiring in 1988. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks he wanted to return to active military duty, but his wife Kandy Rhode wouldn't hear of it.
Married three times before, Hutchinson was devastated when Rhode died from cancer in 2006. "A part of him died," Hutchison's brother Richard Hutchison told the Huffington Post.
In July 2007, at the age of 59, Hutchison "signed up for the Army's Retiree Recall program," reports the Los Angeles Times. He was sent first to Afghanistan for a year and then onto Iraq where he joined the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.
Finding puppy love
Though Major Hutchison vowed he'd never fall in love again after the death of his wife, the seasoned military man fell surprisingly hard for a stray yellow puppy his unit found while leaving an Army base near Basra. According to the Los Angeles Times, Hutchison scooped the puppy into his arms and took her to his armored vehicle.
Hutchison named the puppy Laia [sic] (for Princess Leia, according to Stars and Stripes) and snuck her back to the base. Stray animals in Iraq are typically euthanized the same day they are caught, reports the Los Angeles Times, and service members are not allowed to keep any strays as pets.
But, the major "was hooked," Sgt. Andrew Hunt later emailed to Hutchison's family, according to the Los Angeles Times. The military man allowed Laia to sleep with him at night and sit in his lap while driving around to visit the unit's Iraqi counterparts.
Honoring Hutchison
On Mother's Day, May 10, 2009 -- two days before he was to go on leave and one month shy of his 61st birthday -- Major Hutchison was killed by a roadside bomb while patrolling with his team in Al Farr, Iraq, near Basra. Laia was not with him that day; he had left her behind at the base. He was buried in Scottsdale, Arizona on May 19 and is survived by his mother, brother, half brother, half sister and two adult daughters.
As a tribute to Major Hutchison, Sgt. Hunt secured approval to send Laia to the United States and worked with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and SPCA International's Baghdad Pups to transport the lucky pooch to America and place her in a home, which costs the non-profit animal rescue group about $4,000.
Major Hutchison would be happy to know that the scrawny yellow puppy he rescued is now happily living in Michigan with the family of a special agent who worked with Hutchison's team in Iraq. Though Laia lost one of her legs to an infection, she is doing well.
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Wild thing's comment........
I feel so badly Hutchinson was killled, I am glad though he and Laia met even for a short time to share in each others lives. The war stories from every war are always dotted with such awesome stories of animals our troops meet when deployed. The amazing thing is, that each life touchs the other, Laia was needed by Hutchinson even if he did not know it at the time. And Laia needed him as well. What a beautiful story.
PAW Nation is awesome.
....Thank you Tom for sending this to me.
Tom
US Army Aviation
Vietnam 1966-68
US Army Special Forces
1970-72
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:50 AM | Comments (6)
August 16, 2009
In Country With Our Troops ~ Afghanistan
U.S. Marines go door-to-door in Dahaneh, Afghanistan.( Taliban Stronghold )
FOX News' Greg Palkot is the only reporter traveling with a combined force of 500 Marines and Afghan soldiers as they carry out day two of air and ground assault Operation Eastern Resolve. The operation is aimed at liberating a key town in Northern Helmand province of Taliban and to secure a strategic More.. pass used by Taliban fighters. What follows is Palkot's latest report.
Day two of Operation Eastern Resolve is drawing to a close. We are with Golf Company, with the 2/3 Marines, they have had a pretty busy day. And camera man Mal James and I spent some time with the Marines in this very dangerous town. It got off to a little bit of a rough start.
We’ve been hearing Taliban fire all around us, coming into contact with the Marines. I can hear it right now.
These Marines are working with another squad, another platoon as they work their way down this village trying to clear this place. But the Taliban aren’t giving up.
The Marines are going house to house, they’re going compound to compound to make sure that there are no militants remaining and they’re doing it while the Taliban that the Marines didn’t kill yesterday try to kill these Marines today.
Morning patrols faced some fairly stiff resistance — the Taliban firing from positions in the mountains surrounding the town, as well as sniping positions in town as well.
Not an easy job, but they’re doing it, and the sense today is that a corner has been turned. Hot temperatures here today though, and some very tired Marines here tonight.
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Gunfight and Airstrike in Korengal Valley
Photo by Sgt. Matthew Moeller
U.S. Army and Air Force personnel assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, return fire at insurgent positions in the Korengal Valley's steep hillside in Afghanistan's Kunar province, Aug. 13.
The 20 minute gun battle ended with 500 pound bombs, dropped by U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets, destroying insurgent positions in the surrounding hills. No civilians were injured during the battle.
International Security Assistance Forces across Afghanistan have increased operations in recent months, in order to ensure safety and security during Afghanistan's second national election, scheduled for the end of August.
Obama's Afghanistan War Plan Faces First Major Test With Country's Election
Obama's new Afghanistan war plan is facing its first major test, and it's not on the battlefield.
The president has called next Thursday's election the most important event all year in Afghanistan. The first phase of the reordered counterinsurgency strategy Obama announced in March is hinged to it, and the U.S. is taking no chances, pressing a new military offensive this week to make sure the voting comes off well.
The Taliban has warned it will disrupt the election, including threats of suicide bombings of polling places. Wide turnout would be a symbolic rejection of the insurgency, and the U.S. is hoping for more than token participation in districts recently under the Taliban thumb.
It's not about who wins the election, the White House says. Rather the voting is a test of the ability of U.S. forces to protect civilians -- the new top military priority -- and the willingness of voters to accept that help. The success of the revised strategy depends on winning the trust of civilians.
U.S. officials stress that the elections are being run by Afghans, hoping the country will embrace the results as homegrown rather than the result of foreign fixers. However, that could leave the Afghan government holding the bag if voters see the results as illegitimate.
Obama sent 17,000 additional combat troops to Afghanistan in the spring and summer to help blunt a resurgent Taliban ahead of the voting, and his administration is spending millions to help an underperforming Afghan government run a relatively safe and open election.
About 400 Marines opened a large offensive in southern Afghanistan just this week to uproot Taliban fighters, disrupt intimidation campaigns ahead of the voting and help provide protected passage to the polls.
Before the U.S. Marines arrived, insurgents had papered one dust-blown town with notes warning that voting would mean a slit throat.
Insurgent attacks are already rising in Afghanistan, which U.S. commanders attribute partly to efforts to derail the election and partly to the fact that U.S. and NATO forces are pressing farther into former Taliban sanctuaries.
Deaths among U.S. and other NATO troops have soared. With 74 foreign troops killed -- including 43 Americans -- July was the deadliest month for international forces since the start of the war in 2001.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
God bless our troops!!!! Prayers for our troops, they sacrifice so much every day and work so hard with never enough appreciation. For those that do get to read this, you are in our thoughts every day and we are so proud of each one of you.
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:45 AM | Comments (6)
August 15, 2009
Obama Wants Air Force To BUZZ Taliban Before Bombing in Afghanistan
The A-10 is literally built around its 30-mm GE GAU-8 Avenger seven barrel cannon, the most powerful gun ever fitted to an aircraft of this class. It was designed for high-survivability with a titanium cover surrounding both the cockpit, ammunition and fuel tank. Placement of the engines decreases the infrared signature lowering it's vulnerablity to heatseeking missiles and ground fire.
Air Force may buzz before bombing in Afghanistan
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C.
The Air Force general in charge of the air war in Afghanistan says a new strategy means warplanes in some cases may be buzzing rather than bombing some insurgents.
Lt. Gen. Gilmary Hostage said Thursday that his job is to support the strategy of winning Afghan support as formulated by the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. As part of that, McChrystal imposed restrictions on air power to limit civilian casualties.
Hostage told reporters at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina his forces can easily drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy.
But the three-star general said that at times, it may be better to fly low over enemy forces and disperse them with noisy warplanes that threaten with firepower but don't immediately unleash it.
The first thing we do is fly over head, and the bad guys know airpower is in place and oftentimes that's enough. That ends the fight, they vamoose," said Hostage, who will direct the air battle over Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The A-10 has a very distinct sound. The cannon on an A-10 is horrifically capable and our adversaries know it. When they hear the sound of an A-10, they scatter."
Hostage says the Air Force can easily drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy. But in some cases, it may be better to fly over enemy forces with noisy warplanes to get them to disperse first, then try more force if that doesn't work.
Hostage said he supports the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is shifting the philosophy toward irregular warfare.
"The challenge with irregular warfare is to empower and enable the people to the point where they don't allow the adversary to hide in amongst them," Hostage said. "It really is a long-term effort."
Hostage said McChrystal has told his forces, "If you are in a situation where there's a civilian at risk, he'd rather have us back away than pressing to engage the enemy and run the risk of damaging or hurting somebody."
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Wild Thing's comment......
“Lt. Gen. Gilmary Hostage”
Tell me that this is a joke. General Hostage is not interested in killing the enemy?
I will not believe these orders are directly from McChrystal. They come directly from Obama himself.
Next up, Marines will be ordered to fire 'warning' shots before firing on suspected Taliban. Embedded lawyers will ensure compliance. Soldiers shouting “BANG BANG” at terrorists. Plumbing new depths of stupidity every day since 1/20/09. Good Lord, we train these brave young men to win wars; not to die for the worst president ever in a war he doesn’t want to fight to win!
"...fly low over enemy forces and disperse them with noisy warplanes ..."
Why would you want to "disperse" people you presumably would want to kill?
Why is this President so insistent in having America give up it's single greatest tactical advantage - air dominance?
If soldiers get the idea that you care more about the enemy than you do the mission or the lives of the soldiers themselves, you may suddenly have problems staffing this mission.
Why don’t we just send the Thunderbirds and get them to like us through a display of our precision flying.
Hey, maybe the flyby will give the enemy the opportunity to calibrate their shoulder luanched missiles.
Hey Abdul, the Air Force just buzzed us as a warning! Get the SA-7’s out of the hut!
Are they channeling Robert McNamara? Here it comes, Vietnam stage two. Remember LBJ and McNamara in the Oval office picking bombing targets off a map? By the time the order got to the pilots, the bad guys had moved down the trail. That’s what happens when politicians run a war.
If we did this in WW2 we would all be speaking German or Japanese.
Whatever happened to the “Kill them all and let God sort them out” I like that one much better.
DAMN Obama!
......Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
RAC has a website that is awesome. 336th Assault Helicopter Company
13th Combat Aviation Battalion - 1st Aviation Brigade - Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Posted by Wild Thing at 10:50 AM | Comments (18)
August 12, 2009
In Country Afghanistan With Our Troops
Insurgents Caught Planting Explosives
Helicopter gun camera video footage released today shows the deliberate steps International Security Assistance Force personnel took when countering the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) placed by two insurgents Aug. 5 along a road in southern Zabul province, Afghanistan. Scenes include an Attack Weapons Team of helicopters assigned to the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade of Task Force Pegasus observing and engaging two insurgents emplacing an IED, destroying them and eliminating the threat.
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Patience Needed to Beat Taliban, McChrystal Says
The Taliban will not win the war in Afghanistan, the commander of NATO and U.S. forces there said in Kabul today.
"We will win. The Taliban won't win," Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said during an interview on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."
Still, he acknowledged, the struggle against the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies will be long and hard, with good and bad days, good and bad months, and the tragedy of civilian and coalition casualties.
The International Security Assistance Force is facing an aggressive enemy, NATO officials in Kabul said. The Taliban are employing complex tactics, and are gaining momentum in some parts of Afghanistan. "However, in those areas and others, insurgents face their own problems in terms of public support, cohesiveness and their ability to sustain their morale and fighting capacity," said Air Force Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, an ISAF spokesman.
The insurgents have achieved some momentum in recent years in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But recent ISAF operations in Helmand province have reversed some of these gains, officials said. Northern and western Afghanistan and the area around the capital of Kabul are relatively stable, he added.
"The fact that we've witnessed recent attacks in those areas underscores the fact that we cannot adopt a static approach to counterinsurgency operations against an adaptive enemy," Sholtis said. "We need to partner with the Afghan government to reinforce success in the areas we hold in order to build lasting foundations for stability. But we also need to be able to help the developing Afghan national security forces establish control of contested areas."
Patience is needed, as the effort in Afghanistan will take years, and one key to it is growing the Afghan security forces, McChrystal said. "This is a job that takes not only resolve, it takes patience and courage – it takes military and political courage to do this," he said.
The effort in Afghanistan will not be won by military force alone, and certainly won't be over by taking an enemy capital, the general noted. "You are actually fighting to convince people to support their government," he explained.
Afghan forces are key to the effort. Commanders in Regional Command South, an area of intense effort against the Taliban, want more Afghan soldiers. American, British and Danish forces are fighting alongside Afghan soldiers and believe they are doing well, McChrystal said.
The general also told NPR that he will delay the strategic assessment he's conducting for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates until after Afghanistan's Aug. 20 national election. "I asked to delay that so that I'd be informed of what happened in the elections, because I thought it was such a data point," he said. "My overall read of the situation here would be much better if I could have that in the rear view mirror to look at."
McChrystal also said he will look at areas where insurgents are setting up, or attempting to set up, shadow governments. Other "data points" include levels of violence, the growth of Afghan security forces, support for governance, the number of children in school, commerce and so on. "It's extraordinarily complex to try to put together a clear picture," the general said.
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Wild Thing's comment........
I wish with all my heart that our troops could have a different CIC.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (7)
Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concert in Dallas, Texas with Billy Ray Cyrus
This video from the Freedom Concert in Dallas last week. Billy Ray Cyrus singing "Some Gave All" to 2 wounded warriors on stage.
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Wild Thing's comment......
I have been to two of these concerts and they are more then worth it. All proceeds go the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund… this fund gives scholarships to the children of veterans who were killed or permanently disabled while serving in active duty military. The Founder and Honorary Chairman is LtCol Oliver L. North, USMC (Ret.)
Let freedom ring… God bless our troops and God bless America!
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (2)
August 11, 2009
CIC Obama Calling it War on Al-Queda Now Facing Taliban Terrorism on Rise
US Commander: Taliban Winning in Afghanistan, Terrorism on Rise ........FOX News
Taliban Now Winning
U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties
The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the commander offered a preview of the strategic assessment he is to deliver to Washington later this month, saying the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation. The coming redeployments are the clearest manifestation to date of Gen. McChrystal's strategy for Afghanistan, which puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander, is making protection of civilians a priority over hunting Taliban rebels.
Gen. McChrystal said the Taliban are moving beyond their traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable areas in the north and west.
The militants are mounting sophisticated attacks that combine roadside bombs with ambushes by small teams of heavily armed militants, causing significant numbers of U.S. fatalities, he said. July was the bloodiest month of the war for American and British forces, and 12 more American troops have already been killed in August.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," Gen. McChrystal said in the interview Saturday at his office in a fortified NATO compound in Kabul. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work."
To read the FULL ARTICLE Please CLICK HERE
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Wild Thing's comment.......
Any death of even one of our troops will be on Obama.
After this kind of thing, I doubt Obama care about any attacks by the Taliban.....
Obama wants to REACH OUT TO THE MODERATE TALIBAN" A Taliban spokesman, who said that the US president’s overture was a sign of weakness, poured cold water on the notion that “moderate” fighters could be easily turned. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said: “They say they want to speak to moderate Taliban, but they will not be able to find such people because we are united around the aim of fighting for freedom and bringing an Islamic system to Afghanistan.” He added that Obama’s comments were a reflection of the fact that the Americans had become tired and worried..........March 7 , 2009
Obama: "Victory" Not Necessarily The "Goal" In Afghanistan. ~ July 24,2009
"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism,'" said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, who outlined a "new way of seeing" the fight against terrorism.
The only terminology that Mr. Brennan said the administration is using is that the U.S. is "at war with al Qaeda." ....August 6,2009
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (20)
August 10, 2009
National Guard Recruiting for 'internment' Cops
Ad campaign seeks workers at 'civilian resettlement facility' By Bob Unruh An ad campaign featured on a U.S. Army website seeking those who would be interested in being an "Internment/Resettlement" specialist is raising alarms across the country, generating concerns that there is some truth in those theories about domestic detention camps, a roundup of dissidents and a crackdown on "threatening" conservatives. The ads, at the GoArmy.com website as well as others including Monster.com, cite the need for:
Why is National Guard recruiting for 'internment' cops?
"Internment/Resettlement (I/R) Specialists in the Army are primarily responsible for day-to-day operations in a military confinement/correctional facility or detention/internment facility. I/R Specialists provide rehabilitative, health, welfare, and security to U.S. military prisoners within a confinement or correctional facility; conduct inspections; prepare written reports; and coordinate activities of prisoners/internees and staff personnel.
Some of your duties as an Internment/Resettlement Specialist may include:
Assist with the supervision and management of confinement and detention operations
Provide external security to confinement/corrections facilities or detention/internment facilities
Provide counseling and guidance to individual prisoners within a rehabilitative program
Prepare or review reports and records of prisoners/internees and programs
Advanced level Internment/Resettlement Specialist provides guidance, supervises and trains other Soldiers within the same discipline. As an advanced level I/R Specialist, you may be involved in:
Supervise and establish all administrative, logistical and food support operations, confinement/correctional, custodial, treatment, and rehabilitative activities
Responsible for all personnel working in the confinement/correctional facility, including security, logistical, and administrative management of the prisoner/internee population
Provide command and control, staff planning, administration/logistical services, and custody/control for the operation of an Enemy Prisoner of War/Civilian Internee (EPW/CI) camp
Provide command and control, staff planning, administration/logistical services, and custody/control for the operation of detention facility or the operation of a displaced civilian (DC) resettlement facility
The campaign follows by only weeks a report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning about "right-wing extremists" who could pose a danger to the country – including those who support third-party political candidates, oppose abortion and would prefer to have the U.S. immigration laws already on the books enforced.
The "extremism" report coincided with a report out of California that the Department of Defense was describing protesters as "low-level terrorists."
The new ad says successful candidates will "provide external security to … detention/internment facilities" and "provide counseling and guidance to individual prisoners within a rehabilitative program."
Officials at the state and federal National Guard levels told WND they were unaware of the program, although one officer speculated it could be intended for soldiers trained in the U.S. and dispatched overseas to "detention facilities." From the national level, WND was told, officials were unaware of any such "internment facilities" at which there could be jobs to be available.
More of the article HERE
Here is the other ste that some more about this.
National Guard
INTERNMENT / RESETTLEMENT SPECIALIST...with video at website
Check this out the National Guard website page about this.
Wild Thing's comment.......
I would not even worry about this except that Obama is lurking in the White House.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:45 AM | Comments (4)
August 05, 2009
“‘The Bullet Magnet’ is back!”
Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho, 22, shows off his 10th Mountain Division patch that was pierced by a bullet in a near miss in April. A month later, the squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment,was shot in the same arm, earning him a fourth Purple Heart for combat wounds
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‘The Bullet Magnet’ is back in the fight in Afghanistan
LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan
Staff Sgt. Brandon Camacho was in a "pissing contest" with the enemy. He shot one guy, then another popped up.
He threw a grenade, but it bounced off the man and exploded in a ditch.
As the squad leader then zigzagged through a field, he felt someone tug at his shirt sleeve. Hours later, after the firefight, he’d discover that a bullet had whizzed right through it, narrowly missing his bicep. It tore a hole through his 10th Mountain Division patch and through a pack of cigarettes in his arm pocket, destroying all but one.
"So I pulled it out and had myself a cigarette," Camacho says, holding the patch over his arm. Then he lifts the patch to expose a scar. It’s not from that bullet in April, but from another one a month later, earning the 22-year-old his fourth Purple Heart for wounds in a war he just won’t quit.
Struck by shrapnel during heavy mortar bombardment in Iraq in 2003, Camacho has since been grazed by one bullet, hit in the shoulder with a tracer round and finally, in June, shot in the arm. His men call him "The Bullet Magnet" and joke that since all his injuries have been on his left side, if they just stand to his right, they’ll be fine.
The most Purple Hearts received by one person is eight, according to various sources, but receiving four remains a rare occurrence.
A soldier’s soldier with a penchant for military history, Camacho has risen from private to staff sergeant with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team’s Company B, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, through three deployments and four combat wounds. He’s been shot, mortared, came within seconds of being struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. He’s watched colleagues die.
“He’s the most experienced guy I know,” said Sgt. Daniel Hernandez, 23, of Odessa, Texas, who is in Camacho’s squad. “He can take any bad situation and use it in our favor. If we could fight this war and pick a dream team, I’d pick him.”
Camacho dreams of digging his toes in the sand and sipping a drink by the ocean in his native Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory. And while he toys with the idea of getting out next year, he’s still in awe of the U.S. Army.
“I remember when I was a private. I’d look at my squad leader and think, ‘Look at him. He’s a staff sergeant. No one can touch these guys.’ Now I think, ‘God, I am the same,’ ” he says.
He recites the names of the men who didn’t make it: Maj. Douglas Sloan, the company commander with a great sense of humor they used to call “Lunch Box” because he was always looking for snacks, killed by a bomb in Wygal Valley, Afghanistan, on Oct. 31, 2006; Pfc. Alex Oceguera, who was killed with Sloan in the blast; Sgt. Russell Durgin, who died on June 13, 2006, in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, when his unit took small-arms fire; and Sgt. Brandon Adams, Camacho’s first roommate at Fort Drum, who taught him how to clean his boots and was killed in Iraq. Adams died of injuries sustained Feb. 16, 2004, when a grenade exploded as he was clearing a house in Fallujah.
“You meet the best people in the world in the Army,” Camacho says.
His first combat wound came in 2003, when his Army base near Fallujah came under mortar fire. Shrapnel was screaming into flesh and lit the tents on fire.
While Camacho was running to the bunker, a shard of burning metal struck just above his left knee, and a rocket hit the structure. He headed for another bunker but fell. Sgt. Ryan Haskins, who is deployed with him again now in Afghanistan, picked him up and pulled him to safety.
It was a singed flesh wound and Camacho was back in his unit two weeks later.
The son of a Saipan-born father and a American-born mother, and grandson of a U.S. Navy World War II veteran, Camacho grew up understanding what it is to be an American in a bigger world. His uncle is a command sergeant major with the 101st Airborne Division.
He was born in Saipan but moved to the States as a teen, joining the Army at 18, straight out of high school. It was shortly after 9/11, and he knew he’d be going to war.
He knows he’s fighting “on the right side of this war,” and takes his responsibility for his men seriously.
His uncle yelled at him for being the guy on point.
“He said I shouldn’t be doing that anymore,” Camacho says.
He smiles.
“They tell me I need to go back to basic training and practice IMT (individual movement technique) a lot more,” he says. “A lot of people say I am unlucky. But I think I am pretty damn lucky.”
He notes wryly that everyone in his platoon who has gotten hit has been in his squad. But even they trust Camacho to lead them through battle.
“The way he trained us back in Drum, I don’t want to be with no one else,” said Spc. Devin Johnson, of Chester, S.C., who was hit with bullet fragments in both legs in May when insurgents fired at the turret of a truck where he was gunning. “If something happens, we know what to do.”
Camacho’s second and third Purple Hearts came during his next deployment in Afghanistan’s northeastern Nuristan province. He had just come off a tough year back home. His father suffered a stroke and his grandfather died.
In July 2006, a bullet grazed his fingers as he pulled himself over a rock while chasing the enemy. He was hit again in April 2007, this time with a tracer round, after their deployment got extended beyond March. Both times, he finished the fight before realizing he was wounded. And both times, he was back to work within weeks.
Finally, in June 2007, Camacho went home, two more Purple Hearts in hand.
When it came time to redeploy this year, Camacho was assigned a recruiting job, which would have kept him out of harm’s way.
But the soldier was having none of it. He was thrilled when a captain intervened to get him back to the front lines.
Last May, Camacho, now a squad leader, and his men were chasing insurgents through tall grass in Afghanistan’s Logar province when a gunman jumped up and sprayed gunfire. Camacho reached back to get a magazine and felt like he’d been hit in the shoulder with a baseball bat. He was bleeding heavily. His arm froze up. But he kept firing until he got too dizzy and stumbled out to mounted units in trucks.
Camacho got his fourth Purple Heart and a two-week leave to go back home.
When he returned in July, the men greeted him warmly.
The next day, 1st Lt. Scott Davis, Camacho’s platoon leader, was talking to villagers at a girls school in the province’s Charkh District when shots rang out. Camacho was already at the forward position, where his men were returning fire from behind an orchard wall.
When the exchange was over, the men slid down behind the wall, smoking cigarettes as the adrenaline subsided.
“Welcome back, Sergeant,” one of the men called to Camacho.
“Right back in the game, huh, Sergeant?” said another.
Then Hernandez chimed in.
“‘The Bullet Magnet’ is back!”
Wild Thing's comment.......
The bullet tore a hole through his 10th Mountain Division patch and through a pack of cigarettes in his arm pocket, destroying all but one. .......“So I pulled it out and had myself a cigarette.”- SSG Brandon Camacho
God bless this hero.
Prayers for his safety and for those serving with him.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:48 AM | Comments (5)
US Army Strong Commercial
This commercial is reciting, line by line, of the soldier's creed which is for the US Army.
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Wild Thing's comment.....
Fantastic! I love how they make these ads. They show them at the movie theatre's too. Then I get to clap and cheer for it....heh heh...before the film starts.
Thank you US Army active duty and Veterans!
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (2)
August 04, 2009
Happy 219th Birthday U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard, one of the country's five armed services, is also one of the most unique agencies of the federal government. The USCG traces their history back to August 4, 1790, when the first Congress authorized the construction of ten vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws, prevent smuggling, and protect the collection of the federal revenue. Known variously as the Revenue Marine and the Revenue Cutter Service, they expanded in size and responsibilities as the nation grew.
The service received its present name in 1915 under an act of Congress when the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Life-Saving Service. The nation now had a single maritime service dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the nation's maritime laws.
The Coast Guard began to maintain the country's aids to maritime navigation, including operating the nation's lighthouses, when the Lighthouse Service was transferred to the Coast Guard in 1939. Later, in 1946, Congress permanently transferred the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to the Coast Guard, thereby placing merchant marine licensing and merchant vessel safety under The Coast Guard purview.
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SEATTLE - A Maritime Safety and Security Team member conducts a vertical insertion demonstration from an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Astoria, Ore., during Seattle Seafair on Lake Washington. Seafair is one of the Pacific Northwest's largest maritime festivals. Nearly 2 million Puget Sound residents attend the festival each summer. (Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer Third Class Tara Molle)
NEW ORLEANS (Aug. 30, 2005) - USCG 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. USCG photograph by Petty Officer 2nd Class NyxoLyno Cangemi
USCG Spencer Rescue, WWII
Happy 219th Birthday to U.S. Coast Guard
August 4 is celebrated as Coast Guard Day to honor the establishment on that day in 1790 of the Revenue Cutter Service, forbearer of today's Coast Guard.
While the equipment and technology have vastly changed, the Coast Guard's 'always ready' spirit remains the same.
Wild Thing's comment........
Thank you to all serving in the Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Aux.. Happy Birthday!!!
......Thank you SSGT Steve
SSgt Steve
1st MarDiv, H Co., 2nd Bn, 5th Marine Regiment
2/5 Marines, Motto: "Retreat, Hell"
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:50 AM | Comments (5)
August 03, 2009
Jack Webb Dragnet The D.I. Rare Extended Movie Trailer
Wild Thing's comment.........
Jack Webb's military service, U.S. Army Air Forces as a crewmember of a B-26 Marauder medium bomber during World War II. In reading his BIO, it said, his part as a Marine Corps drill instructor on Parris Island in the 1957 film The D.I , was his most famous role in any film he did, and the movie is a Classic.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (6)
August 01, 2009
GEN David Petreaus Speaking To The Marine Corps Association in Arlington VA
GEN David Petreaus, Commander, CENTCOM speaks about the unique nature of Marines, before the Marine Corps Association in Arlington VA.
Principles, Innovation Reveal Marines’ Success, Petraeus Says
ARLINGTON, Va.,
July 31, 2009
The secret to the U.S. Marine Corps’ success is a blending of bedrock principles with innovation, the commander of U.S. Central Command said here last night.
Using two examples from recent history -- the heroism of the last Marine Medal of Honor recipient and the turnaround in Iraq’s Anbar province, -- Army Gen. David H. Petraeus shared his view at an event hosted by the Marine Association Foundation.
“On the one hand, Marines display a stalwart resistance to change in those bedrock values that form the very foundation of what it means to be Marine,” he said. “On the other hand, Marines demonstrate a ready embrace of innovation that allows them to adapt to the environments in which they operate and to the enemies they face.”
Some of those timeless, unchanging truths that describe the Marine Corps include an unflinching devotion to one’s fellow Marines, a ready embrace of hardship and a universal emphasis on the skills and the spirit of the rifleman, he said.
Petraeus said these underlying principles are illustrated in the story of Marine Corps Cpl. Jason Dunham. In 2004, the 22-year-old Marine was killed in action in Karabilah, Iraq, when he used his body to cover a grenade and shield his fellow Marines from the ensuing blast.
Dunham became the 295th Marine to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, which is bestowed for gallantry in action. The Navy will christen a ship named in the fallen Marine’s honor -- the USS Jason Dunham -- next week during a ceremony at Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine.
Petraeus said the Marines’ actions in Anbar province illustrate their ability to adapt their strategy to meet unique challenges.
In 2006, Anbar province was one of Iraq’s most contentious regions. It was a society that had collapsed under the weight of an endemic insurgency with an infrastructure dilapidated by years of infighting and neglect. But amid the surge of U.S. forces in 2007, al-Qaida operatives overplayed their hands in Anbar, alienating local residents. Meanwhile, the influx of U.S. Marines helped to tamp down violence and create political breathing room, which in turn allowed the forging of key alliances between local tribal sheiks and coalition operators.
“As a result, sheiks started coming forward to coalition forces to discuss an alliance to throw off al-Qaida,” Petraeus said. “And this was the opening we needed.”
The “Anbar Awakening,” a societal purging of extremism by Anbaris, and formation of a civilian security group known as “Sons of Iraq” ushered in a level of stability unprecedented since U.S. operations in Iraq began.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that the Anbar Awakening helped alter the course of events in Iraq,” Petraeus said. “And I believe that generations from now, historians will continue to view it as a great example of the principled application of long-standing counterinsurgency principles.”
Wild Thing's comment.......
Gen. Petreaus is so good, I love the way he told this joke. He knew he would get a reaction heh heh
He has really shown how he cares about all our troops, in every branch of service they have really respected him and he has them as well.
Posted by Wild Thing at 07:45 AM | Comments (3)
July 31, 2009
Anthony H. Cordesman Says "This War Needs To Be Taken Seriously" Please Listen Obama!
Britain Will Stick with Afghan Combat Mission, says Envoy
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Wednesday that his country is determined to carry on with its combat mission in Afghanistan despite a rise in casualties and skepticism in domestic opinion polls. Miliband discussed the Afghan situation and related issues with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here in Washington.
Miliband says the Afghan conflict is in a "tough phase," but that Britain intends to work through the difficulties, side-by-side with the United States as Afghanistan approaches historic elections next month.
"We know that this is a challenge that is not going to be easily resolved in a short period of time," said Hillary Clinton. "But we believe that we are pursuing a strategy, both military and civilian, that holds out promise for achieving our principle objective - that is to destroy, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and their allies in the syndicate of terror that has unfortunately taken root in Afghanistan and spilled over into Pakistan."
Clinton and Miliband stressed the importance of the August 20th Afghan presidential election - for reaffirming the democratic ideals for which the war is being fought and opening the way for a new Afghan government to share more of the security burden.
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Anthony H. Cordesman
This man, Anthony H. Cordesman, gave an awesome speech and much of it is in the article above. He really lays in on the line including the corruption in the government there and also says this war needs to be taken seriouisly.
I hope you get a chance to watch the video. It really is worth it. They do not have this particular one at YouTube so I can only put the link here for you to CLICK ON LINK HERE FOR VIDEO AS SEEN BELOW IF IT DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU.
I will try to post the embedded code for the video. If anyone has trouble with my blog let me know and I can take the video off. Sometimes videos that are not YouTube or Live Leak mess with the code of my blog. Thank you.
Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses the war in Afghanistan.
More US Troops May Be Needed in Afghanistan, says Pentagon Advisor
A member of the strategic assessment team working with the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says the U.S. government and its allies need to be more realistic about what is needed to win the Afghan war, and he says that may include more troops.
Senior Washington analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the United States and its allies need to take the Afghanistan war more seriously. He says they need to be honest about the security and development problems they have allowed to fester in recent years, and about the resources that will be needed to reverse the situation.
"This war has been fought without resources, but above all without realism," he said.
Cordesman is recently back from Afghanistan, where he joined other experts on a team advising the new U.S. commander, General Stanley McChrystal, on how to move forward. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Cordesman declined to speak directly about the strategic assessment team's deliberations, but he suggested he believes more U.S. troops are needed.
"If you don't provide those resources and additional brigade combat teams, if you do not, I think, effectively move the Afghan security forces toward doubling them. I think unless we're prepared to commit those resources. If we somehow believe that a civilian surge of 700 people and tailoring our force posture to the views of a completely different set of strategic priorities, this is going to win, the answer is no, it's going to lose," he said.
But Cordesman said policymakers in Washington should not limit General McChrystal's options in advance. Rather he says they should wait for the 60-day report the new commander will provide next month, based partly on the assessment in which Cordesman participated. He said the military experts are working hard on the question of how many U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan. And he says it is particularly important to significantly increase the number of competent Afghan troops.
The analyst was sharply critical of the latest Pentagon report on the situation in Afghanistan, saying it does not provide an adequate assessment of the country's insurgency. He said U.S. intelligence services need to focus on that. In addition, he says the U.S. government needs to deal with what he called the corruption and power brokering in Afghanistan, and must bring integrity to the aid system and work with allies to get more military and civilian help from them.
Cordesman says some allies are not honest about their contributions or are not willing to recognize the seriousness of the situation and the need for more effort to fix it. He described the international aid effort in Afghanistan, now in its eighth year, as being conducted as if it were in its first year, and having little impact.
"What should be an integrated civil-military effort and a focus on winning the war in the field, is a dysfunctional, wasteful mess focused on Kabul and crippled by bureaucratic divisions," he said.
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Wild Thing's comment.....
Well good for British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and shame on him too. The other day I posted how he said they wanted to pull out, they had 10 of their troops killed this last month and wanted to pull out. Now they have decided to stick it out and stay and fight along side our troops.
All of you at this blog and myself included have all been saying this war needs to be taken seriously and the enemy to be taken seriously. How even the wanting to rename it to some political correct name is BS and yet another way of not calling it like it is. and what this is all about.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (4)
In Country Afghanistan and IED Information
This one is from the NATO channel
The Kunduz Provincial Reconstruction Team has been under attacks from insurgents. Get an inside perspective with Soldiers from the PRT's Golf platoon as they go on a long-term patrol. July 12 For more videos check out NatoChannel.tv
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Know your IEDs ( these are what our troops have to deal with ~ Wild Thing )
This information is to show the most probable type of IED you may see, and not necessarily how to defeat it. In keeping with protecting our troops and not giving the enemy the how to's of our awesome troops.
I would like to thank Afghan Lessons Leraned for Soldiers for this information and photos below. ~ Wild Thing
IEDs in Afghanistan are not as sophisticated as they typically are in Iraq but they tend to be much, much larger.
There are signs to look for on the side of the road, in the road and how to know what areas on the road are the highest risk.
I will talk about how you as a service-member may be traveling the roads could make a good guess as to what kinds of IEDs may be on the route you want to take.
There are several categories and sub-categories of IEDs. There are victim-initiated and command detonated.
Victim-initiated (VI) are dumb IEDs and the most dangerous. They don’t distinguish between local Afghans or coalition soldiers. They don’t require a triggerman or spotter. As the name suggests, they are triggered by the victim themselves. Good examples would be pressure plate IEDs or even a basic landmine.
Command Detonated (CD) IEDs are smarter than victim-initiated as in they require a trigger man to detonate. These triggers could be hardwired to the explosive or remote control detonated via a wireless signal of some type. There will always be a triggerman and these triggermen will almost always have “eyes on” the location of the IED so they know when to “trigger” it.
It is common to fine VI IEDs on routes that are not as heavily traveled by Afghans, and are usually on routes where the enemy can influence the locals to stay off of the route. The local areas can be informed of the threat so they don’t travel on the route. This raises the chance that only coalition forces will be the ones to initiate the IED. So this means you will rarely see VI IEDs on routes that have heavy traffic. For lack of a better term, these would be main supply routes (by Afghan standards).
Another example is that you can expect to see VI IEDs on routes which are one way (into a dead end of a valley, etc.), or on routes between small villages. This is why it is important to practice very good opsec and not allow your movement plans to leak out. If the enemy finds out you are planning to visit a particular location then it helps them know what routes they stand the highest chance of hitting you on.
CD IEDs will typically be found on high-traffic routes where any number of people could travel (jingle trucks, taxis, coalition forces, etc.) On these types of routes the enemy wants to be more selective of their target and hit the right target at the right time. While on these types of routes where there is a higher chance of seeing CD vs. VI IEDs you always want to have situational awareness of the area around you and in front of you to keep an eye out for the trigger man. There is also a slight chance to see VI IEDs on routes like this as I once experienced myself.
While on one mission, a part of our unit used a specific route that we were not aware of. Because of that and the fact that an IED cell was given an alert that we were heading down the road, they were able to hastily plant a standard anti-tank landmine with a modified tilt-rod. They did this as we rolled down the road and as we found out later, just barely got it installed before we came up on them. In fact the IED planter rode his bike right by my truck and even waved to me.
Command detonated IED hole that killed two and wounded two. This was a double-stack daisy-chain “pusher charge”
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Wild Thing's comment.......
God bless all our awesome troops. This was such great information and I wanted to share it with all of you.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM
July 28, 2009
In Country With 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division
Relocated Army outpost draws fire from angry Taliban insurgency
LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan
The attackers waited until dusk, then came at the yet-to-be fortified American outpost from three sides, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
It was a surprise, the first attack on the newly established outpost near the Charkh District Center in nearly two months, said Lt. Col. Thomas Gukeisen, the squadron commander who monitored Friday’s brief, unsuccessful ambush from his base about 20 miles to the east. With the help of attack aircraft, up to 20 enemy fighters were repelled.
As soldiers from Company B, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y., struggle with the growing pains of setting up a post in the population hub in Charkh, they are contending with extremely primitive conditions while flushing out a rooted enemy.
"The enemy’s pissed off," Gukeisen said, noting that the attack and a roadside bomb ambush earlier in the day occurred just hours after 150 feet of perimeter security barriers known as Hescos were delivered to the district center.
“They hate the sight of Hescos. They know you are here to stay.”
Charkh — as well as Baraki Barak district to the north and Kharwar district to the south — is the battle space of the 3rd Squadron’s 71st Cavalry Regiment, which conducts surveillance and reconnaissance for the 3rd BCT. The units deployed to this region in January. Troops set up outposts in each district, getting to know the populations, the enemy and the lay of the land.
Company B of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, which is attached to the 3-71 Cav, set up in Baraki Barak, then moved to Charkh in April, building its second outpost about seven miles from the district center.
Still in the raw stages, Combat Outpost Baugess had an Internet cafe and was about to get running water.
But Baugess was removed from both enemy forces and the civilians they operate within. It quickly became apparent that for the troops to do their jobs of separating the enemy from the people, helping to shore up local government and security forces, and ultimately winning the trust of the population, the outpost was in the wrong place.
They began using an abandoned school building adjacent to the district center as a launch post for patrols. And last week, soldiers packed up their rucksacks, dragged their cots, a generator and truckloads of sandbags, and headed there for good.
“Militarily, the outpost was great, but for the counterinsurgency, we had to commute to work,” Gukeisen said. “It’s hard on soldiers to tell them to pack up their stuff and move to a new location. But it’s the right thing to do because you have to be with and among the people. You have to have a persistent presence.”
It’s a complex and painstaking mission that falls to Capt. Jason Wingert, 29. He is trying to run two outposts at once.
The building the troops are squatting in is filthy. Once again, they are living without running water or electricity. Food consists of Meals, Ready to Eat. And the concrete roof tiles allow the weather and the dust to pass right through their seams.
Coming down with a bad bout of stomach bug has become a rite of passage at Charkh DC. Conditions were so bad that Gukeisen sent in a health team last week to address the situation.
“When I made the decision to do [the move], I knew I was asking a lot of these guys,” said Wingert, of Evans Mills, N.Y. “To start over again for this company, the third time this deployment, is a lot. But from where I sit, and my boss agreed, we are not here to make ourselves comfortable. We are here to support the government and the security forces and to protect the people.”
Just south of Kabul, Logar province has long been the heart of the insurgent activity targeting Kabul.
Desert conditions and rocky mountain terrain embrace lush green valleys where fruit orchards and wheat fields feed the capital. But a scarcity of water and the terrorizing reign of the Taliban have left the villagers poor, scared and often unwilling to side with an absentee government.
Until recently, Charkh’s district sub-governor refused to come to the district center, a U.S.-funded building that was blown up three times in recent years.
Only after Company B soldiers began launching regular patrols did a newly appointed sub-governor start showing up for work, though the Americans quietly question his family ties to a known top insurgent.
“Nine months ago, the enemy could walk around the DC,” said sub-governor Ghallam Farouq Hamayoon. “If the Americans weren’t here, we couldn’t keep the district center open.
“It would be better if it were Afghan National Army and police. Right now, we need the Americans.”
The U.S. forces see it the same way. When they aren’t building the Charkh outpost, one platoon trains a ragtag Afghan police force, while others push out on patrols to Charkh’s villages, from the bazaar just down the road to remote northwestern areas, getting to know friendly faces, and often, trying to win over ambivalent or even hostile villagers.
They take their police trainees with them, hoping to show people that this is not just an American mission but one that will ultimately give them the responsive government they’ve never known. And the troops try to develop local projects such as mosque repairs or rebuilding girls schools that are frequent targets of Taliban attacks.
“I think we are making progress,” said Spc. Adam Klodzinski, 32, a 60-mm mortar gunner from Buffalo, N.Y.
“They seem more open to us, more willing to accept our support,” he said. “I think people want to help, but they still fear the Taliban.”
When they first arrived, the soldiers were met with steady firefights.
Outgunned, the insurgents changed tactics, deploying more than 30 makeshift bombs since April, especially along the main road that runs from the district center south to COP Baugess and north toward Forward Operating Base Shank, the brigade’s headquarters. Though many struck their targets, soldiers in Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles have all survived.
“When we first got to the bazaar, they’d shoot at us from the rooftops. Now, we are surrounded by kids,” said 1st Lt. Scott Davis of Seattle, whose 3rd Platoon has seen the most firefights in Charkh. “People were really skeptical initially. But when you walk up, put your Darth Vader garb and your guns down, there’s a pretty impressive change in the atmospherics.”
When they do get into firefights, the troops seek out residents to explain what happened and make reparations for property damage.
“I really don’t want to shoot anyone in Sheshquela,” Davis told a homeowner after a firefight last week in that northern village. “I want to arrest these guys. If I give you a phone number, will you call so we can come and arrest them without a firefight?”
Davis and others liken the insurgency to street gangs. The Taliban use fear tactics and lure younger teenagers with flashy promises.
A 15-year-old recently arrested for burying roadside bombs said that a man, Mullah Bashir, promised him sneakers and a cell phone, Davis said.
“It’s a lot of punk kids looking for identity and a couple of charismatic leaders,” he said. “They get to be the cool kids around school with the new outfit and cell phone.
“Going around killing kids who plant IEDs for cell phones isn’t going to help anything.”
Gukeisen breaks it down this way: Divided by a river running south to north down through the district, Charkh’s west side is controlled by Los Angeles-like gangs, while east bank insurgents are more mafia-like.
On Saturday, insurgents attacked workers widening the main road, nearly capturing three of them in an apparent attempt to shake down the U.S.-paid contractor, Gukeisen said.
Charkh Police Chief Allah Mohammad Mahsovidi said despite setbacks, he’s encouraged by improving security.
“The government belongs to the civilians and they need to choose their government,” Mahsovidi said.
“The civilians don’t want the Taliban because they are cruel. They’ve been burning schools for four years. ... The Taliban burned the [Malakay High School for Girls] three times.”
In Sheshquela last week, the platoon visited both a mosque and a girls school that needed repairs.
Then gunfire erupted. Twice in the next hour, the troops exchanged fire with insurgents who they said then broke contact and fled, with the soldiers in pursuit through the fields and orchards.
As they stood guard outside the last site of exchange, two men walked gingerly up to the troops.
Davis told the men he needs their help to stop such attacks. But Haji Amir Mahmad, 45, wasn’t so sure.
Wild Thing's comment.......
Prayers for our heroes and keep them safe. These guys have so much to deal with, the enemy, CIC they are stuck with and dealing with the people that are not the Taliban but still not sure they want to help our troops or not.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:47 AM | Comments (4)
July 27, 2009
Hillary Not Sure If US Should Be Assassinating Al-Qaeda Members ~ HUH?
Hillary Not Sure If US Should Be Assassinating Al-Qaeda Members
The US assassinated Saad Bin Laden, Osama's son, in a drone missile attack and several other top Al-Qaeda members in the past year.
Where has Hillary been?
Wild Thing's comment.......
We have got to have the most idiots in our government then ever before. LOL
Here we have our troops, heroes, giving their all and America is so blessed to have such brave Americans. Then people like Hillary, Obama, Barney Frank, Pelosi etc. What a HUGE difference. The contrast just gets broader by the day.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (6)
Marines at CAMP DWYER, Helmand Province, Afghanistan Build Iwo Jima Memorial
Lance Cpl. William Byrne, left, and Cpl. David Belling, right, field artillery fire controlmen with Regimental Combat Team 3, originally stationed in Okinawa, Japan, built an Iwo Jima memorial at the RCT-3 compound to help motivate and lift the spirits of the Marines and Sailors stationed at Camp Dwyer, Helmand province, Islamic Province of Afghanistan. Photo by Lance Cpl. Daniel Flynn
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U.S. Marine Cpl. David Belling uses a saw aboard forward operating base Dwyer, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, July 21. Belling is a fire direction controlman with Regimental Combat Team - 3, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. RCT-3 is deployed in support of the NATO-International Security Alliance Forces counterinsurgency and Afghan national security forces mentoring mission in IRoA.
Marines Build Motivation With Recognizable Image
Story by Lance Cpl. Daniel Flynn 07.25.2009
CAMP DWYER, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
What is needed to get through a combat deployment? Some might say the answer is perseverance, determination and motivation.
Two Marines with Regimental Combat Team 3, deployed here from 3rd Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment based in Okinawa, Japan, have gone out of their way to help bring a little bit of motivation to their fellow Marines and Sailors.
Cpl. David Belling and Lance Cpl. William Byrne, field artillery fire control men with RCT-3, built a silhouetted Iwo Jima memorial at the RCT-3 compound here.
This particular memorial depicts one of the most recognizable photographs of World War II, taken by
Joe Rosenthal, of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi on the fourth day of the Battle of Iwo Jima.
"I wanted to do what I could to help bring a little bit of motivation and help boost the morale of the Marines," said Belling, who is nine months into his deployment.
They started working on the memorial July 20, and it took about eight hours to complete it.
We worked on the project because we wanted to inspire others by reminding everyone of the history of our Corps, Byrne said.
Throughout the process of building the memorial, Marines and Sailors approached the Marines, shaking their hands and telling them "good job."
"The memorial just signifies what Marines are," said Petty Officer 1st Class Gustavo Ortiz, the religious program specialist with RCT-3. "It is things like this that make it such a privilege to serve with Marines."
In their efforts, Belling and Byrne have left an iconic image of pride and motivation so that those who travel past will remember the sacrifice Marines and Sailors have given.
Wild Thing's comment........
I love it, what a great idea.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (7)
July 26, 2009
Teen Medic Thrives on Aiding Others
Army Spc. Amanda Cleveland, a medic for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, describes the importance of pressure in stopping blood loss during first-aid training at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq. Cleveland has trained nearly 1,000 soldiers in Task Force Keystone leading up to and during a nine-month deployment to Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. James Waltz
Army Spc. Amanda Cleveland, a medic for the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, shows Army Sgt. Seth Cantler how to hold the needle while he “sticks” Army Spc. Christopher Leonard during combat lifesaver training at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. James Waltz
Teen Medic Thrives on Aiding Others
Army Sgt. James Waltz serves in the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade public affairs office
CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq
July 24, 2009
Army Spc. Amanda Cleveland is a self-described simple girl who is "not into drama." But it’s tough for an Army medic to avoid dramatic situations, especially during a deployment to Iraq.
Cleveland’s comrades say it is her ability to consistently help people -- not the drama -- that drives the Williamsport, Pa., native to excel at her job.
Cleveland graduated from high school in 2007 at 17 and immediately took on basic combat training and combat medical school.
"I really wanted to go into the medical field and wasn't sure how I was going to do it," she said. "A recruiter was able to get me into the health care field and give me a $20,000 bonus on top of it."
Cleveland was 18 when her six months of rigorous medical training began. She admits being a bit nervous.
"It was the longest time I had ever been away from my family," she said. "I don't know if I could have graduated if it had not been for a few older friends I had made who shared their previous experiences with me."
While at training, she learned the ins-and-outs of emergency medicine and basic medical skills. She recalled one exercise, which she called "blood lanes."
"We went through these blood lanes where we had to treat mock casualties in a stressful environment," she explained. "It was fast-paced training, and we had to deal with them screaming, among other things."
Cleveland went through similar training at the regional medical training site at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., in preparation for her nine-month deployment here, where she is serving with Task Force Keystone.
Leading up to the three-month, pre-deployment mobilization, she was one of several medics tasked with training 28th Combat Aviation Brigade soldiers in basic combat medical skills. The training allows each soldier to act as a bridge between an emergency and the arrival of a medic -- often the most critical time in ensuring a patient's survival.
Her supervisor, Army Sgt. 1st Class Collin Bowser of Indiana, Pa., said Cleveland is extremely proficient at medical training.
"She has done an excellent job teaching several hundred soldiers the basics of first aid," he said. "And these are mostly soldiers who are novices at this stuff and have minimal medical experience."
Cleveland is humble about her teaching ability, but is quick to acknowledge the importance of it. "I really enjoy teaching, but it's not always easy keeping a student's attention because I'm not a dominating person," she said. "I just keep reminding myself that what I am teaching these soldiers will not only affect them, but also the people they may have to save. I may be helping my students save a life."
Cleveland is the primary instructor of the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade’s first aid refresher course here, which is taught monthly to a rotation of soldiers. When she is not training, she is receiving clinical experience in her unit's medical clinic. She takes vital signs, screens patients, performs asthma treatments and stitches sutures.
During her 12-hour shifts, she uses downtime to write home. Many soldiers here use e-mail, but Cleveland prefers to put pen to paper.
"I like to physically write letters for two reasons. First, some of my family members are technologically impaired," she joked. "But really it just feels more personal. It feels good to have that letter in your hand, knowing there was more time and energy put into it."
Wild Thing's comment........
What a great story about an amzing Army Spc. Amanda Cleveland.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:48 AM | Comments (10)
Australian Army and USMC - Talisman Sabre
The Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (1 RAR) in Townsville, the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Darwin and B Squadron of 3/4 Cavalry Regiment along with combat engineers from the 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment in Townsville join our USMC in Afghanistan.
They also will be providing security for Afghan elections next month.
MAJGEN Kelly also said that the expression of the democratic will of the people was a reminder to the Taliban insurgents that there was no place for oppression and intimidation in Afghanistan.
Wild Thing's comment.......
God bless these awesome troops and prayers for their safety.
....Thank you Lynette in Australia
for sharing this.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:47 AM | Comments (7)
July 25, 2009
Angelina Jolie In Country With Our Troops Iraq
Angelina Jolie Visiting Troops in Baghdad
Actress and United Nations Good Will Ambassador, Angelina Jolie, spending some time visiting with troops today at the Cross Sabers monument in Baghdad's International Zone. She got a tour of the monument from troops with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team from the 1st Infantry Division. She also posed for pictures with troops from the 301st Chemical Company from the Kentucky National Guard. Jolie has visited Iraq several times to report on refugee camps for the UN High Commissioner for Refugee Camps. She told a military reporter that she is hopeful for the future of Iraq and is always glad to visit with the men and women who serve. Produced by Sgt. Frank Merola
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Posted by Wild Thing at 04:49 AM | Comments (9)
In Country Our Troops in Afghanistan
Some News:
Afghan and US forces repelled coordinated Taliban assaults in two major cities in eastern Afghanistan. Suicide bombers armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked government installations and a US base in the cities of Gardez and Jalalabad. Eight Taliban fighters and six Afghan security personnel were reported killed in the failed attacks. In Gardez in Paktia province, six suicide bombers, some wearing the full-length burkas worn by Afghan women, attacked government buildings, including the provincial intelligence office, but were gunned down as they attempted to storm the buildings. ( Bill Riggio)
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Pennsylvania Brothers Provide Support From Above
Majs. William and Richard Bartolomea pose in front of a AH-1W Super Cobra, June 12. This is the first time the brothers have been deployed together. Photo by Lance Cpl. Samuel Nasso
Story by Lance Cpl. Samuel Nasso Marine Air Group 40
Date: 07.23.2009
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan
Maj. Richard 'Bart' Bartolomea feels at home serving with his brother Bill in a operational environment.
"It's awesome," said Bart. "I brought the board games but haven't had the chance to break them out yet."
The officer-in-charge of the Scan Eagle detachment from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron-2, Marine Aircraft Group 40, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, Bart was commissioned a Marine officer after earning a bachelor's degree at Pennsylvania State University in 1994.
Bill, known as "Chakka," is the director of the department of safety standardization for Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron-169. He also earned a degree from Penn State, but he graduated in 1995.
Before it all started, the brothers aspired to be professional athletes, like a lot of kids. However, once high school rolled around, Bart had aircraft posters covering his walls and became interested in aviation.
"When I was in high school, 'Top Gun' came out and I imagined what it would be like to be a pilot," said Bart.
The military already had a prominent role in the Bartolomea family. Their father, Richard Bartolomea, and their uncle, James Craft, joined the Marine Corps in 1967. Even though Craft wasn't related to the family at the time, he was a significant influence in why the boys joined the Marine Corps.
"Uncle Jim went to college with our father and encouraged him to join the Corps with him," said Bart, whose father was an infantry officer in Vietnam. "Twenty-six years later, our father retired as a lieutenant colonel, and here we are now in Afghanistan."
So when the time eventually came, the decision to join wasn't too difficult.
"After growing up in Quantico and observing my dad and his friends when I was younger, it was an easy decision when I actually thought about it," said Bill.
"Bill actually knew what he wanted to do," said Bart. "He didn't join because I did; he was enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Course at Penn State for a while."
With their father working at Penn State as the director of sports camp and managing the ROTC program, it seemed military service was inevitable.
"After I got my degree I wasn't sure what I wanted to do so I went and talked to my father," said Bart. "I told him I didn't really want to pursue journalism and I wanted to go to law school. He told me that I would have to pay for it so that was out of the question. Then he asked me if I ever thought about the Marine Corps."
Both brothers were not only commissioned as Marine Corps officers, they both became pilots.
Bill started flying AH-1W Super Cobras in 1997, and Bart started flying CH-53Ds in the same year. Bart eventually transitioned into flying Cobras 10 years later and transitioned again to fly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
"Flying UAVs is neat, but after flying a Cobra there's nothing really like it," said Bart. With different billets but the same line of work, it was just a matter of time until they encountered each other in the fleet.
"It is really cool," said Bart. "One day I was watching a few Cobras complete a mission with our UAVs and later that day I asked my brother if he was flying. He said he was and I told him I watched him with our UAVs. Even though I am not flying Cobras at the moment, I still get to operate with my UAVs and watch my brother fly his Cobra."
This is Bart's first deployment and Bill's fifth. When it comes down to it, the brothers are here to complete their duties as Marines.
"The reason why I am here is to provide air support for the grounds guys," said Bill. "Whether you're a grunt or with (Combat Logistics Battalion) or whatever, our mission is the same: to provide air support for all of our Marines."
The brothers are happy to be deployed at the same time and their families fully support them.
"Our mother was a Marine Corps wife for a while and she helps my wife and Bart's wife when they need anything," said Bill.
Although they may not be working side by side, the 'Bart Brothers' patrol the Helmand skies, flying topcover for MEB-Afghanistan's soldiers below supporting the local population to be freed from intimidation and aggression of insurgents.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:47 AM
July 24, 2009
Vietnam Veteran Re-enlists in Iraq
Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel Mayfield, right, receives his re-enlistment certificate from Army Capt. Irvin Morris at Contingency Operating Site Marez East, Iraq, July 7, 2009. Mayfield has served 39 years in the Army, including 37 with the 158th Maintenance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Martonio Patterson
Vietnam Veteran Re-enlists in Iraq
CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ EAST, Iraq
Army Sgt. 1st Class Hershel L. Mayfield is a Vietnam veteran with 39 years of service. But when he re-enlisted here earlier this month, his mind was on the future and the young people he serves with.
The Tallassee, Ala., native has served 37 years with the 158th Maintenance Company of the Alabama Army National Guard. He recently decided it was time to continue to serve his country for two more years.
"Everything I do today is done with the next generation in mind and how I can influence them to do the same for their nation," Mayfield said.
After serving on active duty in the Army for two years as an infantry soldier, Mayfield joined the Guard and reclassified as a light-wheel vehicle mechanic with a desire to continue serving his country. He said he appreciates the support he’s received throughout his military career from his wife of 30 years and his children.
"It is a way of life, and they've learned to live in it," he said, noting his family has dealt with his absence during three deployments and numerous training events. He was deployed to Vietnam in 1969, Kosovo in 1996, and to Mosul, Iraq, in 2008.
"I joined the military because the base was adjacent to my home, and in order to have freedom, someone has to do the job," he said. "It also provided me with benefits that no other civilian job has."
Wild Thing's comment........
Thank you Sgt. 1st Class Hershel L. Mayfield and your service is appreciated.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (4)
July 23, 2009
‘Flying Tigers’ Take Mission to Afghanistan
Air Staff Sgt. James Irvin performs an air-cycle machine inspection on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, to ensure the A-10 Thunderbolt functions properly, July 20, 2009. Irvin is deployed from the 23rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, Moody Air Force Base, Ga. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Felicia Juenke
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A pair of A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, get their final weapons check before taking off on a close-air-support mission. The aircraft provide close-air support and airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for U.S. and coalition ground troops. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Lake
‘Flying Tigers’ Take Mission to Afghanistan
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan
July 22, 2009
by Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Jung serves with the 455th Expeditionary Wing public affairs office
American volunteers flying shark-faced P-40 Tomahawks protected China during World War II, and their legacy has become a fixture in the war in Afghanistan.
In homage to the storied airmen of the past, the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, deployed from Moody Air Force Base, Ga., has the iconic shark’s face painted on the front of its A-10 Thunderbolt II's, lovingly nicknamed the "Warthog."
The Warthogs provide daily close-air-support and precision-engagement missions throughout Afghanistan in support of coalition ground forces.
The squadron has had at least two aircraft airborne and providing support to their warrior counterparts on the ground on every day of its deployment. But the 74th Aircraft Maintenance Unit keeps the A-10s ready to fly.
"Just like the airmen that defended China in World War II, the 74th AMU is often short on resources, said Air Force Capt. James Schieser, officer in charge of the squadron’s maintenance unit. The maintenance airmen make do with what they have to maintain their aging aircraft, he added. "The strong leadership, dedication and perseverance of our noncommissioned officers, senior noncommissioned officers and officer corps, are what ensure every aircraft is fully mission-capable. The maintainers of the 74th AMU understand, with the Flying Tiger legacy they inherited, failure is not an option."
The Flying Tigers have broken records by flying more than 12,000 mission hours, expending more than 100 tons of ordnance since arriving in February. Sometime, though, all it takes is a show of force to end an engagement.
"We seek to avoid civilian casualties in all our operations - period," said Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Victor Castillo, weapons section superintendent. "We have a variety of methods we use, including loading of precision-guided munitions, monthly updates of aircraft digital maps and daily maintenance of our targeting systems to ensure the safety of innocent civilians on the ground."
But when enemy combatants don't flee after a show of force, the Warthog can deliver a precise strike to protect coalition ground forces.
Army Spc. Jason Dorsey, Company C, 178th Infantry, saw firsthand the precision and power of the Warthog.
"The A-10s were a valuable asset to us on ground missions here in Afghanistan,” Dorsey said. “Their speed and precise targeting provided great support for us and kept the bad guys' heads down during firefights."
"We have so many soldiers coming in from the field to thank us - it's their stories of desperately needing air [support] and seeing an A-10 flying overhead providing cover for them that kept us energized and motivated," said Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Thomas E. Moore, lead production superintendent for the maintenance unit. "It kept us working hard even when it seemed all we were doing was launching and recovering jets 24/7."
Wild Thing's comment.......
I am glad to see they are still around.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:48 AM | Comments (8)
July 21, 2009
Gates Announces Army Being Increased By 22,000
A U.S. Army Soldier calls for an airstrike on the hills surrounding Barge Matal, during Operation Mountain Fire in Afghanistan
Gates announces Army being increased by 22,000
WASHINGTON
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today announced plans to add up to 22,000 Soldiers to the U.S. Army's ranks.
The plus-up of active duty troops will take the Army from 547,000 to 569,000 forces in what Gates characterized as a temporary increase of the Army's "end strength" for three fiscal years.
"This is an important and necessary step to ensure that we continue to properly support the needs of our commanders in the field while providing relief for our current force and their families," the secretary told reporters during a Pentagon news conference.
Gates pointed to escalating violence in Afghanistan and an added U.S. presence there, political turmoil in Pakistan and elimination of the so-called "stop-loss" policy of involuntarily extending a soldier's length of service as reasons behind the decision.
"The cumulative effect of these factors is that the Army faces a period where its ability to continue to deploy combat units at acceptable 'fill rates' is at risk," he said. "Based on current deployment estimates, this is a temporary challenge which will peak in the coming year and abate over the course of the next three years."
Some 130,000 American forces are in Iraq and 58,000 are in Afghanistan, where an influx of deploying troops will bring the number to 68,000 by the end of this year, defense officials said.
"These additional forces will be used to ensure that our deploying units are properly manned, and not to create new combat formations," the defense secretary said, adding that the decision was made after consulting with the Army's top military and civilian leadership and with the backing of President Barack Obama.
Gates, who has described the defense budget as "zero sum," said the cost of the Army increase would be absorbed in funding already allocated in the budget for the next two fiscal years.
"We will take that money from someplace that isn't as high a priority as [adding] more Soldiers and taking some additional steps to relieve the stress on the force," he said. "This is a very high priority."
Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared alongside Gates today, and also weighed in on the decision.
"I've grown increasingly concerned over the last year and a half about stress on the force and our ability to meet the demands out there," he said. "This temporary increase helps us address that concern. It will also help us get a better handle on [time at home between deployments] and boost the number of people we can deploy with the capabilities our commanders most need."
Wild Thing's comment........
If he is going to add more troops, please God make him add more funding for the things they need. The way Obama is doing things this is insane to make cut backs to funding for our military.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (10)
July 20, 2009
Judges Don't Belong on the Battlefield
Judges Don't Belong on the Battlefield
Recent decisions have altered the way we're fighting in Afghanistan.
by David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey
Earlier this year, a Washington D.C.-based federal court extended the constitutional right to habeas corpus to three foreign nationals detained by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The case, Maqaleh v. Gates, represents yet another step in the federal judiciary's transformation from Alexander Hamilton's "least dangerous branch" into a fully active policy maker.
Historically, the constitutional right to habeas corpus -- an ancient process permitting prisoners to challenge the legality of their confinement -- was available only to individuals present in the U.S., or to American citizens held by federal authorities overseas. In a leading World War II case, Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), the high court decided, with "bright line rules," that habeas corpus is unavailable to foreign citizens held outside the U.S.
But last year, the high court reversed itself in Boumediene v. Bush. The court held, by a 5-4 vote, that foreign nationals detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also have a right to habeas corpus. Articulating a new, multifactor test for determining who can receive habeas corpus overseas, the court left open the possibility that aliens detained at any U.S. controlled foreign facility could sue the government for their release.
In Maqaleh the court concluded that three detainees, held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, but actually captured in other countries, have habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution. It reasoned that permitting the president to move captured enemies from one location to another without judicial review would simply give the executive too much power.
What really is at stake is whether the president's actions overseas -- especially in military operations -- are to be subject to judicial supervision. In this light, the courts have never been so bold. Although the Maqaleh court denied it, the premise of its decision is that the Constitution permits judicial involvement in all U.S. actions abroad. While this particular ruling involves habeas rights in Afghanistan, there is in fact no principled limitation on the court's reasoning. The real test in any particular case is whether a federal judge believes the president is operating with insufficient constraints on his authority.
This new state of play has already affected U.S. military operations. American special forces, have now limited their activities in the Afghan-Pakistan border region -- where al Qaeda and the Taliban are now most active -- to avoid claims by enemy fighters that they were captured outside of Afghanistan, in Pakistan.
If those enemy fighters were captured outside of Afghanistan, then according to the Maqaleh decision, they are eligible for habeas relief. This provides a strategic sanctuary for Pakistan-based enemy operatives, who are now effectively immune from U.S. ground attacks.
This is obviously not the first time the courts have overstepped their proper constitutional bounds, seeking a political role for themselves. Notorious examples include the Supreme Court's efforts to preserve slavery in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) and its determination to oppose federal economic regulation during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. In each case, the judges have eventually been strong-armed back, through the force of the public opinion and political pressures, to a more appropriate role.
The sooner this process begins, the better. A good first step would be some questions for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by the Senate. Senate members should determine her views on the proper role of judges in reviewing U.S. military operations overseas.
Justice Robert Jackson, writing in the Eisentrager case, explained why foreign enemies should not have access to American courts. "It would be difficult to devise more effective fettering of a field commander than to allow the very enemies he is ordered to reduce to submission to call him to account in his own civil courts and divert his efforts and attention from the military offensive abroad to the legal defensive at home." The question is: Does Ms. Sotomayor agree?
Wild Thing's comment.......
The Supreme Court's disastrous Boumediene decision is giving terrorists cover in Afghanistan. Why oh why can't everyone that is not boots on the ground Generals, our troops etc. stay out of how our troops are fighting this war.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (12)
Checking in With Our Military
Army Staff Sgt. Larry Kazmierzak, 3-338th Aviation National Guard Unit, is accompanied by his twin daughters, Ashley and Kari Kazmierzak, at Forward Operating Base Diamond Back, Mosul, recently. The Kazmierzaks, who are deployed with the same unit and work in the same department, are on a one-year deployment to Iraq. Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Carmichael Yepez, 1st Cavalry Division Public Affairs.
U.S. Army Sgt. Christopher Sommer, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, attracts local kids while giving out pens as leaders meet with a shaykh near Abu Asif, June 25. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Neil Stanfield.
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U.S. Army Field Artillery Museum Virtual Tour
In June, CannonArtillery.com attended the 2009 Fires Seminar and Trade Expo. While there, Gordon A. Blaker, director and curator of the new U.S. Army Field Artillery Museum, was kind enough to show the CannonArtillery.com team around 234 years worth of Army artillery artifacts. View this week's video featuring the experimental mule-cannon display below.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:45 AM | Comments (4)
July 19, 2009
UPDATE About Captured American Soldier ( VIDEO)
In case you missed it on July 2nd, I posted this:
US: American Soldier Captured in Afghanistan
That same day I also post this: ( note the name Haqqani network, it will be in the article further down as to who might have our captured soldier)
Haqqani Network In Afghanistan
Haqqani network, the most deadly US foe in Afghanistan. All are members of Afghanistan's most lethal group, the Haqqani network, a shadowy outfit that many officials consider to be the biggest threat to the American presence in the country. The network is better connected to Pakistani intelligence and Arab jihadist groups than any other Afghan insurgent group, according to American intelligence officials.
This video frame grab taken from a Taliban propaganda video released Saturday, July 18, 2009 shows an American soldier who went missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan June 30 and was later confirmed captured. The soldier, whose identity has not yet been confirmed by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.
(AP Photo/Militant Video)
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AP sources: Taliban video shows captive US soldier
The American soldier who went missing June 30 from his base in eastern Afghanistan and was later confirmed to have been captured, appeared on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two U.S. defense officials said.
The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting and dressed in a nondescript, gray outfit. Early in the video one of his captors holds the soldier's dog tag up to the camera. His name and ID number are clearly visible. He is shown eating at one point and sitting on a bed.
The soldier, whose identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon pending notification of members of Congress and the soldier's family, says his name, age and hometown on the video, which was released Saturday on a Web site pointed out by the Taliban. Two U.S. defense officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the man in the video is the captured soldier.
The soldier said the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol.
He is interviewed in English by his captors, and he is asked his views on the war, which he calls extremely hard, his desire to learn more about Islam and the morale of American soldiers, which he said was low.
Asked how he was doing, the soldier said on the video:
"Well I'm scared, scared I won't be able to go home. It is very unnerving to be a prisoner."
He begins to answer questions in a matter-of-fact and sober voice, occasionally facing the camera, looking down and sometimes looking to the questioner on his left.
He later chokes up when discussing his family and his hope to marry his girlfriend.
"I have my girlfriend, who is hoping to marry," he said. "I have a very, very good family that I love back home in America. And I miss them every day when I'm gone. I miss them and I'm afraid that I might not ever see them again and that I'll never be able to tell them that I love them again and I'll never be able to hug them."
He is also prompted his interrogators to give a message to the American people.
"To my fellow Americans who have loved ones over here, who know what it's like to miss them, you have the power to make our government bring them home," he said. "Please, please bring us home so that we can be back where we belong and not over here, wasting our time and our lives and our precious life that we could be using back in our own country. Please bring us home. It is America and American people who have that power."
The video is not a continuous recording — it appears to stop and start during the questioning.
It is unclear from the video whether the July 14 date is authentic. The soldier says that he heard that a Chinook helicopter carrying 37 NATO troops had been shot down over Helmand. A helicopter was shot down in southern Afghanistan on July 14, but it was carrying civilians on a reported humanitarian mission for NATO forces. All six Ukrainian passengers died in the crash, and a child on the ground was killed.
On July 2, the U.S. military said an American soldier had disappeared after walking off his base in eastern Afghanistan with three Afghan counterparts and was believed to have been taken prisoner. A U.S. defense official said the soldier was noticed missing during a routine check of the unit on June 30 and was first listed as "duty status whereabouts unknown."
Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.
But Afghan Police Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said the soldier went missing in eastern Paktika province near the border with Pakistan from an American base. The region is known to be Taliban-infested.
The most important insurgent group operating in that area is known as Haqqani network and is led by warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan president Hamid Karzai early last year.
On Saturday, a U.S. military official in Kabul, Col. Greg Julian, said the U.S. was "still doing everything we can to return him safely."
Julian said U.S. troops had distributed two flyers in the area where the soldier disappeared. One of them asked for information on the missing soldier and offered a $25,000 reward for his return. The other said "please return our soldier safely" or "we will hunt you," according to Julian.
Wild Thing's comment.........
I wish Obama would let our military be unleashed, and the rules of engagement, and the terrorists’ so-called miranda rights, need to be tossed in the trash. Our foreign policy needs to follow this philosophy: Those that don’t love us must respect us; those that don’t respect us must fear us. The taliban fall in to the last category; fear will come when a bunker-buster sends them to their 72 virgins in hell.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:50 AM | Comments (8)
July 17, 2009
Navy F18 Streaks Past Apartment Building
A Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet crew got permission for a low-level demonstration flight, as part of the opening ceremony for a speedboat race on the Detroit River, last weekend. This is what it looked like, for Motor City residents.
[Photo: AP/The Detroit News, Steve Perez. Originally spotted at the Daily Mail]
Now that's what I call a fly-past: US Navy F18 streaks past apartment block
This is the moment a a US Navy pilot gave a shocked resident a very close look at his F18. The fighter/bomber streaked past an apartment block on the banks of the Detroit River at the weekend.
It was part of a tactical demonstration fly-past to open a speedboat race in the North American city.
Officials waived rules to allow the Navy flyers to swoop under 100ft along the waterway
One resident said: 'I couldn't believe how low they flew and how close they came to our building - I'm sure the pilot waved at me.'
The jets had flown in from the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia to put on a spectacular show for thousands of spectators.
The Chrysler Jeep Superstores APBA Gold Cup race was won by speedboat ace Dave Villcock.
'We danced with the devil at every turn,' said Villwock, 55, who demolished the field on his way to his seventh Gold Cup win.
'We were either going to win it big or lose it big.'
He couldn't match the F15s for speed, although his average of 141mph for the five-lap final remained impressive.
Wild Thing's comment.........
Totally cool, I would love to have been the person standing on the balcony. heh heh
How fantastic is that!
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:55 AM | Comments (6)
In Country Afghanistan
The Department of Defense announced today the deployment of two units to Afghanistan.
The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, from Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Vicenza, Italy, have been alerted to replace forces currently deployed in Afghanistan, in order to maintain the capabilities of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, will deploy with approximately 3,800 troops to Afghanistan in late fall 2009. The 173rd Brigade Combat Team, with approximately 3,700 troops, will deploy to Afghanistan in the winter of 2009-2010. Both units will conduct the full spectrum of combat operations.
The United States continues to be NATO-ISAF’s largest troop contributor, and remains committed to leading the offensive in counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan, training and equipping the Afghan national security forces and assisting with reconstruction. Force levels in Afghanistan are conditions-based and will be determined in consultation with the Afghan government and NATO.
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A U.S. Army Soldier with 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, fires at anti-Afghanistan forces attacking from the hills surrounding the remote village of Barge Matal during Operation Mountain Fire in Afghanistan's Nuristan province, July 12. During the operation, U.S. and Afghan national security forces quickly secured the tiny mountain village, which was overwhelmed by AAF several days prior.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:40 AM | Comments (5)
July 16, 2009
Pentagon Won't Ban War-zone Smoking
War is not golf Obama, you don't get creidt for allowing our troops to smoke now if they want to, you should have put a stop to the ban to begin with. ~ Wild Thing
Pentagon won't ban war-zone smoking, despite study
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
The Pentagon reassured troops Wednesday that it won't ban tobacco products in war zones. Defense officials hadn't actually planned to eliminate smoking — at least for now. But fear of a ban arose among some troops after the Defense Department received a study recommending the military move toward becoming tobacco-free — perhaps in about 20 years.
An advocacy group, however, is strongly condemning the push by Pentagon health experts to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end sales of tobacco products on military property. Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United, decried even the discussion of such a ban.
"With all the issues facing our military today and the risks our troops take to protect our freedom, banning smoking should not even be on the radar screen," Wise said in a written statement Wednesday.
"Nobody doubts the effects of smoking, but it is not an illegal substance and should not be banned," he said. "Our troops make enough sacrifices to serve our nation. They give up many of the freedoms civilians enjoy already without being told they cannot partake in yet another otherwise legal activity. Perhaps more than anything, smoking in the field is more about comfort and coping with an often hostile environment."
Press secretary Geoff Morrell pointedly told a Pentagon news conference that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is not planning to prohibit the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco or other tobacco products by troops in combat.
"He knows that the situation they are confronting is stressful enough as it is," Morrell said, noting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I don't think he is interested in adding to the stress levels by taking away one of the few outlets they may have to relieve stress."
Criticism of the proposals spread across the Internet and among troops.
"Our troops make enough sacrifices to serve our nation," said Brian Wise, executive director of the advocacy group Military Families United. "They give up many of the freedoms civilians enjoy already without being told they cannot partake in yet another otherwise legal activity."
Spc. Charles Rodriguez, 23, said he started smoking long before he joined the Army and that his pack-a-day habit doesn't affect his physical fitness.
Wild Thing's comment.........
The idea that they are even considering this speaks volumes as to how they don't have a clue about combat. Or if they do could care less about our troops.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (10)
July 13, 2009
Obama Orders Review of Alleged Slayings of Taliban During Bush Era vs. Horse Soldiers
Obama orders review of alleged slayings of Taliban in Bush era
Obama has ordered national security officials to look into allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a CIA-backed Afghan warlord over the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.
"The indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently was brought to my attention," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview during the president's visit to Ghana. The full interview will air 10 p.m. Monday, tonight.
"So what I've asked my national security team to do is to collect the facts for me that are known, and we'll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all of the facts gathered up," Obama said.
The inquiry stems from the deaths of at least 1,000 Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001.
The fighters were in the custody of troops led by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a prominent Afghan warlord who has served as chief of staff of the country's post-Taliban army.
Dostum, a former communist union boss and militia leader who fought against the U.S.-backed mujahedeen in the 1980s, is known for switching sides as Afghanistan's political conflict has evolved. When the United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Dostum sided with the Americans and received military and CIA support to battle the Taliban.
At the time, the Boston, Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights said it found a mass grave in nearby Dasht-e Leili, where witnesses said the bodies of Taliban prisoners were buried. The finding prompted U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Afghanistan, to support an investigation into the allegations.
But The New York Times, citing government officials and human rights organizations, reported Friday that the Bush administration "repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode."
When asked by CNN about whether Obama would support an investigation, the president replied, "I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have, even in war. And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that."
If you have read Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan you will be outraged by the statement that Obama intends to investigate the actions of General Dostum in the death of 1,000 Taliban prisoners, while also investigating the Bush administrations unwillingness to press charges of some sort at the time.
You may not know, but Dostum is a colorful General in the Northern Alliance, working on various sides of various issues and often for himself, as warlords do. This event is with respect to the prison riot that erupted after the Taliban started to collapse in the fall of 2001. That is the prison riot where an American CIA agent was killed by the Taliban prisoners.
For background, a small team of US special forces and CIA agents went into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, right after 9-11 and teamed with what was left of the northern alliance (Dostum and others) to take down the Taliban. They fought against the Taliban in some of the most unconventional ways - taking on Taliban Tanks while Dostum's guys and CIA were on horse back, calling in JDAM GPS guided weapons from B52s built in the 60's, using a satellite hand held radio. Special Forces, CIA, and the Northern Alliance did what the Russians had failed to do, take over Afghanistan. And they did it in months.
Franks and others had wanted to delay 6 months and deploy 50k-100k troops to do what these guys accomplished in a short time before winter came. Under the Franks plan thousands more would have died, on both sides.
The Horse Soldiers, as they were called, exhibited the best traits, true American spirit, working closely and respectfully with local leaders like Dostum to adapt to the regional realities. The book contrasts the success in Afghanistan to the difficulties in Iraq, where our policies were less integrated with regional politics and realities. Afghanistan and taught us that working with marginal characters like Dostum is a lesson in respecting others. Isn't it Obama that keeps telling us to think about other people and their cultures? I suspect the Bush team understood that, and that's why Bush did not investigate the deaths related to the prison riot in greater detail.
So the prison story goes a bit like this...
There are two types of Taliban, Afghan and non Afghan. When an Afghan Taliban gives up he pledges allegiance to the Northern Alliance, and won't switch sides unless there is some other lost battle. The non Afghan Taliban will never surrender. So, Dostum beat the hell out of a key Taliban leader on the battle field. The Taliban surrendered. So Dostum had to take the radicalized non-Afghan Taliban and stick them in a prison (Because its easy to find a prision for 1,000 people in the middle of a bombed out country). The Afghan Taliban were all let go after pledging allegiance to Dostum. Well it appears, this surrender was actually a ploy of sorts. The non-afghan Taliban prisioners all kept their weapons (long story, read the book). And after some time staged an uprising to take over the prision. Dostum was not fully prepared. His troops shot their machine guns from the prison turrets and killed hundreds of prisioners, but they kept coming. The Taliban had no intention of surrendeirng. The fight lasted several days. Ultimately they had the last of the Taliban cornered in a lower level, pooring kerosene in to burn them out. When that did not work they redirected an irrigation system to flood them out. Something like 35, of more than 1,000 killed, were still alive and surrendered. One of those was that jerk John Walker Lynn.
This was a war. Dostum is a questionable character, but in a Jack Bauer kind of way. Hell Jack was probably there.
More importantly, if you listen to the guys who were in the book, you get a much better insight into what wars of the future might be like and how we need to work with local factions to achieve victory without putting 100k troops at risk. This is a dumb investigation. It works against the the lessons from the battle. Some things should just never be investigated. There is no way to judge the actions of someone in the battlefield 8 years after the fact. And for those that talk about civil rights, what about the rights of the 10,000 troops that would have died through a conventional American invasion?
I suspect there are other reasons for the investigation, as a matter of fact all the new investigations (Dostum, CIA, unwarranted this or that). If your poll numbers start going down, take on the the other guy (Bush) and start blaming him. Economy not doing well, can't blame Bush its the Obama plan. But you can go after Bush about war Crimes.
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Wild Thing's comment......
Obama has lost what little mind he has if he’s even thinking of a prosecution about this. Obama to stir up a “war crimes” is bad enough and WRONG, then add in that the surge he just ordered has just begun and our brave men are dying over there mostly because of his ROE not to shoot at the Taliban if one civilian could be hit. When we know the Taliban hide behind them, dress in Burqas and hide among children and in homes of civilians. He is also giving the Taliban a morale boost and some propganda support on top of that!
With declining poll numbers threatening his governmental take over of our country and all of it's citizens lives, he props himself the only way he knows how, which is by attacking President Bush. And he chooses to villainize and stigmatize the one group of Americans he and Bill Ayers so jealously hate...our precious U.S. Military.
Obama doesn't have a clue what war is, what our military go through, sacrifice, put up with, are in danger every second 24/7. Not a clue!!! This would fall under his BIGGEDT apology ever in the sickest way possible. Next Obama will be calling for NATIONAL Day of Mourning for fallen Taliban by U.S. Forces. And what the hell is wrong with killing the Taliban anyway!
Dostum may be a questionable character, but he, the CIA, and our awesome Special Ops guys did what had to be done. This investigation is nothing but cover for the Obama Admin.
The fall of the Taliban government in Kabul to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan was a fantastic achievement for our Special Forces, Bush /Cheney ( I still think Cheney had a lot to do with it in the background he is a take no prisoner kind of guy) and Rumsfeld.
The media was doing their propaganda machine on it and mostly only wanted to point out they still did not get Bin Laden.
* What you can do for your country
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:55 AM | Comments (13)
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Legare Sails To Western And Central Africa
The Portsmouth, Va.,-based U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Legare sails past Naval Station Norfolk, July 1, en route western and central Africa. Under the direction of the commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, Legare will support the Navy's 6th Fleet by serving as the primary APS platform, conducting activities and exchanges that bolster maritime safety and security as part of an ongoing support mission made up of multinational governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Photo by Lt. Rob Wyman
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Wild Thing's comment.....
Saw this photo and loved it. I sat here for a little while just looking at it, beautiful I think. Love our Coast Guard!
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:45 AM | Comments (3)
U.S. Air Force Rescue Aids in 'Golden Hour' Recovery
As dust kicks up from the rotor wash of an HH-60G Pave Hawk, Senior Airman Clint Lentz, pararescueman with the 129th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, prepares for the landing June 26, Hemland province, Afghanistan. Airman Lentz and the rest of the crew are responding to a medevac request to aid personnel conducting combat operations further down range.
Staff Sgt. William Lawson, pararescueman with the 129th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, comforts a wounded Afghan national army soldier, Hemland province, Afghanistan. Lawson will provide care to the injured soldier until they can safely deliver him to a hospital.
U.S. Air Force Rescue Aids in 'Golden Hour' Recovery of Coalition Forces
by Staff Sgt. Stacia Zachary
Racing against the clock, rescue flights launch into action to retrieve wounded service members and other battlefield casualties. As the helicopters hover over a hostile area, the Guardian Angel team rushes out to retrieve the wounded - often risking their own lives "so that others may live."
The 129th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron here responds to emergency medical evacuation calls within Helmand province. The detachment covers the dual role of providing casualty evacuation and personnel recovery/combat search and rescue in the Helmand province. They support Regional Command South, responding to calls for U.S. and coalition forces as well as Afghan national security forces and local nationals.
"As Air Force rescue crews, we use our personnel recovery and combat search and rescue skill-set to conduct CASEVAC quicker and better than anyone in theater," said Maj. Matt Wenthe, 129th ERQS detachment commander.
The rescue squadron is made up of more than 60 personnel and HH-60G Pave-Hawks. The rescue flight consists of two helicopters, each with a pilot, co-pilot, aerial gunner, flight engineer and two pararescuemen or combat rescue officers.
The Air Force rescue teams hold true to their motto: Those things we do so that others may live. They are often identified through the Jolly Green Giant patches seen worn on their right shoulders.
"Our entire mindset is to bring an emergency medical platform, combined with offensive security capability, to the site for quick and successful extraction of those who need us," Wenthe said.
The area has recently seen an increase of insurgent activity as more coalition forces are moved into Afghanistan. As such, more calls come over the radio requesting rapid recovery of injured servicemembers, or innocent bystanders in locations that are extremely hostile. This type of mission demands a response team specialized in rapid insertion to and egress from aggressive and risky environments.
"The CSAR mission requires us to train going into hostile environments," the major said. "That training allows us to execute medical evacuations in areas other units cannot get into."
The rescue crews are trained to extract personnel in any environment.
"We can go into any mission-set to recover someone, regardless of the terrain," said Capt. John, 129th ERQS CRO. "Whether they are Marines entrapped in an MRAP [mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle] or hanging from a 10,000 ft. cliff, my men can get to them and get them to safety."
The rescue teams must remain on high alert during their 12-hour shifts. When a medical report drops, the teams need to be ready immediately.
"Things happen quick and the men have to be ready to move at a moment's notice," Wenthe said. "Our guys can be asleep or playing video games and 15 minutes later, flying into a hot zone recovering a seriously injured Soldier."
As per Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, teams need to respond within 60 minutes from the time a 9-Line medical alert drops, to wheels down and transferring a patient to a higher level of medical care - a concept commonly referred to as the "Golden Hour."
"Speed is what's saving lives," the major said. "Getting the Soldiers who are injured picked up quickly and to the higher care they need. If we are able to get to someone within the 'Golden Hour,' then survival is pretty certain for someone."
Recently, a Marine on a foot patrol in the Helmand province was seriously injured from the blast of an improvised explosive device.
"If our CSAR guys hadn't gotten to the Marine when they did and start medical care on him, he wouldn't have survived - it's that simple," said Capt. Jac Solghan, Camp Bastion Role 3 Hospital Aeromedical Evacuation Liaison Team flight clinical coordinator. "Following the 'Golden Rule' is giving people a chance who otherwise would have had none and [the CSAR] guys are giving us that hope for survival. Without them, countless people would now be dead."
Constantly on the move, the teams receive upwards of five calls per shift. They respond to all types of calls requiring care for anyone affected by the war.
"Per our creed, our role is to save a life in any condition," the CRO said. "With so many customers on the line who need our help, it's not a burden but a welcome opportunity to go out there and help the people who need us most. Through our men, lives are being saved. There's no better reward than knowing someone will get to go home alive."
Wild Thing's comment........
Wow, God bless these awesome people.......thank God for each one of them.
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:44 AM | Comments (1)
USS Ronald Reagan Launches First Sorties in Relief of USS Eisenhower
USS Ronald Reagan Launches First Sorties in Relief of USS Eisenhower
ABOARD USS RONALD REAGAN, At Sea
The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group relieved the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group today in command of Task Force 50 and launched its first sorties in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Aircraft from Carrier Air Wing 14 departed the decks of the strike group's flagship, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, bound for Afghanistan to support coalition ground forces.
"I'm excited to get this started, because in essence, what we're doing is saving American and coalition lives," said Navy Capt. Kenneth Norton, Ronald Reagan's commanding officer. "The Eisenhower strike group did a fantastic job in theater, and we're ready to continue that level of support. We have a lot of experience on board Ronald Reagan and with the air wing. Our crew knows how to execute this mission effectively."
While Ronald Reagan and Carrier Air Wing 14 are returning to a mission they performed a year ago, they understand that conditions in Afghanistan have changed, officials said, with stricter guidelines in place to minimize civilian casualties and collateral damage in Afghanistan.
Navy Rear Adm. Scott Hebner, the strike group's commander, said the group's more than 7,500 sailors are eager to carry out their mission.
"Our sailors are focused and serious-minded about what is ahead," he said. "They know the Navy and our country is counting on them. They are ready to demonstrate their impressive capabilities across the spectrum of our maritime strategy."
The Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group had operated in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations since March.
"Our preparations last fall allowed us to deliver exactly what the fleet commander asked for: persistent U.S. naval power in perfect partnership with our joint and coalition partners [and] delivering security and stability for the good of all mariners in this vital area of the world," said Navy Rear Adm. Kurt W. Tidd, commander of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group.
Eisenhower's embarked air wing, Carrier Air Wing 7, flew more than 2,000 sorties in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Ships of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group also were vital in counter-piracy operations, including the USS Bainbridge's direct role in the rescue of Richard Phillips, captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama.
"I am extremely proud of the 4,500 men and women on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They have performed magnificently this entire deployment," said Navy Capt. Dee L. Mewbourne, Eisenhower's commanding officer. "They supported coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan with utmost professionalism while providing regional security and stability. Without question, their service made a difference."
USS Ronald Reagan is joined by the guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville. Other Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group ships will support maritime security operations while deployed to the region. The guided-missile destroyers USS Decatur, USS Howard and USS Gridley and the guided-missile frigate USS Thach will help to deter destabilizing activities and ensure a lawful maritime order in the Persian Gulf, Persian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden and Red Sea, officials said.
The Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group is on a routine deployment to the region. Operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations are focused on reassuring regional partners of the U.S. commitment to security, which promotes stability and global prosperity, officials said.
Wild Thing's comment........
I love that they are out there, Land, sea and air, all of it protecting us and working together to absolutely positively destroy every breathing terrorist.......... well that would be great! heh heh
Posted by Wild Thing at 04:40 AM | Comments (2)
July 12, 2009
Obama Cuts Funding For Gear and Armored Vests & Armored Vehicles
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White House cuts funding for (Soldier) gear (Armored vests & armored vehicles)
WASHINGTON
House lawmakers on Thursday blasted a White House decision not to provide money next fiscal year for upgrades to combat-worn equipment, and promised a fight to put billions back into the defense budget.
The House version of the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill already contains about $20 billion for the repair of equipment worn down by desert conditions and purchase of new gear to replace items destroyed in combat. About $11 billion of the total is for the Army alone.
But that’s down more than $2 billion from previous years’ requests, and doesn’t include any funds for things like vehicle armor improvements, new communications equipment or other upgrades.
Officials from the Office of Management and Budget said money for those improvements will come from the Army’s base budget, and not from the extra overseas contingency funds meant to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli said Tuesday that the directive outlining the funding change effectively cuts any such recapitalization work next year.
"For the most part, adding on upgrades to equipment won’t be allowed in FY2010," he said. "I think it makes a lot of sense to upgrade when we can. But the new rules are that we can’t do that."
In a statement OMB officials said the move "is part of a long-overdue attempt to rationalize how the Administration requests funding for war, versus non-war programs, forces and activities."
But news of the policy upset lawmakers, who said they were unaware of any limits on equipment reset for next year and were concerned about shortchanging the services.
"If we’re going to do this on the basis of ... a budget number, as opposed to our obligation to provide what [the services] need, then I have a real dilemma here," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii. "I can’t say we’re giving a number that really provides for the military’s necessity."
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., said OMB may have overstepped its boundaries in the directive by limiting how the reset fund can be spent, and said he believes the Army and Marine Corps should receive the money they need for critical readiness upgrades next year.
OMB officials did not provide comment by deadline, but service officials confirmed the overseas contingency operations directive was provided to the Pentagon as part of the budget process earlier this year.
Congress has authorized nearly $70 billion for reset and upgrades of equipment since 2006, money that doesn’t include funds to fast-track production of combat necessities like Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.
Army and Marine Corps officials have said throughout that shortfalls in equipment and repair funding would not endanger troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, since they’re constantly supplied with the best-conditioned vehicles and gear available.
But units training in the States, or those in noncombat units based overseas, have been stuck with older equipment and faced shortfalls in getting up-to-date training equipment.
Chiarelli said he’s confident the $11 billion the Army requested for fiscal 2010 — about $8 billion for logistics costs and depot maintenance, and $3 billion for procurement and repair — is enough to keep missions and training operating smoothly.
"We are able with the funds available to reset equipment," he said. "We understand the tremendous fiscal crisis our country has gone through. As long as we can reset our equipment, we understand that because of fiscal requirements it may be in the best interest of our country as a whole to cut back on recapitalization."
The Marine Corps is expected to receive about $2 billion in reset funds, and the National Guard and Reserve another $7 billion.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
The RATS need all of those funds to push their commie agenda. Obama and the left have no respect for the troops or their families
They are determined to destroy our military and to leave them minimally equipped right in the MIDDLE of a war with 2 fronts.These people are systematically deconstructing America. Damn the traitors Obama really is evil. Debilitating our military while at war with radical Islamic jihadists is NOT a good idea. TREASON!
So this means the troops themselves will have to buy the armor gear for themselves out of their pockets. OMG!
Obama is putting our Troops in harm’s way.......on purpose. OBAMA how can you do this, PLEASE stop messing with our troops!!!!!
Muslim breath Barack Hussein Obama military policy so far:
* Miranda Rights for Terrorists / Terrorists Captured on Battlefield Have Constitutional Rights (Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said that the Obama administration's policy of reading Miranda rights to terrorists captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan is "outrageous." )
* Gays ask and tell
* Fight Taliban with hands tied
* Don’t shoot back at Taliban Terrorists!
* And don’t bother the women and men in burqas!
* Cancel F-22 and Missile Defense
* Watch out for the Poppy Fields, don't disturb the poppies
* Implement ban on smoking who cares how slow they do it the fact it is in the works is anti-troops
* Cancel Body armor and vehicle funding.
Soooooo what is next, tanks made of plastic or something????
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:55 AM | Comments (16)
Senior Airman Nicholas Barker Defuses Commercial Airline Incident
Col. Thomas Kauth, Logistics Assessment Branch chief, presents Senior Airman Nicholas Barker, 436th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, a certificate of appreciation for his excellence during Dover Air Force Base’s Logistics Standardization and Evaluation Program inspection. Two months later, Barker showed his excellence again by subduing an irate man on an international commercial flight. U.S. Air Force photo by Tom Randle
Face of Defense: Airman Defuses Commercial Airline Incident
By Air Force Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace, Special to American Forces Press Service
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del.
June 29, 2009
It was enough to make even the calmest airline passengers nervous: an irate man pacing the aisles of a commercial flight shouting, “I want to slit the captain’s throat!”
However, in the face of this peril on a June 9 U.S. borne flight to Italy, a Dover mechanic came to the rescue.
Though Senior Airman Nicholas Barker, 436th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, looked like the many other passengers, by the end of the flight it was apparent he was different – he was a hero.
Barker was headed to Naples, where he was to report for maintenance readiness training. However, fate had a different plan for the crew chief that day and he soon found himself in a perilous situation, strong-arming and securing an enraged man speaking Italian.
“He was pacing up and down the aircraft almost as he was looking for something,” explained the Plymouth, Mich., native. “I wasn’t the only person to notice his strange behavior. People all around were looking at him as if he was drunk and the crew was trying to calm him down.”
Since Barker doesn’t speak Italian, he did not know the severity of the situation at first, but recalled the state of affairs leading up to his intervention.
“The aircraft’s captain came to our section of the plane to try to get the guy back to his seat,” Barker said. “One of the flight attendants looked at me and said, ‘We may need your help.’”
Barker stood up, but the situation seemed to calm and the passenger seemed to be heading to his seat. Barker returned to his seat as well. A little while later, a voice came over the airliner’s public announcement system asking if anyone had law enforcement or military training.
Barker made his way to the rear of the plane to see what he could do to help. What he found in the plane’s rear was the same guy, more irate than before, saying he hoped the engine would catch fire and that he wanted to slit the captain’s throat. The situation required immediate action.
“A crew member handed me a pair of plastic hand cuffs,” Barker recalled. “As I began to walk over to the passenger, he saw the cuffs and started to resist. I then gave the cuffs to a flight attendant so that I could restrain him.”
Barker, along with the many other passengers that day, found themselves in a situation that could have gone downhill fast. Barker knew he had to act.
“I grabbed the guy’s forearm, put my elbow into his shoulder and held him by his throat,” he explained. “I wasn’t choking him, but applying enough pressure that he knew I could if I needed.”
With the man subdued, a flight attendant was able to cuff his hands and feet. After that, Barker situated the man upright in his seat, buckled him in, and tied his cuffs to his seat belt. After he was secure in his restraints, Barker returned to his seat near the front of the aircraft.
It soon became apparent that the man was trying to free himself from his restraints, and Barker was summoned again.
“I just took a seat adjacent to him to keep an intimidating eye on him – it kept him calm,” he said. There was not any more trouble for the remainder of the flight.
Afterward, Barker reflected on his training and the fact that being in the military gave him a leg up in the situation.
“Servicemembers know to not freeze up under pressure,” said Barker, adding that most servicemembers willingly sacrifice their safety for that of others. “I didn't have time to think. I knew this guy was a possible threat and this just had to be done.”
The 436th AMXS commander, Maj. Stephanie Halcrow, was not surprised by Barker’s actions.
In fact, excellence seems to be a Barker trademark. He was recognized by Air Mobility Command’s Logistics Standardization and Evaluation Program inspection team for his superior performance during an April inspection.
Halcrow reacted to Barker’s recent heroism in five simple words, “Senior Airman Barker – our hero!”
Wild Thing's comment........
Thank you Senior Airman Nicholas Barker.
Posted by Wild Thing at 05:40 AM | Comments (8)
July 11, 2009
‘Camouflage Angel’ Spends Last Moments With U.S. Combat Casualties
Army Sgt. Jennifer Watson, non-commissioned officer-in-charge of the Casualty Liaison Team at Joint Base Balad, stands in Hero's Highway. Each patient brought via helicopter to the Air Force Theater Hospital passes through Hero's Highway. Watson, a native of Peru, Ind., is deployed here from Fort Campbell, Ky. Photo by Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing.
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‘Camouflage Angel’ Spends Last Moments With U.S. Combat Casualties
By Staff Sgt. Dilia Ayala, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing
The emergency-room trauma call and the medical staff's immediate action upon his arrival is only a memory to her now; sitting quietly at the bedside of her brother-in-arms, she carefully takes his hand, thanking him for his service and promising she will not leave his side.
He is a critically injured combat casualty, and she is Army Sgt. Jennifer Watson of the Casualty Liaison Team here.
Although a somber scene, it is not an uncommon one for the Peru, Ind., native, who in addition to her primary duties throughout the last 14 months, has taken it upon herself to ensure no U.S. casualty passes away alone. Holding each of their hands, she sits with them until the end, no matter the day or the hour.
"It's unfortunate that their families can't be here," said Watson, who is deployed here from Fort Campbell, Ky. "So I took it upon myself to step up and be that family while they are here. No one asked me to do it; I just did what I felt was right in my heart. I want them to know they are heroes.
"I feel just because they are passing away does not mean they cannot hear and feel someone around them," she continued. "I talk to them, thanking them for what they have done, telling them they are a hero, they will never be forgotten, and I explain my job to them to help them be at ease knowing the family will be told the truth."
In general, Watson explains to the patients that the CLT works within the Patient Administrative Department here, acting as a liaison for all military and civilian patients in-theater and initiating the casualty-notification process to the patient's next-of-kin.
Upon their arrival at the Air Force Theater Hospital, Watson speaks with each combat casualty getting as accurate information as possible about the incident. Once the doctor gives their diagnosis and severity of the patient's injuries, Watson and her team complete and send a Defense Casualty Information Processing System folder report to the Department of the Army or the patient's respective service so that their next-of-kin can be notified.
"I make sure we tell their family everything they want to know, so they know everything that's going on," said Watson. "[Through the report], we'll tell the families everything that is going on with their family member ... so that they don't have any questions."
Furthermore, once the initial report has been sent, the CLT and Watson make hourly rounds to the intensive-care ward or unit to check on the patient's well-being, or, for the more critical patients, to check on their stability.
"We are constantly communicating and making sure the family knows everything we know," said Watson. "We want to put the families at ease and let them know that everything is being done for their loved one. From the moment a servicemember is brought in through Hero's Highway, they are never alone."
Each month, the AFTH, the equivalent of a U.S. Level-1 trauma center, treats more than 539 patients; more than 101 are trauma cases in the emergency department. Although Watson can never predict if and when her fellow brothers- or sisters- in arms may need her, she is always available here.
"The hospital staff is wonderful," said Watson. "They know how important it is for me to be there with them and if they know it's time, someone will come and get me no matter where I'm at.
"I see it as a form of closure, not just for me, but for the families so that they know that somebody was there with their son or daughter," she added. "My heart goes out to every patient that comes into the hospital, especially my wounded in action Soldiers. I feel like everyone who comes through the door is my brother or sister."
Not surprisingly, Watson's dedication to duty and her hard work have not gone unnoticed. She has touched the lives of all those who she has come in contact with, to include the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group commander, Col. Mark Mavity.
"Sgt. Watson's story is one of the most compelling here in the Med Group," said Mavity. "She is a Soldier's Soldier who combines an unparalleled level of compassion and commitment to our most grievously wounded warriors with amazing professionalism each and every day.
"What is truly incredible is that she is a personnelist by training but with the heart of a medic who has taken it upon herself to hold the hand and keep a bedside vigil with every mortally wounded Soldier who has spent their last hours within the AFTH," continued the colonel. "She will not let her brave brothers or sisters pass alone. This is a heavy burden to bear and at great personal emotional cost to Sgt. Watson, but she is unwavering in her final commitment to these Soldiers. You don't have to look any further than Sgt. Watson to find a true hero."
"Angel" and "hero" are only two of the many titles Watson has been given since arriving at JBB; although she is appreciative of the kind words, she remains humble.
"I am far from an angel," said the sergeant with a smile. "I just do what is in my heart. I guess for me, I think about the family and the closure of knowing the Soldier did not pass away alone. To say I'm a hero ... no. The heroes are my guys who come in [through Hero's Highway]."
Reflecting on her time here, Watson said she is extremely thankful for the opportunity she has had to work side-by-side with the Air Force.
"The staff of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group has done an amazing job since I have been here," she said. "They are incredible. They have done procedures and saved the lives of the most critically injured Soldiers, and have been some of the most professional people I have ever worked with.
"I want the families to know that their servicemember was a hero," Watson concluded. "They made the ultimate sacrifice, but before they passed on, they received the best medical treatment, and the staff did everything they could -- they were not in pain and they didn't die alone."
Wild Thing's comment......
Prayers for this soldier and those she helps. This is not even her assigned duty, she an administration clerk. This is just something she started doing because she's an angel full of love and everyone else in the unit not only accepts it, they encourage it.
Posted by Wild Thing at 06:55 AM | Comments (14)
“Held Down” Under Heavy Fire: Echo Company Marines From 2/8 Battle To Hold Position
“Held Down” Under Heavy Fire: Echo Company Marines From 2/8 Battle To Hold Position
Troops from a US Marine company in Afghanistan have been under almost constant fire since entering the country with 4,000 other troops during the week.
Since flying in by helicopter to Mian Poshteh in Helmand province, troops from the 2/8 infantry battalion have been held down by insurgents.
The 200 Marines are still fighting to hold position and have had to call in helicopter gunships for assistance.
Taliban fighters have been using small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and rockets against the Marines
One Marine was killed in the hostile fire in the first day of the battle, while others are succumbing to the intense heat in the area and are being evacuated to medical facilities.
The Marines are in an area which is criss-crossed by canals and irrigation ditches which were built by the US in the 1950s and 1960s to aid agriculturalists in the region.
Opium has become the mainstay on local farms, where the owners have been forced by the Taliban insurgency to grow the crop.
Agencie France Presse: