This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Dave Hardin

  • Michael “Sonny” Smith; Fake Bronze Star, Fake Purple Heart, Fake service in Vietnam.

    Michael “Sonny” Smith; Fake Bronze Star, Fake Purple Heart, Fake service in Vietnam.

    The fine people over at militaryphony.com send us their case on  Sonny Smith who has been telling stories about his acts of daring-do while he was in Vietnam.

    ‘I Got Medals, But I’m No Hero’ – Vietnam veteran Sonny Smith finally shares his story

    Most people who have seen him around town likely know that Sonny Smith, a 35-year resident of Eureka Springs, is a veteran. But only a small number of folks know the details of his war service, and those are the members of his American Legion Post No. 9.

    The full story of the Vietnam War has yet to be told by anyone, he says, and some veterans are still reluctant to share their experiences.

    But for the Lovely County Citizen’s Veterans Day commemoration, Smith decided to share his story in a typed letter:

    M. Sonny Smith was born in Glendale, Calif., on Aug. 20, 1950.

    After being drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1968 at the age of 18, and after basic combat training, field radio mechanic school and the U.S. Army Airborne Jump School, Smith was sent to Fort Bragg, N.C., headquarters of the 82nd Airborne Division, 3rd Brigade, Combat Team. There he was assigned to the 1/505 Parachute Infantry Regiment, nicknamed “The Panthers.”

    He arrived at Fort Bragg in November 1968. A week later, he was off to Vietnam.

    Smith was in Vietnam for 12 months and eight days, returning with his unit in December 1969. During his last four and half months in country, he got “volunteered” into becoming a helicopter door gunner, he says.

    Sonny Smith, front row left, poses for a photo with members of his squad in Vietnam. Smith and the men in the top row left and right corners, were the only three who survived.

    “My primary military occupational speciality (MOS) was a tactical communications, radio mechanic/operator,” he said. “One day this helicopter comes in and its radio is shot up, and they have a personnel casualty. I had to wait until they pulled the body out before I could hop in to work on the radio.

    “Just as I started to open my tool box, the pilot takes off and the co-pilot threw a COMM (communications) helmet at me and says ‘Put it on and man the machine gun, you’re our new door gunner now. That dead guy they just pulled out of here was our last one.’”

    Smith finished his tour of duty in Vietnam attached to the 1st Cavalry as a helicopter door gunner. Toward the end of his tour, while door gunning in a fire fight, he was hit in the leg by enemy ground fire and was later awarded the Purple Heart.

    The whole story is published HERE.

    His official military records tell us a different story.

    The Army says he does not have a Purple Heart, Bronze Star or Jump Wings.  According to his records, he might be trying to pull a Dick.  Knock it off Sonny Smith.

  • Tuesday morning feel good stories.

    Tuesday morning feel good stories.

    From OREM, UT

    A man who was shot while apparently trespassing in a garage in Orem has died.

    Police confirmed around noon the man injured in Monday morning’s shooting died, but they are still working to notify his family so his identity is not being released yet.

    Police at the scene said things began shortly before 7 a.m. when a man found someone rummaging through his detached garage at a residence near 400 North and 800 West.

    “He walked back into his house, got his handgun, came back out ” Lt. Craig Martinez of Orem Police said of the homeowner. “There was a confrontation between he and the suspect, at which time there was several shots fired—a few of them hitting the suspect in the abdomen.”

    No further details about that confrontation were immediately available.

    Medics responded and performed CPR on the 49-year-old man before he  was taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition, where he later died.

    Police said he is from Orem and is not someone they are familiar with from a criminal history standpoint.

    “It was like something I’d hear in a movie,” said James Hopkins, who lives nearby. “Things like this can happen anywhere… but it still makes you wonder, makes you nervous, makes you think.”

    Martinez said the man is not someone who should have had access to the garage and they are investigating to determine why he was inside the structure.

    The homeowner, his wife and children were not injured, but Martinez said the man who pulled the trigger was shaken up by the incident.

    “He’s obviously distraught,” Martinez said. “This isn’t an easy thing for anyone to have to go through.”

    From CLEVELAND COUNTY, NC

    A North Carolina man who booby-trapped his backdoorwith a shotgun shot himself when he opened the door, according to deputies.

    WCNC reported that the 68-year-old man seriously injured himself with his own booby trap at about 11:30 a.m. Monday at his Cleveland County home.

    “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Capt. Jon Wright, with the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, told the Gaston Gazette.

    Deputies said the shotgun went off after the man opened the door to feed some squirrels, hitting him in the arm. An arriving deputy used a tactical tourniquet on the man.

    Authorities say the trap was just one of many that had been rigged around the property, according to WBTV.

    Deputies said the man was taken to Atrium Health in Shelby and will likely be flown Charlotte.

  • The North had Hanoi Jane…but we had Chris Noel

    The North had Hanoi Jane…but we had Chris Noel

     

    I was doing some research on a case and ran across her story more than once.  There might be one or two youngsters that remember “A Date With Chris”.

    Chris Noel was a Hollywood sex symbol who became a Vietnam War icon. She was a model who turned actress – who then turned to entertaining the troops in Vietnam. Noel worked on the Armed Forces Radio And Television Service. Her program “A Date With Chris” made her fondly known by vets as “the voice of a California dream girl” by many Viet vets – while her pin up pics were very popular with the troops.

    Noel entertained four tours of Vietnam and her helicopter was shot down twice.  For her work, she received the Distinguished Vietnam Veteran award in 1984 from the Veterans Network.

    It seems to me that she gave up the better part of an acting career to support the fighting men in Vietnam.   She has a remarkable story to tell.  She has a selfless courage that is all too rare.

    For those of you that might have known her you can walk down memory lane  HERE. 

     

     

  • Bredesen Spokesman: ‘Gun Nuts’ Are ‘Biggest Terrorist Organization on The Planet’

    Bredesen Spokesman: ‘Gun Nuts’ Are ‘Biggest Terrorist Organization on The Planet’

     

    A top spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party’s effort to get Phil Bredesen elected senator has said he views “white male” gun owners as “the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.”

    Mark Brown is communications director for Tennessee Victory 2018, a project of the state Democratic party that’s been working exclusively on electing Bredesen. The group is hosting Bredesen for a Johnson City meet-and-greet on Thursday afternoon.

    I don’t know how many of you identify as “white male gun owners”, but you people have issues.  I guess some of you Gun Nutz even support this Trump guy.

    In one post Brown wrote, for example, “Fuck reaching out to Trump voters, The idiots aren’t listening.”

    Ok idiots, listen up.  Mark Brown said in a 2015 post on his BookOfFace …

     “white male ‘Murican gun nuts” are “the biggest terrorist organization on the planet.”

    I am no terrorologist but it seems that we better do something about all these white male Trumtard Gun Nutz.

     

     

    Source: Bredesen Spokesman: ‘Gun Nuts’ Are ‘Biggest Terrorist Organization on The Planet’

  • Monday morning feel good stories

    Monday morning feel good stories

    From St James, JM

    An alleged hoodlum who reportedly attempted to rob a delivery truck driver with a knife in Montego Bay, St James on Friday afternoon, had the tables turned on him after he was shot and wounded by his intended victim.

    The wounded man is now at the Cornwall Regional Hospital under police guard.

    The St James police report that about 1:00 p.m., the truck driver was delivering baked products at the intersection of St James and Creek streets when he was held at knifepoint by a man.

    The assailant demanded money, and the truck driver complied.

    But while the alleged robber was in the process of making his retreat with the loot, the driver pulled his licensed firearm and opened fire, hitting the target.

    The Barnett Street police were summoned and upon arrival, the wounded robber was taken into custody and transported to the hospital.

    The stolen cash was returned to the truck driver.

    Delaware

    Round Two: Gun Rights Groups Prevail (Again) in Second Challenge to Firearm Restrictions in Delaware’s State Parks, Forests

    Gun rights groups, including the NRA’s Delaware affiliate, the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, scored an encore legal victory this week when the Superior Court of the State of Delaware invalidated parts of newly promulgated regulations imposed by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) and the Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) on firearms in state parks and forests.

    The October 11, 2018 decision by the court follows an earlier decision in late 2017, Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club, Ltd. v. Small, deciding a legal challenge brought by the Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club, Ltd., the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, and others. There, the Supreme Court of Delaware invalidated the two agencies’ firearm rules, finding these effectively banned the carrying of firearms for self-defense in state parks and forests. The regulations were an “evisceration of the right to self-defense and defense of family in the entirety of Delaware State Parks and Forests [that was] inconsistent with” Delaware’s constitutional right to bear arms. Compared with existing legislative restrictions, the court determined the regulations were “grossly out of step” with the kinds of place-based restrictions adopted by the General Assembly. Further, while the agencies had asserted general public safety concerns as the reason for the bans, they provided no evidence in the record in support, and failed to specify which areas were truly “sensitive places” for the purposes of a firearm ban.

    As a result, the two agencies went back to the drawing board and prepared new regulations “to comply with the decision of the Delaware Supreme Court in Bridgeville R&P Club v. DNREC (Dec. 7, 2017) that invalidated portions of the existing regulations governing firearms.”  In the meantime, emergency regulations took effect in late 2017 to fill the regulatory void caused by the court’s ruling. Final regulations were adopted and enforceable as of May 2018.

    LINK HERE

     

     

  • Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

    Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

    President Donald Trump signed a law that ends insurance companies’ pharmacist gag clauses in an effort to lower drug prices Wednesday.  Currently, insurers and pharmacy benefit managers use the gag clauses to “forbid pharmacists from proactively telling consumers if their prescription would cost less if they paid for it out-of-pocket rather than using their insurance plan,” according to a press release from Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the bill’s sponsor.

    Am I the only one the keeps noticing President Trump getting all kinds of things done that go unreported by most of the press?

    Collins’s bill also targets “pay-for-delay,” a tactic where a brand drug company pays a generic manufacturer to withhold a product that would compete with the brand drug for market share.

    Closing this loophole could save consumers and taxpayers money, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

    “Who would think that using your debit card to buy your [prescription] drugs could be less expensive than using your insurance card? It’s counterintuitive. Americans have the right to know which payment method provides the most savings when purchasing their prescription drugs,” Collins tweeted Wednesday after Trump signed the bill.

    I guess reducing the price of prescriptions for all Americans is more Russian collusion.  Our President has probably paid millions to keep this all hush hush.

    Source: Trump Signs Law To Lower Drug Prices, Ends Gag Orders Against Pharmacists

  • 6 EOD Soldiers Awarded 11 Medals for Actions in Afghanistan | Military.com

    6 EOD Soldiers Awarded 11 Medals for Actions in Afghanistan | Military.com

    There’s no shortage of combat experience among the EOD soldiers in Fort Bragg’s 28th Ordnance Company.

    Since 2008, the company has had troops consistently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, working alongside the 75th Ranger Regiment and elements from Joint Special Operations Command.

    Its soldiers, tasked with some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. military, have supported more than 4,500 combat missions during that span — an average of more than one a day.

    On Thursday, officials with the unit’s higher headquarters paid tribute to a small part of that combat legacy during a ceremony recognizing meritorious and valorous achievements in recent years.

    Six soldiers from the 28th EOD Company were awarded 11 medals, including a Bronze Star with Valor device, two Joint Service Commendation Medals with Valor device, a Purple Heart for wounds received in combat, and one Joint Service Commendation Medal awarded for actions during combat.

    The 28th EOD Company is part of the Fort Bragg-based 192nd Ordnance Battalion (EOD), which is part of the 52nd Ordnance Group (EOD), based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

    Col. Daniel Duncan, commander of the 52nd EOD Group, said the soldiers honored were experts in disposing of explosive devices and in taking the fight to the enemy head-on through direct action.

    “You’ve done everything we ask and then some,” he said.

    Duncan helped congratulate the soldiers, who included Capt. Daniel J. Young, Sgt. 1st Class Chad O. Staples, Sgt. 1st Class John Visaggio, Staff Sgt. Michael G. Schofield, Staff Sgt. Joseph M. Peery and Staff Sgt. Devon J. Hawes.

    He said the soldiers come trained and ready to fight as part of the best team in the world and are directly contributing to the mission in Afghanistan.

    Their motivation, Duncan said, comes from their dedication to teammates and support from families.

    The soldiers were honored at Green Ramp, with other soldiers from the 192nd EOD Battalion standing in formation and friends and families watching.

    Young, of Bloomington, Indiana, was awarded a Bronze Star in recognition of a deployment that spanned December 2017 to May 2018 and a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Combat device in recognition of service in Afghanistan from March to August 2016.

    Staples, of Riverton, Utah, was awarded a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor device for support during a special operations raid in September 2016, during which he engaged two enemy combatants attempting to maneuver to a position of advantage. He also received the Bronze Star for deployments that spanned from January to May 2017 and from December 2017 to May 2018.

    Visaggio, of Jacksonville, Florida, was awarded a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor device for disarming a bomb that was counting down and could have caused catastrophic casualties during an August 2017 mission.

    Late last year, Visaggio received a Purple Heart for wounds received while disarming the bomb.

    According to officials, Visaggio shouted for members of his team to leave the building upon discovering the explosive device, then took hold of the detonation cord and pulled it away just before it fully ignited.

    Schofield, of Detroit, was awarded a Bronze Star in recognition of a January to May 2017 deployment and a Joint Service Achievement Medal for his work during the construction of a new and improved demolitions training complex, explosives storage facility and tactical operations center in Afghanistan.

    Peery, of Charlottesville, Virginia, received a Bronze Star with Valor device, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. The Bronze Star with Valor was awarded for a December 2016 mission in which Peery served with Afghan special operations troops during an assault. The Bronze Star was in recognition of deployments that spanned May to July 2017 and December 2017 to June 2018.

    And the Purple Heart recognized wounds received in December 2017 during a mission in which Peery was shot in the left hand and received shrapnel to his right hip and quadricep.

    Hawes, of Claremont, Illinois, was awarded the Bronze Star in recognition of deployments that spanned January to May 2017 and December 2017 to March 2018.

    Source: 6 EOD Soldiers Awarded 11 Medals for Actions in Afghanistan | Military.com

  • NRA to Congressional Gun Controllers: The American People Will Never Give Up Their Guns

    NRA to Congressional Gun Controllers: The American People Will Never Give Up Their Guns

    On Friday, the NRA posted a message for gun controllers in Congress and elsewhere saying, “We the People will never give up our guns.”

    They posted the message:

    WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP OUR FIREARMS.
    The tweet coincides with Democrat Phil Bredesen (TN) running for Senate on a gun control platform in Tennessee and Democrat Beto O’Rourke running on a gun control platform against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in Texas. Gun control legislation sponsor Kyrsten Sinema (D) is vying for a Senate seat against pro-gun Martha McSally (R) in Arizona.

    Moreover, Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) are all running for re-election with recent gun control support as part of their political history. Some of these Sens., like Nelson, for instance, are for bans on entire categories of firearms.

    The NRA’s message to these Democrats and their surrogates in Hollywood and the establishment media is clear: “We the People will never give up our firearms.”

    The tweet from the NRA comes as Democrats double down on gun control as a central message for the fast-approaching midterms.

    FMCDH…

    Source: NRA to Congressional Gun Controllers: The American People Will Never Give Up Their Guns