For those that didn’t sign up to see the updates on Evan that was linked in my previous post, but who wanted to know, I am including the last 3 here after the jump. He’s doing better, but keep up the spiritual warfare if you would.
You’re the fighter you’ve got the fire
The spirit of a warrior, the champion’s heart
You fight for your life because the fighter never quits
You make the most of the hand you’re dealt
Because the quitter never wins
No!
-Dropkick Murphy’s
I’m going to keep the Warriors Code motiff going I think, for anything I see that warrants it. My only criteria is heart. Lots and lots of heart. And in this story, I’m not even sure which of these two is the Warrior. Why don’t you go read it and then tell me. Either way, this is a 8.5 on the Hankie scale, and I fear that number may go up to the maximum of 10 shortly.
There is no one who does more work for the Wounded (be they military or not) than Tankerbabe. If y’all had seen her with the guys at the Milblog convention you would understand.
For more background, go read this related story over at the House of Matty O’Blackfive.
Maybe not for you guys, but this one comes with a hankie warning for me anyway. Nah, who am I kidding, even if you have a Grinch pre-whoville 2 sizes too small heart, this one will choke you up.
Video up after the jump, since it plays automatically.
(more…)
I sincerely hope Mr. Phil Packer isn’t offended by my using an Irish Band to accompany an article about a valiant Brit, but the lyrics fit too damn nice not to use it.
From CNN:
LONDON, England (CNN) — Last summer, Phil Packer was told he would probably never walk again. On Saturday, he plans to finish the London Marathon.
Packer has been walking on crutches for two miles a day, the most his doctor will allow, to raise money for charity.
His goal: £1 million ($1.5 million) for Help for Heroes, a British non-profit supporting wounded veterans. Packer, whose full title is Army Maj. Phil Packer, Adjutant General’s Corps, Royal Military Police, has been a beneficiary of the military-focused charity.
On Thursday, an Army band, red-coated and bearskin-hatted, played in his honor as he reached the Tower of London, 12 days into his walk.
Dude, that’s a Warrior there, and he’s not done after the Marathon:
The marathon is only part of his project, he says. In February, he rowed the English Channel, and next month, he plans to climb El Capitan, one of America’s iconic mountaineering sites. It’s a 3,000-foot vertical rock formation in California.
His website can be found here. Go and say hello to him and encourage him.
Better yet, try to crack open that wallet and throw a few his way. Beware of the bats ye cheap skates. You can do so at his site.
I stopped watching FoxNews in about 2001. Honestly, I can’t stand even flipping over there. First off, the only ones I liked were Tony Snow and Britt Hume. O’Reilly is a bit of a jackass whose defense for being a boor to a female employee and essentially engaging in phone sex with her was his “Irish blood.” I gotta be honest, not once has my Irish Blood kicked in to the point I wanted to call my secretary and ask her about her loofah skills. Second, Shep Smith has girl eyes. Yeah, I said it, he has the eyes of girls. No man should have eyes like that. If you took his eyes you could put them on Mariah Carey and they’d look normal. Same with Geraldo’s mustache. I mean, not that Mariah has a mustache or anything.
Plus, FoxNews is just so ghetto. Face it, the fate of Natalee Holoway ranks right up there on my “have to know” scale with wondering what happens if you eat nothing but corn, blueberries and peanuts for 2 weeks. Actually lower, because Southern Dem and I tried the other thing. It’s roughly what you would expect.
Mimority Leader Boehner put out a press release today entitled: SHOCK VIDEO: HOUSE DEM SAYS TERRORISTS SHOULD RECEIVE SAME “DUE PROCESS” RIGHTS AS U.S. TROOPS
OK, now, I really don’t like the Dem in question, and I do like Boehner, which is why I already hate this post, because I disagree with the guys I should like, and agree with the dude I don’t. Anyway, here is Dem Rep Adam Schiff’s comments, followed by the video:
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): “I think we can use the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the military courts which are very much a home-court advantage and we can held up to the rest of the world that we’re giving these detainees the same due process we give our own troops when they’re brought up on court martial charges. Nothing more and nothing less.”
Far from being shocked, this seems logical to me. A trial is what we use to determine guilt or innocence isn’t it? I don’t really see why the due process rights of Detainees should be less or more than anyone else. (See Below for Clarification) Troops get off or convicted all the time, and terrorists won’t make any difference. To me to suggest otherwise smacks of the same argument that we fight over Affirmative Action and other things. Equality of Opportunity does not equate to Equality of Outcome, right? So, I don’t really care if we get these terrorists every due process right in creation, if they are guilty (and these bastards are) then our system will convict them.
So, tell me where I am wrong? I just think that the rules should be followed. Are child molestation and shoplifting equally reprehensible acts? No, but the courts martial will follow the same procedures, right? So, give these Jihadis all the procedural rights that I (would have) got(ten), I am totally fine with that, provided that if (when) found guilty they get what is coming to them.
Based on the logic that the procedure should be different, then that US Soldier who threw a grenade in his commanders tent should be tried under what procedures?
BY WAY OF CLARIFICATION: If they lined these guys up and shot them I also wouldn’t care. Foreign Jihadists don’t get any constitutional rights whatsoever, so I really don’t care. But, I think I am more in disagreement with the use of this in a political mold. If we’ve decided to try these guys in a military court, I don’t want to see us change the due process rights, only because then we’ll just be accused again (as we have for years) of making up Kangaroo courts and such.
By virtue of the recent Supreme Court Decisions regarding Gitmo Habeus Rights, and the jackass decision to possibly give Habeus rights to Bagram Detainees, at this point I say just try them all and punish them and let the ACLU bitch after the fact.
A man who would screw over his troops is not a man. He’s a blue falcon, the lowest form of creature imagineable. And no matter how you couch a deserter in terms of doing what he thought was right and all that horseshit, nothing obviates the need to care for your troops. Which is why this story has me really pissed today.
The Department of Justice has dropped its case against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a war resister who refused Iraq deployment in June 2006 and denounced President George W. Bush’s decision to invade as illegal and immoral.
I’m not even going to go into the rest of the article, but a man who deserted his troops, and left them to enter combat without them is no man. And I refuse to believe he is. And make no mistake in thinking this shitdick acted out of some sense of nobility, he didn’t. His Dad was a fruitloop, and the son is a fruit-loop.
But, I can find some solace in the fact that 2 soldiers I have known, and 1 I wish I had known have birthdays today, and none of them ever left their men behind. So, happy birthday to Southern Democrat* (we need a new name bud) and 1SG B who visit here, and when you get a chance this evening, give a toast to a true warrior who gave his life for all of us and thus won’t be celebrating his birthday today: Michael Patrick Murphy, Navy Seal, and MOH Recipient.
*technically, SD did leave me behind when I had dyssentary, but that was because I befouled all his clothes and he was mad at me.
Regarding this, my message to the TAH secret police:
Put taps on his most frequently called numbers, and let’s get into his life. The blog situation has mob written all over it. And he’s definitely vulnerable on this Maggie character. I want to know about his wife, I want to know about his parents, I want to know about his gambling problems, his urine samples, his porno rentals. I want to use every means possible to get what we need. Because this little son of a bitch is not going to be the final chapter of my life.
[OK, name that movie]