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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • Live blogging Winter Soldier II (Part II)

    The second part of the program this morning (you can get the names and personal info from TSO) is on veterans’ healthcare. The complaints are systemic of a large government bureaucracies running healthcare. Long waits between visits, difficulty in getting adequate diagnosis in a timely manner. Of course, what the panelists missed is that it’s always the same – their solutions are always more money.

    Cost to veterans and military members went on the rise in 1992 when Congress mandated higher co-pays for veterans and active duty soldiers who didn’t use the military system and instead used CHAMPUS (usually because of geographic location). Then in 1993 military retirees were forced off of the military and into Social Security at the age of 65. President Bush reinstated care for retirees, but the co-pays have remained.

    The most applause from the audience were calls for free government healthcare for all Americans avoiding the fact that the entire problem with the military system is the fact that it’s a bureaucracy run by politicians and administrators instead of a private system managed by real doctors.

    One of the panelists, Eli Wright, claimed that he couldn’t get treatment because Walter Reed only treats combat casualties. That’s complete horseshit – I had my gall bladder removed there just a few years ago – I had a private recovery room. They treated me for pneumonia just a few weeks with the usual long wait – but the guy claimed he was on active duty and they wouldn’t treat his injury (shoulder injury playing football in his stateside unit) because it wasn’t combat related. Please.

    OK, for some reason I’m listening to some guy who committed suicide playing guitar so I’m going to drift off here.

    The second guy from the end in the picture above just said Congress needs to get control of the Veterans health sytem – just spit all over poor TSO. Yeah, the answer is Congressional involvement – they do so well at everything else. Ask the troops if they want Congress involved.

  • Live blogging Winter Soldier II (Part I)

    There’s a blow-by-blow and more in depth profiles of the testimony at The Sniper by my battle buddy on this operation Thus Spake Ortner.

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    Clifton Hicks and Stephen Casing ; buildings bulldozed is a crime? “I know of people who took advantage of the “free fire zone”, “collateral damage”, “I heard…” “I know for a fact that (700-800 casualties) were civilians because they were on the other side of the road”, “damaged city square is evidence of civilian casualties”. “I know there were no insugents” “Some insurgents engaged with mortar fire from the buildings.”

    Thus Spake Ortner says he saw Dennis Kucinich here.

    Hicks; “A packed Hummvee (82d ABN) engaged insugents after an IED attack – couldn’t find insurgents, kicked in door of house (source of fire) found a wedding party (old Grampa, et al.) troops shot up wedding after receiving fire from house. Found six-year-old dead after paratroopers were done shooting up the party. Not soldiers fault, illustrates carelessness over civilian casualties of the command structure – told to charlie mike.”

    Gerry Kiley (about 60 years old) just jumped up and shouted “Kerry lied, good men died” and was manhandled from the room by security. Here’s a video I found at YouTube of Kiley’s arrest;

    [youtube -GUmX3HY1AU nolink]

    Stephen Casing; Video of busting up a suspected insurgent house – only occupied by “a little old lady”. The “old lady, we can’t see because of the video quality speaks real good (I mean REAL GOOD) English. Supposed frightened she shouts – “My children! My children! Help me!”

    Mortillo: “Hard to tell who’s the enemy – makes you mad”

    [youtube Z4_dj_xGgb0 nolink]

    Jesse (); Iraqis (security forces) don’t show restraint firing their weapons. “I never saw civilians getting killed by these actions” “Pretentious of us to change their culture – Iraq is a lost cause because the Iraqis are so primitive” “it’s their culture – let them do what they want”

    Adam Kokesh; Now claims he was against the war before he went the first time (he’s claimed the opposite at varying times)

    Read aloud the Rules of Engagement (“Isnt that classified?” asked TSO)

    [youtube jSZtzdH9XFI nolink]

    Unit unofficial motto; “We care so you don’t have to” “So Paul Bremer, Dick Cheney, George Bush doesn’t have to care. SO you can go to the Mall and not think about what we’re doing in Iraq.” Admits that interrogators were punished for abusing captured Iraqis.

    Jason Hurd (medic 2ID) complains that a fifty cal. gunner unloaded 200 hundred rounds returning fire – never shecked the building for casualties so he doesn’t know. He just knows that a fifty cal fired at a building. Appalled that soldiers joked about their exploits “Did you see that car I fired up?”.

    Claims he almost (but didn’t) shoot an 80-year-old woman because she wouldn’t stop for him. Does the Army use medics (noncomabtants) to stop traffic? “If a foreign occupation force took over the US…blah…blah…blah” Enthusiastic applause from crowd.

    Time for a break.

  • IVAW’s nutjobs can’t stop the Truth (Updated 3x)

    Well, I made Michele Malkin‘s blog again – but not in a good way this time. She reproduced the insane rantings of Jonathan DeWald who last week threatened to somehow put holes through my head (along with Robin, Denis Keohane and Thus Spake Ortner) when we show up at Winter Soldier II this week – even though we’ve been invited by IVAW.

    In fairness, DeWald apologized – but even his apology was an unbalanced display. It’s almost funny that Michele Malkin mentioned DeWald because she’s spent more time in Iraq than this particular member of the organization called Iraq Veterans Against the War.

    Apparently some other unbalanced fellow has also threatened to bomb the two Gathering of Eagle and Eagles Up events scheduled for the weekend – that’s at Michele’s blog, too. I’ve gone back and forth on whether I’d attend this weekend because of the unreasonable and irrational reaction to our participation. But, I’ve decided that I’ll go.

    DeWald has threatened me with physical harm and he’s threatened to gun me down – that kind of reaction means to me that the Left’s intellectual depth on this subject is shallow and they know it, so they can’t stand to have their motives questioned. That only reinforces the fact that my attendance is essential.

    So Friday morning, I’ll be at the National Labor College, live blogging – with my back to the wall.

    I’ve shut down the comments for this post because whenever I mention DeWald’s name, it becomes a childish back-and-forth.

    Update: I have it on very good authority that the bomb threats against the GOE that Michele wrote about have been reported to the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau.

    Update: Apparently either Google or DeWald took his blog down.

    Update: One member of IVAW apologizes for the behavior of the others;

    Two members have been identified as making personal threats recently. One has been requested not to attend Winter Soldier, and the other situation is currently being handled internally.

    Those of you who have served in the military know that you accept responsibility for all under your command, even actions specifically against your wishes or orders. As such, though the situations are far less exact than I would like, I would like to apologize both personally and professionally to Michelle Malkin, Robin, Nicki, Thus Spake Ortner, and Jonn Lilyea and others for the actions of these members, and assure the public that steps are being taken to ensure this does not occur again.

  • Yuh-uh, IVAW don’t disrespect vets

    Chicken_Little_x3_by_DarkJak.jpg

    The above photo is from Adam Kokesh’s blog (click the photo for link) – the banner was designed by Jonathan DeWald and posted on Kokesh’s blog just this last Sunday (h/t Robin for sending me the link this morning). In the event that Kokesh takes it down, I’ve saved a .pdf of the web page.

    But I’ve been getting emails and comments in reference to the post below about how I should stop being disrespectful to veterans and I should stop questioning their service – at least one of the commenters here also commented on Kokesh’s post. That same commenter disavowed knowing DeWald – well the page URL has DeWald’s name in it, for pete’s sake and since you commented on his artwork, Army Sergeant, you’re certainly familiar with his work, aren’t you?. I didn’t see you criticize DeWald or Kokesh like you’ve tried to chastise me.

    DeWald – a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War who has never set foot or laid eyes on Iraq – is questioning the service of members of the Gathering of Eagles.

    First off, the name of the organization doesn’t make the claim that it’s an organization of veterans like IVAW claims to be an organization of veterans who served in Iraq. A classification that DeWald can’t claim, by the way. I’ve at least been to Iraq three times in the space of a month – each time under combat conditions – but I don’t qualify for membership in the IVAW.

    Secondly, I’ve never met a member of the Gathering of Eagles who wasn’t a veteran – most are veterans of Viet Nam.

    Now if DeWald and Kokesh are trying to claim that the Gathering of Eagles members aren’t “real” veterans because they haven’t served in Iraq, DeWald must include himself under that “never served” tag, too, and Kokesh would have to admit that he didn’t serve honorably in Iraq, since he smuggled an Iraqi pistol back from Iraq during his service there – which is why he was busted a pay grade and he was refused a second tour to Iraq.

    Of course, neither will admit to the reality of the circumstances, mainly because they’re self-serving hypocrites and a bit delusional. But before the rest of you, who might have legitimate reasons for being members of IVAW, go off half-cocked, please look at the public face you’ve put on the organization. If you want to save a modicum of credibility, you have to purge your ranks of the criminals, liars and sociopaths.

    And try applying the same standards to your own ranks that you try to impress upon me.

  • IVAW’s big guns

    Of course, most of you know that I volunteered to cover the IVAW’s Winter Soldier II “hearings” next month. Well, apparently some of the members of IVAW are a little worried about that. I sent them my DD214 (redacted, of course) and they’ve pretty much ignored my application to blog their event. Until now.

    I received this email (I don’t usually post email I receive, but this one graphically illustrates the types that IVAW attracts) from this IVAW member named Jonathan DeWald;

    Hey bro,

    You know why I was a Sergeant after ten years? Blasting a loud-mouthed E7 in the mouth when I was a promotable Staff Sergeant. He had the same sour, b****y look you do in your DA photo… where you’re also an E7! What an amazing coincidence. Another sassy senior NCO stepping into my sector of fire. Anyway, luckily for me, everyone else in all of V Corps hated that fat pogue as well and I got off with just an Article 15. And my disability comp gets paid at the E6 rate!

    You’ll be providing “security escorts” to Gathering of Chickenshits members “counter-demonstrating” at IVAW events like Winter Soldier II? That’s a laugh. In response to your statement on Robin the Man-Thing’s page (I really had no idea she was considered a woman. I thought she was a dude with man-***s.), any “encounter” between us will go down however the **** I see fit.

    Though I truly do hope to see you and every other Gaggle**** of ****birds member in DC next March, I must advise you Winter Soldier is being held at a private college. The campus police have already been instructed to arrest any of you dip****s who attempt to trespass. I personally thought we had room to accommodate all 17 members of GoE, but with 100 vets testifying, another 700 in attendance, 100 members of the national and international media, an as-yet undetermined number of Iraqi and Afghan civilians (man, the government’s making it hard to get the travel visas!) and perhaps another 100 scholars, legislators and other guests, we simply have no room for you!

    But I’ll be at my favorite DC haunts every night I’m there: Hawk and Dove, Sign of the Whale and every bar in Adams Morgan. Come on in and see me. Unless you’re afraid to mouth off to me when there are no cameras or cops around to protect your b**** ass.

    At ease,

    Jon

    —
    KEEP IT NECRO.

    Whatever that “keep it necro” means unless he’s threatening to kill me or something.

    But, I got that at about 5:30 this morning (Zulu). Apparently he felt the need to address my offer to Robin at Chickenhawk Express to escort her to the IVAW “hearings” after he threatened her physically.

    Keeping in mind that the name of the organization is “Iraq Veterans Against the War”, I checked out Mr DeWald’s profile at IVAW;

    Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
    Unit: Rakkasan Regiment, 101st Airborne / 1st Tank, 2nd ID
    Rank: Sergeant (Retired)
    Home: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    Served in: Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, USA: Fort Campbell, Kentucky, USA; Fort Polk, Louisiana; USA; Camp Casey, Republic of Korea; Babenhausen Kaserne, Federal Republic of Germany; Novy Mir Garrison, Sulęcin, Republic of Poland; Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.

    No mention of Iraq at all, well, unless they moved it to Poland and didn’t tell anyone. So I guess he’s just another wannabe phony soldier. As Thus Spake Ortner mentioned in his post at The Sniper, even Jessie MacBeth qualified for membership in the IVAW with his 42 days at the CCF barracks in Fort Benning.

    I may be stepping outside my area of expertise here, but I’ve never heard of “1st tank” outside of the Marine Corps. I know they have a 1st Tank Battalion at 29 Palms, but I’m not aware of any Army unit, anywhere called the “1st Tank” – the Army calls them armor battalions. And I’m not sure what an infantryman would be doing in an armor battalion unless he was working at a pogue staff job.

    Now, Mr. DeWald claims to be an Infantryman – but I only see three possible duty stations for an infantryman in his list. Campbell, Polk and Camp Casey. And eight duty stations in ten years (and he doesn’t mention basic or AIT stations). That’s a lot! Unless he’s counting the places he visited or trained.

    But back to DeWald’s email. He mentions disability comp “paid at an E-6 rate”. Now I get a disability check from the VA and I don’t get an E-grade rate. I get a flat percentage rating – the VA doesn’t care what a disabled veteran’s pay grade was, it pays everyone the same. Now, it’s possible that he’s talking about his Army retired pay (if he’s retired for medical reasons) and it’s impossible to retire at an “E-6 rate”. The Army computes retirement pay on your last three months’ pay on active duty – not on pay grade information. So I don’t know what this fellow is talking about.

    I’m assuming that DeWald is referring to the photo of me in uniform on my “About” page. But, as most career soldiers know, it’s not a DA photo. A DA photo is a full length shot of the whole uniform and it’s black-and-white (or at least it was the last time I took one). So I guess there’s something else this “retired” E-5 doesn’t know about military service.

    I’m not a member of the Gathering of Eagles, even though I fully support their activities. And if DeWald had ever been to a Gathering of Eagles, there are a few more than 17 members. There were thousands at their first counterprotest last March 17th and numbers have grown since. I know it bothers the Left and the IVAW that they are outnumbered, so the disingenuously deflate the numbers of their opponents.

    DeWald, though has a real hard-on for the GOE folks. He wrote about them at the IVAW site;

    Have you heard of these guys? Man, they blow my mind! I’ve never seen so much patriotism confined to one website: http://gatheringofeagles.org/. How do they contain all that kick-ass patriotism with such a small amount of bandwidth? I thought I was a patriot: driving my Ford all drunk, getting tattoos of naked chicks, beer mugs, bald eagles and Confederate battle flags, and then these guys come along and BOOM! I get to see, first-hand, what a real bad-ass American looks like. I thought I was supposed to go to the gym and get all muscular. Nope! To judge from the physiques and prêt-à -porter attire of the Eagles, all I need is regular access to a buffet and some straight-leg Wranglers to attain that patriotic chic.

    Well, that’s some real mature stuff, ain’t it? It’s real apparent that DeWald has some real “daddy issues” that he needs to deal with before he goes out in public.

    Well, after that first email, I replied to DeWald that he should step back and take a deep breath before he gets himself in trouble for what he’s writing to people. His reply;

    My man,

    I’ve taken a step back. I’ve breathed deeply. And I’ve never met a loudmouthed conservative/Republican/fascist whose ass I couldn’t kick in under 30 seconds. The challenge still stands, tough guy. If you or any of those other ****ing corny sham “patriots” want to double down on your laughable bull**** threats, I’m available. I told you where to find me in DC come March. You know where my boxing club is in Milwaukee.

    I really hope one of you pogues comes after me. I haven’t beaten the **** out of somebody in the street and outside of the ring in awhile. I especially hope; no, I pray that one of you ***heads pulls a weapon on me. Make it a good one, though, and not some bull**** like a Taurus or an M9. I really want a Springfield XD in .40 cal.

    Thanks dude,

    Jon

    Now, I never threatened him (except that I did threaten to expose him as a poser unless he got himself under control – which is what I’m doing here), but all of a sudden he has visions of me pulling a gun on him (hand guns are illegal for everybody in DC, so I figure he’ll be in the wrong place if he’s hoping for a confrontation involving firearms).

    So I guess this is IVAW’s way of trying to tell me that I won’t be blogging their Winter Soldier II “hearings”, since I’m the one DeWald chose to start sending emails. Pretty cowardly, actually. But predictable. IVAW attracts some pretty unsavory people. They have the Jesse MacBeth saga – the Pink Power Ranger, they have Adam Kokesh – the gun smuggler, and now this illiterate psychopath. Not to mention all of the other phony soldiers who’ve forced me to expose them as posers and sociopathic liars.

    Now, I almost like Army Sergeant, who seems to be the only decent guy in the bunch, although he’s somewhat confused. But the rest of these goofballs are really deranged.

    It’s easy to just declare that you oppose war. Hell, I oppose war. But it takes just a little bit of intellect to accept that sometimes war is necessary for our survival. Unfortunately all the theorists and academics don’t have to be right when they influence young immature minds to oppose war. They just have to sound smart.

    Fortunately, the rest of us are around to protect the theorists and academics while they commit mental pedophilia. But some of their victims are lost to the ages – mental midgets to begin with, they use the ideas that they’ve had crammed into their pointy heads to try to give themselves an aura of being half-way smart. The result is people like Mr DeWald; illiterate half-baked morons physically threatening anyone who disagrees with them.

    Maybe if his Daddy had hugged him more often…or a little less.

  • On that IVAW firebombed bus….

    Some of you may remember how the Iraq Veterans Against the War had a bus that burned and the whackosphere, naturally figured that it was some vast cabal of terrorist rightwingers who targeted their broken-down piece of shit bus for a firebombing.

    From OpEdNews.com;

    Jim saw, in retrospect, some suspicious activity outside the bus, and about 20 minutes later, the entire engine compartment, and back of the bus was engulfed in flames. Mr Goodnow speculates that the cause could have been anything from ARSON, to ATTEMPTED MURDER. He plans to notify the ATF Arson Squad on Saturday morning.

    See, I doubted this from the start because of the “Jim saw, in retrospect…” comment. How can a person see in retrospect? You either see or or you don’t see. And the “arson and attempted murder” seemed too good for the mainstream press to just ignore – if it were true.

    But the story of good ole Jim, the hippie-turned-bus-driver-turned-CSI-investigator struck a melodic note with the Leftosphere;

    I have no trouble believing that someone gave Jim’s bus trouble precisely because of what it was. Do I think it was part of a planned, organized, effort? I don’t know, and to be honest, I doubt it. I rather suspect this took place as a result of a couple people of violent political persuasions, who happened to see the target, said “That Ain’t Right” and decided to do something about it. Spontaneity explains why the fire was able to be put out, and why Jim was able to escape. I don’t think there was a deliberate attempt to murder Jim, but I suspect that the culprits, if in fact my theory is correct, likely didn’t give a thought to his presence either way.

    Well, Denis Keohane (who, himself, catalogs quite nicely some of the whackier mind-droppings from the Left) at Obiter Dictum (h/t to Robin at Chickenhawk Express) got tired of waiting for someone to tell him what happened and made a few calls;

    Photos of the bus being towed showed that the tow truck belonged to Riehl’s Towing & Maintenance, which I found out was in Clarksboro, NJ. Riehl’s told me that the responders were members of the Carney’s Point Fire Department. When I contacted them, the Deputy Chief told me that there was no arson investigation and would not be. The fire began in the closed engine department and burned outward, and was believed to have been caused by an equipment malfunction or failure. There was no indication of, much less evidence of arson.

    They knew that weeks ago. The day after the fire Riehl’s towed the truck to a salvage yard, not a facility where criminal evidence would be kept.

    So why has IVAW and others let the story and assumption of an intentional crime linger, when they could have cleared it up?

    Well, Denis, that’s because the truth is apparently too boring. It’s much more exciting when the insolent little children of IVAW pretend to be “raging against the machine” – but that machine turns out to be an ill-maintained bus.

    I suspect it’s the same kind of disingenuous crap that’ll come out of the Winter Soldier II “hearings”. Stuff that doesn’t fit the message won’t make it into the testimony. The Scott Thomas Beauchamp/New Republic template.

    Good detective work, Denis.

  • Behind IVAW’s Winter Soldier II

    The Iraq Veterans Against the War are planning a Winter Soldier II event in March. Their stated reasoning;

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  • We’re winning the war at home, too (UPDATED)

    I got wind a few weeks ago that ANSWER was planning a protest in DC on March 15th. So my immediate reaction was to check the Gathering of Eagles forum – and they had already planned a counter-protest. Well, that was good news for me because protests always raise my traffic through here.

    Today, I went back to ANSWER’s website and there was no mention of the March event. Strange. So I went to GOE’s forum and lo and behold, ANSWER had cancelled their protest;

    Do you ever think that we’re spinning our wheels in fighting the America-hating moonbats? Well, consider this:

    A.N.S.W.E.R., MoveOn.org, and their affiliated purveyors of political puke have canceled their planned March 15th event! They are increasingly intimidated by the prospect of us and our allies confronting them in the streets wherever that might be, in Hometown, USA, or Washington, DC.

    Accordingly, we will not have the “Americans Standing Up” rally in DC on the weekend of March 15th, as there will be no opposition to confront, and you KNOW we love to intimidate those misguided souls and their anti-American leaders like Cindy Sheehan and George Soros!

    In a nutshell, WE ARE WINNING THE BATTLE! And we will win the war for the soul of America!

    Now you have to remember these clowns had anti-war protests in DC planned BEFORE 9-11, and now they’re canceling events during the war. They just might be getting it that they’re not accomplishing anything.

    Adam Kokesh and the IVAW haven’t gotten the news yet apparently because they still plan to have their John Kerry-style theatrics called Winter Soldier II. But it may just be that they’re is too lazy to update their websites. When I hear more, I’ll post more.

    UPDATE: Gathering of Eagles is planning on being in town for the Winter Soldier II thingie, so your blogger will be there, too. Good excuse to take a coupla days off from work. You up for it, Kate?