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

Category: Military issues

  • That Call of Duty/MEPS Ranger

    Yeah, I’m probably inviting another visit from CID but this is just too funny to keep to myself. It just fell out of the sky while I was on a smoke break. But you remember Jeremy Gumeringer from the video at the MEPS station the other day right? The guy who has done everything that we’ve done on Call of Duty in real life? I’ll bet there’s nothing on Call of Duty related to players pushing themselves away from the dinner table, in that case.

    ADDED: The little bird who dropped the ORB from the sky got nervous about the ORB, so I removed it. But you can still point and laugh at the photo, I guess.

    I hope he wasn’t hoping to get promoted with that picture.

  • Ted Nugent booted from Fort Knox concert

    Ponsdorf wrote the other day about Ted Nugent’s troubles with the Secret Service, who are apparently more concerned with the rocker’s rants than paying for their hookers (ladies of the evening, there’s a reason hookers have been getting payment up front for centuries). For those of you might have missed it, at an NRA convention, Nugent said;

    If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.

    Nugent also recommends decapitating Democrats: “We need to ride onto that battlefield and chop their heads off in November.”

    Of course, Nugent threatening to “chop off their heads in November” is worse than Muslims threatening to do the same. But, anyway, Fort Knox has decided that Nugent’s fairly tame rant is too political for them to allow him at a concert there;

    Because the concert is taking place on a military installation, it “would be a conflict of interest since the military has the obligation to be apolitical,” he said.

    Brus said they don‘t look at political or social views when booking performers but that Nugent’s comments about the commander in chief crossed the line.

    Yeah, whatever. Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • The Doggie Wars

    I know…it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. But I swear, this bit about Romney not liking animals because he strapped a dog carrier to the top of his car and transported his dog in it has me wondering just what kind of wimps are running the Democrat campaign. Well no, that’s not entirely true. I confess that I’ve considered David Axelrod a wimp since the first time I heard his whiny voice. Can you imagine that wussified elitist standing in front of a formation and calling out commands? Or running beside one and calling cadence? Didn’t think so.
    So what, exactly, are the Democrats flapping their gums about in the Doggie Wars? Flapping ears? What, in their minds, was wrong with what Mitt Romney did in strapping Seamus, his setter, in a canine carrier on top of his car, granting Fido his fondest wish? It seems Axelrod and the Democrats are as out of touch with dogs as they are with ordinary people.
    Anyone who’s spent any time at all around dogs knows that the very thing canines love most about cars, well other than lifting a leg on alloy wheels, is an open window to poke their heads from as the oncoming airflow pushes back their gums into a joyful grin and their ears flap wildly about their heads. Out here in cowboy country, the border collies run freely in the backs of pickups and one thing you can bet the rent money on is that when the vehicle is in motion, the dogs’ muzzles are facing into the wind. Follow one of the trucks down the highway and you will often see the mutts running back and forth, from one side to the other, poking their noses around the cab. It almost appears that they are seeking the side with the greatest wind velocity.

    This is such a universal behavior that I recently asked our country veterinarian about it. She grinned and responded, “You know, you’re right…they do seem to love the wind, don’t they? I have no idea why.” So, while the why remains a mystery, the fact that dogs love the wind in their faces every bit as much as bikers, remains an observable truth. But the real mystery “why” is, “Why did the Democrats make Seamus an issue in the first place?” Why all the flapping gums over flapping ears? Good grief, please don’t anyone show those Democrat pussies these pictures or they’ll be soiling their silkies. Furthermore, the thought just occurred to me that those SEAL’s are making those poor puppies jump out of perfectly good aircraft because their chain of command has ordered them to do precisely that.

    And guess who sits atop that chain.
    Ahem…

    This is turning into a real dog-eat-dog situation for you-know-who.

    POSTSCRIPT: a talking head on FOX just reminded me that you-know-who likes to take all the credit for the success of the raid on Osama bin Laden. Well, excuse me, Mr. Axelrod, but doesn’t that mean that your dog-eating Dear Leader directly and deliberately caused a canine to come under hostile fire? Omigod, the horror of it all! And Axelrod wanted a Doggie War? What’s next in his brilliant strategy, attacking Romney because he didn’t have to pay his own college tuition?

  • Former SF sergeant goes nuts in neighborhood

    I figured I’d better scoop the LA Times on this story. I found this picture on Facebook of a fairly famous former special forces sergeant who is apparently suffering from combat fatigue and murdered an unknown number of innocent victims of the shrubbery variety under the cover of darkness. You’ll notice the smug look of satisfaction on his face as he holds up severed limbs for the camera as if he’s proud of his murderous rampage.

    I think we should all demand an apology from the Department of Defense for their responsibility in regards to unleashing this martial madness on an otherwise peaceful-looking community, and I think it proves that we need to withdraw from Afghanistan before that war produces more of these murderous thugs prowling through our neighborhoods in the twilight hours.

  • Karzai wants speedier withdrawal because of LA Times photos

    Old Trooper sends a link to an LA Times report that Afghanistan’s president is calling for a faster withdrawal of NATO troops from his shithole to prevent “a recurrence of “painful experiences” such as the sight of American soldiers posing with the body parts of dead insurgents.” Yeah, then we can have a proliferation of photos of disfigured Afghan school girls. I’m wondering which is more painful for Karzai to endure;

    The palace statement said Karzai sought an “accelerated and full transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces, so Afghanistan can take over its own destiny, and thus no such things can be repeated by the foreign forces in Afghanistan.”

    The NATO force is due to wind down its combat role in 2014, but growing numbers of troop-contributing nations have indicated they plan to pull out their fighting forces next year. A transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan police and army is the centerpiece of the U.S. exit strategy.

    Also Thursday, the Taliban, in its first public statement since the pictures appeared, denounced the “gruesome acts” depicted in the photos. The militant group also lambasted Afghan soldiers who were present in some of the shots.

    “Some Afghan hirelings … posed in the photos, at their masters’ orders, to scorn the remains of martyrs,” the statement said.

    So, I’m sure this isn’t the first, or the last time that Karzai finds himself in complete agreement with his past and future masters, the Taliban. Like I’ve said countless times before, I’d like for Karzai to be as angry at the Taliban for what they inflict on the people he’s supposed to be protecting as he does about these relatively minor transgressions from Americans.

    On a related subject, I was supposed to be on BBC’s “World Have Your Say” this afternoon. They wanted to discuss this manufactured outrage over some photos posted by the LA Times in the context that these guys were under some sort of combat stress.

    I emailed the producer this morning and told her that I wouldn’t discuss this particular issue under those constraints since I don’t believe the paratroopers actions were related to combat stress, but rather just a result of them being youngsters with cameras. And, the LA Times having an agenda to be known as the ones who ended our war in Afghanistan. And who knows what were the motivations of the guy who gave the photos to the LA Times. “Combat stress” is a distraction from the discussion about LA Times’ malfeasance.

  • Crusaders sidetracked by Military Religious Freedom Foundation


    I know that’s one of TSO’s favorite organizations. I miss him. But anyway, they’ve set their sights on a Marine Corps unit, VMFA-122, that wants to return to it’s roots and recover it’s nickname “The Crusaders” which it had from 1957-2008. They became the “Werewolves” for four years and decided they wanted to own their legacy again. But of course, the MRFFs think that it would be too closely related to Christendom to allow the unit to be called what they want according to MSNBC;

    “I don’t know that the Marine Corps could do anything more to fuel the cause of jihad,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates church-state separation. “It will directly end up taking lives and maiming members of our military.”

    Of course, Mikey, a former Air Force officer and Reagan White House staffer really isn’t for religious freedom. The only religious freedom he supports is atheism. His main enemy is Christendom and anything that is even remotely connected to it. You can look at their website and you won’t find them fighting against any other religion. He’s worried that Christianists will take over the military, like our resident troll, Joe.

    As I’ve said numerous times here, I never felt pressure from anyone to attend services or become a member of any denomination, so I think Mikey is just a paranoid nut in the same class as Joe.

    “It’s a way for our Marines to draw on the service of the Marines before them, and to make their own history under the same name,” Weigel told the paper. “As the squadron prepared to celebrate its (70th anniversary), my intent was to return the squadron to the Crusader name since 50 of the squadron’s 70 years were under that name. The name change is a reflection of our heritage.”

    Mikey should get in one of his time machines and go back and convince the Marines in 1958 to refrain from using the name. I suspect his reception would be somewhat less warm than it is now.

    Thanks to Thom for the link.

  • Army vs. USMC MARPAT battle ends

    Last year we had a rather furious battle here when the Army made overtures to the USMC about borrowing their MARPAT (Marine pattern) uniform design. Well, jerry920 sends us a link from Fox News that says that the Army s backing off from that particular battle;

    Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, former head of Program Executive Office Soldier which is responsible for military gear, earlier told the Army Times that the Army could remove the Corps’ emblem and appropriate the uniform for Army use if it proves most effective in field tests. That’s something the Marines don’t want to see happen, claiming the uniform is their property and that Marines should be distinguished from other soldiers.

    But a spokeswoman in Fuller’s department told FoxNews.com that MARPAT is “not a leading choice for the Army’s next combat uniform.”

    “MARPAT is not technically competing in the Army’s camouflage efforts at all; it is being used as a benchmark pattern” along with a camouflage pattern used in Afghanistan and Navy patterns, spokeswoman Debi Dawson said in an email.

    I’m glad because I just bought a set of multicams to wear in support of TSO while he’s in Afghanistan and I don’t want to lay out more money. You know when I went in the Army, a set of fatigues cost $13 and another $12 for boots. Jump boots were $20. At some point this uniform shit needs to end.

  • LA Times “explains” reason for releasing the latest “scandal”

    Claymore sends us a link to the LA Times which recounts the editor’s explanation on a live chat for their decision to release the photos that the military has slavishly denounced as “inappropriate;

    In a live chat on latimes.com, Editor Davan Maharaj explained the decision to publish the material, especially the pictures, even though the events occurred two years ago. The publication comes at an especially sensitive time, with the U.S. and its NATO allies seeking to disengage from the Afghanistan war that began in October 2001.

    “We considered this very carefully,” Maharaj said. “At the end of the day, our job is to publish information that our readers need to make informed decisions. We have a particular duty to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan. On balance, in this case, we felt that the public interest here was served by publishing a limited, but representative sample of these photos, along with a story explaining the circumstances under which they were taken.”

    In response to a reader’s question about how the photographs were selected, Maharaj said taste and relevance were the guiding principles.

    OK, Maharaj, tell us what decisions that the public can now make about our involvement in the war that they couldn’t have made on Friday before you published those photos. That war is terrible? They should be making the decision to stop their subscription to the LA Times – well, those two subscribers you still have.

    No amount of high-minded rhetoric can convince me that the decision was “considered…carefully”. The decision was purely a business decision intended to have the blood lead their news that day. It was meant to shock and disgust readers and to portray US soldiers in a bad light, to paint with a broad brush all members of the services and hand more ammunition to the anti-war element on the West Coast. The decision was a juvenile and ill-considered decision based only on newspaper and advertising sales.

    That Maharaj had to explain to his readers why they did what the LA Times did should tell him something about his readership in regards to the decision.

    But Maharaj said that the safety of troops was among The Times’ concerns.

    “The photographs were provided by a soldier in the unit “who was himself concerned that the photos reflected dysfunction in discipline and a breakdown in leadership that compromised the safety of the troops,” Maharaj said.

    He went on to say that the newspaper weighed the impact of publication on troop safety and that reporter David Zucchino had numerous conversations with the appropriate military officials.

    “When we made the decision to publish, the Pentagon asked us to wait 24 additional hours to protect troops depicted in the photographs,” Maharaj said. “We agreed to push back our publication date until the Pentagon told us they had taken the necessary precautions.

    While I commend them for waiting on the military to protect the people in the pictures, what about the troops who aren’t in the photos who have to deal with the backlash in the war theater? By the way, Davan, people don’t turn over photos to the media because of their concern for the troops. If he really wanted to make a difference, the guy who gave you the photos would have given them to the military, either his unit or law enforcement, not the fricken LA Times as the first place to drop them off.

    ADDED: My editor at Business Insider has many of the same thoughts I had. I guess that’s why I get business over there now.