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

Category: Military issues

  • The intellectual vacuum that surrounds DADT debate

    There’s one quote that Associated Press has been running in a majority of their seemingly endless updates of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal;

    In New York, home to one of the nation’s largest gay communities and a gay pride parade whose grand marshal this year was an openly gay, discharged serviceman, 28-year-old Cassandra Melnikow glanced at a news ticker in Times Square announcing the repeal and said: “Excellent! It’s about time.”

    “I don’t see what difference (sexual orientation) makes in the fighting military,” said Melnikow, a public health researcher. “What’s the big deal?”

    Then why were you homosexuals making such a big deal about it, if sexual orientation doesn’t make a difference?

    I expect all of these people to be lined up outside their local recruiters’ station tomorrow morning;

    At least Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are happy. That’s something we can all appreciate.

  • 98-year-old gets Bronze Star Medal

    Claymore said, “Here’s a military story that’s not gay” and sends us a link to a story about 98-year-old Seymour Lavine who waited more than 60 years for his just desserts from the Pacific Campaign in World War II;

    He joined with his brother Sandy and said their “blood was just boiling.” Lavine started his Army career by going to officer candidate school, but he was denied admission because of his eyesight. Instead of going home and waiting until his draft number was called, Lavine joined the infantry.

    Lavine was sent to the Pacific region and participated in battles from Guadalcanal to the Solomon Islands, and in 1944 was stationed in the Philippines. He helped liberate the islands in 1944 and 1945.

    Lavine’s brother did not make it home from the war. Sandy Lavine died in Holland in 1944 fighting the Germans and was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star in 1996 at Ft. McPherson.

    Seymour Lavine received his award “for meritorious achievement while serving with Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 148th Infantry Regiment, 37th Infantry Division in the Pacific Theater of Operations,” reads the order announcing his medal.

    After receiving his medal Thursday, Lavine entertained the soldiers on hand with stories from another era.

    I’m glad SSG Lavine lived long enough to enjoy this presentation despite the “administrative glitch”.

  • Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ends

    So everyone is emailing us to let us know that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will end this week since the Senate voted to repeal the policy. The Stars & Stripes sent us this;

    In a stunning turnaround, the Senate voted 65-31 Saturday to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law as soon as the White House and the Pentagon certify a plan to minimize any disruption to the armed services that may result from the abolition of the controversial law.

    Too late, it’s already an unnecessary disruption – anything that has taken this long to resolve which has nothing to do with our national security is a disruption. The President emailed us this;

    Jonn —

    Moments ago, the Senate voted to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

    When that bill reaches my desk, I will sign it, and this discriminatory law will be repealed.

    Gay and lesbian service members — brave Americans who enable our freedoms — will no longer have to hide who they are.

    The fight for civil rights, a struggle that continues, will no longer include this one.

    This victory belongs to you. Without your commitment, the promise I made as a candidate would have remained just that.

    Instead, you helped prove again that no one should underestimate this movement. Every phone call to a senator on the fence, every letter to the editor in a local paper, and every message in a congressional inbox makes it clear to those who would stand in the way of justice: We will not quit.

    If only the President was this committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan to a successful conclusion. The only real upside to this whole discussion is that now dicksmith’s material has been cut to about a quarter. What will they have to talk about at VetVoice now?

    Can we talk about something else now? Something important? Something like killing large numbers of our enemies who won’t tolerate gays either?

  • Birther changes his mind

    It was as if I was reading about James Branum’s latest victim being hauled off to the gallows, but it was on the other side of the political spectrum and it was a courtroom full of starry-eyed imbeciles who reminded me of the Manson Family. (Stars & Stripes link)

    The two-day hearing became a rallying event for the birther movement, with their most prolific and vocal members traveling across the country to support Lakin.

    They cornered reporters at every break in the trial, bashing mainstream media coverage of their beliefs and reciting their unique interpretation of constitutional law. They snickered as potential jury members were quizzed about “rumors that the president doesn’t have a birth certificate.”

    Orly Taitz, an attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits challenging Obama’s legitimacy, used the hearing to update supporters and press about her upcoming round of legal maneuvers. She called Lakin’s trial a sham and a travesty, saying the restrictions placed on him “are worse than anything I ever saw under the communists in Russia.”

    In the end, Lakin pleaded guilty to disobeying orders and offered only token opposition to a charge of skipping deployment. His attorneys called no witnesses on his behalf during the criminal phase, and declined to present any defense before closing arguments. On Wednesday afternoon, he was found guilty on the charge, too.

    No witnesses, no mitigation, just some remorse under testimony in an Associated Press link from Tman;

    Under questioning by his defense attorney, Neal Puckett, Lakin expressed remorse for disobeying orders. He said he now understands that the Army cannot answer his question about Obama’s eligibility to be president and that it was not the appropriate place to raise the issue.

    “I was wrong for trying to push this issue within the Army,” he said.

    In videos posted on YouTube earlier this year, Lakin aligned himself with the so-called “birther” movement, which questions whether Obama is a natural-born citizen as the U.S. Constitution requires for presidents. Lakin had said he would “gladly deploy” if Obama’s original birth certificate were released and proved authentic.

    On Wednesday, however, Lakin reversed course, saying he would now deploy even with his question unanswered. Puckett asked him why.

    “That’s my duty. It’s what I’ve trained for. I’m in the Army,” he replied.

    “Are we done disobeying orders, Lt. Col. Lakin?” his attorney asked him.

    “Yes,” Lakin replied.

    But only because he didn’t get the resolution he wanted. The judge was right…it has nothing to do with Obama, it has to do with legal obligation Lakin has to deploy when he’s ordered to deploy.

  • Choi hospitalized

    News leaked out last night that Dan Choi, the fella who chains himself to the White House fence about once a month because he has trouble following policy in regards to his former military service is “in the hands of professional mental health practitioners at a Veterans Administration facility” according to Autumn Sandeen at Pam’s House Blend.

    Of course, this is an opportunity for Pam, Autumn and Dan to blame their mental instability on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;

    So yes, this is newsworthy, and Dan clearly wanted to share what he could have left private, or had to deal with had information about this leaked out. But this is another gift to the community — to open up a multi-faceted discussion: 1) the mental health toll taken by gay and lesbian service members; 2) the stressors that arise when also thrown into the public eye as a matter of fate or circumstance, not as a job.

    Is there nothing that can’t be blamed on DADT? Choi shoved his sexuality in our face, so I don’t know what these clowns are talking about in regards to “the closet” and poor Dan. Just like the birthers, Choi chose to end his career and disregard the DADT policy. Not to mention chaining his ass to the White House fence while wearing the uniform of an Army lieutenant no less than three times. And getting arrested for it. Now he has a case of the drama queen vapors.

    Yeah, I’m no mental health professional, but if being gay is normal and “coming out” is so therapeutic, then why are the Pam’s Blend crowd all telling us about their therapy today? Like I’ve said before, I have no problem with the gays, I have no problem with their silent service, my problem is when they use their service to promote a political agenda. Choi, who is famous for political stunts, seems to be involved in yet another political stunt.

  • Top Marine listens to the troops on the line

    I hate writing two DADT posts in one day – it makes me feel like dicksmith, and that’s not good – but this one probably won’t hold until tomorrow. ROS and Jeffrey Schogol each sent us a link to separate articles about Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos and his comments today about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and how he arrived at his conclusion that Congress shouldn’t repeal the policy. ROS sent me one from the Washington Post and Jeffrey from the Stars & Stripes.

    The Post quoted the general;

    “When your life hangs on the line,” said Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, “you don’t want anything distracting. . . . Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines’ lives.”

    And S&S;

    “Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines lives,” he said. “That’s the currency of this fight.

    “I take that very, very seriously,” he added. “I don’t want to lose any Marines to the distraction. I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda [National Naval Medical Center, in Maryland] with no legs be the result of any type of distraction.”

    The general claims that he arrived at his decision based on comments from his Marines who are trigger-pullers;

    He noted [the survey] found Marines in noncombat roles seemed more ready to accept repeal [of DADT].

    And that’s what many of us have been saying all along. I guess someone pushing paper from one side of his desk to the other depends less on the guy in the next cubicle for his life than someone in a hasty fighting position depends on the guy feeding him ammo. Every second is worth a life in combat.

    Of course, the Post anticipated this a few weeks ago when they solicited an opinion piece from Tammy Schultz, a gay woman who has never been in combat, yet pretends to know the nature of men at war because she works in a Marine classroom.

    I have studied, taught and interviewed Marines for 15 years and have gained great appreciation for the history and culture of the Corps, so much so, in fact, that I began teaching at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico almost three years ago.

    Marines have survived and thrived as a service in part because they exemplify everything warrior. (I have never seen as many trucks with gun racks as I do driving on the Quantico base.)

    As a rule, ground pounders are more conservative, resistant to change and likely to uphold tradition. This equates to a fear of the unknown – in this case, serving in combat with an openly gay Marine.

    How about if ground pounders have a fear that a gay soldier or Marine who can’t follow a simple policy that has absolutely nothing to do with their job won’t follow a unit policy or a battle drill because they disagree with it? Seconds count when bullets move at 1500 feet per second. There are no second guesses in a fire fight.

    “I don’t want to permit that opportunity [for distraction] to happen,” [Gen. Amos] said.

    The Defense Department survey, released last month, found that 58 percent of those in Marine combat arms units predicted that repeal would negatively affect their ability to “work together to get the job done.” In comparison, 48 percent of those in Army combat units felt the same way.

    48 percent is still a number the Army should listen to, it’s their lives, ya know. There is no reason we should have to put the troops through this right now, with a war being waged. Well, other than the fact that gay groups and dicksmith want it so badly they can taste it.

    Added: A note to idiot fucks at Think Progress and Igor Volsky; read the article again. Amos said his Marines told him they might get distracted. I hate liberal turds.

    The real distraction is a policy which denies gay Marines the right to confide in their straight comrades as they’re dealing with the difficulties of deployment.

    Despite Volsky’s obviously Hollywood-inspired view of combat, soldiers under fire don’t think much about their sexuality or “confide” in their straight comrades. Thoughts kind of run along the lines of cover and concealment, aiming stakes and having sufficient ammo to make it through the day.

  • What’s good for the goose….

    Of course, dicksmith at VetVoice is writing about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ONCE AGAIN. They might as well rename the VoteVets blog to “One Track Mind”. But today, he’s quoting ISAF CSM Marvin Hill who intimates that soldiers who disagree with the repeal have to make up their own minds about whether they stay or go when the time comes.

    Of course, dicksmith takes that to mean that the Command Sergeant Major is telling them “Just like any policy in the military, if you don’t like it you can get always get out when your enlistment term expires. There is no room in military service for people who allow their bigotry to inhibit combat readiness.”

    I wonder if dicksmith would apply that to the criminals like Dan Choi who couldn’t comply with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and became disruptive influences in the ranks. Or is dicksmith just telling people who have opinions that don’t track with his to STFU?

    dicksmith should come out of the intellectually shallow end of the pool.

  • Birther Army Officer to appear in court

    Jerry920 sent us a link to the Associated Press story that the “birther” doctor, LTC Lawrence Lakin, who I wrote about in April, has a court date;

    Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, an 18-year-Army veteran, disobeyed orders to report earlier this year to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to prepare for deployment, saying he believed the orders were illegal.

    In videos posted on YouTube, Lakin aligned himself with so-called “birthers” who question whether Obama is a natural-born citizen as the U.S. Constitution requires for presidents.

    Lakin says in the videos that any reasonable person looking at available evidence would have questions about Obama’s eligibility to be president and that he had “no choice” but to disobey orders.

    In my opinion, anyone who chooses to make a political statement out of their military service, whether it’s IVAW, IAVA, VoteVets or these “birthers”, especially in the time of war, are doing nothing except giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Military service is a sacred trust between the people of this nation and those who’ve promised to serve. I’ll grant that many of the people have violated that trust, but it doesn’t excuse service members’ violations of those bargains.

    I hope Lakin gets the maximum sentence and loses the right to call himself a veteran. That’s justice.