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

Category: Military issues

  • WLF supports veterans pending deportation

    The Warrior Legacy Foundation is lending their support to two brothers who are facing deportation despite the fact that they are veterans, one served in Vietnam. From KRDO.com;

    Manuel and Valente Valenzuela, brothers and Vietnam Veterans, They continue to fight against impending deportation, but now they have the support of a national organization.

    “What we’ve done for America, we are proud of it, and it isn’t going to hurt to stand up,” said Manuel

    The men were born in Mexico to an American mother, and may be deported for minor crimes committed years ago. Manuel is a Marine and Valente a Soldier. After NEWSCHANNEL13’s interview the pair in, many called their claims fake.

    The Warrior Legacy Foundation decided to work with the Valenzuelas to determine the authenticity of their story. The foundation is tasked with preserving the history of people who individuals that truly served.

    “Everything we were able to pull matched what they had,” said John Wagner of the Warrior Legacy Foundation.

    Manuel said the support has renewed his belief in the America he defended.

    ”These people stepped in to help me, and it’s been building me back up to say ‘thank God I served the country.’”

    I know TAH has a reputation for tearing into phony soldiers and we did our best to tear into these brothers, but we haven’t found anything wrong with their records, with the help of POW Net.

    We’re proud of the small part we’ve played in this case so far, and unless the government can come up with a better case against the Valenzuelas, I think their resources would be better employed against real illegal immigrants instead of these two brothers – they’ve earned their place in this country.

  • “Brazen” attack on Bagram

    The Associated Press is reporting that a slew of Taliban fighters attacked Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan this morning;

    Insurgents launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, killing an American contractor and wounding nine service members in the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days.

    At least 10 insurgents were killed as Taliban suicide bombers attempted to breach the defenses of the base north of Kabul, while others fired rockets and grenades inside, according to a statement issued by U.S. forces.

    Several US troops were wounded and a contractor killed. I figure it wasn’t as much “brazen” as it was foolhardy, desparate and almost comical if it wasn’t for the loss of one US life.

    An Afghan provincial police commander, Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail, said the attack began when U.S. guards spotted would-be attackers in a car just outside the Bagram base. The Americans opened fire, triggering a gunbattle in which at least one militant triggered his suicide vest. Running gunbattles broke out as U.S. troops hunted down the other attackers.

    So it wasn’t as much an assault as it was a goat roping exercise. Of course, the new York Times is too busy following this story to give much thought to anything else;

  • New PBS Documentary: A Good Story or Anti-Military Hit Piece?

    PBS’s Frontline has an episode tomorrow on the increase in crime around Fort Carson, Colorado since the beginning of the Iraq War. The episode specifically focuses on one platoon which had three soldiers convicted  of murder following its Iraq deployment. Here is the trailer for the episode:

    The episode hasn’t aired yet so I don’t want to jump the gun and make a blanket judgment. However, PBS’s past reporting on the Iraq War (in particular the Haditha killings) hasn’t been great and there is an obvious hard-left bias at the network. I also worry that it could potentially reinforce the negative stereotypes that are associated with troops returning from combat.

    Hopefully, PBS does this story some justice but I am not betting they will.

  • Sluffing off

    I’m wrapped up in a little thing at the paying job for the next two days and I’ll do my best to get blog work done when I can. In the meantime, go watch the video at Mudville Gazette in which 30 of the 91 surviving Medal of Honor recipients do their part to stem the rising suicide rate among the troops.

    Jimbo has some of the same thoughts on the new Miss America as mine at Blackfive.

    Otherwise, feel free to start your own discussions or drop off some links in the comments.

  • Elks bring generations of Vets together

    Will C. sent us this link to an article about an Elks Lodge which is hosting wounded soldiers from Walter Reed next month and they’re inviting World War II veterans to meet with the younger generation.

    The Rocky Mount Elks Lodge #1038 is inviting area World War II veterans for lunch with about 50 wounded soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center at noon June 1 at the lodge at 2750 N. Church St.

    Transportation and special accommodations will be available.

    The wounded soldiers are traveling from Washington, D.C., to Myrtle Beach courtesy of the Myrtle Beach Elks Lodge, leaving on May 27. Wilson Elks Lodge will feed travelers dinner on the way down to Myrtle Beach.

    When the soldiers stop in Rocky Mount, the Elks Lodge will host a luncheon for the soldiers traveling back to D.C. Planners said they hope the luncheon draws more than 100 World War II veterans and area leaders combined to the luncheon.

    Despite the decades and the technology that separate these two amazing generations of soldiers, I’m sure there are things they share – things every soldier shares with every other soldier. I know that meeting WWII veterans in my early career influenced me in the coming years.

  • It’s called “Don’t Tell” for a reason

    Sparky and Jerry920 both sent an article to us about some poor victimized Military Science student who may end up owing the Army $80,000 for her four years of out-of-state tuition at UNC because she suddenly became a lesbian after the Army paid for her education (from The Chronicle of Higher Education);

    Ms. Isaacson, who identified as a straight woman when she started college, says she acknowledged to herself last November that she was lesbian. After consulting with trusted friends and advisers on the campus, she revealed her orientation in a formal memorandum to Lt. Col. Monte Yoder, head of the university’s Army ROTC program. That put her in violation of Defense Directive 1304.26, better known as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the 1993 Clinton administration compromise that allows gay people to serve in the military as long as they do not divulge their sexual orientation.

    She was notified in March that she was being discharged and told that a recommendation had been made that she repay $79,265.14 to the government.

    I guess that’s why you shouldn’t tell since no one is asking. Should straight ROTC cadets confess their sexual habits to their MS advisers, too? From Fox News;

    “I didn’t feel like I could be a good officer if I didn’t have integrity,” she told the Chronicle of Higher Education.

    Lt. Col. Monte Yoder, head of the university’s Army ROTC program, said Ms. Isaacson would never have had to talk about her sexual orientation at all.

    “I was very clear with Miss Isaacson about that,” he told the Chronicle. “I told her I won’t ask.”

    See how “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” works? Did she think the Army would just go ahead let her skate on 80 grand tax payer dollars? You owe us, Ms. Isaacson – will that be cash or a cashier’s check?

  • Kagan is anti-military

    Another friend of Elena Kagan takes a shot at defending her against the charge that she’s anti-military in today’s Washington Post. Walter Dellinger writes;

    Under Kagan’s predecessor at Harvard, the highly respected corporate scholar Robert C. Clark, military recruiters acknowledged that they were not able to comply with the school’s generally applicable anti-discrimination policy and could not use the placement office’s services. In 2002, the Bush administration asserted that a federal provision called the Solomon Amendment required the law school to grant military recruiters an exemption from its anti-discrimination policy. Faced with a threatened cutoff of federal funds to the whole university, Clark announced that the placement office would begin assisting military recruiters. When Kagan became dean in 2003, she continued this practice.

    In November 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit held that the Solomon Amendment was unconstitutional, which meant there was no longer an enforceable, federally mandated exception to the law school’s anti-discrimination policy. Kagan announced that military recruiters were once again ineligible for assistance from the school’s placement office. In the fall of 2004, after the Justice Department challenged the 3rd Circuit decision and the Supreme Court agreed to review the lower court’s ruling, Kagan announced that the school would once again comply with the government’s demand for placement-office support for military recruiters.

    In short, Kagan did whatever she could do within the law to continue the flow of dollars from the government. Dellinger makes it seem as if she made accommodations for the military, when the truth is that she only did that when she had to do it.

    As soon as the 3rd Circuit made the decision that the Solomon Amendment was unconstitutional, she withdrew her support of military recruiters. If she had continued the support of recruiters, despite the court’s decision, that would indicate she’s not anti-military. See how that works?

    When she had to decide between gays and the military with no government interdiction, she chose gays.

    Honestly, I don’t care – she is a through-and-through liberal who adheres to a Liberal agenda. That she doesn’t support the military is just part-and-parcel of being a Liberal and that’s why she shouldn’t be a judge because she’ll write intellectually vacant opinions and try to justify those opinions with the tiny words that occur in the Constitution.

    My bitch about Dellinger is that he’s trying to cover for her, just like the countless others who’ve told us she’s not gay – it doesn’t matter. They think they can cover up the fact that she’s grossly unqualified for the Supreme Court by filling in these tiny irrelevant issues. No American Liberal is qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

  • Delays in withdrawal from Iraq

    According to the Guardian, large scale redeployments from iraq may have been put on hold because of the increase in violence there;

    American officials had been prepared for delays in negotiations to form a government, but now appear to have balked after Maliki’s coalition aligned itself with the theocratic Shia bloc to the exclusion of Allawi, who attracted the bulk of the minority Sunni vote. There is also concern over interference from Iraq’s neighbours, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

    Late tonight seven people were killed and 22 wounded when a car bomb planted outside a cafe exploded in Baghdad’s Sadr City, a Shia area, police and a source at the Iraqi interior ministry said.

    The latest bomb highlights how sectarian tensions are rising, as al-Qaida fighters in Iraq and affiliated Sunni extremists have mounted bombing campaigns and assassinations around the country.

    The violence is seen as an attempt to intimidate all sides of the political spectrum and press home the message to the departing US forces that militancy remains a formidable foe.

    The Associated Press reported the other day that the delay may throw the schedule off for a month;

    The first major wave of the pullout is expected to be delayed about a month, until June, the officials told the Associated Press. Waiting longer could endanger President Obama’s goal of reducing the force level from 92,000 to 50,000 servicemembers by Aug. 31.

    Yes, that should be the major concern – making Obama look like he knows what he’s doing. That’s much more important than protecting the force and killing the bad guys who are disrupting the process.

    By the way, is there anyone out there who didn’t see a timetable not working in Iraq? I mean other than the Bush Administration.