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

Category: Military issues

  • That “collateral murder” video


    Everyone is talking about the video from Wikileaks. UberPig, Laughing Wolf, Rusty Shackelford, Ed Morrissey and Bill Roggio. Rusty takes the pertinent parts of the 17 minute video apart frame by frame.

    Bryan Casler tries to muddy up the conversation at Iraq Veterans Against the War.Katie O’Malley sent us a link to Huffington Post’s discussion on the subject – providing smoke.

    I wasn’t there, I didn’t see what happened before Wikileaks decided where we could begin seeing the video, but based on what I’m seeing, a bunch of friends with AK47s and at least one RPG are crowded on the corner, while one guy sets up security on another corner. Its obvious that they’re up to no good and need to get ventilated before the dismounted US infantry gets in trouble. Simple.

    This is how little the Left knows about what they’re watching. In the narrative, Wikileaks calls Bradleys tanks (that REALLY pisses me off). Then the idiot at Huffington Post describes a Bradley running over a body, but in the video, it’s clearly a HUMV. I guess there isn’t much difference between a hummer and a Brad, huh?

    I’m guessing the anti-war crowd couldn’t watch the video past the title pages.

  • Visit to a cafe turns emotional

    I ran across this story in the Stars & Stripes. You will want to read the whole thing – especially you Vietnam vets;

    “I saw this big man just burst into tears,” said Angela Rowell, the morning hostess at the cafe. “I asked him, ‘Are you OK, sir?’ He just pointed at that picture.”

    Eventually, he managed to get out: “That’s the man whose body I pulled out of Vietnam.”

  • German friendly fire kills Afghan troops

    The Associated Press is reporting (by way of Washington Post) that German troops in Afghanistan mistakenly fired up some vehicles transporting Afghan Army troops that wouldn’t yield to the Germans’ commands that the vehicles stop;

    The German military said German soldiers who were rushing from Kunduz to the scene of the fighting on Friday afternoon encountered two civilian vehicles and demanded that they stop. When they did not, a German armored personnel carrier opened fire on them, the statement said. The vehicles were later found to have been transporting Afghan troops and an investigation is pending, the military added.

    Shortly before, German troops had been attacked while on a bridge-building and mine-clearing mission southwest of Kunduz city, formerly a relatively calm area in the north that has lately seen a rising level of insurgent violence.

    In related news, men in Iraqi military uniforms used silenced weapons to murder 25 Sunnis from “The Awakening”. The Awakening leadership is blaming al Qaeda;

    “It seems those criminal gangs of al-Qaeda in Iraq have started to become active again,” said Mustafa Kamal Shibeeb, a leader of the Awakening in Arab Jubour, a Sunni Arab area just south of the capital that includes Hor Rajib. “It was a horrific crime, killing these innocents, including women and children.”

  • SGM John Letuli: info request

    mnd-b-090629-m-5221s-001-from-samoa-to-iraq-via-north-carolina1

    We received this last night through various dependable channels. The Sergeant Major in the middle of these Sergeants Major pictured above is SGM John Letuli. He’s wearing a Special Forces combat patch in this picture. According to the folks at Professional Soldiers, they’ve contacted the Special Warfare Center and he’s never served with a Special Forces unit. Letuli is currently an operations sergeant in the North Carolina National Guard.

    According to the people who emailed us yesterday, several investigations into this sergeant’s background have begun, but the various commands involved seem to want to sweep this under the rug. Apparently they won’t even respond to an Army Times reporter.

    Of course, because he’s currently in the service, we won’t be able to get his OMPF through our usual channels in order to set the record straight, so we’re asking you guys for any information you can provide us. Someone out there knows this guy and can verify or refute his claims. You can contact anonymously with the form at the “Contact Us” link in our header our at the email address.

    ADDED: I am aware of all of the possibilities that might have led to the SGM wearing an SF combat patch, I, myself, am authorized to wear either the 1st ID or 2AD patch for the same combat tour. Apparently these possibilities have all been negated by the folks at Professional Soldier, the SWC and the SOCOM CSM.

    2nd ADDED:    Seems that is not only the thing that is in question.

    Besides the SF tab, he’s wearing the Soldier’s Medal and the Purple Heart.

  • Those Westboro fags (contribution link added)

    I know a bunch of you have already read this story about Albert Snyder, the father of a Marine who lost his life in Iraq and this legal battle against the Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps. I know you’ve read it because you’ve been sending me links.

    Mr. Snyder won his case against the Westboro fags but was overturned on appeal. Then he decided to appeal to the Supreme Court and the Fourth District Court, which ruled against him, ordered Mr. Snyder to pay the Westboro fags’s legal expenses related to the Supreme Court case filing – about 16 grand while the USSC has agreed to hear the case.

    I didn’t write about this before now because I’d heard that Blackfive was working behind the scenes to get the complete story.

    But, while I was waiting for Blackfive, some guy named MOTHAX at The American Legion’s Burn Pit got into the fray this morning and convinced the Legion’s powers to help Mr. Snyder pay those unjust expenses.

    Stay tuned for a link to the fund.

    ADDED: Here’s the link for contributions.

  • Question for Vietnam Era Marines

    I’ve got a set of records on a Marine who spent a year in Vietnam (Aug ’69 – Aug ’70). He entered service in Jan. 69 and was discharged Aug. 70. His last unit was designated in his records as “SU/1 CASCO, H&S Bn., MCB CAMPEN, CA.”

    After a bunch of Googling, I know that it means he was assigned to the Headquarters & Service Battalion at Camp Pendleton (garrison HQ for us Army guys), and I’m guessing the CASCO is probably Casualty Company, but what I don’t know is if the Casualty Company was medical casualties or personnel casualties (in military speak, a personnel casualty doesn’t work because he’s on the way out of the military or on his way to another base or unit).

    His records say he was RELACDU (another Google search tells me that means “Released From Active Duty” to Marines) on August 21, 1970 after arriving at Pendleton on August 5, 1970.

    Keep in mind, this person is claiming that he’s a “100% disabled veteran”, but there’s no Purple Heart in his records. So I’m wondering how he became disabled. How was it possible he was released before his term of service ended? I think a Marine’s term of service was three years then and a two year draftee in the Marines was exceedingly rare.

    Anyone have any ideas or might know someone who would know?

  • New Policies Regarding DADT

    Robert Gates announced changes today to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell which are intended to make it more difficult to discharge service members for violating DADT. From what I can tell, there are two real modifications being made to DADT that are effective today. The first modification mandates that only general officers (brigadier or higher) can initiate an inquiry into whether or not someone violated DADT. Also, general officers are now the only ones that can start discharge proceedings for violating DADT. I don’t know how big of a change this really is however. In my experience in 1st Marine Division, general officers usually had to sign off on any type of discharge that wasn’t related to EAS or EOS. This included med boards, early outs for college, bad conduct discharges, and I would assume discharges related to DADT. They already had at least some involvement in the discharge process. This just seems to be a clarification on who is ultimately responsible for discharging someone who has violated DADT and limits a general officer’s ability to pawn off that responsibility on a lower-ranking officer. Without a doubt, it is going to make it harder to discharge someone under DADT, since a general isn’t going to want to devote a signficant amount of time to investigating someone’s sex life.

    The second modification attempts to prevent someone from being discharged under DADT for being outed by a third-party (i.e. a pissed off ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, law enforcement, etc.). I personally support this change 100 percent. It is not fair for someone who is following DADT to the letter to be outed by a party outside of the military or by a scorned lover and then be subsequently discharged. Granted, in a lot of these stories you hear in the media  about gays getting discharged for being outed by a third party, I think there is often more to the story on why they are getting kicked out. But in the instances where someone was doing the right thing and obeying the rules, it is not right to discharge them over another person’s word.

    As I have stated before, I don’t think there is going to be an outright appeal of DADT anytime soon. The Obama administration has other more important priorities and any attempted repeal is going to be another bloody fight in Congress in an election year. I don’t think he has the political capital (or will) to completely repeal the policy this year.

  • Reuter’s proof there are Gays in the Military

    Jerry920 sent me a link the other day related to a Reuters Don’t Ask Don’t Tell themed series of photos. I wasn’t quite sure what Jerry was pointing to, but I kept going back to it. Finally today I got to this photo at the end of the series. I guess this is Reuter’s way of proving to us that there are already gays serving in the military;

    gays-in-the-military

    So what if it’s just his last name that is Gay, it’s still proof that Gays are in the military and performing their jobs admirably, right?