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

Category: Real Soldiers

  • Navy Corpsman earns Soldier’s Medal

    The Virginia Pilot tells the story Petty Officer Roy Jaquez a Navy Corpsman who was awarded the Army’s highest peacetime medal for rescuing three contractors from a burning crashed helicopter;

    “The still-running engine threatened to further shatter the remaining rotor blades and send shrapnel flying indiscriminately across the crash site. One of the helicopter’s fuel tanks ruptured, spilling highly flammable aviation fuel around the wreckage, threatening a massive explosion and potential detonation of the high-explosive mortar rounds that had spilled from the helicopter’s cargo hold.”

  • NOT Just Another Day.

    Commenter Doc Bailey and I have been swapping emails about this and that. I was rather surprised to learn that we have some things in common even though shifted 40 years in time.

    But he mentioned a coupla things I couldn’t directly relate to so I asked him to expand on them.

    Here is the first, in his words. Thanks Doc.

    —————————-

    Here is my account of 25 June 2007, and the events that happened to me that day. I have to put it out there because people have to know. please understand these events are painful for me to recount.

    It was a normal day like any other. We were all excited to be getting back, but i was exuasted having pulled a 6 hour gaurd shift right before getting off. We all sat around and joked. I could hear people laughing about the game “company of heroes” that Craig and WillieBo had played. They’d gone for 5 hours only to get their asses kickedby the germans. I was fretting over Jubi. I was a little upset, because he was supposed to have been evaced the night before for (what i would find out later) a slipped disk. I had given him morphine right before i thought he was going to go, he didn’t and i was bracing for the ass reeming i was going to get. I had spent all night fretting about a patient, and in the end i was pretty damm tired, everyone else on the otherhand were lively in a way only the loose cannons can be.
    Like always we had details to do, and things that needed to get done. Clean the pisser, sweep and mop, make the “gym” look pretty, Mop the mats, sweep the sleeping bay, and of course pick up cigarette buts. we did these, with the usual amount of bitching complaining and griping. It came time to load up and off we went.

    (more…)

  • Jessica Lynch graduates

    Tman sends us a link about Jessica Lynch, the Army private who was captured by Iraqi troops in the early part of the war in Iraq and rescued by US special forces operators is graduating from college this week. She has taken a lot of shit from people because of the inaccuracies of the tales told by people who weren’t Jessica Lynch.

    I’ve always admired her for what she endured during her captivity as well as the way she has conducted herslf after her return. For example, in the article about her, she was quick to remind us that she wasn’t the only person there that fateful day;

    The first woman lost was Lynch’s friend and fellow soldier, 23-year-old Army Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa of Arizona, killed in the convoy attack.

    “Knowing she died right beside me and that could fairly well have been me brings a whole new perspective,” Lynch said. “You’re just thankful for what you’ve been given, even if it’s not what you wanted.”

    A lot of people like to say that she was no hero, that she was just a pretty blonde that America could rally around for the war, but she was more than that. She was there doing the job that most Americans wouldn’t. She answered the call and didn’t try to weasel out of it like so many since have done. She’s just like many of my readers who did their duty and paid the inherent price in various ways.

    “The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes,” she told Congress in 2007, “and they don’t need to be told elaborate lies.”

    And the lies cost her. For a long time, she got hate mail. Some said she’d done nothing to deserve the attention or the title of hero. She once told Glamour magazine she felt like “the most hated person in America.”

    Every now and then, after a high-profile appearance, a hateful missive still arrives.

    “They say things like, ‘Who do you think you are? That was so eight years ago,’” Lynch said. “I just don’t respond. It just doesn’t bother me anymore. It used to, because I couldn’t understand why people were hating me. I was just a soldier like the 100,000 others over there.”

    She didn’t ask for the attention, and I’m glad that she has been able to move on with her life and past the crap from the anti-war numbnuts types. And I wish her all the best in her endeavors. She earned it.

  • This post started with a photo.

    I remember the original video from the Victory at Sea series. I remember the reckless disregard that the ground crew Officer went to retrieve the pilot. Originally I was not able to find that video but I found this video. Also the song that is selected for the video is interesting to note. It goes by the name “A prayer for the Fleet”. I cannot find the lyrics for it on the net. What I have found out is that it is done by the US Navy Sea Chanter Chorus. But one thing that got me thinking because of the song is the part that starts at :37 and goes to 1:12.

    The last crash landing is post World War Two. I knew that carrier crashes can and do happen but, you do not think of them being to that extent. The video at 2:15 is a violent reminder to the contrary. This leads me to my next topic. The disaster on the USS Forrestal.

    The video and link cover most of the basic information of the fire so I will just skip to my thoughts. The first one is that it seems that in the process of trying to save money that it ended up costing them much more in lives, manpower and material. Something that sometimes gets forgotten in and out of the military community. Also I wonder what our resident Navy guy, Zero Ponsdorf thoughts are on the USS Forrestal and how it changed the Navy.

    But the last part is the actions of Gerald Farrier who tried to prevent the bombs from exploding. He recklessly tried to protect his fellow shipmates without regards to his own safety. His actions reminded me of the actions of the original photo.

    As I was writing this post, I was able to find the video related to the above photo. It starts at 5:36 if you want to skip the other videos.

    It is amazing where a photo can take you.

  • Oldest and youngest

    VTWoody sends us a picture of the oldest and youngest living Medal of Honor recipients together. That’s Nicolas Oresko and Dakota Meyer;

  • Joseph Collins: The Colors of Commitment

    The NRA and Brownells sent us a link to the latest in their Call of Duty series of videos about an Iraq veteran and a policeman – it’s a story of one man’s life, parts of which you may recognize in your own lives. If you have 19 minutes, I urge you to watch it;

  • New Study Finds That Deployments Are Difficult for Families?

    To Be Clear! I have NOT read the actually study, only this single article.
    Violence more common among kids of combat veterans

    ATLANTA (AP) — A new study suggests that when parents are deployed in the military, their children are more than twice as likely to carry a weapon, join a gang or be involved in fights.

    And that includes the daughters.

    Had kind of a deju vu moment here when I read the article. Yet another headline putting even MORE stress on those deployed and their families. Seems to be something similar put out there quite frequently.

    Even if every word and statistic were true and accurate Im’ not so sure there is cause for alarm, or such a headline… but one statement towards the end of the article calls the whole thing into question. I’ve emphasized it for you.

    Additional research is needed to confirm the findings, said Reed, who has since left the University of Washington and is now a social worker with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. For example, the survey found that 10 to 20 percent of the adolescents in deployed families said they were in gangs. That’s surprisingly high — more like something seen in New York City in the 1950s. Perhaps a larger, more national study would produce a lower number.

    Or perhaps singling out the kids of those deployed makes a good headline or looks good on a grant application?

     

  • Done With The Silly for Today.

    Got slammed back, and rightfully so.

    NY, Washington protesters brave rare early snow

    NEW YORK — Anti-Wall Street protesters hunkered down at encampments in New York and Washington Saturday as they faced their first winter weather test, with a rare early snowstorm hitting the US east coast.

    “Snow, what snow? I’ve got a country to worry about,” read a sign at New York’s Zuccotti Park held by a girl as snow and sleet pelted downtown Manhattan, where demonstrators have gathered to protest and call for financial reform since September 17.

    Don Surber again swings the reality hammer.

    Brave? No, the 99 twerps are camping out. The heroes and heroines in Afghanistan are the ones who are braving the snow — and the bombs — and the cold — and the loneliness.

    I never forget those serving, but Don’s juxtaposition does shift the focus where it is needed well.

    Disgust is not quite strong enough.