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

Category: Support the troops

  • AP targets AER

    Associated Press saw nothing wrong with Congress passing a $ trillion “stimulus” bill that Congress  hadn’t read and that wouldn’t stimulate the economy. But that’s because they’re busy investigating why the Army Emergency Relief hoarded cash contributions instead of loaning it out.

    For some reason, AP mixes up the term “veteran” to confuse the reader about the AER mission;

    Today, AER’s mission is to ease cash emergencies of active-duty soldiers and retirees, and to provide college scholarships for their families. Its emergency aid covers mortgage payments and food, car repairs, medical bills, travel to family funerals, and the like.

    According to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau figures, 1.3 million veterans — or 6 percent — lived in poverty, with 537,000 unemployed.

    “I have so many people who are losing their homes, they’re behind on their mortgage payments, they’re losing their jobs because of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) or the medication they’re taking — and the Army Emergency Relief can’t help them,” says Outreach Director Sema Olson at U.S. Welcome Home Foundation, which finds aid for combat veterans.

    The AER can’t help them because “veterans” are not necessarily “active duty or retired” soldiers. Their own charter requires soldiers to clear their debt with AER before they leave the service. Just like everything else civilians write in the media about the military, AP finds something wrong with soldiers donating to AER and the fact that military officers are on the board of the AER.

    The truth is that AER loaned soldiers money when no one else would and if they hoarded money, it was because they’d rather have too much than too little – AP’s lack of scrutiny on Congress’ stimulus bill demonstrates where their priorities are. Every time I took one of my soldiers in need to AER, they got the help they needed and they didn’t pay interest on the loan and usually got the money the same day – and they can pay it back with allotments from their pay checks. What could be better?

    I don’t know what AP is trying to prove here, all they proved is that AER is a responsible organization that helps the troops and plans for the future. I’m sure some people might have some bad experiences with AER, but I’ve never seen them do anything but help the troops.

  • Programming reminder

    Don’t forget that “Taking Chance” premieres on Home Box office tonight. Blackfive has a review and the trailer for the Kevin Bacon movie. My program guide says it starts at 8PM (Eastern) so you know where I’ll be then.

    I was reminded at Walter Reed this afternoon where I attended a Soldiers’ Angels event with Laughing Wolf and Uncle Jimbo from Blackfive and got to talk to Olga a bit. I was told there would be no cameras, so all I brought was my crappie camera. SA awarded three VALOUR-IT laptops to some troops.


    Good folks, good food and Uncle Jimbo stories. A perfect afternoon. Keep an eye on Blackfive for some interviews and better photos from the event.

  • Lifting of ban on media gawking considered

    This is one thing I’ve never been able to figure out – the media, since the Persian Gulf War, has wanted to film coffins containing the remains of our military returning to the US at Dover AFB. The ever-vigilant Washington Post ruminates over the issue today;

    President Obama said last week that he is considering lifting the ban on photographs and videos at Dover, in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, raising fundamental questions about the impact of such images on the public morale in wartime.

    For Obama, changing the policy would carry some political risk as he ramps up the war effort in Afghanistan with tens of thousands of fresh troops, increasing the likelihood of combat deaths that could produce photographs of numerous coffins arriving at one time at Dover, the sole U.S. port of entry for the remains. At the same time, Obama has advocated transparency in government, and continuing to hide the Dover ritual from public view conflicts with that principle as well as with public opinion on the issue, polls indicate.

    Yeah, well, there is no political risk for Obama – as we’ve seen with every other issue Obama faces, he’s quick to blame the previous administration for forcing him to make unpopular choices, depending on the crowd. Whatever he decides, the media will gaily celebrate his wisdom.

    It’s the media’s apparent obsession with it that bothers me;

    Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent and WTOP radio reporter who teaches journalism and politics at the University of Delaware, has sued the government to obtain the release of some military photographs of honor ceremonies at Dover under the Freedom of Information Act.

    “Dover is the only place in the country where the entire nation can observe the return of these casualties,” Begleiter said. “The most important and dramatic . . . cost of war is the casualties, the troops who make the ultimate sacrifice and come back to their country in a casket draped with an American flag, and to leave that image unobserved seems to be disingenuous.”

    No, what’s disingenuous here is the false impression that there are scads of people who would care about the war if only the media were allowed to take pictures of coffins on an airstrip in Delaware. Like so much other hyperbole we get from the drama queen press, this is just ignorant rantings of self-important idiots.

    There are funerals across the country everyday that we never read about in the media, not because they’re banned from reporting, but because they don’t think it’s news. The only reason the media thinks this particular issue is news is because it’s something they’re not allowed to do.

    Much like the gays-in-the-military issue – there are not millions of gays waiting for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be lifted for them to join the military, neither are there millions of news readers waiting for the ban at Dover AFB to be lifted before they pick up a newspaper.

    Every year, there’s an hours-long ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day. The media is there for hours through the whole thing, yet the only thing that makes the evening news is 5 seconds of the President placing the wreath at the Tomb. Every Friday night, wounded soldiers roll up to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from the war – no reporters are ever there to record it.

    If the ban is eventually lifted, there may be a story about the first time the media is allowed to record the event, they’ll make a big deal out of it and thrust their puny fists in the air in victory, one picture might appear in your newspaper, five seconds of video might make a continuous loop every thirty minutes on CNN for a day – and then it will be over.

    In exchange, the solemn event will have lost it’s last shred of dignity so some greasy, vacuous borderline paparazzi photographers can gawk at the flag-draped remains of better people than they’ll ever be.

    ADDED: I guess the American Legion agree with me.

  • Sporkmaster on Patrol

    Sporkmaster sends some videos of parts of his patrol;

    60 seconds in Iraq

    A Iraq market

    And a video of a child being tortured;

    Yeah, that’s the family that’s waiting for Sporkmaster to return.

  • More Sporkmaster photos

    I’ve asked Sporkmaster, who is currently stationed in Iraq to share more of his photos with us. He’s graciously agreed and in my initial brief perusal of his collection, I pared out some of the evidence that our troops continue to terrorize the population (of course, I kid);



    The guys who make it all possible;

    Thanks to Sporkmaster and I promise I’ll have more as the weeks go on. Anyone else out there who want to share photos with us, please do – nothing makes me happier than having readers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Of course, I’ll have my own source soon – my son called last week to say he’s been tapped for a tour in Iraq.

  • I must be psychic

    TSO sends me a piece from Josh Rogin at the Congressional Quarterly about the future of defense spending. Rogin writes that;

    The current path of defense spending is unsustainable, due primarily to the rising cost of military entitlements and runaway acquisition costs, two defense budget experts told the House Budget Committee on Wednesday.
    […]
    “The first factor driving up the price of defense is, simply, the growing cost of uniformed military personnel,” [Stephen Daggett, defense budget specialist for the Congressional Research Service] said in his written testimony.
    […]
    “This may suggest that if defense budget shortfalls continue, we will, later if not now, have to consider reductions in the number of personnel”.

    I wrote last year before the election that the Democrats would see human resource issues in the Defense Department as a way to reduce the budget. the Democrats see the military and it’s supporters as a bloc of voters they’ll never impress, but apparently all of the welfare recipients, the lobbyists and all of those other people who suckle at the Federal teat, the ones who need to be cut off, are too politically important to consider cutting off.

    J. Michael Gilmore, assistant director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified that by increasing fees for military health care and restructuring pay raises, the Pentagon could save about $111 billion between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2026.

    The House Budget Committee’s ranking Republican, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, agreed that personnel costs were a problem. “DoD’s health care spending is increasing at an unsustainable rate,” he said.

    And yet the Democrats are convinced that they can give healthcare to all Americans – by increasing the personal costs of active duty military personnel’s health care? Yeah, this how we support the troops, by them taking the budget cuts in their rear, while we continue to expand government to pay for the Democrats’ constituency.

  • My night with heroes (aka, how creepy TSO really is)


    (My photographer was Speedbump6Romeo, and you can see how well that turned out)

    When I went to the 2000 inaugural ball, I found myself at the event drinking with Walter Ehlers, Medal of Honor recipient from the 1st ID in the week following D-Day. We were throwing down adult beverages at quite the prolific rate when he turned and asked me “Son, you ain’t *funny* are you?” “Funny sir? No, I’m not funny.” “Then why in the hell are you sitting with an old man when there are so many hot young women around.” It seemed a good point. Hell, even now it seems a good point.

    So yesterday, I went with the one intent of meeting Mr Lemon, discussed in this earlier post. I saw him in the lobby, and as stated before, the man wasn’t hard to recognize, what with being 6′-1″ and bald. So, I went up, introduced myself, explained our blog and my post from the other day. Talked about his Canadian heritage, etc. And he said, “Do you always just jump strangers in the hotel lobby and recite their autobiography?”

    That’s when it hit me that I really am a creep. It also occurred to me that I can talk to 6-1 Medal of Honor recipients with no problem, but a 5-3 redhead, and ordering delivery food on my cell both scare the bejesus out of me

    (more…)

  • Spending inauguration day with heroes [TSO]

    (NOTE: TSO may have access to a few tix if anyone has some extra scratch to buy them, a tuxedo, and a desire to meet some of these guys. Email us if interested.)

    All other things being equal, I don’t really want to leave the house Tuesday. I’d rather lay in bed, watch cartoons, maybe level up my Warcraft characters tailoring skill. Because I like to get crazy like that.

    But every 4 years I get to spend a night with my heroes. Literally. It’s the “Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball” featuring between 50-100 Medal of Honor Recipients. I’ve talked about it here before, and in 2000 I spent the time with Hiroshi Miyamura and Walter Ehlers. This year I have gone through the list of attendees, and the man I most want to meet is this gentleman, Peter C. Lemon.

    Should be easy enough to recognize the man, he has no hair, and is the youngest living MoH recipient. The reason I became more interested in his story than in others though is that we’ve been running all these stories about American cowards who have been running away from their voluntary commitment to the Armed Forces, and fleeing to Canada. Well, near as I have been able to determine, Mr Lemon represents the sole living Canadian MoH recipient. Or rather, he was a Canadian. Who knows, since he never once seems to mention Canada anywhere on his website, but rather talks about all the things he has done for this, his adopted country. Somehow I actually feel bad for Canada, they send us Hockey Players and heroes, and we send them cowards and polar bear researchers. That’s a pretty serious trade deficit.

    Anyway, he just looks like a very nice, very affable fellow, doesn’t he?

    Not to the NVA he didn’t apparently.

    LEMON, PETER C.

    Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company E, 2d Battalion, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division.

    place and date: Tay Ninh province, Republic of Vietnam, 1 April 1970.

    Entered service at: Tawas City, Mich.

    Born: 5 June 1950, Toronto, Canada.

    Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lemon (then Sp4c.), Company E, distinguished himself while serving as an assistant machine gunner during the defense of Fire Support Base Illingworth. When the base came under heavy enemy attack, Sgt. Lemon engaged a numerically superior enemy with machine gun and rifle fire from his defensive position until both weapons malfunctioned. He then used hand grenades to fend off the intensified enemy attack launched in his direction. After eliminating all but 1 of the enemy soldiers in the immediate vicinity, he pursued and disposed of the remaining soldier in hand-to-hand combat. Despite fragment wounds from an exploding grenade, Sgt. Lemon regained his position, carried a more seriously wounded comrade to an aid station, and, as he returned, was wounded a second time by enemy fire. Disregarding his personal injuries, he moved to his position through a hail of small arms and grenade fire. Sgt. Lemon immediately realized that the defensive sector was in danger of being overrun by the enemy and unhesitatingly assaulted the enemy soldiers by throwing hand grenades and engaging in hand-to-hand combat. He was wounded yet a third time, but his determined efforts successfully drove the enemy from the position. Securing an operable machine gun, Sgt. Lemon stood atop an embankment fully exposed to enemy fire, and placed effective fire upon the enemy until he collapsed from his multiple wounds and exhaustion. After regaining consciousness at the aid station, he refused medical evacuation until his more seriously wounded comrades had been evacuated. Sgt. Lemon’s gallantry and extraordinary heroism, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the U.S. Army.