My favorite Soldiers’ Angel, Laurie from back in my old stomping grounds in Upstate New York is just like a softer version of Sarah Palin – she doesn’t shoot moose, but she sent me a picture last year of her leaning over her freshly-killed buck. In fact, when I saw the picture of Sarah Palin, I immediately thought of Laurie.
In honor of those who are still serving our country and for those who have been injured trying to preserve our American way of life for our veterans and in memory of those who gave their lives for our freedom…
The City of Canandaigua will place a tree in the gazebo of Kershaw Park and the Blue Star Mothers of America, Inc. NY Chapter #1 will place Blue, Gold and Silver Stars on the Tree. Small pictures of past and present servicemen and women will be placed in the center of each star. Branch insignia’s will be in place of photo if no picture is sent. The lights will be Red,White and Blue and turn on at dusk and off at dawn.
Go check out the rest of the post and give these great ladies a hand.
Tankerbabe sent me a link to pictures of the trip she made to Arlington National Cemetery with some 173rd wounded paratroopers to partake of ceremonies honoring the fallen of current and past wars on Monday.
Our own Paul made it out there with them, carrying the TAH banner while I was suffering from a severe bout with a case of the dumbass. It looks like I missed a great and somber time. Stop on over to tankerbabe’s and give her your love.
One complaint that I’ve had about President Bush is that he has always neglected to toot his own horn about what he’s accomplished. Since all we ever heard was the negative, it’s no wonder that he was branded the “worst President in history”. Now that he’s on his way out of office and it really doesn’t matter, his press office has finally released something of substance on how he has benefitted veterans and the troops. I’ll be damned if I could find any of this information in 2004, 2006 and 2008 until now. Lord knows I tried to find it.
Here Army Sergeant and IVAW, stick this in your pipe and smoke it.
My first month “out of the Army” (I was actually on leave burning up what I’d accumulated), I was waiting for college to start in February and took a security guard job on a construction site. I remember reading the paper that first Veterans’ Day as an actual veteran – working, of course – and reading the late Mike Royko‘s column about what Veterans’ Day should be. I never laughed so hard in my life. Every Veterans’ Day I’ve remember that column – this year I found the actual column on Blackfive. I don’t think Mike (or Blackfive) would mind if I posted it in it’s entirety;
John Murtha has made himself vulnerable in his own district and the Vets For Freedom are exploiting that breech as I’ve mentioned a few times this week. They’re also targeting Murtha’s partner in Pennsylvania, Patrick Murphy.
As my friend David Bellavia, co-founder and vice-chairman of Vets for Freedom always says, “don’t use your valor awards from previous wars to tell me about my war.” This holds true for Murtha, and brings me to Patrick Murphy, a representative of “our war” and the only Iraq war veteran currently serving in Congress.
Murphy has used his status as a former soldier to lead the charge against success on the battlefield, standing at every turn with Nancy Pelosi and other anti-war members of Congress. Clamoring to be our generation’s John Kerry (minus the gravitas), Murphy even co-sponsored the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007,” which aimed to set a timeline for withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq.
Even after the remarkable success of the surge became apparent, Murphy continued to oppose it, with no desire to understand Iraq as it stands today. Using 2007 talking points, his campaign and congressional websites still claim that we are “bogged down refereeing a religious civil war in Iraq.” With the civil war completely over, and Iraqis stepping forward to lead their own country, Murphy still won’t acknowledge success.
And then there’s this petition;
Dear Congressman John Murtha;
In May 2006, you accused a group of United States Marines of killing “innocent civilians in cold blood”. You made these allegations during an ongoing investigation. In fact, a Marine Corps spokesman said that you made your statement a week before you had even been briefed.
You continued to accuse these eight Marines of “cold-blooded murder and war crimes”, even after the Marine Corps itself said your comments on the matter “would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process.”
As a result of the investigation, the charges were dropped against 7 of the 8 Marines and the other Marine is awaiting his day in court.
However, you have not withdrawn your statements or apologized for your defamatory remarks.
Marines implicated in the incident believe that you have committed slander and libel against them. These United States Marines, whose honor you have attacked, deserve to hear an apology from you.
We, the undersigned, implore you, Representative Murtha, as a man who serves the public in Congress, as a man who once served in the Marine Corps, to do the honorable thing.
You can sign the petition from here (thanks to my mole that sent me the slick widget) By signing the petition from here, you let VFF know that This Ain’t Hell supports them.
There’s also this powerful, yet tasteful ad which is running in Murphy’s district;
After decades of fighting for this country and our troops, I am up against the right-wing attack machine again.
Because of my work to end the Iraq war, they have thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars behind my opponent, who lives in Virginia with his family, not in my district in Pennsylvania. Now, I am suddenly being outspent 3 to 1.
They are up to the same old tricks, “swiftboating” me again as they did two years ago. So I am asking people who have stood with me on Iraq to stand with me again to stop them in their tracks.
Another Update;
Here’s a photo someone just sent me of greasy, slimy fatass, scum sucking, cowardly Veterans For Peace thug Bill Perry (the guy that testified at the first Winter Soldier hearings that he let his platoon walk into an ambush while he sought his own safety despite the fact that he had been forewarned) hugging Patrick Murphy;
First off; I’m a life member of the VFW and I have been since I retired, but this has me a bit confused.
I’ve been asked a few times to write a bit about the VFW’s 2008 scorecard for voters interested in veterans’ issues. I’ve found it to be a bit odd. Of course, I’m not the only one. Pete Hegseth writes “Someone tell the VFW PAC what VFW stands for” when he discovers that the VFW PAC endorsed John Murtha, a phony veteran who supports only himself, his cronies and his family, over William Russell, a real veteran who supports veterans.
Now, based on Murtha’s vote on the new GI Bill, that might provide cover for VFW PAC’s choice, since Russell couldn’t vote on that particular issue because he’s not in Congress. However, they support Kiernan Lalor, an Iraq veteran over incumbent John Hall in New York. Hall is a Democrat like Murtha and the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on disability assistance who voted like Murtha did on the GI Bill. It seems to be a similar race, with similar votes, but the VFW PAC made the opposite choice in that race – which is fine with me since Lalor is an actual veteran and a Republican, but it makes me wonder why the VFW PAC made either choice which seem to conflict.
Our newest friend, Carole Shea-Porter from New Hampshire also got the VFW PAC’s endorsement over Jeb Bradley even though Shea-Porter, as Hegseth points out with Murtha, in direct violation of the VFW’s own Resolution 406, voted against funding the war in Iraq. Here’s the text of that VFW resolution;
In April of this year, the Union Leader, Shea-Porter’s hometown newspaper, reported that Shea-Porter didn’t even wait for General Petraeus to finish his report before she was yapping about withdrawal from Iraq;
Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter should have listened to Gen. David Petraeus when he testified before four congressional committees last week, including the House Armed Services Committee, on which Shea-Porter sits. Alas, they did not.
[…]
Shea-Porter did not even bother issuing a press release. She did tell the Portsmouth Herald, “It sounded like the same tape running again. They try hard, but there’s nothing to report.”
In light of the revelation that Shea-Porter refused to help a Gold Star mother who reached out to her, as we discovered this weekend, how can VFW PAC support her?
I’ve got calls into the VFW PAC, but no answers yet. Apparently the scorecard only appears in the VFW Magazine (I can’t find my copy at the moment in my stack of stuff) but my mole in the VFF writes;
Also, Vets for Freedom PAC is going to be mobilizing in Murtha’s PA-12 and Murphy’s PA-8 this coming weekend, even going door-to-door, to support Bill Russell and Tom Manion. (And like I said, VFF PAC is already running radio ads for Manion.)
Although it has nothing to do with VFW PAC’s quixotic decision, if you’ve got some time this weekend, go help the VFF out in Pennsylvania. I understand that Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive is leading a black-ops team into the heart of the Murtha insurgency. Apparently, as always with Jimbo, there will be alcohol involved afterwards.
IAVA’s Paul Rieckhoff emailed us and apologized for slighting TAH on his response to the charges TSO levied on them on this board. I won’t revisit that but I will amend my statement that Rieckhoff is just like Solz…he has a bit more class than Jon Solz. I’ve added his response below the jump, but first I have unfinished business;
I mentioned in the previous post, I’d taken some screen caps of some of IAVA’s cached pages…ya know, just in case. TSO and I thought it was little bit weird that all of the links to IAVA were down last night at the same time we were having trouble with our own site. So here’s two of the screen captures I took last night from their staff page; the first mentioning Phillip Carter, but the second capture is what changed over night;
In his email to Blackfive, Rieckhoff wrote “And as for Phil Carter, it is no secret that he is an IAVA member. We have tens of thousands of members—and Phil is one of them. And we have clarified Phil’s role at IAVA on this page just so there is no confusion.” At the time he wrote that, the page he linked to looked like the photo above. But then their website went blank after his email to B5.
This morning, the same webpage looks like this;
Notice the italicized disclaimer that’s been added. Did someone step in something?
There has also been rumors bouncing around that IAVA is going to start an intimidation campaign. I can’t be intimidated – if you want to know where I live, email me and I’ll tell you. If you don’t want to be called deceitful, don’t be deceitful.
I have an absolute hatred for my “comrades” who’ll climb the bodies of the fallen for their own selfish political gain – and that’s what that scorecard was. Political hackery bought and paid for by “our own” for themselves.
There’s more than enough proof of everything TSO wrote and I won’t be intimidated into silence by any-Goddamn-body. You fucksticks think you can be the next John Kerry – not as long as I draw a breath.
Per Rieckhoff ‘s request, here’s his full, unedited response in full below the jump;
The above quote is from the movie “Band of Brothers” and spoken by Richard Winters when warned that he was about to be surrounded by Germans at Bastogne in December of 1944. Recent events near Wanat, Afghanistan indicates that the spirit of the Airborne still lives today as it did in World War II.
Some of you may remember that I got to spend the evening with some of the reluctant heroes of that battle, from Chosen Company, 2/503rd, as well as Tankerbabe , a blogger who has adopted the unit. She has put up several articles about the battle, and everytime I read one of them, I’m in awe of the guys with whom I had the honor of slamming back Carbombs (apparently Tankerbabe’s libation of choice).
“They knew our guys were in trouble, and when the Airborne’s in trouble, you don’t leave them to die; you go help them,” Stafford said. “They brought what they could.”
The Americans were running low on ammunition, and some of them were so badly wounded they were unable to move, Stafford said.
Help did not come for an hour, he said.
Stafford eventually was helicoptered to safety. He said he looked back at the scene below while aboard the chopper.
“It’s like one of the those movies out of like Vietnam that you see with all these special effects and everything’s on fire,” he recalled. “Smoke in the air, and that’s all you see is tracer rounds going back and forth … just, ‘boom, boom, boom.’ “
Who needs movie stars when we have real people like this among us?
Tankerbabe, also wants everyone to know that Annheuser Busch has donated 6,000 cans of beer to the Brigade for their homecoming next month. The best way to support paratroopers, I’ll tell you what. But keep an eye on Tankerbabe for the lastest on these extraordinary men.
