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

Category: Support the troops

  • Political theater; employing the unemployable

    Last night, while no one watched or cared, I guess the Senate tried to pull an all-night exercise in insanity – voting on the same measure again-and-again each time, amazingly, having the same result. Of course the Washington Post thought it was really good and important stuff;

    Earlier in the day, Reid had ordered cots to be set up in a ceremonial room off the Senate floor, and reporters were alerted when the beds, along with pillows, were delivered in the afternoon.

    The office of Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) dispatched interns to buy toothpaste, toothbrushes and deodorant for delivery to GOP leadership offices, with a note offering the “supplies for your sleepless night.” It added: “Help us bring an end to this war.”

    “Will the all-night session change any votes? I hope so,” said Reid. “Because it will focus attention on the obstructionism of the Republicans.”

    Not “it will end terrorism in our time” or even “we’re going to show those terrorists we mean business”, but rather “it will focus attention on the obstructionism of Republicans” – because, as we know, those Republicans are a dangerous bunch. They’re capable of killing millions of Americans while they sleep if it weren’t for the brave souls of the Democrat Party frantically waving their white flags in front of TV cameras.

    Sean Lengell from the Washington Times reports that;

    Some Democrats left the session temporarily to attend a candlelight antiwar rally across from the Capitol.

    Majority Leader Harry Reid said the unusual session was necessary because Republicans refused to agree to a simple majority to pass the bill and were intent on filibustering an amendment that called for pulling most troops out of Iraq by April 30.

    “If Republicans insist on blocking change of course in Iraq, we have no alternative but to keep them in session to have them explain their obstruction,” the Nevada Democrat said. “Republicans will need to choose whether they want to protect the president or protect our troops.”

    Yeah, if the Republicans insist on making Congress keep its word to wait until September, the Democrats will make them stay up all night. If Harry Reid cared a whit for the troops, he’d shut his chickenshit mouth for a minute and let them do their jobs.

    And all the while the grotesque hags of Tickled Pink and the assorted malcontents of the Left stood outside and chanted like the screeching harpies they are. From the Post, again;

    The group VoteVets.org called in Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans to spend the night in the Senate gallery. MoveOn.org organized “counter-filibusters” in which protesters outside Senate offices and in other public places read firsthand accounts from Iraq war veterans and military families. “We’ll send a clear message to senators and the media that this isn’t about partisan games — it’s about people’s lives,” the group said.

    Yeah, it’s not about partisan games is it MoveOn.dorks – wasn’t it Move On that led the charge against Lieberman because he disagreed with their BDS-driven agenda?

    No mention, however, of the group Vets for Freedom who made the rounds of Congress all day yesterday urging Congress to wait until September like they promised. I wonder why? Probably because they wore boring tan polo shirts instead of garish pink boas and they didn’t chant mindless drivel or wave idiot signs.

    This was pure political theater – it was so Democrats could prove to their tiny minority of “anti-war at any price” crowd that Democrats are listening to their squeakiest wheels.

    Anyone for a minute think that Joe Six-pack gives a tiny rat’s ass that a hundred pampered people and their pampered staffs stayed awake one night? Nope the only people who care are the breathless hundreds who blogged all night about this non-event.

  • Bird…and fools; paratrooper memories

    This Associated Press story brought back some memories;

    Military officials said 25 heavily armed parachutists who landed in a cornfield on the grounds of a Colorado prison last week were on a training mission but landed about 3 miles off target.

    “Those were Special Operations Command forces conducting routine training,” Army Col. Hans Bush, a spokesman for the command at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., said Monday. He declined to identify the units that landed at Fremont Correctional Facility but said the target was Fremont County Airport.

    […]

    “We don’t know who they were and I’m not sure we’ll ever know who they were,” [spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti] said. “Everyone acted appropriately.”

    The parachute troops were armed only with rubber training bullets.

    “The good news is everyone was able to quickly assess the situation,” Bush said.

    I’m glad the whole thing turned out OK – it could’ve gone bad fast with a jittery trigger finger or two. 

    There’s a drop zone in Alaska I still haven’t seen – and I was first out the door of our aircraft. In Panama, the first three or four guys out the door over Venado Drop Zone went in the ocean everytime – but even if you hit the drop zone, you were in 10-foot elephant grass and inevitably lost.

    In Germany they dropped on a farmer’s sugar beet field at night and even our battalion commander (the late then-LTC Arthur Stang) broke his ankle when he drifted into a stone wall.  

    One time we flew to Panama for jungle training before I was stationed there. We were to jump into Gatun DZ on the Atlantic side where the school was, but when we were rigging up in Homestead AFB, the pilot held the Miami Herald headline up so we could all see it – “Elite US troops to invade Panama” it said. We looked at each other and the blank adapters on our weapons and wondered how’d we’d invade anyone with near-toys.

    Luckily it was just Omar Torrijos being blustery like Hugo Chavez does now. We landed in Panama instead of jumping and bussed across the Isthmus from Howard AFB. Still , it’s a funny story. I have plenty more if prodded and cajoled properly.

  • More Haditha good news

    Sorry that I’m so far behind that I missed the greatest news today. According to Chickenhawk Express, the prosecutor has recommended that charges against LCpl Sharrat be dropped in the Horrible Haditha investigation;

    The Chickenhawk is doing the happy dance today – this is just great news and should be trumpeted from the rooftops…

    An investigating officer has recommended dismissing murder charges against a Marine accused in the slayings of three Iraqi men in a squad action that killed 24 civilians in Haditha, according to a report released Tuesday. The government’s theory that Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt had executed the three men was “incredible” and relied on contradictory statements by Iraqis, Lt. Col. Paul Ware said in the report, released by Sharratt’s defense attorneys.

    She has much more read it all – in fact, Chickenhawk Express is my daily destination for Haditha news. Of course when I started reading the Chickenhawk Express post, the first thing I thought was to call John Murtha’s office for about 900th time this month to find out when he’ll be issuing his apology. But California Conservative had already done it;

    I asked the woman that answered the phone “if Congressman Murtha had a statement following a news story regarding Lt. Col. Paul Ware’s report stating that “The government’s theory that Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt had executed the three men was “incredible” and relied on contradictory statements by Iraqis.”

    Instead of answering that question, she asked “So the trial is over?” I told her that it wasn’t, that the recommendation was nonbinding. Then she asked “So it isn’t over?” I confirmed that it wasn’t. I asked if Congressman Murtha would “like to make a statement considering his accusations made over a year ago on ‘This Week With George Stephanopoulos’”? Here’s her response: “Congressman Murtha doesn’t have a statement because the investigation is still ongoing.”

    Pretty much the same answer I’ve been getting. But, of course, Murtha is just using this for cover. His original statement, and most of the statements before and since, have been to  endear himself to the anti-war crowd in Congress and to get himself some cover because of his morally questionable extra-governmental dealings for which he’s famous – things I’ve catalogued here. He knows that Democrats don’t throw their more criminal members to the wolves when they toe the party line. Remember how quickly James Trafficant went down because of his repeated criticism of his Democrat Party members? So does Murtha know that the reverse is just as true.

  • Haditha story wrapping up

    I’ve wanted to write about all of the good news coming out of the Haditha investigation, but there’s no way I could do as good a job at it as Robin, my bestest new buddy, at Chickenhawk Express (who recently added me to her Blogroll – thanks, Robin).

    Robin, who also writes at Newsbusters, has been churning out really good updates on the Haditha Article 32 investigation (equivalent to a grand jury) of Lance Corporal Justin Sharrat over the last week or so here, here and here.

    For my part, I’ve been diligently calling John Murtha’s office every morning to ask when Murtha is going to apologize for calling LCpl Sharrat and his fellow Marines cold-blooded murderers. Every morning, I get the same answer – Representative Murtha hasn’t heard anything about the investigation.

    I think that’s funny because he was so sure about the information he had before the investigation began;

    Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that “there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”

    So, why doesn’t he have information that been publicly available? A year ago, he told ABC News;

    Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., told “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” in an exclusive appearance that reports a group of U.S. Marines may have killed 24 Iraqi civilians following an IED explosion in Haditha, Iraq, was “worse than Abu Ghraib,” calling their actions war crimes committed “in cold blood.”

    Murtha, a Marine veteran who six months ago called for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, added, “There has to have been a cover-up. There’s no question about it.”

    Wouldn’t a rational person, who staked their reputation on such an damning statement, want to keep up with the story? I guess we’re not talking about a rational person here, though, are we? We’re talking about a hateful little pussbag, fatass who gives not a moment’s thought to this nation’s security or the lives of the people who defend it. I think it’s time Murtha signed his Form 180, too. I have trouble believing that this coward spent even a minute in the Marine Corps.

    And where are the headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times admitting they were wrong in their initial accusations?

  • Know what today is?

    Yeah, I know it’s Flag Day, and Pamela does a great job at Atlas Shugs celebrating that particular recognition, but that’s not all it is today.

    After my kids’ birthdays and my anniversary, it’s probably the only date I have hammered into my head. It’s the Army’s Birthday – 232-years old today. In fact, it was 32-years ago today, I performed my 10th jump, it was on Fort Benning’s Fryar Drop Zone for President Gerald Ford. Actually, we dropped the 13th for our parade for the President on the 14th – the 200th Birthday of the Army.

    Today, the US Embassy in Baghdad thanked the US Army with this cake (photo courtesy of the US Army);

    Â

    Sergeant Major of the Army Kenneth O. Preston and some less important guys cut the cake in Washington, DC (courtesy of the US Army, photo by SSG Christina O’Connell)

    From the Center for Military History;

    The June 14 date is when Congress adopted “the American continental army” after reaching a consensus position in The Committee of the Whole. This procedure and the desire for secrecy account for the sparseness of the official journal entries for the day. The record indicates only that Congress undertook to raise ten companies of riflemen, approved an enlistment form for them, and appointed a committee (including Washington and Schuyler) to draft rules and regulations for the government of the army. The delegates’ correspondence, diaries, and subsequent actions make it clear that they really did much more. They also accepted responsibility for the existing New England troops and forces requested for the defense of the various points in New York. The former were believed to total 10,000 men; the latter, both New Yorkers and Connecticut men, another 5,000.

    So, to all of my brothers-in-arms, all of those Dogfaced Soldiers, past, present and future, I send out this ditty;

    I Wouldn’t Give A Bean
    To Be A Fancy Pants Marine,
    I’d rather Be A Dogface Soldier Like I Am.
    I Wouldn’t Trade My Old O.D.’s
    For All The Navy’s Dungarees
    For I’m The Walking Pride Of Uncle Sam;
    On All The Posters That I Read It Says
    The Army Builds Men
    So They’re Tearing Me Down To Build Me Over Again
    I’m Just A Dogface Soldier
    With A Rifle On My Shoulder
    And I Eat Raw Meat For Breakfast Everyday.
    So Feed Me Ammunition,
    Keep Me In The Third Division,
    Your Dogfaced Soldier Boy’s Okay

    (edited to rectify grotesque politically correct language-alterations)

    Please stand for the Army’s Song;

    Intro: March along, sing our song, with the Army of the free
    Count the brave, count the true, who have fought to victory
    We’re the Army and proud of our name
    We’re the Army and proudly proclaim

    Verse: First to fight for the right,
    And to build the Nation’s might,
    And The Army Goes Rolling Along
    Proud of all we have done,
    Fighting till the battle’s won,
    And the Army Goes Rolling Along.

    Refrain: Then it’s Hi! Hi! Hey!
    The Army’s on its way.
    Count off the cadence loud and strong (TWO! THREE!)
    For where e’er we go,
    You will always know
    That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

    Verse: Valley Forge, Custer’s ranks,
    San Juan Hill and Patton’s tanks,
    And the Army went rolling along
    Minute men, from the start,
    Always fighting from the heart,
    And the Army keeps rolling along.
    (refrain)

    Verse: Men in rags, men who froze,
    Still that Army met its foes,
    And the Army went rolling along.
    Faith in God, then we’re right,
    And we’l fight with all our might,
    As the Army keeps rolling along.
    (refrain)

    Unashamedly stolen from the Military Motivator (h/t Blackfive)

  • Surrender Fever hits new high among Democrat “leadership”

    I learned about this from Crotchety Old Bastard to whom I’ve immediately shipped some of my blood pressure meds. 

    In a joint letter to the President, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi noted that, even though the final troops aren’t even deployed in Iraq yet, the surge is ineffectual. From AP;

    Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop “surge” policy was a failure.

    Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.

    “As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results,” the two leaders wrote.

    “The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.

    It has not enhanced Americas national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.

    In fact, the last two months of the war were the deadliest to date for US troops.

    The letter appeared to preview a fresh showdown over Iraq between anti-war Democrats and the president, just a few weeks after Bush forced his foes to strip troop withdrawal timelines from a 100 billion dollar emergency war budget.

    It also came a few days after the US military mourned its 3,500th soldier killed in action in Iraq.

    “As predicted” they said. Isn’t that just childish and moronic. Before it’s begun, they’ve declared it a failure. Because the impatient crybaby hippies of the anti-war movement are disappointed. Apparently Harry’s “set the bar too high” explanation didn’t go over well with Code Pink.

    Meanwhile, AP also reports that the Senate will begin destroying more military officers’ careers for the Democrats’ own political benefit;

    On Friday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the stunning announcement that he would not recommend Pace to serve a second two-year term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Marine Corps four-star general had not been a target previously of Democrats’ ire on the war, but Gates said lawmakers made it clear the confirmation process would be ugly.

    “It would be a backward looking and very contentious process,” Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

    […]

    “General Casey knows Iraq and the challenges the Army faces there,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in February. “The principal failures that led to the chaos in Iraq were due to the civilian leaders.”

    But when it came to Pace, Levin signaled a new era in which uniformed officers close to the president would be held accountable.

    In an interview with reporters this week, Levin said Pace’s nomination would have been more contentious than other uniformed officers because he was the closest military adviser to the president on a failing war.

    Well, you know this is coming from the Code Pink/ANSWER bunch. Their most recent protests have deflated the egos of their members because, not only have they been poorly attended, but there have begun anti-anti-war protests which are increasing in numbers and strength. The anti-war movement is afraid that their decreasing popularity might make it into the media unless the politicians can win them some victories.

    And once Congress starts beating up the generals, it’ll be a signal to the Hippies-on-the-street to start mistreating the Joes and their families. I remember the playbook from the 60s, see.

    How do I know Code Pink and ANSWER are driving Reid and Pelosi? Well, there’s this in the Politico;

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “incompetent” during an interview Tuesday with a group of liberal bloggers, a comment that was never reported.

    Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.

    This is but the latest example of how Reid, under pressure from liberal activists to do more to stop the war, is going on the attack against President Bush and his military leaders in anticipation of a September showdown to end U.S. involvement in Iraq, according to Democratic senators and aides.

    Yep, cuz there was the blog interview with Think Progress (for some reason I can’t get to Think Progress’ website this morning, but if you can, check out the comments on the Reid interview) the other day and now this one. And we all know there are no moderates with blogs – on either side of the political spectrum. And what fuels the Left? Well, how about dumbass reports like this one from the Washington Post this morning;

    Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday.

    The report — the first comprehensive statistical overview of the new U.S. military strategy in Iraq — coincided with renewed fears of sectarian violence after the bombing yesterday of the same Shiite shrine north of Baghdad that was attacked in February 2006, unleashing a spiral of retaliatory bloodshed. Iraq’s government imposed an immediate curfew in Baghdad yesterday to prevent an outbreak of revenge killings.

    Yesterday’s attack adds to tensions faced by U.S. troops, who are paying a mounting price in casualties as they push into Iraqi neighborhoods, seeking to quell violence that the report said remains fundamentally driven by sectarianism.

    Iraq’s government, for its part, has proven “uneven” in delivering on its commitments under the strategy, the report said, stating that public pledges by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have in many cases produced no concrete results.

    Now, there may be a point in pointing out Maliki’s failures, but the Post absolutely negates the war the US military has been waging against al Qaeda which has seen a steep rise in damage to al Qaeda in Iraq’s leadership – as pointed out nearly everyday by Blackfive and the other Milblogs. But I guess the Washington Post and the other hippies can’t be bothered to check out the truth.

    And of course the WaPo instantly translates “new fears of sectarian violence” into American casualties that haven’t happened yet. I guess they never figured I’d check another source and notice that the Wall Street Journal reports that the military suspects that al Qaeda were behind the attacks – which doesn’t support the Washington Post’s “fears of sectarian violence” claims;

    After yesterday’s destruction , several Iraqi police were detained, indicating the possibility of an inside job. The pattern of the attacks — both yesterday’s and last year’s — suggests that insurgents could have slipped past the security cordon to place their explosives. Top U.S. military and civilian officials in Iraq place the blame on al Qaeda, saying it was trying “to sow dissent and inflame sectarian strife.”

    Attacks by al Qaeda militants — including car bombs in crowded areas, destruction of bridges and a recent suicide bombing inside the Iraqi parliament — have become among the biggest challenges to the U.S.-led security plan.

    But it’s funny how the Washington Post suddenly decides the “surge” isn’t working on the same day Reid and Pelosi head to the White House, ain’t it?

    But, it’s nice know that the counter-protests are working. The Left is getting desperate and they need the war to end soon so they look like they have sway to their benefactors. That’s why Republicans in Congress need to hold their ground for a couple more rounds – the Left is in it’s death throes.

    Bloodthirsty Liberal wonders aloud how the Democrats felt about the increase in violence after the Normandy invasion. And Soldier’s Dad has some interesting charts related to the violence and Iraqi Security Force readiness. Bill Roggio has compiled more on the “minarets” attack.

    UPDATED: Hot Air discusses whether or not and whom Reid called “incompetent”.

  • Free phone cards for the troops

    Mike at Lamplighter just emailed me what he says is a risk-free way of getting phone cards to the troops. Everyone should be doing this.

  • Scam targeting military spouses

    Mike at Lamplighter emailed me this notice from the Red Cross last night;

    The American Red Cross has learned about a new scam targeting military families. This scam takes the form of false information to military families as described below:

    The caller (young-sounding, American accent) calls a military spouse and identifies herself as a representative from the Red Cross. The caller states that the spouse’s husband (not identified by name) was hurt while on duty in Iraq and was med-evacuated to a hospital in Germany. The caller stated they couldn’t start treatment until paperwork was accomplished, and that in order to start the paperwork they needed the spouse to verify her husband’s social security number and date of birth. In this case, the spouse was quick to catch on and she did not provide any information to the caller.

    The American Red Cross representatives typically do not contact military members/dependents directly and almost always go through a commander or first sergeant channels. Military family members are urged not to give out any personal information over the phone if contacted by unknown/unverified individuals, to include confirmation that your spouse is deployed.

    It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, for a person to falsely or fraudulently pretend to be a member of, or an agent for, the American National Red Cross for the purpose of soliciting, collecting, or receiving money or material.

    In addition, American Red Cross representatives will contact military members/dependents directly only in response to an emergency message initiated by your family. The Red Cross does not report any type of casualty information to family members. The Department of Defense will contact families directly if their military member has been injured. Should any military family member receive such a call, they are urged to report it to their local Family Readiness Group or Military Personnel Flight.

    The American Red Cross ensures that the American people are in touch with their family members serving in the United States military by operating a communications network that is open 24-hours, 7 days-a-week, 365 days-a-year. Through a network of employees and volunteers at Red Cross national that link families during emergencies, access to emergency financial assistance, confidential counseling, community support headquarters, local chapters, on military installations, and deployed with troops, the Red Cross offers a broad range of services. Among these services, the Red Cross provides communications for families left behind, assistance to veterans, and preparedness courses for military personnel and their families

    The American Red Cross helps people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Last year, almost a million volunteers and 35,000 employees helped victims of almost 75,000 disasters; taught lifesaving skills to millions; and helped U.S. service members separated from their families stay connected. Almost 4 million people gave blood through the Red Cross, the largest supplier of blood and blood products in the United States. The American Red Cross is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. An average of 91 cents of every dollar the Red Cross spends is invested in humanitarian services and programs. The Red Cross is not a government agency; it relies on donations of time, money, and blood to do its work.

    So if you know somebody who might potentially be a target of this, you need to let them know – and everyone else you know, too. Who let these screwy folks loose?