Joe Galloway has some words of wisdom.
It reminds us all that we need to be careful how we talk about the war in Iraq. Whether we approve or disapprove, we are obliged to cast the debate in terms that do not disparage the soldiers who risk everything serving our country, or cause pain to the widows and children who are left with an empty place in their hearts where a husband and a father once dwelled.
Joe has seen and been with men like Sergeant First Class David J. Salie in harm’s way.
How many of you were aware that the Ballistic Missile Defense System has been anything but a failure?
The Feb. 24 mission — the fifth successful intercept for SM-3 — was the first firing of the Aegis BMD “Emergency Deployment” capability using operational versions of the SM-3 Block I missile and Aegis BMD Weapon System. This was also the first test to exercise SM-3’s third stage rocket motor (TSRM) single-pulse mode. The TSRM has two pulses, which can be ignited independently, providing expansion of the ballistic missile engagement battlespace.
We hear immediately when such tests “fail”. And at least one of those “failures” was an intentional shutdown by the launch team.
Remember Gulf War I and the Patriot missile systems? More than a decade ago. They “failed”, too. Except when they didn’t.
There is some phenomenal technology out there that most of us cannot even comprehend.
Russ Vaughn left me an email after seeing the picture of Birdie and his brothers. Russ was also an 82nd ABN SSGT. He followed the comment with another of his stories, this one in prose.
I think Russ needs a blog, and recommended he start one. We should all encourage him.
Old Sarge Gets a Care Package
Sergeant Vaughn got a care package today. It’s been almost forty years since I got my last one, a case of twenty-four #2½ cans of sliced peaches from my father. Memory fails me now, but I don’t believe I ever asked before he died what it cost to mail that monster, but it must have been a pretty hefty hit in the wallet for a lifelong blue-collar worker. I had happened to mention in one of my rare letters home from Vietnam that canned, sliced peaches were my favorite item in our C Rations even if they were twenty years old. We could date them because the small cigarette packs enclosed with the rations were frequently Lucky Strikes in the old green packages that were phased out in the forties.
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Recently “people of size” (obese) have been grouped into that ever-expanding demographic of “handicapped persons.” I would like for any of you out there to take one look at Cpl. Casey Owens and tell me he is handicapped.
Man, does the pride show though?!
MARINE! ALWAYS!
I seldom comment on the things being covered by Mohammed and Omar because everyone else either points to a story there or quotes them. Blogospheric celebrities. But I couldn’t pass up this observation:
The first thing we saw this morning on our way to the voting center was a convoy of the Iraqi army vehicles patrolling the street, the soldiers were cheering the people marching towards their voting centers then one of the soldiers chanted “vote for Allawi” less than a hundred meters, the convoy stopped and the captain in charge yelled at the soldier who did that and said:
“You’re a member of the military institution and you have absolutely no right to support any political entity or interfere with the people’s choice. This is Iraq’s army, not Allawi’s”.
That is a very significant thing. Most Americans don’t grasp how different the US military is from so many others around the world. And this mentality has apparently been transferred in the training of Iraq’s new army. That is extremely important, especially in a region of the world where the military has always served more as a personal bodyguard to a despot.
Keep in mind that our military swears an oath to defend the Constitution, not to an individual or group. We don’t march in the streets with photographs of politicians (well, socialists in the US still do). We carry flags. The flag is our icon, not some politician.
There are some who feel displaying a flag is somehow jingoistic.
Consider the alternative.
****UPDATE****
Scott Ott has the proper MSM coverage:
News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi “insurgents” voting by the millions in their first free democratic election.
Russ Vaughn, the Poet Laureate of The American Thinker, has written another post regarding survivor benefits for soldiers killed in combat.
So you say you support the troops? Then as soon as you finish reading this, start hammering that keyboard and let your two senators and your congressman know that you expect no less than their full support for early passage of the HEROES Act. To a person, they all swear they support the troops, regardless of party affiliation or individual positions on the war. Let them know, their future electoral efforts will, in your mind, be dependent upon their actions on behalf of those troops and those families who have given that “last full measure of devotion,” to their nation.
This was a personal appeal to me to help get the word out.
By the way, at the bottom of my links column there is always contact information for Congress and the White House.
I just saw a CNN report on the number of women who have died in combat in Iraq. They cite the number as 25. That “is the largest number of women who have died in combat since World War Two” according to the reporterette (to use a Limbaugh word for all those who believe I’m a right-wing fanatic).
The story focused on one female Army Staff Sergeant who was 39 years old when she died after falling into a bomb crater just three weeks prior to rotation home. She was an administrative clerk.
Those are all the facts as presented. Additionally, her father claims she had been pressed into service doing house-to-house clearing due to the shortage of personnel. To nobody’s surprise, he doesn’t support the war.
A lot of military people out there are now raising their eyebrows in a decidedly Spock-like manner. For the rest of you, let me explain.
As an E6 at 39, she is not a fast-burner. Many things may have contributed to that, and we know nothing more from the report. Secondly, if Birdie ever takes an admin clerk with him to clear houses without first integrating them into his platoon with some intense training, I’ll personally kick his butt. That’s a good way to get some good people killed. Finally, a woman of that age who is not in good physical condition (I’m basing that on the photos shown on television) has no business being anywhere near a fire-fight.
Now, the fact she died after falling into a hole has me wondering where this crater was, and why was she there, and why she was not aware of the crater. And did the crater have anything to do with clearing houses? The reporter didn’t say. She was too busy telling us our military is so weak that we must used untrained women to do some of the most dangerous work in the country.
Sorry. My bullshit meter is pegged.
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