…be a big Red One… Some folks, (well, Paul Harvey, for one) contend Paul Jeff Emanuel is the next Ernie Pyle. Like Michael Yon, he’s a combat veteran, but also a good writer/reporter, and he’s newly embedded with the 1st ID. Worth bookmarking for the future.
Via Day By Day.
Comments Off on If you’re going to be one…
Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged 1st Infantry Division, Iraq, Paul Emanuel
New media’s version of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War, but for Iraq. Just sign the petition, soldier, to urge a withdrawal from Iraq.
"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home."
They claim 1,902 have signed. Mighty scruffy-looking longhair in the green helmet on the right at the top of the page. A little too much Vietnam, guys.
Comments Off on Appeal for Redress
Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged anti-war, Appeal for Redress, Iraq, Vietnam Veterans Against the War
The think-tank critics and the MSM hate it. The Marines love it. And it will finally go to war, assuming the Dems haven’t figured a way to force a withdrawal by then:
"This fall Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 based at New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina will deploy to Al Asad in western Iraq for seven months with around a dozen Ospreys, replacing 1960s-era Boeing H-46 Sea Knights for ferrying and re-supplying Marines fighting in that huge, desolate province."
Read it all at War Is Boring.
“No matter what you think of the war, or what has happened here, you cannot be around the soldiers and not be completely affected. They are amazing people, and they represent themselves and the Army better than anyone could ever imagine.” — a Spanish journalist.
Good stuff worth a read.
Comments Off on Conversion: one heart at a time
Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged American soldiers, Iraq, Jeff Emanuel
The Dems, it seems, truly want another Vietnam defeat in Iraq, now that they’ve attached departure dates to the refunding of the campaign. Presumably Bush will veto, and the Dems haven’t the votes to override. Some conservatives think this will energize the Republican base, but I wonder. The Dems could keep this up until the military runs out of money.
Pultizer prize winning author (and old neighbor in another part of town) Lawrence Wright ("The Looming Tower") says democratization of the Middle East may be our only hope to defeat al Q and its religious zealots and wannabees. But that it won’t be pretty, and that leaving Iraq too soon could convulse the region. But with House Speaker Pelosi skipping two meetings with the commanding general in Iraq, and Senate Majority Leader Reid saying the war is lost, it looks like the Dems either disagree or don’t care.
UPDATE Crazy Politico points out that a veto isn’t all Bush can do. He can find other ways to pay for the war: "Bill Clinton couldn’t get the GOP controlled Congress to pass what he wanted for funding for Kosovo, so he signed executive orders halting certain defense contract work, and shifting the money to fund troops."
I often think the Seablogger, Alan Sullivan, is too pessimistic by half. And considering that he’s struggling with cancer, that’s not too surprising. But he’s just dead-on right about the current situation in Iraq.
"…we are not taking the fight to the enemy, and we never will. Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia continue to support Iraqi ‘insurgents.’ If we were at war, we would have assailed the regimes of those countries for warring on us. But we are merely playing at war…"
Indeed, I am starting to cringe everytime I read about another American casualty in Iraq, partly because it’s as though Bush wanted to set up another Vietnam losing proposition, with sanctuaries for the enemy, sanctuaries that (so far) have not been assailed, and may never be. Unlike Sullivan I won’t say never, but it does look that way. Some say we should cringe at all the dead Iraqi civilians, but we aren’t killing them, and the people who are won’t stop even if/when we leave.
UPDATE Still some hope in the recent infighting among the "insurgents."
Comments Off on Playing at war
Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vietnam sanctuaries
Neel, a 1998 graduate of Fredericksburg, Tx, high school, and, in 2005, of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, died in Iraq April 9, of wounds from a grenade assualt while leading his 8th Cavalry Regt. platoon:
“Phillip was an inspiration and leader to his five siblings,” his family said in a prepared statement… “He led by example and consistently challenged them to do the right thing in all circumstances, no matter what pressures were involved.”
A memorial service for him is planned Saturday in Fredericksburg.
UPDATE The San Antonio Express News report on the memorial: "Phillip Neel often sat and prayed at the West Point cemetery overlooking the Hudson River in New York, and it was there he watched smoke rise from the World Trade Center in 2001, his dad said."
Comments Off on 1LT Phillip Isaac Neel, R.I.P.
Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops
Tagged 1LT Phillip Isaac Neel, Fredericksburg, Iraq, Texas
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 