Category Archives: Troops

Lyin’ Brian’s suspension could be permanent

Posted on February 13, 2015 | 1 comment

“Williams has claimed since 2011—to David Letterman, among others—that he embedded with SEAL Team 6 multiple times and had developed such a close relationship that one of them gave him a piece of the downed chopper from the famous Osama Bin Laden raid.”

This is reminiscent of Lurch and his magic hat from his improbable riverboat raid into Cambodia. What is it with lefties and lying? Why do they feel the need to embellish their celebrity and, in Bri’s case, multi-million-dollar salary?

Via Bad Blue and Sooper Mexican.

UPDATE:  One reason his cronies came down so hard on Lyin’ Brian is that, in getting caught, he exposed their own mendacity and threatened their already-shaky house of cards.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Iraq, The War, Troops

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VN vet study reaffirms PTSD is chronic

Posted on February 12, 2015 | 2 comments

Latest print issue of VVA Veteran has results of the Vietnam Veterans Longitudinal Study of 2014, a followup to the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study of 1986. Both were funded by the VA.

The new study confirms the 1986 findings in that a majority of “Vietnam theater veterans,” presumably meaning those who served in-country “are mentally and physically healthy four or more decades after their warzone service.” Their average age is now 67 years old.

But “a significant number [about 14 percent] are suffering from persistent and chronic PTSD symptoms related to their experiences in the war.” And their rates of depression are “more than fifty times greater” than those who do not have PTSD. The PTSD also appears to be episodic, waxing and waning on its own cycle.

The study and its results are expected to be useful in anticipating the long-term needs of veterans of more recent campaigns, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Via VVA Veteran.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Troops, Viet Nam

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The chopper whopper

Posted on February 8, 2015 | 7 comments

The whole hullabaloo about NBC’s just-another-pretty-face talking head is a bit confusing. As a commenter I read somewhere I forget said in response to a post about why Lyin’ Brian would tell whoppers about his supposed war heroics:

“The question is not why he would feel compelled to lie but why he would ever feel compelled to tell the truth, in a business where lies pass for truth every day.”

Works for me. The only other idea I have is that he’s another Democrat wannabee, a fellow who despises the military and would never serve but who nevertheless wants to be thought tough and heroic. And so he phoned it in.

You know, like the Lizard Queen. Another Democrat who was under fire in her own mind, as you may remember.

Williams is what they called in the Civil War “a parlor soldier.” Or the 16th century commedia dell’arte stock type of the Italian theater known as Il Capitano (the braggart soldier). Neither of them were real soldiers. Like Bri.

He’s probably toast now. I mean when even Mad Cow Dowd is joining the pile-on…

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Posted in Blogosphere, Iraq, Obsessions, The Culture, The War, Troops

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American Sharpshooter

Posted on January 26, 2015 | 2 comments

In another era, that’s what American Sniper would have been called. Every war has had them on all sides. To pantywaists like Fatso Moore, who never served and never will, they seem like murderers because they don’t fight in the open and take their chances of being killed.

But sharpshooters (or snipers) have been killed in all wars when they shot off more than a few rounds without moving their positions. Especially in the Civil War when black-powder ammunition produced a two-foot flame out the business end of a rifle. Easy to spot, that flame, and then pick off the sharpshooter.

The cool thing about the movie is that its unexpected success shows that Hollyweird’s predictable anti-war movie of the last thirty-plus years, and seemingly endless denigration of American combat veterans, finally may be nearing eclipse. As Sultan Knish puts it, American Sniper treats the Iraq campaign like World War II, with American heroes.

Talk about heresy in progressive media-land. Talk about an overdue relief for veterans and their supporters.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Civil War, Iraq, The War, Troops

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New combat veterans deserve the attention

Posted on November 28, 2014 | 3 comments

J.D. over at Mouth of the Brazos and I traded comments not long ago about how the whole Vietnam War, combat veterans like us, refugees and all, finally are on the shelf. It’s all mothballed news at best now.

I see it in the pitiful sales of my two books on the subject, which seem to have peaked at 164 for the Vietnam War short stories and 26 for the novel. Both have been outpaced by my Civil War novel (194) alone. And this year’s new Civil War history, now at 51 sales, has outrun the Vietnam novel and is on pace to eclipse the short stories as well. Not that my work is the best indicator of a trend, but it is one.

Neither J.D. or I created the political one-year combat tour of the Vietnam War. But neither of us would have liked to be in the position of the all-volunteer combat veterans now. Many of them already have served three or four years in combat assignments and the rise of ISIS suggests they have many more ahead of them. They already match the World War II generation which served for the duration.

All that occurred to me reading this WaPo piece about the 101st Airborne Division emplaning near their barracks at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for a recent flight to Afghanistan. The pundits are still trying to figure out what Wormtongue’s secretive administration intends to do with them. Whether they will guard facilities or patrol. If he even knows himself. He isn’t much of a planner.

It also occurred to me that nowadays when some sergeant addresses a group of soldiers as “ladies and gentlemen,” he’s not trying to be cute, as he was in our day when few women served and none were in combat. He means it quite literally. And both the ladies and the gentlemen deserve all of our attention now.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Blogosphere, Iraq, The War, Troops, War Without End

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Rule 5: Joni Ernst

Posted on November 27, 2014 | Comments Off on Rule 5: Joni Ernst

 

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Like her campaign posters said: Mother, Soldier, Former Farmer. Iowa Republican Sen. Elect Joni Ernst, a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, could be the next Sarah Palin without Palin’s baggage.

Ernst wants to repeal Obamacare, cut taxes, reduce the size of government, restrict abortions, etc. Her election Nov. 9 also helped kill the War On Women meme, though the election took down four Democrat women senators with one more anticipated.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, The Culture, The War, Troops

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Democrats refused to help Israel find a missing soldier

Posted on October 19, 2014 | 2 comments

The most pro-Israel American presidential administration ever? So the Democrats would have you believe of President Obola and his secretive and duplicitous crew.

An Israeli newspaper’s investigation shows otherwise.

Last summer, during Israel’s battle with rocket-firing Hamas in Gaza, the administration not only held up transfers to Israel of Hellfire missiles (and all ordinary munition resupply as well) for several, potentially crucial days, it also ordered the FBI not to cooperate in helping locate a missing IDF soldier.

The Israel Defense Force now believes Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul was dead all along but Hamas said he was alive and taunted the Israeli public with its worst nightmare (a kidnapped soldier from its conscript army) with details from his Facebook page:

“On July 22, as international news reports carried Hamas’ claim of  Shaul’s capture, the IDF really had no idea whatsoever what happened to the Israeli soldier. The only statement made by the IDF at that point was that Shaul was missing in action. Even two days later, the IDF still did not know if Shaul had been kidnapped by Hamas or whether he was dead.”

So, because the IP address hosting Shaul’s Facebook page was in the U.S., the IDF asked the FBI to help locate whoever (presumably Hamas) had gotten into the page. FBI agents immediately agreed to help and were moving on it when they were ordered by their own senior management to stop.

“Senior law enforcement officials, on condition of anonymity, have told me that the withdrawal of authority to the FBI to retrieve the Facebook records for Israel came from the [U.S.] Attorney General’s office,” Steven Emerson wrote in Israel Hayom.

In other words, from Eric Holder, Wormtongue’s close friend and trusted operative, a wellknown Democrat skunk in his own right already held in contempt of Congress on other matters.

Via Israel Matzav

UPDATE:  Unidentified “senior officials in the American administration,” on Sunday (Oct. 18) denied declining to help Israel in the matter of the missing soldier, according to Haaretz. The left-wing newspaper put a right-left spin on the report in Israel Hayom accusing anti-Obama rightists of fomenting the issue. The Times of Israel, picking up the Haaretz report, added that the IDF and prime minister’s office had declined to comment on the subject. So take your pick on who to believe.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obamalot, The War, Troops

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