Category Archives: Troops

Army stronger, please

Posted on December 16, 2006 | Comments Off on Army stronger, please

Could this be why Rumsfeld’s resignation was accepted? Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker’s recent passionate testimony to Congress, once reportedly accompanied by banging his hand on the witness table,  included a plea for more troops, and an end to restrictions on the use of the reserves and guard.

"’I recommend we continue to grow the Army so that we have choices,’ Schoomaker said, cautioning that it is ill advised to assume demand for American troops overseas will decrease. ‘Our history is replete with examples where we have guessed wrong: 1941, 1950, 2001, to name a few,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what’s ahead.’"

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Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, The War, Troops

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Maj. Megan McClung Memorial Video

Posted on December 15, 2006 | Comments Off on Maj. Megan McClung Memorial Video

Moving tribute to highest ranking American female warrior, a Marine, killed in Iraq. Worth your time.

Via Third Army video and photo system. 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Bad pennies, etc.

Posted on December 14, 2006 | Comments Off on Bad pennies, etc.

They do, in fact, always turn up. Eason Jordan, for instance, the disgraced former president of CNN (known to American veterans as the Communist News Network) has a new Internet news site focusing entirely on Iraq. Which is odd (or appropriate, perhaps) considering he was best known for sucking up to Saddam before the 2004 liberation. Until, that is, he asserted at several foreign venues that the American military was purposely targeting journalists for death. Something tells me his new venture will not be far afield of his old employer and may even come to rival al Jiz for mendacity. But we shall see.

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

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Old soldier

Posted on December 13, 2006 | Comments Off on Old soldier

"I ship out to Fort Benning as an active duty Infantry rifleman on January
9th. I’ll be 41 in May. I’ve been trying to join since 9/11 but the army
cutoff at the time was 35, and I was already past that. They finally raised
it past my age and I signed up. I’m in the best shape of my life and looking
forward to a most exciting adventure. The idea of serving in an institution
that was once headed by Gen. George Washington is still sinking in."

Bully. Read it all.

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Posted in The War, Troops

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Spc. Yari Mokri, R.I.P.

Posted on December 13, 2006 | Comments Off on Spc. Yari Mokri, R.I.P.

Mokri, 26, who played forward on his high school varsity soccer team, was a criminal justice graduate of Texas State University. He had other options, but enlisted to fight and died with four others in Iraq last week when a bomb exploded near their vehicle. His father, Mohammed, is an immigrant from Iran.

"Yari was a leader," his sister Desiree said at the family home in Pflugerville, northeast of Austin." His confidence and charisma allowed people around him to be safe and supportive and important."

Meanwhile, no matter how the MSM tries to spin it as the march of the ignorant and disadvantaged, the heroes keep coming. Army enlistments continue to hold steady and even to rise a little. They were 105 percent of the goal in November.

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Posted in The War, Troops

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Trauma Pod

Posted on December 9, 2006 | Comments Off on Trauma Pod

It’s like something out of Starship Troopers, the 1957 science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein, i.e. "pre-hospital or far forward battlefield casualty care…in which a self contained casualty ‘cocoon’ was sent automatically from the spaceship directly to the wounded soldier on the battlefield."

Doc In The Machine has three videos explaining the concept, which looks more doable in the first one, a video game-like presentation whose audio reminds me of the old Mech Warrior video game, than in the other two, or in this generalized explanation of some of the DARPA-funded work on it at the University of Texas-Austin. But definitely worth a look, including the news that its funding may be about to be eliminated.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, The War, Troops

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Adding a granny knot to a square knot

Posted on December 6, 2006 | Comments Off on Adding a granny knot to a square knot

The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations for solving the problems in Iraq? Make them bigger by, among other things, offering to return the Golan Heights to Syria. Huh?

"The normal approach to a difficult problem would be to bound or simplify it. But the ISG recommendations try the exact opposite: it adds complexity to the already complex situation."

It will be interesting to see what the headline writers do with this one. Simplicity ain’t in it.

UPDATE  The Wall Street Journal dubs it "The Iraq Muddle Group," but notes it serves the useful purpose of denying any fast departure and underlines the stark consequences of a failure there. 

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Posted in Iraq, Israel, The War, Troops

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