Category Archives: Troops

Flying his true colors

Posted on October 31, 2006 | Comments Off on Flying his true colors

Look who’s slandering the troops, again, as if he didn’t do a good enough job on us in the 1970s.

Sen. John Effing Kerry, D-Mass. 

"’You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,’ he said, to a mixture of laughter and gasps."

Right, if you don’t study, you’ll have to serve your country, along with the rest of the ignorant soldiers. But if you do study, you can be a lying phony like John Effing Kerry, marry rich, get elected by people too dumb to know better, run for president on the peace party ticket as a "war hero" (with the able assistance of the draft-dodging, prevaricating news media), and never have to work again.

UPDATE  Response from office of Sen. John McCain: "Senator Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country’s call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education."

Well, they are deficient in duplicity and dishonesty, subjects in which Kerry scores very high. 

Via Instapundit 

Entertaining commentary on the subject at, where else, Black Five.                                                                  

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Posted in The War, Troops

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Set-recs

Posted on October 27, 2006 | Comments Off on Set-recs

Set-recs, for "set the record straight" is what the old time newspapermen called corrections, which were always plentiful although frowned upon.  After five years of pummeling from the not-always-accurate MSM’s preferred war narrative, it’s about time the defense department entered the set-rec business, here.

They’re also into argument for their side of the issue, even when rebuffed.

"Second, the issue is not Newsweek’s position versus the ‘government position.’ The issue is that your readers were given a one-sided, opinion-laced article on Afghanistan based on falsehoods—which is something that journalists and editors are usually concerned about. Your dismissive reply is disappointing, to say the least.”

More, please. 

Via Op-For 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Micromanagement

Posted on October 22, 2006 | Comments Off on Micromanagement

The more I think about this Land Warrior concept, almost twenty pounds of wearable electronics that some 9th ID troops soon to deploy to Iraq will be toting, the more it seems to me not designed for the individual infantryman to know where his fellows are on the battlefield so much as for his commander to micromanage him from afar. In Vietnam the cliche was the battalion commander high above the troops in his helicopter telling small-unit leaders what to do. With Land Warrior locating every troop by GPS, I can imagine the Pentagon "dropping in" for an audio-video briefing in the midst of a firefight.

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Tet on the Tigris

Posted on October 20, 2006 | Comments Off on Tet on the Tigris

Bush’s political and media opponents are having a grand time with his remark that there may be some similarities between Tet, 1968, in Vietnam and Baghdad, in 2006–at least in the way that the enemy is trying to influence American politics. Poor man, he has no way to win with some people. If he says nothing, he’s uncommunicative. If he says something, he’s either blundered or engaging in spin. British military historian John Kagan says he blundered. At least Kagan’s numbers are instructive.

"By January 1968, total American casualties in Vietnam — killed, wounded and missing — had reached 80,000 and climbing…In a bad week in Vietnam, the US could suffer 2,000 casualties. Since 2003, American forces in Iraq have never suffered as many as 500 casualties a month…In any year of the Vietnam war, the communist party of North Vietnam sent 200,000 young men to the battlefields in the south, most of whom did not return. Vietnam was one of the largest and costliest wars in history. The insurgency in Iraq resembles one of the colonial disturbances of imperial history."

Via Instapundit 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Soldiers of the right

Posted on October 19, 2006 | Comments Off on Soldiers of the right

"He knew that this uniform represented something good and that he was part of a legacy of men and women who have protected what is good and right in this world.”

A eulogy for Staff Sgt. Jose A. Lanzarin, of Del Rio, and Pfc. Shane R. Austin, of Edgerton, Kansas, two of the dead in this deadly month of the war, as the bad guys try once again to influence an election.

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Strong Army

Posted on October 15, 2006 | Comments Off on Strong Army

The 2:32 heroic music to the new Army recruiting video keeps running through my head and I keep returning for another hit of its booming drums and stacatto brass from the Youtube link at Black Five. The opening shot of a platoon with a billowing cavalry guidon leads to men in camo with automatic rifles slung across their chest armor against a backdrop of diving Apache gunships.

I love the subliminal message, that while some contend the Army is broken, as the narrative says, "there is nothing on this green earth that is stronger than the US Army."

More on the new slogan, Army Strong, which replaces Army of One. Although some are already ridiculing the Hulk Smash grammar and theme, it looks like a winner to me. A great wartime recruiting tool, and a valuable information warfare direct response to the armed doubters of the world.

UPDATE  Blackfive seems to have dropped its link to the vid, so here’s the one at YouTube–at least until Google decides it’s too bellicose. More likely to be permanent is the link at Army Times which needs Windows Media.

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Fighting back

Posted on October 13, 2006 | Comments Off on Fighting back

"Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got – books, pencils, legs and arms.

"’Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,’ said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools."

It’ll work if they surprise him/her. Hope they’re teaching them some version of situational awareness.

Via Instapundit 

UPDATE  Good advice: "In a school shooting, if you can leave then get out. If not, don’t cower or hide. Fight enough to get out." 

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