Friday - March 07, 2008

My stomach was torn open… so I tucked my shirt in and kept shooting

I caught this story early today in our Telegraph and wanted to post it when I caught an email from our GOF, with a link to another paper with the same story.
The Daily Mail.  Thanks Grumpy ... The DMail version is much better as are the online photos and the awards to these wonderful young people I call,
BATTLING BRITS!

It’s kinda frustrating even for me as a foreigner, to see and read about these kids while at the same time I see ppl of the same age sitting in a doorway in Winchester waiting for passersby to drop money in their hats.  All the while collecting benefits from the taxpayer.

Amazing stories of the selfless heroes of Afghanistan
By MATTHEW HICKLEY and PAUL HARRIS - More by this author »

Last updated at 09:07am on 7th March 2008

They all made a pact before they went to war.

Whatever happened to them in Afghanistan no one - dead or alive - would be left behind.

One night in Helmand Province, that pledge was put to the test.

In a terrifying split second, the close-knit group from one of the Army’s most battle-scarred units came under fire from a hail of Taliban bullets and rocket-powered grenades.

Four men were hit and several others temporarily blinded by phosphorus. Their screams of pain cut through the darkness as the ambushed platoon was pinned down by gunfire from two sides.

But the men of 2nd Battalion the Mercian Regiment knew precisely what they had to do.

And today the extraordinary heroism which allowed the young soldiers to keep to their pledge at any cost can be revealed as they are awarded some of the highest military honours.

The men repeatedly braved enemy fire to rescue their injured and fatally wounded comrades from the hands of the Taliban.

Private Luke Cole, 22, carried on fighting after half his thigh bone was blown away.

When another bullet ripped open his stomach, he simply tucked his shirt in tighter “to hold everything in” - and carried on keeping the enemy at bay until back-up arrived.

Sergeant Craig Brelsford, 25, continued to command his men long after he was critically wounded - and right up to the moment he died.

In a singularly selfless act, he ran to put his body between the enemy and his wounded comrades.

It protected them from Taliban gunfire, but cost him his life.

And the 25-year-old platoon commander, Lieutenant Simon Cupples, led a rescue party into the killing zone to carry the injured to safety and recover the dead - again and again and again.

Their astonishing courage - and that of scores of other British servicemen and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq - is marked today with a raft of 184 awards.

They include the biggest batch of medals since fighting began in Afghanistan nearly seven years ago - a reflection not just of the ferocity of the conflict, but of the conspicuous bravery of British troops.

The ambush near the frontline town of Garmsir underlined the extreme danger that troops face daily in what has turned into a bloody and difficult war.

It played out into a six-hour pitched battle as both sides poured in reinforcements. But true to the pact, Lt Cupples and his men refused to withdraw until the bodies of two fallen comrades were recovered.

Telling their families back home that no one knew what happened to them, he decided, was “simply not an option”.

His valour and dedication is recognised with the award of a Conspicuous Gallantry Cross - the highest bravery medal after the Victoria Cross.

Yesterday he told the remarkable story of that night last September.

The young officer, now a captain, recalled how his men were advancing under cover of darkness when they came under devastating fire from a Taliban trench just 20 yards away, and then from other enemy positions.

“I could tell we had taken serious casualties.” he said. “There was screaming from the men around me. Because we were so close to the enemy it was very difficult to withdraw and regroup, but we couldn’t leave the casualties.

“It was asking a lot for the blokes to run forward into enemy fire like that.

“But they did it because their mates were out there. When you live and serve with your men like that it creates a very special bond. You would do anything for those guys. That’s what drove the soldiers forward.”

Captain Cupples, from Derbyshire, who married his sweetheart, Louise, shortly before deploying to Afghanistan, is due to return with his unit next year.

Also involved in the September firefight was Private Cole, from Wolverhampton, who is awarded the Military Cross.

http://tinyurl.com/2c9jdw

See that link for photos and more info.  Impressive! But then, bravery always is. And the Brits have it in spite of all that goes on at home.  And I’ll get to that maddening subject later. 

Posted by Drew458     on 03/07/2008 at 08:33 AM   
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   Saturday - February 09, 2008

R.I.P.  An American None Of You Have Heard Of.  CHARLES FAWCETT, Errol Flynn couldda played him.

I had every good intention of taking the whole wkend off, hand and arm painful with repeat motion thingy, but when I came acrss this obit in the Telegraph today ... I just knew that was it.  I had to boot and blog.  I’d never heard of this guy and I really doubt many if any of you have.  Interesting how the Telegraph finds ppl and often Americans the world is unaware of, and tells the stories behind them.  This guy could have been played by Errol Flynn in another age.
Ya look at his photo and and can believe everything.

There’s other reasons for booting today and I’ll post but this one just had to be shared.  And so me and my arm will be slightly busy after all.  But I am taking off Sunday..  Maybe.

Charles Fawcett
Last Updated: 2:32am GMT 09/02/2008

Charles Fawcett, who died in London on February 3 aged 92, was a film maker and adventurer of great and generous passions that embraced Afghan freedom fighters and the much-married film actress Hedy Lamarr.

His unlikely - some would say unbelievable - life was informed by an impulse to stand up for the underdog mixed with a thirst for glamour and adventure. Fawcett charmed everyone he met with tales of swashbuckling intrigue and good deeds.

In 1980, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he helped film the conflict between the Russian forces and their enemies, the Mujahideen - footage that was pivotal in persuading the United States secretly to arm and fund the tribal warriors fighting the Red Army.

Fawcett’s film featured the glamorous, ultra-conservative Texan socialite Joanne Herring, portrayed by Julia Roberts in the current Hollywood blockbuster Charlie Wilson’s War. In typical Fawcett style, he had alerted her by sending her a note he had scribbled in crayon on the back of a child’s notebook: “Come immediately. Bring film equipment. The world doesn’t know what’s going on here.”

Although aspects of Fawcett’s career sometimes seemed to soar to the wilder flights of fancy, he did furnish documentary evidence to support descriptions of his deeds of military derring-do.

After the war he recalled being reduced to playing trumpet at funerals and carrying out exhumations to identify victims of the Nazis. After a friend offered him a bit part in a film, Fawcett spent the next 25 years reinventing himself as an actor, appearing in some 100 B-movies, many made in Italy.

Gossip columnists crowned him “the king of Rome” and “mayor of the Via Veneto”, while Warren Beatty recalled him as the hub of the Roman dolce vita, “loved and adored by everyone”.

Charles Fernley Fawcett was born on December 2 1915 at Waleska, Georgia, where his mother had been caught in a snowstorm, but came from old Virginia stock. Orphaned by the age of six, he and his younger brother and two sisters were raised by two maiden aunts at Greenville, South Carolina, where he acquired the old-world manners of a typical southern gentleman.

In 1937, having run away from Greenville senior high school, where he had learned to wrestle and to play American football, he made his way to New York and then Washington DC, where a cousin happened to be the US assistant postmaster-general and took him in. By his own account, when he was 15 Fawcett had started an affair with his best friend’s mother. “If that’s child molestation,” he declared, “I would wish this curse on every young boy.”

But the end of this adolescent affair had set up suicidal thoughts, and Fawcett jumped a series of tramp steamers, working his passage through the Panama Canal to the Far East before returning to the United States.

Gifted with an artistic talent and a musical ear, he received tips on playing jazz trumpet from Louis Armstrong, and on grappling from a professional wrestler, with the result that Fawcett, still restless, spent a year in eastern Europe earning a living by fighting in back-street theatres.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 Fawcett joined the Polish army but had been in barracks for only a week before escaping from the advancing Nazis and hitchhiking back to Paris. When the French rejected his application to enlist, Fawcett joined the Section Volontaire des Américains - the ambulance corps.

He was sharing a studio with another young American, Bill Holland, whose mother was a German aristocrat. One of Holland’s relatives, General Otto von Stülpnagel, had been appointed commander-in-chief of occupied France, and when Holland introduced Fawcett to senior German officers he was able to pass important information to the French Resistance.

In Paris Fawcett also took part in the rescue of a group of British prisoners-of-war who had been placed under French guard in a hospital ward by the Germans. By impersonating a German ambulance crew, Fawcett and a comrade marched in at 4am and ordered the French nurses to usher the PoWs out into the yard. “Gentlemen,” he announced as he drove them away, “consider yourself liberated.”

“You’re a Yank,” said a British voice.

“Never," came Fawcett’s lilting southern burr, “confuse a Virginian with a Yankee.”

In 1942 he joined the RAF and trained as a Hurricane pilot but was invalided out that Christmas with tuberculosis, from which he had suffered as a youth. After convalescing in a Canadian sanatorium, Fawcett decided to make his way back to the United States.

From New York he travelled to a TB clinic in Arizona where he remained for about a year. In 1944 he returned to Italy and rejoined the American ambulance corps.

For six months in 1945 he fought with the French Foreign Legion in the forests of Alsace, and took part in the liberation of Colmar. A further bout of tuberculosis landed him in the Legionnaires’ Hospital in Paris, and although he applied to rejoin his regiment, Fawcett was turned down.

In three months at the end of the war, Fawcett married six Jewish women who had been trapped in concentration camps, a procedure that entitled them to leave France with an automatic American visa.

By 1948 Fawcett was back in action, this time against the Communists in the Greek civil war, fighting in a lounge suit in the guise of a journalist, since no foreigners were supposed to be involved. The following year, he returned to Paris and began his career as an actor, working in the theatre, radio and films. During the next 25 years he appeared in two films with Sophia Loren, knew Orson Welles and William Holden, and in Rome - between two of her six husbands - became the lover of Hedy Lamarr.

In 1956 he spent three months helping to rescue refugees from the Hungarian uprising and, following riots in the Belgian Congo in 1959, joined a friend with a private plane in missions to rescue people who had become trapped and unable to escape the fighting.

Fawcett made his last two films in the mid-1970s, playing the lead in one and in the other, Up The Antique Stairway (1975), supporting Marcello Mastroianni.

Later in the 1970s, short of money and in poor health from a recurrence of tuberculosis, Fawcett accepted an invitation from an old friend, Baron Ricky di Portanova, a wealthy figure in Houston’s high society, to supervise the building of a huge new swimming pool complex at his mansion.

Fawcett moved in, and although his new billet afforded access to the best doctors in Houston, he failed to settle. In June 1979, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he announced that he was leaving for that country to pass on to the Afghan resistance fighters tactics he had learned in the Foreign Legion.

Charles Fawcett’s first wife died in 1956 and after a 30-year engagement he married, in 1991, April Ducksbury, with whom he settled in London. She survives him with the daughter of his first marriage.

story and photo here > > > http://tinyurl.com/ytd5fc

Posted by Drew458     on 02/09/2008 at 09:35 AM   
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   Monday - December 10, 2007

Battle for Taliban stronghold intensifies

Just so ya know folks, Battling Brits kicking Taliban ass !

Battle for Taliban stronghold intensifies
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul and James Burleigh
Last Updated: 11:40am GMT 10/12/2007

The battle for Musa Qala has intensified with British and Afghan troops probing the edges of the town but holding back from a final assault as thousands of civilians remain inside.

Frontline:

Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
With fighting also spreading to many parts of Helmand, Afghan officials claimed that two of the most important Taliban commanders in the province were captured trying to escape Musa Qala.

British military sources said that a number of insurgents had been captured but had not yet been identified.

Colonel Richard Eaton confirmed that there had been casualties in “fierce fighting” over the weekend but that British forces had advanced to the edge of the town.

He said that Taliban fighters had attacked other areas of the province to relieve pressure on Musa Qala.

“There have certainly been skirmishes throughout the area of Sangin [to the south of Musa Qala],” he said.

“The Taliban are trying to create pressure in other areas to relieve the pressure we are exerting on Musa Qala. There were a couple of our bases in the area of Sangin attacked this afternoon. They were repulsed.”

Speaking from inside the town, Taliban commander Mullah Ahmad Muslim claimed: “We have launched attacks in Sangin and in Sarwan Kala. In Musa Qala we have taken 15 prisoners from the Afghan National Army. We have orders to attack the British everywhere.”

With a population of around 20,000 and one of the biggest bazaars in Helmand, the operation to take Musa Qala is the largest military assault that British forces have launched in Afghanistan.

At least 300 people fled the town over the weekend but many remain.

The Afghan government claimed to have captured Mullah Rahim Akhund, the Taliban governor for Helmand and Mullah Mateen Akhund, the district governor for Musa Qala, as they fled the town.

Taliban sources however fiercely denied the claims that their commanders had been taken. “I am almost crying, I am laughing so much,” the Taliban’s chief spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Daily Telegraph by telephone.

“This is just lies. Do you think these are people who are easy to capture?”

“Right now it is going according to plan,” said Nato commander General Dan McNeill. “As to how tough the fighting will or will not be, that is up to the insurgents. If the insurgent wants to fight then the Afghan forces going into Musa Qala will be up to the task.”

Key areas in Afghanistan fighting
British and American forces are to perform the “break in” operation to Musa Qala, but the final assault will be left to the Afghan Army.

There are signs that some people have decided to stay because of the fear of looting when the town falls.

“Outside I can hear the sounds of explosions. We are quite scared,” Haji Mohammad Rauf said by telephone from his home just outside Musa Qala. “Most of the families have fled the area, but I’m afraid that if we leave the soldiers will loot all the things from our home.”

In the days after British troops cleared the town of Sangin, which lies south of Musa Qala, in April, there was systematic looting by pro-government police and militias.

The battle for Musa Qala, which involves some 3,000 British troops, began at 4pm on Friday afternoon as British and Afghan forces advanced in three separate columns from the south, west and east of the town supported by several hundred vehicles and dozens of attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft.

But it was a feint, to distract attention from a helicopter borne landing by a battalion of the US 82nd Airborne Division from Task Force Fury to the north of the town.

The operation is expected to last several more days.

http://tinyurl.com/24vh4r

Posted by Drew458     on 12/10/2007 at 09:11 AM   
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   Friday - December 07, 2007

Never Forget

I was looking around for info on Pearl Harbor Day and found this great site the Navy maintains.

Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941 --
Overview and Special Image Selection

The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy’s battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire’s southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.

Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese agression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.

By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials (and they were well-informed, they believed, through an ability to read Japan’s diplomatic codes) fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.

The U.S. Fleet’s Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World’s oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.

These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan’s far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered accordingly. Under normal political circumstances, an accomodation might have been considered.

However, the memory of the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan’s striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace.

This page features a historical overview and special image selection on the Pearl Harbor raid, chosen from the more comprehensive coverage featured in the following pages, and those linked from them

There are terrfic photos and stories surrounding the event. Well worth some time spent.

There are many who draw the similarity between 7-Dec, 1941 and 11-Sep, 2001.  I agree with most of it.  The problem as I see it is: our country’s national resolve to defeat the enemy in 1941 lasted years.  In 2001, it lasted months.  How can we defeat an enemy with no timeline when we insist on it being done before lunch?

Posted by Drew458     on 12/07/2007 at 10:55 AM   
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   Friday - November 23, 2007

Honoring Heroes at the Holidays

I received an email from Ryan Gill of ”Move America Forward” asking for some help in promoting this event.  It sounds very worthy, so if you are along the route, go out and support the effort.

Join Move America Forward for the “Honoring Heroes at the Holidays Tour” this November 26th - December 16th as we cross this nation holding pro-troop events in 40 cities across America to honor and salute the men and women of the U.S. military who will be thousands of miles away from their homes and families during this holiday season.

Along the tour we will be collecting more than 100,000 Christmas, Hanukkah and holiday greeting cards for our troops that we will deliver to them in Iraq and Afghanistan. Get your kids involved, and invite local schools to participate! On the outside envelope be sure to write either: “Christmas Card for Our Troops” or “Hanukkah Card for Our Troops” or “Holiday Card for Our Troops.”

Bring the cards to one of our 40 pro-troop holiday events along the route of the “Honoring Our Heroes at the Holidays Tour”

Posted by Drew458     on 11/23/2007 at 10:32 AM   
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   Tuesday - November 06, 2007

Basra Two Zero: An SAS veteran views the Iraq war from the soldiers’ point of view

SAS veteran Andy McNab went to Iraq to see the war from the soldiers’ point of view. What he found will amaze you...their kit is brilliant, they say this is a golden age for the infantry and they know they’re being used as political ammunition – but they just don’t give a damn…

Gordon Brown says our troops are coming home. A thousand will be back from Iraq by Christmas and the rest, it is reckoned, by the end of 2008.

In theory this sounds promising. Indeed, listening to all this talk, you would think our soldiers were lounging round the pool in Basra knocking back a couple of beers before boarding the plane.

Well, not exactly. I was in Iraq two weeks ago with my old regiment. Within three hours of arriving, I came under mortar attack, a common event for our troops. If our work out there is done, the Prime Minister clearly hasn’t told the insurgents.

http://tinyurl.com/2y34bk

caution if I have to folks .... some bad language but what would you expect under fire.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/06/2007 at 06:39 AM   
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   Thursday - November 01, 2007

Real Heroes, Real Soldiers, and a real reporter

h/t to powerline

Jeff Emmanuel from RedState.com, embedded in Iraq, shows what real combat reporting ought to be. Al Qaeda in Iraq is on the ropes because we have troops like these guys from Charlie Company. It’s a 20 minute read you do not want to miss.

In Jeff’s own words,

In my opinion, this is the type of heroic story that has been missing from the mainstream media’s coverage of the War on Terror—and it is precisely the type of story that the American people need to hear. Being the one who had the opportunity to write about it and to bring it to the public’s attention—something which was only possible because I, like the very small number of my colleagues who do this, was willing to go to a place (and take a risk) that others will not—was an amazing and humbling experience.

If you haven’t read Jeff’s work yet, you will after this. He’s just as good as Michael Yon.  Read the original rendition with pictures at his site, or read it in an easy reading font at The American Spectator.

Ambush In Sammara: The Longest Morning


Six weeks ago in the Iraqi city of Samarra, four paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division became the object of a pre-planned, coordinated effort by dozens of al Qaeda to kidnap and slaughter American soldiers only days before General Petraeus’s internationally televised testimony to the U.S. Congress on the state of the war in Iraq. Only two survived—but, fighting like heroes, they succeeded in preserving the honor of their nation.

This is their story.

You don’t need me to snag more excerpts than this to entice you to read it. Just go and do it.

Posted by Drew458     on 11/01/2007 at 11:51 AM   
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Al Qaeda Beaten in Iraq

Gateway Pundit, Say Anything and Michael Yon all agree, Al Qaeda has lost in Iraq.

From Gateway Pundit:

The following is a Haider Ajina translation of a headline and news article from Iraq’s Buratha News on October 31, 2007:

“Sunni Tribal leaders from Dhi-Qar province distance themselves from Takfiries and pledge their support to the political process and elected government”

The governor of Iraq’s Dhi-Qar province Aziz Khadum Alwan received a delegation of Sunni tribal leaders of the Dhi-Qar who are member of the Dhi-Qar tribal chamber. The delegation handed the governor a copy of a speech given by the Chair of the delegation Sheik Ahmed AbdulRazaq after Friday prayer. The speech he delivered made very clear the mission of the Tribal Chamber which guides its actions. Sheik AbdulRazaq acknowledged the danger of the Takfiri fatwas and its deviation from Islam and the importance of combating and fighting the Takfiries and their deviant ideas. He also called for the support of the government and its local administrative and security representatives.

Haider Ajina comments:

Dhi-Qar province is a mostly Muslim Shiite province with some Mandaeans (followers of John the Baptist). Sunni Tribal leaders in Dhi-Qar province are speaking out loudly against Takfiries and against those trying to disrupt the political process in Iraq. Since the Alqida Takfiries are Sunnis, the Sunnis in Dhi-Qar are speaking out to disassociate themselves from these Takfiries as well as call for fighting these Takfiries. They also denounce the Takfiri deviant ideology and calling it non Muslim. These are all positive steps towards a united Iraq against the terrorists and for a representative government. While Iraq, as any free society, will never be fully united behind any political cause (nor should they) they are however uniting against the Takfiries and intolerance and they are uniting to protect their minorities.

From Michael Yon:

“Al Qaeda in Iraq is defeated,” according to Sheik Omar Jabouri, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party and a member of the widespread and influential Jabouri Tribe. Speaking through an interpreter at a 31 October meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in downtown Baghdad, Sheik Omar said that al Qaeda had been “defeated mentally, and therefore is defeated physically,” referring to how clear it has become that the terrorist group’s tactics have backfired. Operatives who could once disappear back into the crowd after committing an increasingly atrocious attack no longer find safe haven among the Iraqis who live in the southern part of Baghdad.  They are being hunted down and killed.  Or, if they are lucky, captured by Americans.

Colonel Ricky Gibbs, the American brigade commander with responsibility for the Rashid District in south Baghdad today told me, “So goes South Baghdad goes Baghdad.” General Petraeus had told me similar things about the importance of South Baghdad. In fact, Rashid is quickly developing into what might be one of the final serious battlegrounds of the war.

From SayAnything:

The funny thing is that when violence in Iraq is escalating, the journalists always know what it is and the meaning is never disputed.  When violence is escalating, they call it “civil war” and imply that it means the war in Iraq is a failure.  Like this report from November 2006:

As the sectarian violence in Iraq escalates into what the US media is now calling a civil war, Mr Bush said he would press Mr Maliki to develop a strategy to stop the killings.

Escalating violence = civil war

Decreasing violence = confused journalists

But don’t you ever accuse these brave and courageous journalists of not being objective

Posted by Drew458     on 11/01/2007 at 11:07 AM   
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   Wednesday - October 31, 2007

Do Not Mess With Our Troops

Thanks to Hot Air for the link to Michael Totten’s Middle East Journal for the whole story.

The only good Mahdi is a dead Mahdi.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/31/2007 at 08:58 AM   
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   Saturday - October 27, 2007

News Release You Won’t See

Here’s another bit of news you probably haven’t heard about from the MSM:

Unfortunately, most Americans do not consider Iraqis as people. We see them as terrorists or victims, not as everyday people with the same values as our friends, neighbors and relatives. Yet, most Iraqis are decent human beings with the same concerns, dreams, and compassion as most Americans. They want peace and are concerned about their fellow man.

Is it no wonder that we feel differently about the people of Iraq, when the American media only reports sensational news? If it doesn’t bleed or explode, you just aren’t going to see it on the evening news. I received a press release from Baghdad today, which I know the mainstream media will not pass on to you all. Here is an example of Iraqi charity and gratitude which touched my soul. Imagine how incredibly generous these soldiers are. They have little to support their own families. It’s not enough that they are fighting daily to bring peace to their country. They are actually reaching out to help unfortunate Americans.

Richard S. Lowry is author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and The Gulf War Chronicles.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20071026-01
October 26, 2007

Iraqi Army at Besmaya Installation Support San Diego Fire Victims
By U.S. Army Sgt 1st Class Charlene Sipperly
Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq Public Affairs

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Members of the Iraqi Army in Besmaya collected a donation for the San Diego, Calif., fire victims Thursday night at the Besmaya Range Complex in a moving ceremony to support Besmaya’s San Diego residents.

Iraqi Army Col. Abbass, the commander of the complex, presented a gift of $1,000 to U.S. Army Col. Darel Maxfield, Besmaya Range Complex officer in charge, Multi-National Security Transition Command Iraq, to send to the fire victims in California.

The money was collected from Iraqi officers and enlisted soldiers in Besmaya. In a speech given during the presentation, Col. Abbass stated that he and the Iraqi soldiers were connected with the American people in many ways, and they will not forget the help that the American government has given the Iraqi people. Abbass was honored to participate by sending a simple fund of $1,000 to the American people in San Diego, to lower the suffering felt by the tragedy.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/27/2007 at 10:04 PM   
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   Friday - October 26, 2007

Thank You Senator McCain

DJ Drummond remided me that it was 40 years ago today that Lt. Commander John McCain, USN, was shot down on a combat mission over Hanoi.  He was in the “Hanoi Hilton” for five and a half years, suffering torture and humilation.  He represents the finest traditions and honor of the United States Navy.  No matter what you think of his politics, he is indisputably one of our finest heroes from the Vietnam era.

Thank you, John McCain, for your service and for your sacrifice.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/26/2007 at 09:00 PM   
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   Wednesday - October 03, 2007

A Marine Hero Supports the War

Here’s a counterpoint to our friends at Chalk4Peace.

Marine Hero: The 5 Things I Saw that Make Me Support the War

Liberals often like to say that “violence is senseless.”

That’s wrong.

Violence isn’t senseless. Senseless violence is senseless. And I should know. Before being awarded the Navy Cross and having the privilege of becoming a Marine, I was a gang member. Sometimes it takes having used violence for both evil as well as good to know that there’s a profound moral difference between the two.

People often ask me whether I still support the war. I never hesitate when answering: “Absolutely I support completing the mission,” I tell them, “Now more than ever.”

I was honored to have been given the opportunity to fight in Iraq on our country’s behalf. And it was that experience—and five things I saw firsthand—that illustrate the foolishness of those who would equate American military power to that used by thugs and tyrants.

He then goes on to detail out his five reasons. These are well-reasoned and presented arguments for why he thinks the war effort is worth it.  Maybe he should create a chalk drawing of each of the reasons in Trafalgar Square with the dirty hippies.

As they say, go read the rest.  Then stand proud with the warriors who protect our way of life.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/03/2007 at 03:02 PM   
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   Tuesday - September 11, 2007

Warming Up for Iran

Good Evening All,

I thought I would start off my amateur editing career here at BMEWS with a little story that warms my heart. It looks like our friends in Israel are warming up the bullpen with a little action in Syria.

The Israel Air Force jets that allegedly infiltrated Syrian airspace early last Thursday apparently bombed an Iranian arms shipment that was being transferred to Hizbullah, CNN reported Tuesday.

A ground operation may also have been part of the foray, according to the network. Neither Jerusalem nor Damascus have confirmed the report. But Damascus has denied the presence of any Israeli ground forces on its territory.

CNN said the operation involved ground forces and that the aerial strike left “a great hole in the desert.” Although it did not name a specific source, the network cited “US government officials.” The jets have been identified by the Turkish authorities as IAF F15Is, Israel’s long-range bomber, after fuel tanks were found in Turkish territory.

The CNN report said the IAF’s targets were likely weaponry delivered to Syria that was possibly intended for use by Hizbullah.

CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, delivered the report and quoted sources saying that Israel was “very happy” with the results of the operation.

Well of course they’re happy you little tart, they just had a good practice mission and accomplished killing a few good targets along the way.  What’s not to be pleased with?

Mark my words friends, Iran is coming soon, and we will be the “silent partner” in that arena.

Posted by      on 09/11/2007 at 09:05 PM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • War-Stories •  
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Where Were You?

There are many good sites doing 9/11 memorials today.  Have a look at:
Kim DuToit
Hot Air

Wizbang is doing a real-time memorial.

So what I want to know from you today is:  Where were you when you realized we were under attack and this was not an accident?

I had a news ticker on the bottom of my screen at work and it came up with a bulletin that a small plane had crashed into the WTC.  I brought up MSNBC.com on my PC and they were doing a live video stream of the tower with smoke billowing out.  The reporters were a little circumspect at first, but as eyewitness reports came in, they said there was the possibility it was actually a jetliner.

I watched and listened while continuing to try and do my work, but that didn’t last long.  Some of my staff came in to watch as well because apparently I was one of the only ones able to get a stream because MSNBC’s servers were being overloaded. (they were one of the few that were still letting you have a live feed without paying)

As we watched, we saw plane number two hit.

That was it.  I declared right there that we were at war.  I called my wife and with a lump in my throat told her what was going on.  The rest of the day was a blur in my memory, except when the towers collapsed.  There were about 15 people in my office as the first one went down.  People screamed and cried right there on the spot, knowing, but not really knowing, what it all meant.  We knew it was bad, worse than we could imagine, and now see in hindsite that it was even worse than that.

What about you?

Posted by Drew458     on 09/11/2007 at 07:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Terrorists • War-Stories •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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