Sunday - September 18, 2005

Photo Du Jour

Who are these Dog-Faces? This was taken at Chu Lai, Vietnam sometime in the late 60’s. I’m pretty sure one of them is a member here at BMEWS. I’m also pretty sure it’s the goober toting a live grenade (second from left). That’s an M-60 they’re playing with. How come they don’t pick it up and hold it under one arm to fire it like Rambo? Are they too weak? Or is Rambo full of s**t?

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/18/2005 at 01:21 PM   
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CENTCOM Update

HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
September 17, 2005
Release Number: 05-09-40

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MULTI-NATIONAL FORCES CAPTURE KEY TERROR LEADERS IN MOSUL

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Multi-National forces, acting on multiple intelligence sources and tips from local citizens, raided a suspected al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist location in southwest Mosul, Sept. 5, capturing the top al-Qaida leaders in the city.

Captured during the raid was Taha Ibrahim Yasin Becher, (aka Abu Fatima), the al-Qaida in Iraq’s Emir of Mosul, and Hamed Sa’eed Ismael Mustafa, (aka Abu Shahed), the organization’s West Mosul Emir.

Abu Fatima and Abu Shahed were in a meeting at the time of their capture.

Abu Fatima had recently taken over the role of Emir after Abu Talha was captured in June and Abu Zubayr, who replaced Talha, was killed in mid-August. Abu Fatima had only held the position for 12 days when he was captured.

Abu Fatima supervised and directed the day-to-day operations of the organization and was responsible for numerous attacks against Iraqi security and Coalition forces.

Abu Shahed was responsible for organizing al-Qaeda activities in western Mosul. He was responsible for attacks conducted in the area and also participated in attacks involving small arms and other weapons directed against Iraqi security and Coalition forces. As the leader of one of Mosul’s territories he was in line to succeed Abu Fatima in the event of his death or capture.

The simultaneous capture of both leaders damages the organizational structure of al-Qaida in Iraq’s northern network. Abu Fatima and Abu Shahed were both originally from Tall Afar prior to assuming their roles in Mosul. In the past, the Emir position had been filled by terrorists who were already operating in the Mosul area.

Multi-National Force-Iraq announced the Sept. 6 capture of Dara Mohammad Sept. 16.

Dara Mohammad was the Ansar al Sunna Emir of Mosul.

_{Report Courtesy of http://www.centcom.mil.}

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/18/2005 at 11:51 AM   
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   Monday - September 12, 2005

Progress Report

A short installment from Michael Yon

Battle for Mosul: Progress Report
“Bad timing,” explained LTC Erik Kurilla, lying in his hospital bed at the Madigan Army Hospital in Fort Lewis, Washington, recovering from gunshot wounds suffered in combat in Mosul on 19 Aug, 2005. Titanium replaces part of his shattered femur, while the wounds in his other leg and arm are healing quickly. Kurilla, whose warrior stature on the battlefield is fast becoming legendary, is expected to make a full recovery with no limitations. He will return to his command of 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (better known as “Deuce Four") when they return from Iraq in late September. “I wanted to be there with my soldiers until the end, keeping our boot on the enemy’s neck and pushing his back up against a wall, right until the very last minute,” Kurilla said.

Yon continues to document this war in ways few other have been able to, in my opinion.  Read the rest for an update on the Duece-Four and how Mosul has fared under LTC Kurilla’s battle plan.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/12/2005 at 02:46 PM   
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   Thursday - September 01, 2005

First-Hand Account

This is remarkable.  There is an ISP in New Orleans that is still running.  Their “crisis manager”, who is ex-military, is holed up in the building with an unspecified number of people, supplies and weapons to ensure the data center is running and secure.  This is his journal.  There is also a live streaming webcam here.

This is an excerpt from yesterday:

Ok, we went down to the ground floors to lock down the building tight since a couple of people holed up with us took off. While we were down there we surveyed a huge area of the CBD.

Flooding in the CBD: Poydras is flooded from near the west side of the Superdome down to Baronne street. All of the side streets are flooded too down that way. Baronne is the last flooded street as you head to the river. Poydras is clear from Baronne to the river.

There is no water that we could see from Poydras to the interstate starting at Baronne and going all the way to the river. Headed toward Canal St. from Poydras, I saw no flooding at all from just past Baronne to the river. That’s a huge area of the CBD without water on the streets. That’s way better than the warnings we got.

Looting: The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be “legitimate” in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent “criminals” from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. He reports that command lapses more than 24 hours between check-ins, and that most of the force are “like deer in the headlights.” NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we’ve been talking to say they are not recognizing the NOPD as a legitimate authority anymore, since cops have been seen looting in Walmarts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don’t shoot the messenger....

Personal: Securing a 27 floor high rise with no elevator support is not fun. I am totally worn out. I am gonna chill for an hour, eat dinner, then perform maintenance. But never fear, Outpost Crystal and Team SOTI have knuckled down and will never quit. Never. We are prepared to go all the way to see this thing through.

Thanks again for all the support and love. One day this will all be over and ancient history, but I’ll never forget the kindness of strangers. Keep the less fortunate people in your thoughts and prayers.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/01/2005 at 11:23 AM   
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   Wednesday - August 24, 2005

Captain’s Mast

Just a quick memo to all you bilge rats out there. I wanted to give you all a tip about a few things, namely our blog friends and advertisers. Jay over at StopTheACLU.com is bringing all of us good news every day about that insidious, socialist organization that is threatening to destroy our country using our own legal system. Today’s post involves another success story by the Alliance Defense Fund to beat the ACLU back. For some unknown reason, the ACLU has a grudge against teaching youngsters about abstinence. They filed a lawsuit against the group which has been sponsoring teaching abstinence to teenagers, claiming their message was “religious”. Anyway, Jay has all the info so go take a look and decide for yourself. While you’re there toss a few bucks into the WAPO Fund. Jay wants to buy a full page ad in the Washington Post that is guaranteed to piss off every liberal lover of the ACLU. It’s a good cause. “Never miss an opportunity to piss off a Liberal” is my motto.

For those less seriously inclined, take a looksee over at the right sidebar. We’ve got a new advertiser starting today. It’s a way cool WWII strategy game called ”Squad Assault: Second Wave”. It’s a 3-D shooter and you’re in a platoon of infantry grunts in the second wave of troops trying to kick the hun out of “Fortress Europe”. There’s a downloadable demo (120 MB) that I just finished going through. Excellent graphics and lots of fun for everyone (except those poor unfortunate children of Liberals who might be emotionally scarred for life by a freaking game). Click on the link over there in the sidebar and go take a look. It won’t kill ya but it might keep you occupied for hours. Literally!

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/24/2005 at 12:42 PM   
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   Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Nothing to see here.  Move along please.

Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered

BAGHDAD, Aug. 13—U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.

Monday’s early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, “some of them quite dangerous by themselves,” a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.

But wait, there were no chemical weapons in Iraq, right?  Right?  Hello.  Is anyone home?

U.S. military photos of the alleged lab showed a bare concrete-walled room scattered with stacks of plastic containers, coiled tubing, hoses and a stand holding a large metal device that looked like a distillery. Black rubber boots lay among the gear.

The suspected chemical weapons lab was the biggest found so far in Iraq, Boylan said. A lab discovered last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah contained a how-to book on chemical weapons and an unspecified amount of chemicals.

Chemical weapons are divided into the categories of “persistent” agents, which wreak damage for hours, such as blistering agents or the oily VX nerve agent, and “nonpersistent” ones, which dissipate quickly, such as chlorine gas or sarin nerve gas.

Developing.....

Posted by Drew458     on 08/17/2005 at 07:58 AM   
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   Saturday - August 06, 2005

On This Day In History

In Their Own Words:

-- Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, age 84: Navigator on the “Enola Gay”

The day before the mission we sat through briefings on Tinian island where they told us who was assigned to which plane, and we ran through what we were going to do. About 2pm we were told to get some sleep. But I don’t know how they expected to tell us were we dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan and then expect us to sleep. I didn’t get a wink. Nor did most of the others. But at 10pm we had to get up again because we were flying at 2.45am.

They briefed us that the weather was good, but they were sending weather observation planes up so we would have the best information on targeting Hiroshima. We had a final breakfast and then went down to the plane shortly after midnight. There was a lot of picture-taking and interviewing going on - by the military - and it was a relief to get in the Enola Gay about an hour before we took off.

We flew in low over Iwo Jima while the bomb crew checked and armed Little Boy (the uranium bomb) and once we cleared the island we began climbing to our bombing altitude of just over 30,000 feet. It was perfectly clear and I was just doing all the things I’d always done as a navigator - plotting our course, getting fixes to make sure we were on course and reading the drifts so we knew the wind speed. As we flew over an inland sea I could make out the city of Hiroshima from miles away - my first thought was ‘That’s the target, now let’s bomb the damn thing’.

But it was quiet in the sky. I’d flown 58 missions over Europe and Africa - and I said to one of the boys that if we’d sat in the sky for so long over there we’d have been blown out of the air. Once we verified the target, I went in the back and just sat down. The next thing I felt was 94,000lbs of bomb leaving the aircraft - there was a huge surge and we immediately banked into a right hand turn and lost about 2,000 feet.

We’d been told that if we were eight miles away when the thing went off, we’d probably be ok - so we wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and the blast. All of us - except the pilot - were wearing dark goggles, but we still saw a flash - a bit like a camera bulb going off in the plane. There was a great jolt on the aircraft and we were thrown off the floor. Someone called out ‘flak’ but of course it was the shockwave from the bomb. The tail-gunner later said he saw it coming towards us - a bit like the haze you see over a car park on a hot day, but moving forwards at great speed.

We turned to look back at Hiroshima and already there was a huge white cloud reaching up more than 42,000 feet. At the base you could see nothing but thick black dust and debris - it looked like a pot of hot oil down there. We were pleased that the bomb had exploded as planned and later we got to talking about what it meant for the war. We concluded that it would be over - that not even the most obstinate, uncaring leaders could refuse to surrender after this.

In the weeks afterwards, I actually flew back to Japan with some US scientists and some Japanese from their atomic programme. We flew low over Hiroshima but could not land anywhere and eventually landed at Nagasaki. We didn’t hide the fact that we were American and many people turned their faces away from us. But where we stayed we were made very welcome and I think people were glad that the war had ended.

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/06/2005 at 08:02 AM   
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   Friday - June 17, 2005

Boom-Boom, Out Go The Lights

The Army is rooting out insurgents close to the Syrian border and the flyboys are dropping the lightweight stuff on Al-Qaeda’s head ....

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. F-16 fighter planes dropped a series of 500 lb (220 kg) bombs on insurgent targets in western Iraq overnight as the U.S. military launched a heavy offensive against rebels near the Syrian border.

Nine of the powerful bombs were dropped, the U.S. military said, two of them targeting suspected rebel safe houses near the town of Qaim, an insurgent stronghold on the Euphrates river about 20 km (12 miles) east of Iraq’s border with Syria.

Four more were aimed at rebels as they fired mortars and assault rifles at U.S. ground forces near Qaim, and a further three were used to hit suspected weapons caches in the area.

The air power was in support of Operation Spear, the third major offensive U.S. forces have launched in western Iraq in the past six weeks with the aim of crushing insurgent activity in the Euphrates valley which stretches northwest to Syria.

“Operation Spear ... began in the early morning hours with the objectives of rooting out insurgents and foreign fighters and disrupting insurgent support systems in and around Karabila,” Captain Jeffrey Pool of the U.S. Marines said in a statement from Ramadi, capital of the surrounding Anbar region.

Iraqi troops and U.S. tank and amphibious assault units were involved, he added. About 1,000 troops were taking part in all.

Residents in Karabila, a suburb of Qaim where the suspected weapons caches were targeted, said fierce gunbattles broke out overnight and continued. U.S. forces said air strikes killed about 40 rebels near there on June 11.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/17/2005 at 08:30 AM   
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   Thursday - June 16, 2005

Female Sgt Wins Silver Star

First Woman Gets Silver Star Since WW II

WASHINGTON (AP) - A 23-year-old sergeant with the Kentucky National Guard on Thursday became the first female soldier to receive the Silver Star - the nation’s third-highest medal for valor - since World War II.

Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, who is from Nashville, Tenn., but serves in a Kentucky unit, received the award for gallantry during a March 20 insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Two men from her unit, the 617th Military Police Company of Richmond, Ky., also received the Silver Star for their roles in the same action.

According to military accounts of the firefight, insurgents attacked the convoy as it traveled south of Baghdad, launching their assault from trenches alongside the road using rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Hester and her unit moved through enemy fire to the trenches, attacking them with grenades before entering and clearing them.

She killed at least three insurgents with her M4 rifle, according to her award citation. In the entire battle, 26 or 27 insurgents were killed and several more were captured, according to various accounts. Several Americans were also wounded in the firefight.

“Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members. Sgt. Hester’s bravery is in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism,” her award citation reads.

“I’m honored to even be considered, much less awarded, the medal,” Hester told the American Forces Press Service, a military-run information service. “It really doesn’t have anything to do with being a female. It’s about the duties I performed that day as a soldier.”

Hester, a native of Bowling Green, Ky., joined the Kentucky Army National Guard in April 2001 and moved to Nashville in 2003, according to a biography provided by the Army. She works as a retail store manager. Her unit deployed to Iraq in November 2004 and remains in the Baghdad area, escorting convoys and assisting the Iraqi Highway Patrol.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/16/2005 at 09:10 PM   
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   Saturday - May 28, 2005

Some people never give up

I’ll bet you thought that World War II was over. Not for some folks…

Japanese officials arrived on the Philippines island of Mindanao on Friday to unravel the mystery behind two aging men believed to be former imperial army soldiers who have lived in the mountains since the end of World War II.

Posted by Yellow Dog     on 05/28/2005 at 10:45 AM   
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   Tuesday - May 24, 2005

In Memorium:  H.M.S. HOOD

BATTLE OF THE DENMARK STRAIT
HMS HOOD OPENS FIRE
24 MAY 1941
by Marii Chernev

http://www.milartgl.com/HTML_2/hms_hood_opens_fire.htm

Battle cruiser Hood, popularly known in the Royal Navy as the “Mighty Hood,” was the largest warship in the world on commissioning in 1920.  She was perhaps the ultimate symbol of British imperial strength between the wars, and at the outbreak of World War II, she was likely the most famous warship afloat.

Hood possessed the fine lines of the battle cruiser that she was, slender, long-hulled and elegant.  Many still consider her the most beautiful capital ship ever built.  Her main armament of eight 15-inch guns placed her, in terms of hitting-power, on a par with the strongest battleships of her day, and her power plant gave her a speed on trials of 32 knots.  This made her the fastest capital ship of her day, faster by seven knots than the Royal Navy’s fastest battleships, the Queen Elizabeth class.

At the outbreak of World War II, Hood was still among the world’s fastest capital ships.  However, she bore the insufficient protection of the battle cruiser that she was, and on 24 MAY 1941 in the Battle of Denmark Strait against the Bismarck, Hood paid the price within minutes of opening fire.

Capital ship designers always had to arrive at a compromise involving the weight and space requirements for offensive power (armament), defensive power (primarily armor), speed (power plant), and sea-keeping ability (accommodations for the crew and the supplies necessary to sustain the ship at sea, particularly fuel).  Until the advent of the fast battleship classes of the World War II period, battleships were typically built to stress offensive and defensive power at the expense of speed.

The battle cruiser, however, was designed to stress offensive power and speed at the expense of defensive power, i.e., protection.  It was thought that the speed of the battle cruiser, which would make it a more difficult gunnery target, could provide it with as much protection, for all practical purposes, as a heavy citadel of armor.

At Jutland, however, three battle cruisers (Invincible, Queen Mary, Indefatigable) paid the price for this reasoning.  All blew up when German shells penetrated their inadequate armor protection and reached their magazines.

Hood was building at the time (May 1916), and her construction was halted and her design altered, in order to incorporate the lessons of Jutland.  Hood’s armor was considerably strengthened, but mostly on her sides, as opposed to her decks.  Her comparatively weak deck armor, in the end, was her Achilles heel.

The highlight of Hood’s career in the interwar period was her famed “Empire cruise” in 1923-24.  This cruise took Hood to the Far East, Australia, Hawaii, the United States, the Caribbean, and Canada, among other places.

While at Hawaii, Hood’s commanding admiral learned that a Boy Scout bound for a convention in Denmark had missed passage to the mainland, and he gave the lad free passage aboard Hood, earning wide commendation in the American press.  Hood’s visit to San Francisco commanded national press attention, and so did her transit of the Panama Canal, on her way back into the Atlantic.

Valuable as such cruises were to the imperial image and strength, Hood served her country in another crucial way between the wars.  As Ernle Bradford notes in his biography of the ship, The Mighty Hood (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1959), “…thousands of officers and men…were taught the seaman’s trade in the Hood during those years…The body of trained men which such a ship gave as a legacy to the nation was well worth…her upkeep.  If the Hood had been scrapped before the next war broke out she would still have paid her way.”

Hood served with the Home and Atlantic Fleets until 1936, when she was transferred to the “Med.” During the Spanish Civil War, Hood acted to protect British shipping endangered by the combatants.  She was due for a major refit in 1939, including the removal of her 600-ton conning tower and improvements to her deck armor.  But with too few capital ships available, and with war clouds darkening Europe, she could not be spared.

On the outbreak of war, Hood was based at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands, with the Home Fleet.  In June 1940 she was allocated to Force H, based at Gibraltar under Admiral James Somerville, and assigned to take over duties in the western “Med” formerly borne by the French Navy.  Force H’s first task was a distressing one, a task to neutralize (and in the event, destroy) a French squadron based at Oran in Algeria, in order to keep it from falling into German hands.  In this engagement, on 3 JUL 1940, the elderly battleship Bretagne was blown up, and battleships Provence and Dunkerque badly damaged.

After several months in the “Med,” Hood returned to Scapa Flow and the Home Fleet, and on 19 MAY 1941 she sailed with the brand-new battleship Prince of Wales (King George V class, ten 14” guns) to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and her consort cruiser, Prinz Eugen, on their attempted breakout into the North Atlantic.  Based on reports signaled by cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk, which had picked up Bismarck on her way through Denmark Strait, Admiral Holland in Hood made contact with Bismarck in Denmark Strait on the morning of 24 MAY 1941.

Admiral Holland ordered his ships to close the range, and shortly before 0600 both sides opened fire.  Bismarck’s fifth salvo hit the Hood amidships, piercing her inadequate deck armor and penetrating a secondary armament magazine.  Its detonation touched off the after main armament magazine, resulting in a catastrophic explosion which tore the ship in half.  The wreckage sank in a matter of minutes.  Of Hood’s crew of over 1400 men, there were only three survivors.

The shock of Hood’s loss stunned Britain, as if a pillar of the Empire itself had been knocked away.  Prime Minister Churchill instantly gave destruction of the Bismarck priority over every other operation, and the Royal Navy mounted the epic pursuit of the Bismarck that culminated in her loss, and the removal of a dire threat to the North Atlantic supply lifeline that sustained Britain.

For more information, visit the HMS Hood Society at http://www.hmshood.com.

Posted by Tannenberg     on 05/24/2005 at 01:49 PM   
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   Saturday - April 16, 2005

Speaking of People Who Need Killin’

Let’s put Saddam in the Lethal Injection Express Lane. For those Moonbats who believe that we shouldn’t be in Iraq, take a look at what Saddam was up to before we got there. Mass graves…

You have to park those M1A1 tanks somewhere. They are doing a lot more good in Baghdad than Fort Hood. Why not park them on Saddam’s head?

Posted by Yellow Dog     on 04/16/2005 at 10:09 AM   
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   Thursday - April 14, 2005

Band Of Sisters

Remember Jessica Lynch? The young female Army private who was captured, tortured and finally rescued from Iraqi insurgents two years ago? The media made a big deal out of it and a TV special movie was made about her experience.

What you may not know is the story of a friend and fellow soldier of Lynch named Lori Piestewa. Piestewa was a native American of the Hopi Indians in Arizona. She was a single mother with two very small children, aged 3 and 4. She is also the only Native American female soldier killed on foreign soil. Lori was killed in the same attack where Jessica Lynch was captured.

Jessica Lynch has not forgotten her fallen sister and has quietly gone about the task of making a dream come true that she and Lori talked about many times while they were serving in Iraq .... building a nice home for Lori’s parents. Next week, Lori’s parents will move out of their battered, overstuffed mobile home in Tuba City, Arizona and into a new $500,000 house north of Flagstaff, with a glorious view of the San Francisco Peaks, courtesy of the popular ABC program Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

How did this happen?

They were nominated for the home by Lori’s best friend, former POW Jessica Lynch, whose riveting story of capture and near death dominated the first few weeks of the Iraq war. Lynch also will be assisting in the design of the 4,300-square-foot home, which will be built during the next week by a crew of 1,300 workers from Shea Homes of Phoenix and filled with more than $65,000 worth of furniture. In addition to the new home, the ABC program is arranging for a new Navajo Nation Veterans Office to be built in Tuba City, also within the next week.

All thanks to Jessica Lynch remembering her friend and the dream her friend had .... and then making that dream come true. My hat is off to Jessica Lynch and I pray for the soul of Lori Piestewa. Honor, duty and sacrifice are one thing .... this is something else entirely. Something very few people outside the mlitary seem to understand.

In Memoriam:
Lori Piestewa

Memo: From all of us here at BMEWS .... thanks, Jessica.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/14/2005 at 03:51 PM   
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   Wednesday - April 13, 2005

Taking Names And Kicking Ass In Mosul

Damn! I loved reading this story about our troops in Iraq. It seems they are applying a good old fashioned “whoop-ass” to insurgents in Mosul. What better way to fight the ignorant raghead bastards than to let loose a few former Brooklyn gang members on their pointy little towel-wrapped heads ....

MOSUL, Iraq—From inside a vacant building, Sgt. 1st Class Domingo Ruiz watched through a rifle scope as three cars stopped on the other side of the road. A man carrying a machine gun got out and began to transfer weapons into the trunk of one of the cars.

“Take him down,” Ruiz told a sniper.

The sniper fired his powerful M-14 rifle and the man’s head exploded, several American soldiers recalled. As he fell, more soldiers opened fire, killing at least one other insurgent. After the ambush, the Americans scooped up a piece of skull and took it back to their base as evidence of the successful mission.

The March 12 attack—swift and brutally violent—bore the hallmarks of operations that have made Ruiz, 39, a former Brooklyn gang member, renowned among U.S. troops in Mosul and, in many ways, a symbol of the optimism that has pervaded the military since Iraq’s Jan. 30 elections.

Insurgent attacks in this northern Iraqi city, which numbered more than 100 a week in mid-November, have declined by almost half, according to the military. Indirect attacks—generally involving mortars or rockets—on U.S. bases fell from more than 200 a month in December to fewer than 10 in March. Although figures vary from region to region, attacks also have declined precipitously in other parts of Iraq, creating a growing belief among U.S. commanders that the insurgency is losing potency.

Aawwwwwww (wiping an itty-bitty tear from my eye). I’m so proud of our troops. I’m glad somebody in a brass hat decided to turn loose the home-boys on the ragheads. Now the insurgents are starting to get the point .... mess wid us and we’ll pop a cap in your ass, Ahmed! Word up!

Note: The liberal, pussified Washington Post referred to out troops no less than four times in the article as “ruthless”. Yeah? You got a problem wid dat?

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/13/2005 at 05:29 AM   
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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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