???

Back with more on this shortly, but for now listen to this excerpt from Kerry's comments on the Republican convention.

Terrorist Attack Russian School

Stan, blogging at Logic and Sanity, is translating the latest Russian reports on the terrorist attack.

And yes, I note the irony of the blog title.

Again, warning: some graphic images (I've seen much worse).

The Speech

President Bush concluded his speech last night with an outstanding statement of personal resolve and national commitment to the War on Terror, and a resounding affirmation of his support to those of us in the trenches. In light of today's events, it seems appropriate to review that portion of his remarks:

Our allies also know the historic importance of our work. About 40 nations stand beside us in Afghanistan, and some 30 in Iraq. I deeply appreciate the courage and wise counsel of leaders like Prime Minister Howard, President Kwasniewski, Prime Minister Berlusconi and, of course, Prime Minister Tony Blair.

(APPLAUSE)

Again, my opponent takes a different approach. In the midst of war, he has called American allies, quote, a "coalition of the coerced and the bribed."

AUDIENCE: Boooo.

That would be nations like Great Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, El Salvador, Australia, and others...

(APPLAUSE)

... allies that deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician.

(APPLAUSE)

I respect every soldier, from every country, who serves beside us in the hard work of history. America is grateful, and America will not forget.

(APPLAUSE)

The people we have freed won't forget either. Not long ago, seven Iraqi men came to see me in the Oval Office. They had Xs branded into their foreheads and their right hands had been cut off by Saddam Hussein's secret police, the sadistic punishment for imaginary crimes.

During our emotional visit one of the Iraqi men used his new prosthetic hand to slowly write out, in Arabic, a prayer for God to bless America.

(APPLAUSE)

I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this Earth.

(APPLAUSE)

Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate.

(APPLAUSE)

They know that men and women with hope and purpose and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent.

(APPLAUSE)

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

Us Democrats R Serieous!

George Bush: Unfit for command, savage rapist.

To Russia, With Love

First-hand reports begin to emerge from a school a few miles to my east:

The Washington Post

BESLAN, Russia, Sept. 2 -- Teenager Sado Nazriyv was excited about the first day of school. He put on his pressed white shirt and his fancy black suit and joined his lifelong friend, Kazbek Dzaragasov, in front of the red-brick School No. 1 for opening-day ceremonies.

A pop song from the 1980s played on the speakers, a musty oldie, something about childhood, a song about innocence.

"As soon as the song ended," Sado recalled, "the terrorists showed up."

Just like that, the elation of a day of flowers and family in this little town in southern Russia dissolved into a nightmare that would be broadcast across the world. A small army of guerrillas, some in black, some in camouflage, some with masks, some without, stormed through the schoolyard with rifles and explosives Wednesday morning, barking orders at hundreds of students and parents.

"Lie on the ground!" they shouted.

Most of the students complied. Sado and Kazbek did not.

"They started shooting," said Sado, 16, still reeling from the experience a day later. "At first we thought it was a joke. Where I was, there were 10th-grade students and 11th-grade students. We saw them running, and so we started running, too."

Sado and Kazbek raced as fast as they could, bullets whizzing overhead. Sado cut down a side lane, he recalled, but Kazbek did not follow.

Suddenly Kazbek, 15, realized that his younger sister, Agunda, was still back at the school in her third-grade class, a captive of the mysterious attackers. So he turned and rushed back into the school, giving up his escape to become a hostage alongside his terrified sister.

"They're very close kids," said their grandmother, Rosa Dzaragasova, 76. "They're great friends. He just couldn't leave her, so he went back for her."

The last word anyone has had of the teenage boy came Thursday afternoon when one of the women released by the Islamic guerrillas told Sado that she saw Kazbek and his sister huddled together on the floor of the school gymnasium along with hundreds of other hostages.

The Los Angeles Times

Zalina Dzandarova cradles her son Alan as he sleeps with his small face buried against her stomach. He is the child Dzandarova was able to save. The child she chose to save, really.

It is the other one, little Alana, her 6-year-old daughter, whose image torments her: Alana clutching her hand, Alana crying and calling after her. Alana's sobs disappearing into the distance as Dzandarova walked out of Middle School No. 1 here Thursday, clutching 2-year-old Alan in her arms.

Guerrillas armed with automatic rifles and explosive belts who are holding hundreds of hostages at the small provincial school in southern Russia allowed 26 women and children to leave. About a dozen mothers, like Dzandarova, were allowed to take only one child, forced to leave another behind.

"I didn't want to make this choice," a stunned-looking Dzandarova, 27, said in the reception room of her father-in-law's house a few miles from the school. "People say they are happy that my son and I are saved. But how can I be happy if my daughter's still inside there?"

And the Moscow Times

BESLAN, North Ossetia -- When the armed attackers seized School No. 1, they separated the men from the women and children and marched them up to the second floor.

The men, most of them teachers, were lined up against the wall.

This is when Yury Ailarov, a father who had accompanied his daughter to school on Wednesday morning with his wife, decided not to stick around.

He jumped out of the second-floor window, according to his friend Pyotr Sidarov, who said he visited Ailarov in the hospital where he was being treated for two broken arms and a concussion.

Ailarov started crawling toward the road. The hostage-takers, apparently not wanting to shoot at him from the windows because it would expose them to sniper fire, tossed grenades out the window at him. Seeing what was happening, troops outside the school threw smoke grenades to provide cover and pulled him to safety, Sidarov told a reporter Thursday.

Ailarov feared that the attackers were planning to kill all of the men, according to his friend.

Troops stationed closest to the school said another man who escaped told them that 12 to 13 men were killed, which jibes roughly with information from the command center that 12 people were killed inside the school.

The troops said seven bodies, of men and women, were dumped out of a second-floor window. The bodies were not visible from behind the cordon.

The bodies of two men who were killed during the initial siege were seen lying on the road, still too close to the school to be safely retrieved. One of the men had leaped out of his car without turning off the engine, and it continued to run the rest of the morning and afternoon. His body lay nearby, propped up against a lamppost.

Late Wednesday night, one of the troops called his commanding officer on the radio with a grim request.

"Can we shoot the dogs? They are chewing on the bodies," said the man, who gave only his first name, Oleg. The officer turned down the request, saying that any shooting could alarm the hostage-takers, and they did not want to risk setting off a firefight or put the hostages' lives in danger. The attackers have threatened to kill 50 children for every one of their own killed.

The War on Terror is real.

Update: Near real-time updates here.

More here, translated from Russian sources (caution, graphic images.) Via Laughing Wolf

Like Bread and Butter

The Washington Times reports:

If Sen. John Kerry is elected president, he will be the first commander in chief whose photograph is honored by a one-time enemy in thanks for helping it defeat the United States in war.

A photo of Mr. Kerry meeting with Vietnamese communist leaders in 1983 hangs in the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the "War Crimes Museum," in Ho Chi Minh City. According to best-selling book "Unfit for Command," that wing honors Americans who helped the North Vietnamese communists chase Americans from the South. Others in the wing include anti-war activist David Miller, who is shown burning his draft card in 1965.

A plaque at the museum quotes from a Vietnamese Communist Party report in 1974 stating that "we would like to thank the communist parties and working class of the countries of the world ... peace-loving countries ... and progressive human beings for their whole-hearted support and strong encouragement to our people's patriotic resistance against the U.S. for national salvation."

A separate women's museum displays a photo of Jane Fonda meeting with Viet Cong Foreign Minister Madame Nguyen Thi Binh.

One wonders if the he'll ever be so honored in capital cities elsewhere in the world.

Addressing a crowd of potential American supporters in Ohio this week, the candidate called the current President of the US "unfit to lead this nation" because of the war in Iraq and his record on jobs, health care and energy. In a rambling monologue displaying possible symptoms of the wear and tear of campaign sleep deprivation, Mr Kerry lashed out at the incumbent and Vice President Dick Cheney for avoiding service in the Vietnam War.

Watching the RNC

I'm sitting in Germany watching the RNC live via CSPAN. I'm also cruising the convention blogs. Kevin Jay Tea at Wizbang is live blogging from MSG, and if you're quick you can join his contest. (But you won't beat me.)

Update: See comments. Live blogging rocks.

Update 2: Well, that's that. But from most of the reviews I've seen, "I Hope You Dance" was exactly the wrong message to end on.

American Soldier

From the WaPo:

In a presidential campaign dominated by issues of war and warriors, perhaps it was inevitable that retired Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks would be heard from.

The commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq -- the man whose angular face and deep voice became synonymous with those wars through his daily television briefings -- announced Tuesday that he supports President Bush and will say so at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.

Sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor Wednesday, Franks said he is a registered Independent in Florida and would have felt more comfortable expressing his support of the president "in the quietude of the voting booth."

He decided to speak up, in his words, after "connecting the dots" -- a phrase from the war on terrorism, not coincidentally -- that reveal what he believes Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry are made of. In language that echoes the president's campaign literature, he said he decided the country needs Bush's "consistency, persistency, leadership and character" to fight terrorism that he sees as a threat to the American way of life.

"So I will become ever more vocal in my support for George Bush," said Franks.

An interesting statement, but one that will likely get little media play. The presence of a dozen senior officers (retired) on stage in Boston was heavily hyped. We'll soon see what comments the group on stage in New York will draw.

Under the Radar

NYC Firefighters endorse Bush.

Great news, though not unexpected.

Not a Day Over 29

Scott Ott reminds us of a birthday - the internet turns 35 today.

We here at the Mudville Gazette are proud to be part of this long tradition. As you should know, the first computers were developed by the military for use in weather forecasting, and between temperature readings those early meteorologists immediately started Milblogs.

Dad first started the Gazette back in '46, as an answer to "Hitlerpundit" and "StalinBlog", the Left's early entries into the blogosphere.

How well I remember him doing all night writing sessions at the building of the Berlin wall and the launch of Sputnik. And I'm convinced that his relentless attack on the Beatles is probably the only thing that stopped them from becoming the most popular rock band in the history of the world.

But soon after the glory days of the moon landing he was covering the tragic downfall of Nixon. (Oh how those loonies at the McGovern-ment for America! Blog gloated!)

But right around that time came the internet, and a real expansion of the MilBlogs as people were finally able to read them. I'll never forget the excitement that caused.

Say... I suppose now would be a good time to reveal that an early blog ("Deep Throat" by name) was the actual source of the story of the Watergate break in?

It's a little known fact.

Like Glenn Reynolds said, "You can learn all sorts of things from reading those blogs."

And if you haven't put one of our cool banners up on your site yet... why not? You've had 35 years...

Secrets Revealed

Not only is the Bush campaign connected to SBVFT, the connection involves... Saaaaatan! (/Church lady voice.)

Governing

Smash is back on his regular site, and wants to match Governors.

But speaking of the Gov, how cool is this? (Via Chromedome.) Smash probably has one from ol' whasisname.

I've got photos of Schwarzenegger visiting the wounded at Landstuhl - I decline to post them here out of respect for privacy concerns for those in them. Plus I don't have any pictures of the speakers at the DNC visiting, and I try to be impartial here.

The Miller Times

Military readers will spot the glaring error:

With two months remaining in a close election, and the pool of undecided voters a small one, Republicans relished the opportunity to place a Democrat out front at their convention. They had their man in Miller, a conservative ex-Marine who minces no words and delivered a keynote address a dozen years ago in the same hall in service of Democrat Bill Clinton.

Glenn says that Miller's been Laphamed. Perhaps the San Diego paper could be forgiven for trying to scoop its rivals...

Rivals like the venerable NY Times, where headlines explain: "Cheney and GOP mont vigorous assault on Kerrey", "Tactics by Police Mute the Protestors and Their Messages"...

But where the name "Miller" will not be found - at least not on the "front page".

Nice picture though. Guess they didn't know who that angry veteran Marine was.

Update: Picture is gone. Search results for "Zell Miller" in NY Times here.

Stories as of 04:30 EDT: Zell Miller, Then and Now (don't miss this top scorer!); Music Is the Message at GOP Convention; Bush Ready to Accept GOP Nomination; Highlights From Speeches by Cheney, Miller; G.O.P., Last to Bat, Swings Freely for the Fences; Cheney and G.O.P. Mount Vigorous Assault on Kerry; and For a Night, Cheney Dons Charisma. Apparently that was all the news that fit.

Of course, had McCain addressed the Democrats in Boston it surely would have been ignored too.

(Convention speech videos here. More here, but from Fox News, so they might be unbalanced.)

Update 2: Dead tree version here. The "GOP" gets a mention. Get it?

Emerging theme of the Democratic response to the Republican convention speeches:

Schwarzenegger is not a Republican
McCain is not a Republican
Zell Miller is not a Democrat

More here

Too Easy

John Kerry spoke to the American Legion today:

"And so a New Soldier has returned to America, to a nation torn apart by the killing we were asked to do. But, unlike veterans of other wars and some of this one, the New Soldier does not accept the old myths.

We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars-in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim.

It is from these things the New Soldier is asking America to turn. We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years.

Whoops, sorry, that was from his '71 collection.

Here's what he said today:

Eighty-five years ago, the American Legion was founded by and for our nation’s veterans. As one of those veterans who benefited from your advocacy and as one of your members, I am honored to accept your invitation to be here today and proud of what the American Legion does every day to advance the ideals of America.

<...>

And while your service and sacrifice are well known, what is not as well known is how hard we fought after we returned from service to keep faith with our fellow soldiers.

In a fashion reminiscent of Ghenghis Kahn...?

Update: Did you know that John Kerry was in Cambodia? More here. Note that no major media outlet would have phrased that question just so. Though apparently nervous, McAuliffe seemed convinced that he could treat bloggers like some underachieving in-law, unworthy of time or effort. Surely at this stage he knows better?

Now here's something closer to the present, though not seared into the candidates memory.

Worth Noting

Think about this: Hugh Hewitt has both Terry McAuliffe and Karl Rove interviews on his blog.

You could possibly argue that he's a radio man first and foremost, and brings certain advantages to the table, but I'm not certain he'd agree.

Meanwhile, Here in Germany

David's Medienkritik takes a look at Der Spiegel's recent analysis of Abu Ghraib. (Hint: Hitler and Stalin are mentioned.)

Good stuff there, be sure to hit his main page and scroll a bit for NYC protest photos and this example of blog triumph. (Or perhaps MSM retreat is a better term?)

Good Day

A close up look at business as usual in Baghdad:

Lt. Kevin Irvin thought something was wrong Monday when he looked through a window in the al-Shaab district of Baghdad and saw what looked like a bookstore dedicated to rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Irvin of North Little Rock called the headquarters of Bravo Company, Arkansas' 39th Infantry Brigade, and reported he was going to search the compound. Company commander Lt. Keith Wilson of Sherwood was in the al-Shaab Iraqi police station at the time, listening to a policeman tell him the location of a nearby command center for al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Irvin and Wilson didn't know they were focusing on the same building.

<...>

Inside, soldiers captured two Mahdi Army fighters, weapons, ammunition, grenades, mortars and piles of paperwork on Mahdi Army operations.

Among the paperwork were passes for Iraqi workers to enter Forward Operating Base Gunslinger, headquarters for 3rd Battalion and Bravo Company's home. "Here's one that allows a contractor to come and go without escort," Irvin said, holding up one of the plastic cards as he dug through piles of paper in the building's courtyard. "That's scary."

As is this simple method for planting mines under pavement:

By the end of the day, Bravo Company would unearth four roadside bombs. Two had been embedded in the asphalt, buried in a hole in the road created by a burning tire. Insurgents scraped away the melted asphalt, placed a 155 mm artillery round in the hole and refilled the hole with asphalt. The naked eye saw only a wire sticking up out of the road. In the north of al-Shaab, Delta Company detained a man stopped at a traffic checkpoint who was carrying $60 million Iraqi dinar - the equivalent of $60,000. A vapor tracer, which detects the residue of explosives, indicated that the hands that handled the money had handled explosives. The money was believed to be the profits from a weapons deal in al-Shaab.

<...>

When Irvin's platoon burst into the "Islam Center for Solitude," they didn't realize what they'd found. The center's name was neatly painted above the door in red and blue. A box in the courtyard near a scattering of prayer rugs held worn prayer stones.

Inside, however, soldiers found a badly beaten man chained in a room, a makeshift clinic, hand grenades, an RPK machine gun, AK-47 rifles, an SKS rifle, rocket propelled grenades, artillery shells, electronic switches, Mahdi Army uniforms and a Browning .30-caliber machine gun.

Within the clinic were vials of Valium and an anti-psychotic medicine. Third Battalion medical officials believe interrogators used the mixture to force information from a subject.

<...>

As the patrol drove off, two rocket-propelled grenades were launched from a house. Both missed.

"This was a pretty good day," Lawless said. "It was a good find and nobody got blown up."

Guess wherever you are, good days are relative.

But for those who read the story to the end, this gem was waiting, explaining the real bright side of the news:

Wilson said that was in part because of the people of al-Shaab. They told the soldiers about the command center and of other dangers.

"As we were finding all this, we had a lot of people come up to us, giving us information," Wilson said. "There's still a lot of good people here. They realize the Mahdi Army's impeding our progress in helping them out."

A bit of progress from the Thunder Run, at least.

Axis of Weasels?

If you're not reading the Moscow Times every day then you're probably missing stories like this one:

SOCHI, Southern Russia -- The leaders of Russia, France and Germany pledged Tuesday to work toward bringing stability to Iraq, but they gave no concrete details about what steps they would take.

The three-way summit at President Vladimir Putin's residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi brought together the leaders for the third time since they united in strong opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Putin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac have since toned down their criticism, but each made clear their concern Tuesday about the troubled security situation in Iraq.

"We have an interest in contributing everything possible to lead to stabilizing the situation," Putin said, without elaborating, at a news conference.

Or this one

Russian arms companies can sell weapons to the new Iraqi government, according to a decree by President Vladimir Putin published on the Kremlin's web site Monday.

While the move is a formality that brings Russia into line with a United Nations resolution from June, analysts said, it could signal that an arms deal with Iraq is now under discussion.

Courtesy of the Kremlin - the kibosh on crappy Kalashnikovs for the kids in Karballah.

Can't wait to see what the French and German contributions to stability in Iraq will be.

A First?

New York: 900 protest-related arrests in NYC bring total to 1,460.

Two hundred of those arrested were going to march from the hole where the World Trade Center once stood to Madison Square Garden where they would hold a "die-in", apparently to bring attention to the deaths in the war on terror.

Certainly the citizens of Russia and Israel would sympathize with the plight of those unfortunate demonstrators, denied such a fundamental human right as the right to protest.

Given that there is certainly no shortage of useful causes in our far-from-perfect world for well meaning people to devote themselves to, what is it about the Republicans that so angers so many that they take to the streets? What message do they so fear hearing that they ignore it, and hope to block others from hearing it too?

Apparently it's at least partly the GOP ridicule of wounded veterans, don't you know.

Damn Republicans.

The Democrats do have one person fit to stand on the same stage with Giuliani, Schwarzenegger, and Bush. Sadly for them, he's going to.

Now that's a protest.

Overheard Today

Bob Kerrey, on NBC's Today responding to Katie Couric's question about the Swift vets and John Kerry (transcript not available, quote not direct):

...they hate him for what he did in '71, for what he did in '91...

An interesting admission, presumably evoking the Senator's "Ghengis Kahn" testimony, his discarding of his medals, etc., and his vote against Operation Desert Storm.

Odd way to defend a friend.

Update: This guy could blog, if he wanted. Kudos to the WaPo.

Censored

The Pentagon recently ran into difficulties obtaining the rights to include some copyrighted material in a video made to teach employees to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The video also includes historic clips from the 1996 Olympics, the exploration of Titanic wreckage in 1986 and Hank Aaron hitting his record-breaking 714th home run in 1974. Those clips and others were copyrighted by organizations that would not give permission to release them, said C.Y. Talbot, chief of the Defense Department's Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review.

The Army lawyer, Council, said her law staff recently asked the organizations again for their permission and were denied. ``We couldn't get approval; we did our darnedest,'' she said.

Interestingly,

Citing the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press asked the Pentagon for a copy of the video nearly 18 months ago. The Defense Department released an edited version of the tape and acknowledged the irony of censoring a video promoting government openness.

but

Legal experts challenged the Pentagon's refusal to release the entire video, arguing it was improper under the Freedom of Information Act -- the subject of the videotape itself -- for the government to withhold records because they include copyrighted material.

Be careful what you ask for, people, because from reading these reviews, the video sounds like the same quality of stuff I have to put up with seeing on a routine basis, courtesy of Armed Forces Television.

``It was a little childish,'' said Jim Klotz, a UFO researcher in Seattle who also asked for the tape. Klotz routinely asks for federal documents and thought the government's own training video might be helpful. ``It wasn't bad; it covered the basics,'' he said.

Michael Powell, a Rice University student in Houston, asked for the tape for his graduate studies on information laws. ``Aesthetically, it was horrible,'' he said. ``The main character was obviously intended to be like Humphrey Bogart and had this terrible Bogart accent the whole way through.'

Welcome to my world, Mike.

The whole story seems rather silly, actually, a bit of news I didn't expect to find in the New York Times. Not sure if the news is slow in New York this week or the editors just couldn't resist the chance to run this headline:

A quote from the film:

Releasing or denying access to records can be a tricky business,'' the narrator says, impersonating Bogart. ``In the end it will be up to you to do the right thing and provide as much help as you can.

After all, we wouldn't want to upset the media, would we?

Company's Coming!

Better get ready!

Then take them to see this new movie.

And here's a letter:

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth P.O. Box 26184 Alexandria, Virginia 22313

August 31, 2004

Senator John Kerry
901 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Senator Kerry:

As you prepare for your address before the American Legion in Nashville, Tennessee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth encourages you to use this opportunity to clarify your actions in Vietnam and your statements about your fellow Veterans and shipmates when you returned home. Since you have made your four-month tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of your campaign, we respectfully insist that you be truthful. The public is owed a full and honest accounting of your actions. Veterans are owed an apology from you and an acknowledgement that there was no basis in fact for the accusations you made against them.

We urge you to:

1. Apologize for your conduct once you returned from Vietnam. Your exaggerated testimony before the US Senate; the blanket indictment of your fellow veterans; throwing away medals and ribbons; all of these actions dishonored America and the armed forces. Your rhetoric and actions were not only wrong, they aided the enemy and brought great pain to POW's, veterans and their families.

2. Clarify the conflicting accounts involving the Bay Hap River incident of March 13, 1969 (Bronze Star and 3rd Purple Heart). You have now described three different versions of this incident. In the first version of this incident presented during the Democrat National Convention, you stated: "No man left behind," suggesting to the American people that you alone stayed on the river to rescue Mr. Rassmann. Later, when forced to acknowledge conflicting eyewitness testimony from fellow swift boat veterans, you said that your boat left the scene to return moments later to retrieve Jim Rassmann from the water. Yet, in another version of the same incident discovered in the Congressional Record, you reported that your boat struck a mine and Rassmann fell off the boat. Mr. Kerry, please explain to your fellow veterans and the American people which version is the truth.

3. Affirm that the injuries for which you received your purple hearts never required any medical treatment beyond perhaps a bandage and that, in all instances, these injuries were self-inflicted and came from your own weapon. Further, that if any of these purple hearts were falsely awarded, that you would not have been eligible to leave Vietnam after serving only four months.

4. Acknowledge what your own biographer is now saying, that the Christmas in Cambodia claim is "obviously wrong," that you were never in Cambodia over Christmas or any other time during your brief, four-month tour in Vietnam and that your statements before the United States Senate in 1986 were false.

If you undertake these steps we will be satisfied that the American public has been sufficiently apprised as to these aspects of your career, and we will discontinue the media advertisements you have sought so fervently to silence.

Please know that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are eager to close our own personal chapters on Vietnam and instead focus on the war we're currently fighting — the ongoing war on terrorism. In the absence of full public disclosure and a public apology, we will continue efforts to carry our message to an ever-expanding base of grassroots supporters.

Senator Kerry, we want to get Vietnam behind us. But, we can only do so if the truth is told.

We respectfully await your reply.

Sincerely,

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Is There Any Good News?

Sig Christenson, San Antonio Express-News military writer, offers a long (but well worth reading) editorial in which he struggles to come to grips with the shifting relationship between the media and the military

A familiar Iraqi street scene plays out on a flat-screen TV in the office of the U.S. Central Command's No. 2 man here.

Shot from an RQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, the image captures Iraqis in traditional Arab dress walking onto a street in Mosul near a set of earthtone homes.

"You're looking at a city that didn't look very much different than any community in the United States," said Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy chief of the U.S. Central Command. "Traffic all over the place, people all over the streets, commerce going on, and they don't have mortars going off and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) blowing up and all that stuff all the time."

That's the Iraq he thinks many Americans never see or read about. It's an argument as old as the U.S.-led occupation and tends to be made by some in the military and supporters of President Bush. Once a whisper, the claim is now a roar. "You're not telling the good news stories," they say.

Between occasional attempts at balance, the piece seems to lurch back and forth between an enthusiastic defense of the media position and a rather meager attempt to deflect blame for any disconnect to the highest levels in the Pentagon. Perhaps oblivious to his own shortsightedness, the author doesn't hesitate to espouse the Iraq quagmire and Rumsfeld bad mantra that is likely the core of the complaint that so many in my profession would lodge against so many in his.

Embedding reporters with troops was a great step toward repairing a strained relationship between the media and military that dated to the Vietnam War. But the natural friction between journalists and the military has risen as the lightning invasion has morphed into a quagmire. <...> Smith, Central Command's deputy chief, is weary of the Western media's focus on terrorist bombings, insurgent attacks and the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal. Such reports overshadow a "vibrant" economy in Baghdad, a city that has "an awful lot of activity that's positive." <...> As he sat in his office July 8, after a two-day tour of Iraq with Express-News photographer Ed Ornelas and myself, Smith complained that Western media were still focused on Abu Ghraib.

"Abu Ghraib isn't a big story with the Arab media anymore. The turnover of the government, the future of Iraq, the folks that are dying senselessly, those are issues for the Arab media," he said. "But (the U.S. media) keeps wanting to get drawn back to this small group of people that humiliated a small group of Iraqis who in general were not good people to begin with."

But in the minds of many, Abu Ghraib is now about one thing and one thing only - getting Rummy - and it is (artificially) divorced from the situation on the ground in Iraq. The lust for the secdef is revealed in later passages:

..."At the Pentagon, there is a lot of bad blood between the Army and the office of the secretary of defense, and that makes reporting difficult. Also, many senior officers have the perception that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and those around him don't want generals to talk to reporters."

One journalist said reporters have become "increasingly cynical" about the Rumsfeld-led Pentagon's candor. He voiced suspicions that the White House and Pentagon have run a "concerted campaign to blame the media" for some of the failings in Iraq.

"I think the question of balanced coverage is a fair one. But demonizing one side or blaming the media for the unstable situation on the ground is telling."

<...>

Ricks and other reporters agree the low point came when Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz this summer told the House Armed Services Committee, "Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and publish rumors."

Now if anyone can provide an example of anything the Pentagon tried to "blame" on the media, I'd truly like to see the quote. The more I read of this, the more I wonder about what drove it - has the failure of the press become so catastrophic? Has the desire to paint a picture so detrimental to the current administration now completely overwhelmed objectivity, restraint, and judgment of the average reporter, to the point that truth has become a casualty of a war - the war being fought in America, for votes?

Christenson notes:

It's convenient for the Bush administration and its supporters to make journalists the object of scorn for flawed policies and an obvious failure to do their homework. It is especially convenient to do so in an election year.

Journalists filing flimsy stories might be tired, stressed, under deadline pressure or lazy, but it's a stretch to imagine that any of us wake up in Iraq each morning thinking about how to trash Bush or the military."

But if he's truly interested in finding the source of mistrust that military commanders may harbor for reporters, he may want to look to Baghdad '03 before accusing Washington '04:

Wesley had been monitoring BBC radio that morning to find out how the news of the thunder run was playing. He had listened to Mohammed Said al-Sahaf, Iraq's bombastic information minister, deliver a taunting news conference at the Palestine Hotel on the east bank of the Tigris, just six kilometers from where Robert Ball had made the wrong turn off the spaghetti junction. Sahaf claimed that no American forces had entered the city and that Iraqi troops had slaughtered hundreds of American "scoundrels" at the airport.

"Today we butchered the force present at the airport," Sahaf had said,. "We are hitting them with rockets and artillery and surprising them with tactics that are new" -- apparently a reference to suicide cars and trucks. "Today the tide has turned, " he went on. "We are destroying them." Sahaf instructed Iraqi civilians to alert the armed forces to any American troop movements and to maintain "calm, good organization - to confront the enemy effectively, conquer them and force them to retreat accursed and defeated."

Wesley related Sahaf's outlandish claims to Perkins. He also told him that the BBC was reporting that its reporters had not seen any American tanks in Baghdad that morning, and had concluded that there had been no American presence inside the capital. Perkins pursed his lips and shook his head. Sahaf was starting to irritate him. It galled him that soldiers had driven so hard to penetrate the city, only to have a buffoon in a beret belittle them to the world. And the BBC wasn't even disputing Sahaf’s rants. Worse, Perkins thought, enemy fighters who had not actually seen his brigade's tanks that day would now believe their own propaganda. That only motivated them to fight harder in a doomed cause. He felt like driving his tanks up to the Ministry of Information in the city center to shut Sahaf up.

Then later, in the mission briefing:

Perkins mentioned Sahaf, the information minister. He had to admit it - he was becoming obsessed with that cocky little functionary in his military costume and ridiculous beret. Perkins didn't want to spin his own lies and propaganda. He just wanted the truth to get out. "So we're going to the back of the room where they give the news conferences and ask a couple questions - and ask for validation for parking for a hundred tanks, " he said.

Thunder Run, again.

Of course we all laughed at "Baghdad Bob" - but the reality was that Iraqi citizens out the next day under cover of nothing but a false sense of security were caught in a cross fire and never made it back home.

I certainly wouldn't want to be accused of blaming the media, but how many died as a result of reporting like this?:

SADDAM HUSSEIN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - So where are the Americans? I prowled the empty departure lounges, mooched through the abandoned customs department, chatted to the seven armed militia guards, met the airport director and stood beside the runways where two dust-covered Iraqi Airways passenger jets -- an old 727 and an even more elderly Antonov -- stood forlornly on the runway not far from an equally decrepit military helicopter.

And all I could hear was the distant whisper of high-flying jets and the chatter of the flocks of birds which have nested near the airport car park on this, the first day of real summer in Baghdad.

The shooting and bad reporting continues to this day. Lets forgive the generals if they decline to offer any intrepid reporter their full and complete trust. We'll assume their motives are something beyond the story.

That Mr. Christensen seems to think the discussion is one of politics, vice human lives, is an interesting revelation in and of itself.

Ooops

I mean, uh, well you know, uh... well, um...

Update: I mean, well, you know, I wouldn't let my supposed bias interfere with my objectivity, er...

Update 2: Um, er, well...

Guard Soldier in Iraq to Lose Civilian Job?

An interesting story from Hawaii:

State Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Tamayo, a National Guard soldier who volunteered for service in Iraq after she had filed for re-election, said yesterday she will not campaign for a second term.

"After thorough research, it is clear that Department of Defense rules will prohibit me from performing my legislative responsibilities while on active military duty in Iraq," she said at a press conference yesterday at the state Capitol.

State law, however, requires that Tamayo's name remain on the ballot. She declined to say whether she will resign if elected, or whether she will endorse another candidate for her office.

Because Department of Defense regulations limit campaign activities, Tamayo, D-42nd (Waipahu, Honouliuli, 'Ewa), said she felt prohibited from disclosing much about her political intentions. She said she had stopped all political activities after being placed on active duty two weeks ago.

During the press conference, Tamayo called the possibility of being elected and being unable to perform her duties "unacceptable."

"My goal is to actually be of service, not just to hold onto my position," she said.

<...>

Tamayo is among some 2,000 Hawai'i National Guard members who reported for active duty two weeks ago as part of an 18-month mission that will include service in Iraq.

"Although I was not activated," Tamayo wrote in her statement, "I volunteered to go with (her fellow Guardsmen) because I felt it was my duty as a soldier and a friend to join them in the service of our country."

Pentagon officials said earlier this month that Tamayo is not prohibited under federal law from holding office while serving on active duty, but would be forbidden from conducting any of the duties of her office.

Tamayo said she did not know that would be the case when she volunteered for duty in Iraq.

Emphasis added.

We'll hope her political opponents will refrain from suggesting she's 'AWOL', or otherwise questioning the character of her service.

Not Sure if CNN Covered It...

Smash has returned from active duty and is blogging on his backup site, where he provides a first-hand account of a San Diego "peace" protest turned violent.

A nice welcome home, eh?

The Whole Truth

This Washington Post article is one of many pretending to authoritatively "set the record staight" on the abuses at Abu Ghraib:

But the senior officers cited for indirectly allowing the abuse to flourish at the Abu Ghraib prison will not face charges under the findings of an Army report issued this week -- a fact that three Army generals explained and defended yesterday in interviews. Those in the U.S. command structure who failed to supervise their subordinates, who handed down unclear and in some cases illegal policies, and who ignored signs of abuse were found in Army reports to be "responsible" for the problems but not "culpable" because they did not have a direct hand in the mistreatment.

"That's the differentiation that's being made," Gen. Paul J. Kern -- who supervised the Army's most recent investigation, by Marine Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones -- said in an interview yesterday with Washington Post editors and reporters. "Are we letting them off the hook? I don't think so. In fact, we put the spotlight on them and said, 'You didn't do your job right.' "

Love the "responsible" but not "culpable" - apparently the full quote wouldn't get the point across, so we're down to using just two words.

Small problem:

An Aug. 27 article about an Army report on abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq incorrectly identified George R. Fay as a Marine general. Fay is in the Army, and his rank is major general.

Hmmmm, Marines, Army... whatever. A "minor" mistake. Not sure from the correction who's "responsible" or "culpable" though. Doesn't matter - certainly the remaining details are "right".

MilBloggers

Our first MilBlogger from England, welcome Kommentariat to the MilBlogs Ring! Spanning the globe like no other news organization ever.

Back stateside, Vietnam veteran Bill Faith is blogging up a storm. Scroll scroll scroll...

For Your Pleasure

Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth.

Sooner or later, the past comes out.

(Via Blackfive)

Will the wounds never heal?

Matthew's Complaint

Blogger Matthew Gross has issues with CNN:

Several hundred thousand people peacefully protested George Bush today in New York, and at 9:30 pm, it ain't on the frigging TV. Not even a mention on Headline News.

I guess it didn't happen. Headline News just left its first segment, and gave me a teaser for "Southern Storms."

I'll wait with baited breath, CNN.

Yes, and in the meantime we'll have to settle for coverage from Reuters, AP, the New York Times, MSNBC, the NY Times (yes, again - hey, it's local!) and, uh... well... CNN. (and on CNN TV here and here and... well, okay, anyway, unbait your breath.)

But will the lament change if middle America doesn't respond warmly to this sort of reporting:

But individual protesters kept tensions high, some of them hissing or cursing at well-heeled couples heading to popular Broadway musicals like "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

"Republican murderers go home and kill your babies!" one young man yelled at theatergoers, a far cry from local public service messages urging New Yorkers to "make nice" to party delegates in the city for the four-day convention, where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.

A second protester shoved a middle-aged woman in a black cocktail dress, shouting:

"Bitch, go home! We don't want you here!" At one point, police cordoned off a city block after several dozen demonstrators jeered and razzed the incoming audience.

Of course the cry will change, to this:

Let's see... the NYC police announced 134 arrests today. I estimated the crowd size to be "well over" 250,000. But, for the sake of you mathematicians from Michigan State University... let's make it easy for you and say "100,000." 134/100,000 equals a little over 1/10 of 1 percent. So, the crowd was 99.9 percent peaceful today. Humble pie, my friends?

A fair complaint perhaps - but the planes that land safely don't make the news, you know? And you know, I'm no Jethro, but I got me one of them calculators on my computer (I stuck it on with gloo) and I calculated this:

Population NYC: 8 million
Number protestors: 100,000
Percentage of people of NY protesting: 1.25%

Which works only as long as we ignore the busses that brought our fearless violators of Ashcroft's ban on free speech into town from points near and far. As long as we're doing math, you know. And hey! That wasn't reported either!!!!. But really, who's counting?

Certainly not Tim Blair. (Drink alert. Go.)

Update: More here, including an explanation of the caskets.

By the way, you're registered to vote, aren't you?

Johnny

(With apologies to Mr. Kipling and the British Army)

Johnny went public with ‘is boasts, an’ ‘ero without fear,
“Til sudden like the Swifties say, “We got a turncoat ‘ere.”
The Libs they just ignored ‘em, sayin’ “Ah, it’s all a lie!”
Then Johnny’s outted by their ads an’ to myself says I:

Oh it’s Johnny this an’ Johnny that, ‘e’s the ‘ero of the day.
But it’s wait now, Mr. Kerry, what’s that record really say?
The horns are loudly blowin’ boys as our band begins to play,
An’ it’s goodbye, Mr. Kerry, as they blow your arse away.

Johnny goes to Cincinnati sober as a man can be,
An’ they give ol’ George a “Bravo Lad!” but John no sympathy.
They give ‘im plain their message, sittin’ silent in the ‘alls,
That when it comes to fightin’ men, they know oo’s got the balls.

For it’s Johnny this an’ Johnny that, but wait, he might ‘a lied
From the platform of his campaign train an’ on the Boston tide.
His ship is on the tide, my boys, his ship is on the tide,
An’ it’s plain as day she’s sinkin’ boys, because the turncoat lied.

Yes Johnny mocked our uniforms that guard you while you sleep.
He cheapened all our medals throwing his upon that heap;
An’ rustlin’ up his phony troops, he led them for a bit,
Until his aspirations and theirs no longer fit.

Now it’s Johnny this an’ Johnny that, an’ Johnny how’s yer soul,
In that brave front rank of ‘eroes as our drums begin their roll?
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
An’ they’ll keep right on a rollin’ boys, ‘til we chuck ‘im in the hole.

We make no claim as ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But ‘onorable men an’ warriors fightin’ once agin for you.
An’ if your ‘ero’s record, our charges soundly taint,
That’s what we’re tryin’ to tell you blokes, your ‘ero ain’t no saint.

For it’s Johnny this an’ Johnny that, an’ “Check him out, the Loot!”
Was ‘e the “Savior of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot?
Now it’s Johnny’s turn to prove us wrong, an’ make us all out liars,
By signin’ that one eighty form an’ puttin out the fires.

Oh it’s Johnny this an’ Johnny that, ‘e’s the ‘ero of the day,
But it’s hold on, Mr. Kerry, what’s that record really say?
The horns are loudly blowin’ boys, as our band begins to play,
“Cheerio, Old Man,” to Johnny and blows his arse away.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

(Greyhawk's note: More from Russ here, here, and here)

Bad Form

CNN's American Morning reports it wasn't just Drudge:

Some drama last night on the stage of the MTV Video Music Awards involving the daughters of presidential candidate John Kerry. Our pop culture correspondent, Toure, is joining me now live from Miami with more on all of this.

Toure, good morning. Beautiful shot behind you there.

TOURE, CNN POP CULTURE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi. How are you?

COLLINS: I'm great. Listen, I want to get straight to the sound of this. A little bit unexpected event last night, when Vanessa and Alexandra about halfway through the show or so took to the microphones. Let's go ahead and listen for a minute.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANESSA KERRY, JOHN KERRY'S DAUGHTER: It's good to be here with you all tonight in Florida and to get this chance...

(BOOING)

KERRY: And get this chance...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So, Toure, I understand you had a chance to talk with Vanessa. We want to go ahead and listen to what she said about that incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: I was scared out of my mind. I mean, I grabbed my sister, and I thought, what is happening? And -- but it doesn't matter, because we're fighting for something that I believe in so strongly. I will go up there and hear the whole arena boo if it means connecting with one person.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COLLINS: So Toure, did she connect?

TOURE: She did connect. I mean, most people cheered. But there were a lot of boos. And you could hear that.

And it was kind of a difficult moment for her. And, as she said, she was really scared by that. But, you know, they're really focused on helping their dad.

And MTV made it a nonpartisan moment by bringing in the Bush twins by videotape. So it was kind of a together moment. I mean, the whole night, there was a political subtext just saying, like, vote, everybody get out and be part of the system.

COLLINS: But, Toure, you know, we just did a series last week on sort of the lines being blurred between politics and entertainment. I'm just wondering, do you think the crowd was like, hey, this isn't why I'm here. I don't want to hear about politics. Do you think that could have been part of it?

TOURE: I think maybe part of it. I mean, you know, this is -- this is such a battleground state, it's such a passionate election. And I think people who really believe in the president were like boo to you. But why would you boo somebody's daughter?

The guy's from JET, the rock band said, you know, it's like if James Hetfield's daughter or son was walking down the street, James Hetfield from Metallica, and they would boo like the son, like "We don't like your dad's band, boo." Like, you know, they're just kids trying to help their parents.

Well, guess that explains it.

Update: Video here.

Note the ladies glance backwards when the booing begins to see just who the object of that scorn may be. No doubt that was a chilling moment, when they realized for whom that bell tolled.

But you'll feel foolish to learn (after reading the above report and watching the event with your own eyes) that according to this CNN story the crowd was booing the Bush twins, most likely in some sort of anticipatory response.

(Update links via Instapundit)

Regardless of who was booing who... note the title of this post.

Update 2: Matthew Gross explains it all.

Happy Birthday!

Aging sure beats the alternative. One year wiser? We'll all benefit from that.

Cause The Streets of NYC is Just No Place For...

Roger Simon reports from the streets man:

Cops were everywhere. It was fun talking to them. One of them said to me, "It's like fuggin' 9/11 never happened." His buddies seemed to agree.

But what can a poor boy do, 'cept to sing for a rock n' roll band...?

CPR Needed?

Does this man have redeeming qualities? (The subject, of course, not the author.)

Can anyone provide a few?

Vote Nader if you must.

The Quick and the Dead

I've said this before, I'm glad he's on our side.

The Boyd column is an embarrassment to himself and to his colleagues on the editorial pages and to the entire paper. In an age of accountability, he would be fired. Because the Strib's editorial pages have long ago given up on even a remote association with intellectual honesty, he will instead be treated to sympathetic slaps on the back and mutterings about the right wing --and left secure in his poisoned view of the world as were southern slave owners were in the face of the abolitionist movement, and the appeasers upon hearing from Churchill throughout the '30s that they had judged developments on the continent wrongly. Clinging to discredited certainties is a sure sign of a fool or a fanatic. Boyd doesn't have the talent to be the latter.

I think the concept is applicable to more than a few people, on more than a few current topics.

This piece has another withering quote from Hugh:

"I have been both a lawyer/law professor for two decades and a television/radio/print journalist for 15 years of those 20," Hugh Hewitt blogged. "It takes a great deal more intelligence and discipline to be the former than to be the latter, which is why the former usually pays a lot more than the latter. It is no surprise to me, then, when lawyers/law professors like those at Powerline and Instapundit prove to be far more adept at exposing the 'Christmas-in-Cambodia' lie and other Kerry absurdities than old-school journalists."

I'm inclined to agree on the relative difficulties (allowing for exceptions) but note that neither latin nor words of over two syllables are required for a truly effective denouement:

"Never pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel": That's old wisdom. The new wisdom -- being taught to a guy at the Star Tribune -- is don't pick a fight with guys who buy pixels by the passel. And who know how to use Google.

So says Glenn.

Now go read Powerline.

Thunder Run

Another passage from Thunder Run, this one dealing with a tank that had been forced to drop behind the main column. In attempting to rejoin the battalion the crew missed a turn, and instead of heading for the airport found themselves driving alone into the heart of Baghdad:

Suddenly they were rolling into a traffic circle - Qahtain Square in the Yarmouk section of Baghdad. Gruneisen radioed the captain: "Did you go through a traffic circle?"

"Negative,"

Iraqi military trucks were parked along the square. Soldiers were milling around. It was a staging area for attacks on the column. The tank rumbled into the square. The Iraqi soldiers stared up at the big tan machine, shocked to see an M1A1 Abrams barreling down on them. The tank crew stared, too. They had never expected to confront the enemy in such a personal way - literally face-to-face. There was a brief, suspended moment.

"Oh shit," Gruneisen said.

The Iraqi soldiers didn't open fire. They ran - they scattered everywhere. It struck Hernandez as preposterous. There were five Americans surrounded by dozens of Iraqis in the heart of the Iraqi capital, and the Iraqis were fleeing. He had a mental image of cockroaches scattering when you turn on the kitchen light.

However, not everyone ran:

Gruneisen ordered Peterson to speed through the circle. There wasn't enough time to back up and turn around. He wanted to just plow through the circle, past the trucks and soldiers, and head back the way they had come. The soldiers scattered out of the way. Gruneisen couldn't tell whether anyone was firing at them. As they rolled into the circle, Hernandez saw yellow pickup truck speeding toward them with two men in the front seat. There wasn’t time for a warning shot - no time to determine whether these were wayward civilians or militiamen trying to ram them. Hernandez got off a burst from the M-240. He saw a spray of blood stain the windshield and watched the passenger go down. The driver hit the brakes and the pickup spun and went into a skid.

A strange mix of responses, from suicidal attacks to fleeing the scene. (And in the midst of it all a large group of civilians, deceived by their government into believing there was no danger in the streets that day.) But the uncoordinated attacks from those who did choose to fight seems to indicate a lack of leadership, or at least effective leadership, on the part of the Iraqi military command. Could it have been the officers of the Iraqi army who that lone tank sent fleeing from the traffic circle that day?

During Desert Storm those officers fled long before the ground combat phase began, leaving the rank and file to confront the onslaught. That such an event occurred again during Operation Iraqi Freedom is likely, and probably contributed greatly to the swift downfall of the regime.

Regardless of what might or might not have happened on that day, certainly collapse and failure are the twin fates waiting any army whose officers seek the first opportunity to abandon their command.

Vote Nader if you Must

SondraK offers a must-read post. Regulars here will recognize the referenced story. And don't stop at the end of her entry; make sure you catch the comment from Peter, who left similar remarks here recently.

His words have the ring of pure heartfelt honesty. Read it, and pass it on to anyone who claims it's all about Bush.

Vote Nader if you must.

A Third Crew Speaks Out

Another Kerry book.

Will the wounds never heal?

The Ghost Battalions

A reminder found while housecleaning the blog this weekend: Just Another Soldier. Interesting in light of this week's discussion on the fate of military blogs in general.

Closing Blogs is nothing new. So many site's owners just give up on their own. They come and go, you know, these MilBloggers do. Like any other sort of blogger. Many post in the lonely down hours far from home, spill their guts for the world, then abandon their spots when the tour of duty is up. They have lives again somewhere in the world, and no need to share the details. So it goes.

Many are truly gone - no site left at all. "The page cannot be found." Other blogs remain, like abandoned defensive positions in shifting desert sands. Once some bold soldier was here, now no more. The ghost battalions of the web. How you doin', Major Pain? And look, here was Thor. And here stood Moja. Farewell, Will.

They are more than the thoughts they left behind, but now only those orphaned thoughts remain, left for any to see. Museum pieces, like tombs, offering something to the scholar or the scavenger, or enjoyed in passing by the casual traveler.

Here Tim waited for Patti. Is Chromedome's Zone next?

Zeros and ones you know. On one level that's all they ever were. Enjoy them while you can.

Attention Bloggers

Doing site maintenance today. Posts will be forthcoming, but the Mrs presented me with a list today - a carefully done compilation of the outdated links in my blogroll. I've been pretty bad at keeping that updated, time to fix. (And time for a few additional tweaks too. If you see anything funny, don't be alarmed.)

Anyway, somewhere a while back a concept of 'thinkers' and 'linkers' developed in the blogosphere. Everyone is a bit of both but I've been lax in that 'linkers' bit. (ed note - what, you think you're a thinker?!) So it's time to clean house, out with the old, in with the new, etc. etc, etc. Generally I've little time to devote to this sort of thing, but this weekend I'm on it.

Sooo if you'd like a spot on Greyhawk's blogroll (for what that's worth) link this post or leave a comment. I'll stop by. Enter the URL of one of your posts you're especially fond of, perhaps one that's 'under-appreciated' (as my first several hundred posts were), maybe you'll end up one of the new troops on the bootcamp blogroll - intended to be a place for the newly added to reside for a while enjoying added exposure before being tossed to the big blogroll.

Don't be shy. Nothing would make me happier than to be the first person to link to your blog.

Disclaimer - just being honest here: The more times I see your site, the better chance you have of getting linked here. I generally follow trackbacks, referrer logs, TTLB and technorati links to see who's joining me in my conversations. Monologues are no fun.

(Side note, the Onestat sitemeter can't be beat. Click my link above, check the features. Test drive. Note the pull down menu in the upper left corner area, and the listed options below it. I love linking people who have onestat. Get one, they're free.)

Thats how I found Russ, you know. Hi Russ.

Update: And of course, you can report here to sign up for Milblogs or Friends of MilBlogs - an instant link or two from me. And I also have the automatic reciprocal blogroll, for those using blogrolling.

While I'm at it, if you haven't signed on to TTLB, you might want to think about that too.

Update: What do you mean, you don't have a blog?

"Destroy that nursery"

On the west side of the highway, Schwartz noticed a series of flower shops and greenhouses. It looked like one of those nurseries commonly seen on highways outside American suburbs. There were drooping awnings, perennials in big plastic pots and trays of annuals, shrubs and hanging baskets, and sheets of plastic blotting out the hot April sun. Behind the plants were rows of heavy clay pots, and behind them were men with automatic rifles and RPGs, crouching and hiding, apparently in the mistaken belief that a half inch of baked clay and a few pounds of dirt would shield them from coax rounds or Twenty-five Mike Mike. They were all reloading, having pelted the front of the column. Now they were setting up to unload on Schwartz and his vehicles. Schwartz was amazed. The gunmen appeared to have no idea how vulnerable they had left themselves.

Schwartz yelled to his gunner, "Spray some ammunition in there." That would get their attention, Schwartz thought. It would keep their heads until the Bradley gunners behind Schwartz could get a fix on them, Schwartz radioed the Bradley commanders: "There's a florist, a nursery coming up on your left. Destroy that nursery."

The Bradleys obeyed. Schwartz watched the clay pots explode, right down the road, one by one. Twenty-five Mike Mike is a high explosive round. It hits and pops. The clay pots disappeared, and so did the men behind them. They evaporated in a spray of dirt and clay, their weapons flying. Four of the Bradleys went at it, killing a few, then passing the targets back to the next Bradley, which killed a few and passed the work back. They were finishing their work. They put perhaps a hundred rounds of Twenty-five Mike Mike into the nursery, and then it was gone, and a couple dozen fighters, more or less, were gone too.

"Okay, you're done," Schwartz said. "Shut it off." The 25mm gun tubes swung back north and the Bradleys plowed forward, the gunners searching through their thermal sights for more targets.

The enemy kept coming. Soldiers and civilian gunmen were arriving now in every available mode of transportation-hatchbacks, orange-and-white taxis, police cars, ambulances, pickups, big Chevy’s, motorcycles with sidecars. Major Nussio, the battalion executive officer, opened fire on a huge garbage truck with a soldier at the wheel. He was thinking to himself as the soldier keeled over and the truck crash-landed: A garbage truck? These people are so stupid - stupid but determined.

They were not giving up. It seemed suicidal - men with nothing more than AK-47s or wildly inaccurate RPGs were charging tanks and Bradleys. It was like they wanted to die, or worse, they just didn't care. That disturbed some of the tankers. They weren't trained to fight people who didn't give a damn. Nor were they quite prepared to fight people who didn't have a plan - didn't have a clue. As each RPG team or pack of dismounts attacked with utter disregard for what the other Iraqis or Syrians were doing, the tankers kept thinking: It's all a big trap. They really do have a plan. They're just luring us in with those haphazard, disjointed tactics. Sometime soon, they're going to get organized and attack with some serious tactics.

At one point, a little white Volkswagen Passat suddenly appeared on the highway. It came off one of the access ramps. Before anyone could react, the Passat turned sharply and smacked into one of the Bradleys. Everyone thought it was a suicide car, but nothing exploded. The driver opened the door and stepped out, his hands raised over his head. He was a portly middle-aged man with a trim black mustache and wavy silver hair. He wore an Iraqi military uniform with a colonel's gold rank on his epaulets. There was a pistol on his hip.

The Bradley commander radioed Captain Hilmes. "Sir we got an Iraqi general here," he said, misreading the colonel's rank. "He just crashed his car into our Bradley. What do you want us to do with him?"

"Capture his ass," Hilmes ordered.

Several infantrymen climbed out of the Bradley's hull and snatched the colonel and dragged him inside. Later under interrogation by U.S. military interpreters, the Iraqi said the was the military quartermaster for all of Baghdad. He was a brown shoes guy, a desk officer. He had been driving to work, minding his own business - and suddenly he was involved in a fender-bender with an American Bradley Fighting Vehicle. He told his interrogators that he had no idea American forces were in Baghdad. From what he had been hearing on government-controlled radio, American forces had been stopped cold below the Euphrates River, well south of the capital. He certainly never expected to see tanks in Baghdad. Every officer he knew was convinced the Americans were afraid to bring tanks into a city.

It was baffling. Senior Iraqi officers in the capitol seemed content to believe their own lies, that the war was going well and the Americans were bogged down south of the city. Even many ordinary civilians seemed unaware that there was a war going on. Despite the columns of black smoke from burning vehicles and the thunderous pounding of the tanks and the Bradleys, civilians in family sedans were coasting down the southbound lanes of Highway 8 and along the access roads, like it was just another Saturday morning in the suburbs. For all they knew from listening to government radio, the war was confined to the southern desert, where American forces were being routed. It was only the Fedayeen and Syrians, and unknown numbers of Special Republican Guards, who seemed to understand that American forces were invading the capital. And if these soldiers and fighters and militiamen were disorganized and poorly trained, they did not lack for determination or gall - and there seemed to be an endless supply of weapons and ammunition, and of gunmen eager to fight and die.

Chaos and carnage, as described in the book Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad, picked up by yours truly at the exchange today. If there are fewer posts than normal here this weekend, it's because I'm turning pages.

Until CB's book comes out, this will do nicely.

For your Enjoyment

Audio and video of Kerry's '71 testimony is here.

Download. Burn to CDs. Give 'em to your friends.

I would suggest sending copies to the troops in Iraq, but I'm concerned about the negative impact Teresa's Sitzpinkler might have on morale.

Not to mention the shortage of absentee ballots that might ensue.

Vote For Laura Too

This is misguided:

Breaking her silence on criticism of John Kerry's war record by the group Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, Teresa Heinz Kerry said this week that such attacks are undermining the morale of troops currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I believe that discussions or attacks on [my husband's] service undermine the peace of mind not only of Vietnam veterans but of those now fighting for their country," she told the Dayton Daily News.

She believes wrong. Look, lady, veterans attacking your husband is just another form of service to their country, okay? Protecting the Republic is in their blood.

But thanks for expressing your concern for the national defense.

Here Today...

Okay, the sites noted as being down earlier are all up now.

Though suddenly, this guy is down, suppsedly because "it's his birthday".

Awfully convenient.

None the less, in his honor I link something about nanotechnology, in the name of freedom!

And no, I don't understand it.

Update: Taranto, trying to get into the act, links porn. Lots of other things there look familiar too... (Good stuff, go read, all ye who miss Instapundit)

Don't Panic

As of this post, My War has had all archives pulled. I can think of several reasons for this, not all of which involve suppressing free speech.

And Sgt Hook's blog is MIA.

Developing.

Update: Problems with the WWW? A disturbance in the force? Since there are two sites I'm unable to reach today, could there be some common cause?

Update 2: Okay, now panic.

Update 3 Okay, I've heard from Hook and from someone who is in touch with CB. Both are fine. The military is not now nor has it ever been suppressing blogs. Please note the title of this post.

Now, if we can just get Michele back in action... (Kidding, kid. Recharge that spirit, flush the system, see you soon. And stop by anytime - glad to see you weren't blocked by porn filters.)

A Deal Being Struck?

In blog terms, this is old news (or not news):

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Wednesday renewed his call for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign and urged President Bush to appoint an independent investigation to provide reforms after a report faulted all levels of the military for abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

But a new rumor states that the SecDef might be willing to respond to that demand, on one condition:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld likely will step down in mid-2005 if President Bush wins re-election.

Sounds like a workable compromise. How about it, Senator?

Metrics

From the Washington Post

Despite Kerry's courting, veterans say they trust President Bush more than Kerry as commander in chief, 56 percent to 38 percent, according to a report released yesterday by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey.

But don't be quick to blame the Swift vets.

In interviews this week, local veterans said their opinion of John Kerry -- for better or for worse -- was forged long ago and has not been affected by ads accusing Kerry of lying about his wartime record.

As may have been mentioned here before, none of this is new to veterans, who are now mounting a furious campaign to overcome claims made about them from the Senate floor in 1971 and from the Fleet Center in 2004.

But of course, you'll have to scroll past the claims of the campaign spokesman to the final paragraphs of the story to find quotes like these:

Christopher E. Braun, a veteran and real estate executive in Herndon, said he is "still a little funny about Kerry's antiwar stance following his return. I don't like how he turned his back on vets when he came back. But that's not the reason why I'm not voting for him."

Unfortunately the Post declined to print Mr Braun's reason.

But for Jim Grummons, a Korean War veteran and commander of VFW Post 7327 in Springfield, Kerry's "downfall was in going against the Vietnam War. He went with Hanoi Jane, and that ticked a lot of veterans off."

Other Vietnam veterans cited Kerry's testimony in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he listed war crimes and atrocities that he said were committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam. It is Kerry's testimony that is the subject of the latest advertisement by the swift boat veterans.

"He should have never gone there," said Desi Arnaiz, a leader of Vietnam Veterans of America Battlefield Lodge 617 in Woodbridge. "I was not a baby killer: I didn't rape. I didn't do any of that stuff."

But the real question is, can the Swift vets convince enough American voters of that claim?

Why it Matters Today

The Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal calls forth questions over the American War in Viet Nam: "How were captured US troops treated?" and "How did the Americans treat the Vietnamese?"
<...>
In fact, like in any of the dozens of countries they invaded, it was the Americans who perpetrated well-documented atrocities in Viet Nam, both at the individual and mass levels.
<...>
But despite these abuses, the Vietnamese did not reciprocate in kind; instead, they treated captured US troops humanely.
<...>
Candidate in this year’s American presidential elections, John Kerry, who fought in the war, went further in his criticism. In a statement to the US’ Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971, he said the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Southeast Asia "were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Vietnam News, "The National English Language Daily", June 11 2004

Update: As of 11:36 UTC the link has vanished, and not even a google cache is to be found. A Free Republic post does include the full text.

Not to fan the conspiracy flames but The Corner had linked the same story above. That sent a noticable number of readers there, I'm sure. The time of day I linked was unlikely for server overload (but perhaps likely for site maintenance). No great conspiracy story here, just an item of interest, one of those things that makes you go hmmmm...

Update 2: Problems with the WWW? A disturbance in the force? Commenters report mixed results. Since there are two sites I'm unable to reach today, could there be some common cause?

Unless You Were There

Jonah,

You don't have to be a military guy or a surgeon to know that Frank Burns was a jerk.

It's On

Uh oh - trouble brewing. I foresee Glenn sending Smash to Blackfive's place with a letter...

And man, note the speed of the blogosphere.

No Pundit Intended

Another danged Cowboy Republican MilBlog type.

With another letter from a Vietnam veteran. I reckon y'all oughta go read that.

Tell 'em the king a' porn sent ya. Welcome to the MilBlogs ring, pard'.

Cole Update

Ironically, when this incident took place, it was somewhat obscurred by a presidential election. Likely this update will go unnoticed.

Yemen's former interior minister helped the alleged mastermind of the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole to pass through security checkpoints in the months leading up to the 2000 bombing, according to a document read aloud in court Wednesday by a defense lawyer for five of the suspects.

<...>

Yemen tolerated Islamic extremists for many years, but after the Sept. 11 attacks its government cracked down on militants and aligned itself with the U.S.-led war on terrorism. It has received U.S. military aid, such as counter-terrorism training for its soldiers.

Seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack. Many consider the lack of immediate response to be a key American failure in preventing 911.

By the way, why is it always a "mastermind"?

Well I Never...

After all the hours I spend deleting porn spam!?

Go ahead, smart guys. Comment away.

Update: I mean, golly Miss Lane, I even deleted the curse words from the Kerry quotes!

Update 2: I bow to popular demand (sigh)

More here:

Update 4: Sample chapters? It's from last year! Gentlemen, we must allow the healing to begin!

Tired of the Olympics?

Via the Corner: C-SPAN will air the entire 1971 testimony of a young and very radical John Kerry before the Fulbright committee at 8 Eastern time.

Yes, the video.

Live feed available here. The warm up act will be the Swift vets ad.

Update: Another Swift ad. Max, you still in Crawford?

By the way, Gardner's a liar. It wasn't Kerry's boat, it belonged to the Navy, and the taxpayers. And what about the dog?

More MilBlogs Chatter

(See Previous entry here.)

The NPR post has vanished from My War. And from Hook's, but he knows not why.

Chap notes that NPR broke opsec.

It really is close to Plamegate, but it's just an Army corporal that might get killed and hey, think about the great followup story they could do: "Simpsons Bus Driver Killed in Unpopular War - Film at 11"

Stay safe CB.

Lex offers on-target wisdom . He notes "And if the army was anything like the Navy, it wouldn't be hard to find a creative, intelligent, discontent soul who thought the entire amalgamation of organization, mission and leadership was a bunch of horse fewmets". CB isn't like that, but the "bad apple" theory is worth mentioning. I can think of recent newsworthy examples of military types whose blogs I'd rather not read.

And an Army Wife offers a completely different perspective. One that's not subject to the UCMJ.

In the Mail

I can't resist providing the poets a platform.

Keep up the good work on your blog. I salute all those noble silent heroes. I wrote this for them.

REAL HEROES, THEY DON’T BRAG

When Uncle Sam said, "I want you" they answered their country’s call
Left their homes and families and vowed to give their all
They fought battles and won victories and came home from the war
With some wounds you couldn’t see and put their medals in a drawer
They thought of buddies they had lost and were haunted by those scenes
That inhabited their memories and frequented their dreams
But they got jobs and raised families while their stories stayed untold
They were your neighbor or repairman, someone just down the road
Let us thank God for their sacrifice each time we unfurl our flag
You won’t hear them boast about it ‘cause real heroes they don’t brag

Sue Ikerd
August 21, 2004

Thanks Sue.

New Olympic Sport

Medal Tossing. Why not?

History, Creative Writing, Literature...

Back to school time is here! It's called Social Studies now, but history can still be fun. See if you don't agree.

Jim Walker brings our attention to a quote from a previously linked story:

I believe we need to reclaim the kind of citizenship. It's a citizenship seared into me 30 years ago when I served with a band of brothers in Vietnam. We were all living together, working together, taking care of each other, kids from Arkansas, Iowa, California, Massachusetts, and a young African American gunner by the name of David Alston, from South Carolina. Color, religion, background, all of it just melted away into an understanding that we were 'Americans.' It shouldn't have to take a war to remind us understand that we're all in this together.

"...all in this together..." 'two America's' - whatever. 'Band of Brothers' though - that's catchy. But hey, once seared you just don't forget.

Next: Creative Writing 101: I think this from another entry into the Fan Fiction series. It's getting hard to tell:

As PCF-94 twisted and turned up the river, its crew occasionally losing sight of the other Swifts around the waterway's sharp turns, the Special Forces captain in the pilothouse with Kerry glanced at him knowingly as he intently scrutinized the banks for any sign of movement. But none appeared, in part because the mangroves rose so thick about them on both sides that they could barely see through them. "[Deleted], they can hear us coming for miles," the captain pointed out, "and I can't remember any [expleteve deleted] thing in the history of war that runs like this -- taking friendly boats smack into VC territory so that they can be shot at." Then, "with a sigh that said '[expletive deleted],'" as Kerry put it, the captain returned to staring out the pilothouse door.

It's by Doug Brinkley. The latest version of John Kerry's final mission in Vietnam. (Warning to parents: The expletives aren't deleted in the linked piece, you get the candidate's original language. Not for kids!) Enjoy.

Now good fiction is called literature. And the Band of Brothers thing is from Shakespeare, his dramatized account of Henry V is a fine example; history with a touch of fiction, the result is art. Here's the quote:

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

It Ain't Over!

The fat lady hasn't sung. (But Moby's warming up.)

The Kerry campaign has found 29 Republicans who now support him. Perhaps they'll make dramatic videos explaining how they feel Bush betrayed them?

Also see here. I don't think they'll get these guys on board.

One returns Another Waits

Doc in the Box, now out of the box.

An American Soldier, in the land of heat and sand.

Letters Letters Letters...

Doesn't anybody trust the US postal service any more?

In a highly publicized photo-op, Cleland traveled to President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to deliver a letter from nine senators calling on the president to repudiate the activities of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has been running ads questioning Kerry's Vietnam War record.

Cleland was met at the ranch by Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Republican elected official and Vietnam veteran, who tried to give the former senator a letter addressed to Kerry, accusing him of using his military service for political gain.

"You can't have it both ways," said the letter, signed by Patterson and six other veterans including two Medal of Honor recipients and a former North Vietnamese prisoner of war. "You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech. We all earned it."

Cleland was not able to deliver his letter nor would he accept the letter Patterson tried to give him.

And here it is:

Letter to John Kerry

August 25, 2004

Senator John Kerry
304 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Kerry,

We are pleased to welcome your campaign representatives to Texas today. We honor all our veterans, all whom have worn the uniform and served our country. We also honor the military and National Guard troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We are very proud of all of them and believe they deserve our full support.

Ouch! Part 47

I'm told this web site might be interesting, when it goes live. Perhaps someone will complain loudly at the Ranch tomorrow.

Update: It's live now.

Thanks for the Memories

From the USS Gridley home page, financed as all such efforts are; the vets pass the hat among themselves:

GRIDLEY already has a bank account with $490 in it. We don't need much, any size donation would be appreciated. There will be an accounting for the money posted on the site. Total expenses so far have been $323.00 to register the www.ussgridley.com name and that is up for renewal in the end of May each year.

Keith Ott $100
Cliff Tejada $100
Wayne Hoppke $100
Phil Carter $323
Tom Pendergast $25
Kevin Reilly $40
Rich Aamodt $25

Guess they aren't getting any of that big Ketchup money.

Update (hat tip Jim Walker): Once again, I leap to the rescue of John Kerry. This time, it's James Taranto questioning our hero's patriotism!!!!:

Another Seared--Seared--Memory From a John Kerry speech commemorating Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 20, 2003:

I remember well April 1968--I was serving in Vietnam--a place of violence--when the news reports brought home to me and my crewmates the violence back home--and the tragic news that one of the bullets flying that terrible spring took the life of that unabashedly maladjusted citizen.

In fact, Kerry did not go to Vietnam until November 1968.

Why if that were so, then our hero's bio would be a lie. That first tour in Vietnam was on the Gridley of course. It's right on his home page:

John Kerry enlisted in the Navy in 1966. After completing Naval Officer Candidates School, he began his first tour of duty on the USS Gridley, a guided-missile frigate in the waters adjacent to Vietnam.

See James, it all depends on what your definition of the word "in" is. Now, admittedly little is made of this nearly forgotten first tour. Most likely the young Ensign could not afford a movie camera at that time.

Not so any more. Hey, Senator, how about matching Rich or Tom on that 25 large?

It's Over

It's over.

There's a joke about a race here somewhere, but if Tim Blair didn't touch it then I won't either.

And yes, Tony George ruined Indy. It's obvious from that far away?

Band of Brothers

Yes, that was me.

A military unit gains its own "individuality". The team becomes a whole, stronger than the individual parts. That bond, that unity, is a powerful thing that transcends any other loyalty. That Kerry understood that concept at one point in time is not so far fetched.

That he then broke that faith is why so many are so willing to do so much to stop him now.

Update: Rush Limbaugh, (yes - I know) interviewed John O'Neill and provides a rather lengthy segment of audio on line.

Give it a listen. He's motivated, there's no doubt about that. He was recovering from surgery (he donated a kidney) when he formed SBVFT, and the profits from the book have been donated to charity.

RUSH: You're going to outsell Bill Clinton before this is all over. You might outsell Hillary Clinton before this is all over.

O'NEILL: And if it does, that will be a great thing because people will pick up an awful lot of information from this, and also will generate a nice royalty check for an awfully nice charity.

RUSH: Which is?

O'NEILL: I'm not sure if I should say, but what we've offered is, I've offered my total royalty interest in this to the Navy and Marine Corps Relief, which is the organization that aids --

RUSH: Children?

O'NEILL: -- families of people that are killed, servicemen --

Update 2: Yes, Rush is a bit over the top, but O'Neill handles that well, just as he did being stepped on by previous interviewers.

An Open Letter to Senator John McCain from a Vietnam Veteran

Senator McCain,

I begin this missive with an embrazo, as we call it here in Texas, for your service to our country, as a warrior, as a prisoner of war and as a United States Senator. You have served far better and endured far more in the service of America than most men will ever do. For that, this old sergeant salutes you.

That said, as a Vietnam ground combat veteran, I must take issue with you on the situation of John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans. You have labeled these men “dishonest and dishonorable,” and that, Sir, is nothing more than your opinion based on no direct knowledge of the events they dispute. For you to so condemn these men publicly, without any firsthand knowledge of John Kerry’s performance in their midst and under their professional observation, is unfair to them and all veterans who share their view that John Kerry is unfit to command. Who was best qualified to evaluate you as a naval aviator, those senior officers who flew with you or the enlisted men who serviced your aircraft? Who had the experience, training and knowledge to make a professional military judgment of your performance in the air, the trained naval aviators on your wing or the enlisted flight crew back on the carrier? Certainly the enlisted men were vital in performing the mission but observing and rating your performance was not their role.

It is my understanding that you originally shared our animosity towards John Kerry, but during your senatorial service, you came to know him more personally and chose to forgive him for his labeling you a war criminal. That you are able to forgive a man even though he had denounced you and your fellow aviators as you languished in North Vietnamese prisons, with your captors using his testimony to try to break your will, is truly commendable. I admire you for your ability to turn the other cheek. However, I must point out that your forgiveness of John Kerry is purely personal and imposes not one iota of obligation to forgive him on those of us who still consider him contemptible.

You carry no mandate to speak for us. Your personal feelings are yours and yours alone; but, emphatically, you do not speak for us. You spoke up to defend your friend and your friend has turned your words into talking points. It is truly reprehensible how the Kerry campaign and the mainstream media are hiding so cynically behind your condemnation of the Swiftvets, using your statement as an excuse to dismiss their claims as baseless, smear politics. Honestly, Senator, did you really intend to provide this kind of cover for those who are so desperate to prevent the truth from coming out?

With all do respect, since you weren’t there to observe John Kerry first hand as were these Swiftvets, may I humbly suggest that the honorable thing for you to do, is to stay out of this fight and allow them and us to have our voice. Moreover, there is one thing you could do to level the playing field: acknowledge that you have no true knowledge of events the Swiftvets describe and that your immediate condemnation of these men was premature. Call on the mainstream media to investigate all parties fairly and determine whose version of events is true. I understand John Kerry is your friend, but that places him neither beyond accountability nor above the truth. You have a unique ability at this moment in America’s history to make a difference. You have long been a dutiful warrior and servant of the people.

Please, do your duty now.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

I would request that all who agree with the sentiments expressed here copy this letter and send it to:

http://mccain.senate.gov/

Another Comes Home

MilBlogger Sean, from Doc in the Box, is home from over there.

Welcome back.

With Friends Like That...

NPR offers a misguided and condescending look at MilBlogs - specifically "My War".

Do not mistake what follows for any attempt on my part to speak on behalf of CB. He speaks for himself quite well. I will also mention "the Army" throughout this discussion. Note that "the Army" is a large group of individuals. Long years of experience have led me to this fact: An individual in the Army is usually responsible for all complaints targeted at the institution. Since I've no idea what specific individuals might think on this topic I will use the generic "the Army".

There are obvious problems with the NPR story:

1. Moments after we hear from the real blogger, (audio available at above link) they play a "dramatization" of one of his entries, read by someone CBFTW describes as an "f-ing weirdo" that sounds like "the bus driver from the Simpsons". Dude, like, you know, they sooo tooootally wanted you to be something that yer not. You B You, man, UBU. Rock on. Peace out.

2. In conjunction with the false dead beat dope smoking under achieving moron that had to join the Armyimage, they portray CB as someone 'reporting the truth about an increasingly unpopular war'. While a recent bombardment of campaign speeches and media coverage may be eroding support for the troops, I would guess "the Army" is well aware of the positive PR they were getting from My War. But this is not a political issue - its a military one. The lives of a lot of people are at risk, and CB's command shoulders that burden. Were they to not monitor the communications once they were aware of them they would be negligent, at least, likely derelict in their duties, and responsible for the results.

"The Army" wants him to continue blogging. Believe me, "the Army" could more easily issue a blanket gag order and shut down all MilBlogs - most likely there are voices calling for that. In years past that would have been the instant response. That they haven't done so speaks well for a new mentality at the top. Perhaps the same mentality that led to "embedded reporters" in the thunder run - but I'm speculating.

3. What seems apparent to me is that CB has now been "outed". "The Army" now has a new and different problem. Can they use him in the capacity for which he was trained - the service he wants to perform? Heaven forbid anything happen to him, but what would the same morons crying about "the Army" trying to silence him say if he were hurt?

A sticky issue, to say the least, but really a new version of an old problem. My grandfather wrote letters home to my grandmother in WWI (yes - one). The ones I've seen were censored. War is Hell. The people who read those letters prior to sending them knew my grandfather wouldn't intentionally violate security, and they read every letter he wrote. The military is trying to come to grips with a new age. For every MilBlogger out there that I know of, there are probably at least ten I don't. For every one of those there are a thousand more GIs writing home on the internet; IM, e-mail, personal web pages or otherwise.

I see two likely options:

1. Trust 'em or bust 'em: Train thoroughly, monitor closely, punish those who violate opsec.

2. Flip the comm switch "off".

I propose option one. But I'm biased.

And here's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said to Hugh Hewitt:

Hewitt: General Myers, I have very narrow question. A lot of us who use the internet for a living and blog for a living are interested in this. There are a lot of military bloggers out there. Individual active duty servicemen and women who put their thoughts, their impressions of their duty stations and the world around them on the internet on MilBlogs. What’s your opinion of that? I love them. I hope you keep them, but what’s the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff think about those?

General Myers: You know, I don’t see that many of them, but based on this conversation Hugh, I will see more of them (laugh). I think, you know, when you get to the four-star level, you fight to get information from the troops and you don’t want to be a victim of just getting fed what the staff brings you every day. The way you work that is through the internet as you just mentioned or you visit places. You go to Iraq, you go to Afghanistan and you try and get down to the individual soldier, airmen, sailor, Marine level, coastguardsmen duty, civilian and look them in the eye and say, “How’s it going?” and establish enough rapport that they’ll tell you, and at my level it’s a constant fight to make sure that you get the straight skinny. I think it’s a good idea that I plug into some of those too in my spare time.

Ironically, the General, like the rest of us, will now have to read CB through the filter of his immediate command.

War is hell.

(Hewitt quote via Chapomatic).

Update: Nathan at Brain Fertilizer offers this:

To tell the truth, I am far more disturbed that the USAF (and maybe the rest of the military, dunno), totally blocks access to the portal mail servers (Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL). Even worse, they don't warn you before you deploy. It can be a significant morale hit to not be able to receive email or even be able to tell someone you won't be able to read their email until you return...

Will have to look into that. Anyone else have this problem?

Meanwhile, Darth VOB offers this:

I’d like to offer some advice to deployed milbloggers. This is roughly the same advice I’ve been giving soldiers about to deploy for the last year and a half. In that time, as part of my duties in the J6 (Information Management / Operations) for the Ohio Army National Guard, I’ve briefed soldiers on the benefits and use of AKO - Army Knowledge Online, the Army’s web portal. One of the points I make is that if you want to share a photo or a story, don’t do so on MSN, Yahoo IM, or standard email unless you are comfortable with it being on the front page of USA Today. That’s how secure those information delivery vehicles are.

They both have plenty more to say. Click in and visit, they've got nothing to hide.

Update 2: Hook weighs in from the 'Stan. He writes the second half of this post so I don't have to - on being anonymous for the benefit of the junior troops, vs the seniors.

Pet Peeve

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT:

IF YOU COMMENT HERE USING ALL CAPS or some BIZARRE combination of ALL-CAPS WITH LOwerCASe I WILL DELETE said COMMENT WITHOUT ANY FURTHER EXPLANATION.

IN THE INTERNET WORLD ITS CALLED "SHOUTING". IT IS ANNOYING TO THE READER, IT MAKES YOU LOOK FOOLISH, AND BY ASSOCIATION MAKES ME LOOK FOOLISH. I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP TO LOOK FOOLISH.

MOST PEOPLE SCROLL RIGHT PAST SUCH THINGS WITHOUT READING THEM ANYWAY.

OTHERWISE, FEEL FREE TO INDULGE YOURSELF IN THE COMMENTS SECTION TO YOUR HEARTS CONTENT. I FIGHT FOR YOUR FREE SPEECH, AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH ME - YOU HONOR MY SERVICE BY EXERCISING THAT RIGHT HERE.

We now resume our regularly scheduled blogging.

UPDATE: I NOTE WITH IRONY THAT MUCH MILITARY COMM IS DONE IN ALL CAPS. I CAN"T STOP THAT. LEAVE IT AT WORK. Thank you.

Synchronicity

Sometimes synchronicity is a weird thing. Remember this comment?

As each of my children went through school I'd have to deal with Mr. Kerry's slander again. That's bad enough, what about the children of the young men who came home in those shiny aluminum caskets? Who told them that Daddy wasn't a rapist? Who told them that Kerry deliberately lied while under oath? One of my sergeants was killed trying to get a batch of children out of the line of fire in some little ville I never knew the name of. According to Kerry that man was a murderer. His children would have been in their early teens in 1971. I wonder how they took that 'testimony'?

I thought of it when I read this:

I'm the daughter of Lt. Col. Roger J. "Black Bart" Bartholomew, a First Air Cavalry rocket artillery helicopter pilot who was killed in Vietnam on Thanksgiving Day 1968, when I was eight years old. I'm a former journalist with a military newspaper, a U.S. Marine widow, and I am appalled at Mr. Kerry's latest assertions that our president "has reopened the wounds of Vietnam." For months, I've heard President Bush talking about the present, while Mr. Kerry and the media want to focus on the past. I think we need to see the whole picture.

And I think you'll appreciate the rest of what she has to say.

Update: Don't miss this, either. Add to favorites, link it, blogroll it, pass it on.

Rebuilding Iraq

Another surprising story on Iraq - this from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Amid the car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings and general death and destruction in Iraq, there is the question of where to put the generator.

The District Area Council wants it out back, in the unused parking area.

The Government Information Office -- the GIC -- wants it on a concrete slab in the middle of the courtyard.

The difference is about 5 feet. But this is an important issue to the Iraqis who run the place. The GIC takes up space on the council's grounds. And it's the GIC's generator, a brand new one, as opposed to the older, less-efficient model used by the DAC.

It's up to an Army officer, a reserve major named Harry Klein, to work it all out.

"I can't believe I'm spending the whole afternoon dealing with this," Klein says, as he walks with an interpreter into the courtyard.

Feel the pain?

It's not the duration of the shooting that will determine our departure timetable from Iraq. It's the stabilization of the country, a concept that encompasses a broad spectrum of details. Good to see progress, however slow. And of course, it's hard for the enemy to win hearts and minds when they fight against this sort of thing.

Now, way off that topic, what are they trying to say about the racial composition of the Infantry in this burried passage?

You don't get medals for this kind of soldiering. But it might be the most important work done by ground troops in Iraq.

Senge said the civil affairs team for 3rd Battalion is one of the most diverse he's seen -- African American, white, Latino and Asian.

"I think it helps," he said. "I think people over here see that we're a diverse bunch, and that we look a little more like them than the average soldier. I think that might make them feel a little more comfortable with us."

David Chong, half Jewish, half Asian American, said he likes working with civil affairs because it's unconventional. "You're not just shooting people," said Chong, who is headed to UC Berkeley when he leaves the Army. "You're working for the good of the entire country."

The End of the No Fly Zones

The French Air Force couldn't fight during the first Gulf War. The Iraqi Air Force was equipped with French fighter aircraft, thus concern for coalition forces shooting down French planes "by mistake" was high enough to keep them grounded.

Still, even without French assistance, the US and its allies won the air campaign, destroyed the Iraqi Air Force, then settled in for a twelve-year period of rotations in and out of Turkey and Saudi Arabia enforcing the "no-fly zones". (That presence in Saudi Arabia contributed greatly to Bin Ladden's hatred of America and his popularity, by the way, and his recruiting soared. But I digress...)

It's all over now, as they say, the past is past, the future is now.

Iraq's new air force took to the skies this week for the first time since the U.S. invaded last year and disbanded the country's armed forces, the U.S. military said.

Iraqi pilots on Wednesday flew two Seabird Seeker SB7L-360 reconnaissance aircraft on what the U.S. military described as "limited operations missions intended to protect infrastructure facilities and Iraq's borders."
<...>
In the 1990s, Iraq's air force fell apart due to two wars with the United States and a dozen years of international sanctions.

Okay - "fell apart". Apologies to anyone who was drinking a beverage when they read that bottom line.

Now, will the French get to equip the new Iraqi Air Force too?

Najaf

Keep an eye on Najaf today. In the meantime, guess the source of this:

Fed-Up Residents Of Najaf Turn Against Rebel Cleric

Sadr and his militia are blamed as families and livelihoods suffer during fighting around shrine.

NAJAF, Iraq — Haydar Hasan Abdullah wandered the twisting streets of this ancient city on Monday looking for a fight.

He was not seeking to battle American troops who have encircled one of Islam's holiest shrines for nearly three weeks. Instead, he wanted a shot at militants loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr who are hiding beneath its gleaming gold dome.

"There are some fighters among the group of Muqtada who are actually saboteurs who have done such bad things to the city of Najaf," said Abdullah, who was searching for the police station on Monday to offer himself as a recruit. "We feel so sorry for what is happening to kids, women and innocent other people. We are quite prepared to do whatever the government wants us to do."

If you guessed LA Times you're right - but I'd like to know how.

Read the whole thing. Then read this from the London Telegraph:

In Najaf, Even The Dead Are Suspected Of Carrying Guns

American troops search coffins as a matter of routine at holy city's sprawling cemetery, reports Toby Harnden

I'm not sure the purpose of the story - other than to introduce the concept of war sucks to the one or two folks who aren't familiar with it. But maybe the reporter is one of those, and the event strikes him as an aberration during an otherwise civilised conflict?

Who knows. One thing is certain - given the number of journalists seemingly in and around "The Holy City of Najaf" we aren't really getting much information about what's going on.

My War

Well, its not my war... (channeling Hank Kimball)

CBFTW is back.

Under the Radar

Anyone Been following this?

MANNHEIM, Germany, Aug. 23 -- An army reservist accused of sexually humiliating inmates at Abu Ghraib prison will plead guilty to charges of abuse, according to a statement his lawyer released Monday. Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick would be the second of seven American soldiers charged in the mistreatment scandal to enter that plea.

"I have accepted responsibility for my actions at Abu Ghraib prison," he said in the signed statement. "I will be pleading guilty to certain charges because I have concluded that what I did was a violation of law."

He expressed hope that other army personnel "who contributed to or participated in the chaos that was Abu Ghraib will also come forward and accept responsibility." The statement was issued a day before he is scheduled to appear at a pre-trial hearing at a U.S. military court in this southern German town.

But wasn't it Frederick who was being represented by Lt Calley's lawyer? Wasn't it "Fredericks family" who originally released the photos to his old buddy Seymour Hersh? How could this be? How could Rummy have gotten to him?

More later. Meanwhile, for those in need of a recap, or an introduction to the real story of Abu Ghraib, click here and read the linked stories on that topic.

Update: Is The Denver Post trying to cloud the issue? Or calling for a lynching? This editorial references the Camp Bucca events, which occured (and were resolved) last year.

Developing.

Hello Central?

I notice early adapter Scott Ott has included a picture of himself on the web page for his book.

There are so few internet-sional men of mystery left these days...

Usually Recruiters do the Targeting...

Michelle Malkin beats me to a military story?

Man, you gotta be fast in the blogosphere.

A grim reminder that military folks must be ever vigilant.

More Bad News for the Kerry Campaign

It just keeps getting worse:

For Alabama National Guard units that have had lengthy tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, some questions hang in the air when they return: Who is staying in and who is getting out?

The answers usually start coming after each returned unit has its customary 90-day cooling-off period and holds its first weekend drill.

The largest Alabama Guard unit to return from Iraq, the 877th Engineer Battalion, had its first weekend drills earlier this month at its northwest Alabama armories. And at those drill sessions, only 19 of the 555 soldiers who attended said they wanted to hang up their helmets or were seriously considering it.

<...>

Of the 19 soldiers who may leave, about half had served more than 20 years and were eligible for retirement, while the others had reasons to leave that ranged from job conflicts to their desire to spend more time with their families, Holland said.

They're probably partisan hacks though, staying in just to help Bush.

Wasn't he in the Alabama Guard?

Got 'dem ol' Hanoi Hilton Blues Again...

Stories we're watching today:

And, until Friday, Ken Cordier was an unpaid veterans-affairs adviser to the Bush campaign; this link allowed the Kerry people to claim an illegal connection between the Swift boat vets and the Bush effort.

I suppose if the Kerry campaign really wants to push this issue they'll charge the Colonel with violating election laws.

If found guilty, how much prison time could result? More or less than six years and three months?

And here's more dirt on Cordier's fellow POW Paul Galanti, from John Kerry's website:

PARTISAN: Carter-Basher “I had a great final three years in the Navy despite the devastation Carter's policies had wrought on the military. My last Navy year was under one of the finest-ever Commanders-in-Chief, who led the country out of Jimmy Carter's unlamented and self-caused "malaise."” [Richmond Times Dispatch, 6/17/01]

Carter bashing. Is there anything lower?

Update: Something to keep in mind on the Swifts.

They aren't doing this for George Bush.

This is personal, and every vet I know feels it.

And the Kerry campaign knows it

Watch it again. Like the WTC attacks, this should be viewed every day.

It's never been about Bush.

More to come.

More Required Reading

The Swifts aren't the only vets with a new book. From the Washington Times' Inside The Ring

The military pundits' rap on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is that he dictates soldier-lite war plans to his combatant commanders, such as Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Our sources have said for months that such unsubstantiated charges are untrue. The truth is that Mr. Rumsfeld offers overall guidance and uses catch phrases to send messages during war-planning conferences. But the plan, in the end, is the combatant commander's plan.

For example, Mr. Rumsfeld sent the message on the need for special operations in Iraq by repeatedly telling Gen. Franks to remember the lessons of Afghanistan, where covert warriors won the day. "Speed kills," he would tell Gen. Franks.

Now, Gen. Franks confirms all this in his memoir, "American Soldier."

The retired four-star general writes it was he who thought the off-the-shelf plan for Iraq was "too big, [400,000 troops] too slow and out-of-date." In December 2001, he presented Mr. Rumsfeld with a "Commander's Concept" that began the framework for the lightning-fast conquest of Baghdad.

"I told the secretary that I wanted to develop new options for Iraq, and he agreed," Gen. Franks writes, "From that point on it was clear: Don Rumsfeld was eager to be part of the solution."

Kidding, of course. The Washington Times crowd is notoriously right wing Republican, therefore not worth listening too anyway, right?

And the Washington Post?

Gen. Tommy Franks, who as head of U.S. Central Command presided over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has duly produced the expected autobiography. It is a good read, thanks to the work of veteran ghostwriter Malcolm McConnell; the early sections on Franks's blue-collar upbringing and Vietnam service are particularly affecting. But it has not made as much of a media splash as some other accounts of the administration, because it is not hostile to George W. Bush.

To the contrary, American Soldier rebuts some criticisms directed against the president. Bush has been accused, for instance, of taking his eye off Afghanistan by ordering the plan for a possible war with Iraq in the fall of 2001. Franks writes that, given the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, this was a sensible request, and that "our mission in Afghanistan never suffered" as a result.

Scores of pundits have accused the administration of lying, or at least distorting the evidence, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Franks reveals that the leaders of Egypt and Jordan told him that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. Though no weapon of mass destruction was ever found, he writes, "I do not regret my role in disarming Iraq and removing its Baathist regime."

Another charge made against the administration is that political appointees failed to give the generals enough troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, Franks writes, it was his own choice to employ limited forces in order to avoid getting bogged down. Instead of relying on sheer size, he thought surprise and speed were the keys to victory -- a judgment largely vindicated by events.

<...>

Not all is sweetness and light in American Soldier. Franks comes off as a bit tetchy. He complains in particular when the Joint Chiefs of Staff get involved in any operational issues that lie outside their jurisdiction. He accuses the chiefs of being focused only on their "parochial" service concerns, of leaking secrets to the press, wasting his time and offering "gratuitous" advice. In one extraordinary episode, he cusses out the Navy and Marine chiefs, Adm. Vern Clark and Gen. James Jones, in language that can't be reprinted here.

Read the whole thing.

Bring the Noise

Another of those damn Republican POW war heroes. Won't those guys ever go away?

Read this too.

Melt Down?

A good day for TV sales, as a few folks likely threw bricks at theirs yesterday:

MR. RUSSERT: The New York Daily News intervened on this yesterday with an editorial and said this:

"As for Kerry, he might ask why the Swifties' attacks have been effective. The answer is his propensity to exaggerate. Kerry exaggerated about `atrocities' in testimony before Congress. And it's looking more likely that he exaggerated, if not worse, when he claimed through the years that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. He has said the memory was `seared' into him, but it's now clear Kerry was elsewhere, at least at that time. He has yet to explain. Until he does, the Swifties will have a powerful weapon in their arsenal." And this is...

MR. DEVINE: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: ...so we--be clear and give you a chance to respond. Senator Kerry in '86 on the floor of the Senate: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there, the troops were not in Cambodia. ...I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me."

In '79 in the Boston Herald: "I remember Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

First of all, Nixon was not president...

MR. DEVINE: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...in December of '68.

MR. DEVINE: Sure.

MR. RUSSERT: He didn't take office until January '69. Does Senator Kerry stand by that statement that on Christmas Eve of '68 he was physically in Cambodia?

MR. DEVINE: Right. Well, his memory, Tim, is being there, around there. And I'll tell you what happened on December 25th...

MR. RUSSERT: No--being there or around there?

MR. DEVINE: No, being right at the Cambodian border, over the Cambodian border. That's what he remembers. That's his clear memory. Now, Tim...

MR. RUSSERT: Five miles across the border.

MR. DEVINE: Now, Tim, obviously, as those records demonstrate, particularly in respect to President Nixon, you know, there's some difference between some of the records. Let me tell you what happened on December 24, 1968. John Kerry started that morning 50 miles away from the Cambodian border and they headed towards Cambodia, deep behind enemy lines. First, they were ambushed once. Second, they were fired upon, again in a separate incident. And that night they encountered friendly fire. Three times in one day he was fired upon deep behind enemy lines. And that certainly was seared into his memory.

And by the way, that's three times more than the president and the vice president have ever been fired on in the course of their life. The president and the vice president, who sent our troops to Iraq without the body armor they need to live. And, listen, is the fog of war real?

Read the whole thing.

But just for fun, a transcript word count score: "John McCain" or "McCain" mentioned fifteen times, "Magic Hat": 0

Heh!

A late entry in the Kerry Fan Fiction collection. The author has quite the imagination, as this one (sadly) seems further from reality than any previous example.

American Heroes

Events in the political world almost provide a reprieve from the real news from half a world away. Perhaps that's part of the attraction of today's headlines?

This is one of those amazing front line stories that you can only get from blogs. Well, okay - from MilBlogs.

CNN redefined war coverage in the first Gulf War. That paradigm is broken.

Keep your thoughts and prayers with the troops.

Must See

A great graphic illustrating why the Kerry campaign might be confident it can crush the Swift vets - or perhaps why they're so enraged that they can't.

Update: Billionaires for Bush? Self-funded? Good to see that myth hasn't died in the face of inconvenient facts.

Sunday Funnies

Noted previously: America has one last chance to piss on it's Vietnam veterans.

Get in line behind Pat Oliphant.

Maybe this guy is in your local paper?

Update: More "funny" stuff (caution, these are censored, originals not):

The greatest evidence of this new jokey spirit on the left can be found on the Internet, which is home to hundreds if not thousands of independent sites put up by random people who happen to have a political grudge and a sense of humor. Shortly after 9/11, David Rees launched a cartoon strip called "Get Your War On" (www.mnftiu.cc /mnftiu.cc/war.html). While the mainstream media were still waving flags and speaking in hushed tones, Mr. Rees was attracting a devoted following for his devastatingly sarcastic take on the news.

That rousing endorsement is from the New York Times, of course. The article praises the "new jokey spirit of the left" in great detail.

Update 2: There actually is still some decent political humor around though, if not mentioned in the Times article.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, does not pose an immediate threat to the security of the American homeland and he should be allowed to board commercial airliners, according to a statement from Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today charged President George Bush with using surrogates to "do his dirty work" by distributing excerpts from the Congressional Record which chronicle Sen. Kerry's accomplishments in the Senate.

<...>

"I know that I accomplished much more than this," said Mr. Kerry as he waved the single sheet of paper...

Civil rights activists nationwide celebrated today's announcement by New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey that he is "a gay adulterous American."

Mr. McGreevey, standing next to his wife, told a packed news conference he had feelings even as a child that he was "different".

"I've been in the closet for many years," he said, "but I'm proud to finally come out and say that I was born a gay adulterer and I have finally embraced who I am."

But wouldn't it be great to see Scott Ott's forthcoming book on the bestseller list?

The table of contents is funnier than the stuff linked from the Times story.

The Family that Blogs Together

Wow! -

He: veteran of active duty service serving with the Old guard, from 89-93 and the 82nd til 95, 11-bravo

She: Air Force career NCO, was in the Pentagon on 9/11.

Dad: Six years in the Marine Reserves.

All: Present and accounted for, here.

Except little bro': currently in Iraq with the 1st ID.

The Money Trail

I'm going to have to start calling Russ Vaughn a co-blogger. Here's the latest:

Top 527 Contributors

Hey, Check this out:

If you click on each name you will find that only one of these is a Republican Party supporter, Mr. Lindner.

And the Kerry campaign has the nerve to complain about Mr. Perry supporting the Swiftvets' 527 group?

Russ

Yup - apparently a big part of the problem the Kerry camp has with the Swifts is that they aren't funded by Democrats.

And who funds Kerry? Good question. Good answer not available.

More here.

Update 2: Wow - here's some real money, as the John Kerry campaign attacks Col Ken Cordair

KENNETH CORDIER

PARTISAN: Another Texas Republican Donor

CORDIER, KENNETH
DALLAS,TX 75208
US AIR FORCE/RETIRED COLONEL
3/2/2001
$1,000
Republican Party of Dallas County

CORDIER, KENNETHW MR
DALLAS,TX 75225
SELF EMPLOYED
2/27/2002
$238
RNC/Repub National State Elections Cmte

CORDIER, KENT
DALLAS,TX 75206
RETIRED
6/30/2000
$1,000
Hutchison, Kay Bailey

2001-06-05
REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS
CORDIER, KEN 1 $100

I know - most of us could only dream of someday having over 2000 dollars to spend over a four year period on political campaigns, but the hard working crowd at Kerry/Edwards also reveal that the Vietnam war POW “Despised” LBJ, is a member of a Bush administration advisory panel on veterans’ issues, and is wears his conservatism on his sleeve." He also said that guards putting panties over the heads of Abu Ghraib prisoners was better than cutting their heads off.

Go read. This is straight from Kerry's campaign site.

Strangely they fail to mention the years he spent living in a communist country. You'd think that might appeal to many Kerry supporters.

Still more: John McCain 2000! John McCain 2000! John McCain 2000! John...

Beginning today, the Kerry-Edwards campaign will begin a systematic campaign to expose the president’s tactics, with a special emphasis on the veterans community. “Old Tricks” will be emailed to 200,000 veterans activists who will share it in their communities, posted on veterans websites and emailed to the entire Kerry online community of well over 1 million supporters.

Of course, there's no word yet on the faults of Paul Galanti, the second POW who appeared in the Swift vets ad. Mr Galanti was Virginia Chair for McCain's 2000 presidential bid and Chair of Democratic Governor Mark Warner's Veterans' Affairs Advisory Commission. But we expect a Kerry campaign press conference any moment to reveal the man once kicked his neighbor's dog.

Remember, that's John McCain 2000! John McCain 2000!!! John McCain...

Kerry AWOL?

We first noted a glitch in John Kerry's service records some time back (last February) and now Tom MacGuire says there was no gap.

We know the press loves to pore over Drill records in minute detail, so we'll eagerly await the release of full details of Kerry's duty status at the time he was meeting with representatives of the government of North Vietnam.

Oh - and certainly they'll make sure he had no missed Drill periods, right? Even when he was in France?

I mean, AWOL is the real big deal right?

More here.

Update: This indicates that Kerry was a member of the Navy Reserves from January 70 to July 72, when he tranferred to inactive reserve status.

Where are the Drill records? I'm sure they are available.

Now, I'd like to ask Smash about this, but he's not blogging because he's doing his annual reserve training - that two-week-a-year thing that Navy Reservists do even if they were in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Anyone else out there?

Update 2: Commenter Bill points out the famous 1986 'update' to Kerry's records tells a different story - the word "inactive" has been appended to the Navy Reserve status (eyes glazing over...). That explains everything. Must just be a case of sloppy record keeping. Who'd have thought?

So recap: Accordng to the '86 record, Kerry was Reserve (inactive) while meeting the North Vietnamese delegation and testifying against his comrades, then later became an inactive Standby Reservist. Got it? Good.

Update 3: US Navy Vietnam veteran (non-combat, he points out) John Moore, proprietor of the blog Useful Fools, offers additional insight in the comments:

I blogged about this last spring when the 1970-1972 gap disappeared when he released some of his service records.

When I left active duty, I was assigned to Naval Air Reserve (Active status). I don't know how he got the inactive status. Later, after a day with 3 aircraft fires (2 in flight), I decided I wanted to continue consuming oxygen, so I went to personnel and changed to what I guess was Regular Reserve ( Inactive Status ). A year later, I got a registered letter ordering me back to active status, but when they found out I was a Vietnam Veteran, they cancelled the orders.

In any case, a reservist is only subject to UCMJ while on reserve training (and a few uninteresting special cases).

So Kerry's meeting with the enemy was just part of ordinary treason (punishable by death) rather than military treason (punishable by death).

Update 4: This document from the Kerry collection provides useful insight. It spells out very carefully the responsibilities the young future Senator had as an inactive Reservist, and clarifies the distinction between the two categories of service (Ready Reserve - Inactive and Standby Reserve - Inactive):

1. "Legislation enacted by Congress has stressed the importance of ensuring that members of the Ready Reserve will be available immediately for active service in the event of war or national emergency. You should appreciate that such a concept is a prerequisite to an expeditious and effective mobilization if the need arises.

<...>

3. "Members of the Ready Reserve may be ordered to active duty in the event of war or national emergency proclaimed by the President. Members of the Standby Reserve - Inactive may be ordered to active duty only in the event of war or national emergency declared by Congress."

Clearly Senator Kerry is quite proud of his service as an Inactive Reservist - he's posted these documents on his web site, after all, and numerous biographical pieces include the information. And apparently he understood the responsibilities.

And as a Senator for two decades he could certainly have changed the program, or at least tried, if he had any fault with it.

All of which leads to the question: why is he so opposed to an actual execution of the option, having repeatedly referred to it as a "backdoor draft"?

"And we must end the stop-loss and involuntary recall of troops that amounts to nothing more than a back-door draft." He most recently told the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

It must be one of those "subtle nuances" that most of us are too stupid to understand.

Free Speech?

What Bring. It. On. means . But Mrs Greyhawk thinks the baby is too cute. Several commenters agree.

But I'm inclined to agree with this commenter.

On the other hand, Kerry accusing the Swift vets of crimes is nothing new, is it?

Served Together

The meaning of "served together", old style and modern.

But seriously folks - if you'd like an introduction or review of the Swift Vets story, this must-read article provides as balanced a recap as any I've seen anywhere - and a lot of information I hadn't known before. It's dated 29 July 04, so it precedes most of the controversy that has since erupted on the topic. Check it out.

Media Bias? No, By Us

Russ Vaughn checks in, via e-mail (keep 'em coming, Russ!):

For years we have said as we’ve watched and read,
That the Media is liberally left leaning.
When news only we sought, what we usually got
Was some coiffed commentator’s “true” meaning.
Just seeking the news, we instead got their views
And too much Peter Jennings-like preening.

We are fair they declare and your charge is unfair
Everything we put out is uncanted.
Then they snidely deride any charges they’ve lied
Though it’s clear where their left feet are planted.
They deny overmuch liberal leanings and such
While it’s plain they’re all Rather slanted.

What they call reporting we see as distorting
So obvious that it does appall us.
But they think we’re all sheep, unthinking, asleep,
And care less if their bias does gall us.
As Sunday eves dreadful they feed us a headful
Of that oh so impartial Mike Wallace.

And as for the press, what a self-righteous mess,
Intoning our right to know all.
While the grand New York Times, dismisses and slimes
Those, who for the truth, loudly call.
And the Washington Post sets it columnist host
To impugning these men, one and all.

So election year’s here and it’s crystalline clear
That John Kerry’s the media’s hero.
They praise him in war and completely ignore
Those brave men who rate him a zero.
With utter disdain for truth in the main
This Media’s fiddling like Nero.

At some future date, when it’s far, far too late,
To ever atone for their bias,
Finally faced with their fate that they carry no weight,
All those talking heads will be so pious,
As without any shame they will loudly declaim
How on earth did that phony get by us?

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Roger That...

Roger Simon, mystery novelist extraordinaire, wonders why the Senator chose to base his campaign on his Vietnam service.

I'd guess Kerry snubbed the reunions - or more likely the Swifts "lost" his invitations, or sent them to the wrong mansion. Had he gone, the cold reception might have tipped him off, perhaps leading to a different strategy.

Roger is a Hollywood mystery writer. And I think he's got fodder for a few scripts here. Something akin to Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" comes to mind.

(But if it's mystery you want, go get one of Rogers books...)

The New Swift Boat Ad

Is here.

And be sure to visit the Swift's site.

Update: Some Mudville readers might recognize Paul Galanti in the commercial above. For those who don't, meet a true American hero:

Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous "Hanoi Hilton" internment camp. The Navy pilot had been shot down in June 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war.

During torture sessions, he said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as "an example of why we should cross over to (their) side."

"The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield," Galanti said, "because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington."

He says Kerry broke a covenant among servicemen never to make public criticisms that might jeopardize those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy. Because he did, Galanti said, "John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with."

Now retired and living in Richmond, Va., Galanti, 64, refuses to cool his ire toward Kerry. "I don't plan to set it aside. I don't know anyone who does," he said. "The Vietnam Memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him."

Oh, and once again, the "Republican attack squad" has a McCain tie-in:

During the 2000 presidential primaries, Galanti was the Virginia Chair of Senator John McCain's presidential bid. "John is the only guy I know who is more positive than I am," says Galanti. "He did quite well in Virginia especially considering that the campaign was composed of an all-volunteer Army of political non-professionals"!

Galanti's military decorations include the Silver Star, Two Legions of Merit for combat, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Bronze Star for combat, nine Air Medals, the Navy Commendation Medal for combat and two Purple Hearts.

Hat tip (again) to Jen Martinez.

Update 2: Ken Cordier's bio is here.

Also see this:

John Kerry's bid to become commander in chief of wartime America has opened old wounds among some former Vietnam-era POWs who bristle over Kerry's anti-war activism and atrocity allegations during the Vietnam conflict.

Those activities and statements, pushed out of sight by a campaign that spotlights Kerry's service in Vietnam, were used by the POWs' North Vietnamese captors to sap the morale of prisoners and U.S. troops still in the field in South Vietnam, former POWs told United Press International.

"They were always talking about that (anti-war demonstrations), and they picked right up on Kerry's throw-away line, 'Don't be the last man to die in a lost cause, or die for a lost cause,'" said Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who spent 2,284 days as a prisoner. "They repeated that incessantly.

"They used these photographs and inputs, voice tapes, whatever, from these peace people to try to convince us the whole country had turned anti-war and we were showing a very bad attitude and would never go home."

This is interesting. Considering how loud an F4 was perhaps it could briefly drown out the audio of Kerry's Senate speech.

And another free chapter of the book here.

And for those who wonder if this really matters today, click here, read the whole thing. History repeats.

Update 3: "Peter" has commented here from time to time before. This remark gets relocated to the main post from the comments:

I remember Kerry surrounding himself with 'veterans' testifying to war crimes, many of those 'veterans' never spent a day wearing Uncle's suit. Others never served a tour in the Southeast Asian War Games, he reported their ravings as fact.

As each of my children went through school I'd have to deal with Mr. Kerry's slander again. That's bad enough, what about the children of the young men who came home in those shiny aluminum caskets? Who told them that Daddy wasn't a rapist? Who told them that Kerry deliberately lied while under oath? One of my sergeants was killed trying to get a batch of children out of the line of fire in some little ville I never knew the name of. According to Kerry that man was a murderer. His children would have been in their early teens in 1971. I wonder how they took that 'testimony'?

I don't need the Swiftee's ad to know that John Kerry is scum. I've lived for thirty-five years with the memory of a lot of fine young men who served with honor and dignity and never grew old. John Kerry may just as well gone to each of those 58,000 graves, called a press conference at each one and when the cameras got rolling, pissed on them.

I saw my first combat death in May of '65. There isn't a month that goes by when one of those still-young men doesn't visit me in my sleep. None of them would forgive me if I were to support that lying sack of shit. I owe them this.

Yea - America has one last chance to piss on it's Vietnam vets this fall.

Vietnam Veterans with Blogs

In Bill's World

Adrian Spidle

John Moore

All in the Same Boat?

Perhaps these guys were on a different Gridley?

Let's demand the President silence them!

Across the Great Divide

In a telling moment during John Kerry's speech to the VFW in Cincinnati his voice cracked slightly, a hint of desperation creeping in, as he referenced the days of his youth, spent denigrating his fellow veterans and the battles they fought. The gist of his comments? "Hey - it wasn't my fault that the times were controversial."

That's not a direct quote. The copy of the speech available on the Kerry website does not include the reference. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has an explanation:

Kerry said he was proud of his service in the Navy and of his efforts to end the Vietnam conflict.

He said he was not to blame for the rifts that war caused in American society.

"I didn't make it controversial; the war and the times were," said Kerry, deviating from his prepared text to talk about Vietnam and pointing out he had volunteered for military service.

Of course, no one ever accused him of starting anything - opportunists by nature merely take advantage of existing situations. But Kerry's quest for advantage rarely veers from a careful script. Assuming the moment was spontaneous, what led to the near confession/ non-apology?

Might it be the view from the lectern?

A handful of his fellow Vietnam vets got up and walked out.

Kerry, who earned a Silver Star for bravery in the Navy, rose to national prominence as a leading opponent of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. Occasionally, there were catcalls from the crowd. In the most noticeable display of anti-Kerry sentiment, two Vietnam veterans stood in silent protest with their backs turned during his speech.

<...>

Jere Hill, a 62-year-old Navy vet from Wareham, Mass., was one of the men who turned his back on Kerry.

Hill said he could never forgive Kerry for his anti-war activities.

"He turned his back on me when I was in Vietnam in 1971," said Hill, a former state commander of the Massachusetts VFW. Hill said he had prayed for the day when he could protest against Kerry before a national audience.

<...>

Wayne Sharp of Portland, Ore., listened attentively to the speech, but said when it was over that he would never support Kerry. Sharp served in Korea.

"What he did when he came back, it is unforgivable to me," said Sharp, describing himself as a political independent who leans conservative. "He tried to make his case, I listened, and I didn't like it."

The caption for this photo notes "War veterans Jere Hill, middle, from Warham, Mass., and Robert Gibson, right, from Lexington, Ky., stand with their backs turned during Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's speech... Kerry received a polite if not overwhelmingly positive reaction from the VFW. But there was a clear divide, with scores of veterans sittings with their arms folded while others clapped."

Hearing problems amongst the aging vets may have contributed to the mixed response. Those applauding politely probably heard this:

"The sacrifices that you have made on the battlefield are well known. But what is not as well known is how hard we have fought after we returned from service to keep faith with our fellow soldiers."

"They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

Here's what he read to them:

"Thank you. I am proud to be a lifetime member of this organization and grateful for your continued deep commitment to veterans and to the defense and security of our nation. For more than 100 years now, you have had many distinguished veterans come before you – some Republican, some Democrat, some presidents. But as a fellow veteran, I can proudly say that there is one title that is more important than all, and that is patriot. You have all earned that title and I am proud to stand with you today."

"And so a New Soldier has returned to America, to a nation torn apart by the killing we were asked to do. But, unlike veterans of other wars and some of this one, the New Soldier does not accept the old myths.

We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars-in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim.

It is from these things the New Soldier is asking America to turn. We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years.

After September 11th, I am proud that all our people rallied to the President’s call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats, there were no Republicans there were only Americans.

How we wish it had stayed that way.

But since then, we have become a country divided over Iraq – and it didn’t have to be that way.

MilBlogs...

Marine Corps Moms in one word - HOT.

Greetings, Friends, Neighbors, Morons...

"Thank you. I am proud to be a lifetime member of this organization and grateful for your continued deep commitment to veterans and to the defense and security of our nation. For more than 100 years now, you have had many distinguished veterans come before you – some Republican, some Democrat, some presidents. But as a fellow veteran, I can proudly say that there is one title that is more important than all, and that is patriot. You have all earned that title and I am proud to stand with you today."
--John Kerry, Speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 105th Annual Convention, Cincinnati, OH, 17 Aug 2004

"And so a New Soldier has returned to America, to a nation torn apart by the killing we were asked to do. But, unlike veterans of other wars and some of this one, the New Soldier does not accept the old myths.

We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars-in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim.

It is from these things the New Soldier is asking America to turn. We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years.

-- John Kerry, The New Soldier, 1971

Lighting the Virtual Cigars

Another MilBlogger baby arrives - congrats are in order.

Stolen Valor

Much talk around the blogosphere on a related topic today, so it seems like a good time to re-post this entry from December 2003:

A Vietnam veteran who exposed more than 1,200 people trying to capitalize on bogus or inflated Vietnam war records has been saluted with a military honor.

B.G. "Jug" Burkett received the Army's Distinguished Civilian Service Award on Monday from former President George H.W. Bush at the Bush Library in College Station.

"He exposed a mass distortion of history that cost taxpayers billions of dollars" in undeserved veterans benefits, said John W. Nicholson, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. "He returned to the Vietnam veterans their good name."

Burkett's mission began in 1986 with his efforts to raise funds for the Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Dallas. Many people refused to donate, Burkett said, because they believed they would be helping drug-abusing psychopaths with no desire to work or contribute to society.

Though I pointed out that many successful Dallas men, such as former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Roger Staubach, had served in Vietnam, to them, men like Staubach were the exceptions to the rule, the rare individuals who were not ruined by their war experiences. "Everybody" knew most soldiers who fought in Vietnam were reluctant draftees, poor minorities, or dumb cannon fodder not smart enough to avoid military service. When I told them that I - a financial adviser with undergraduate and graduate degrees from major universities - had voluntarily served in Vietnam, they looked at me in disbelief.

"You?" one said. "That surprises me. You seem so normal." Another corporate executive looked right past me - a man with short hair wearing a conservative suit - in his waiting room and asked his secretary, "Where's that Vietnam veteran who's here to see me?"

Burkett started his own research to find out who fought in Vietnam and to debunk some of the myths about Vietnam veterans. Through the work, he exposed more than 1,200 people, including politicians and entertainers, who lied about or exaggerated their claims of serving in the Vietnam War.

Another Blogger in the Early Bird

Michelle Malkin's USA Today opinion piece was included in the briefing earlier this week.

Suppose that means Rumsfeld is ready for a round up of aliens? Those who are inclined to raging paranoia are free to loose sleep tonight.

The Dick Cavett Show Defense

Many discussions of the feud between Swift vets over qualifications of one of their number for the Presidency of the United States seem to drift to this point: The Swift vets anger towards John Kerry is long running, nothing new, and the basis of their opposition to him today.

As though accomplishing great feats of investigative reporting, many will add that John O'Neill was an opponent of John Kerry's years ago, and that the two squared off an obscure Dick Cavett show.

Since most of the numerous veterans groups against Kerry are quite aware of this (to the point of actually hosting transcripts of that show on their web sites), exactly how is this argument in Kerry's favor?

And by all means, read the whole linked transcript, commercial messages and all.

Update: Thanks Professor! The video is available here. (It's much more effective in the original, haughty, yet Kennedy-esque accent. Whatever happened to that accent, by the way?)

Blogs in the Pentagon?

Military readers of this site are likely familiar with The Early Bird,

"...daily compilations of published current news articles and commentary concerning significant defense and defense-related national security issues ... intended to serve the informational needs of senior DoD officials in the continuing assessment of defense policies, programs and actions."

The 18 August edition included Law Schools That Protest Too Much an article from Slate.

Two reasons I find this noteworthy: One, it's an internet source. Obviously the busy folks at the Pentagon aren't limiting themselves to dead tree sources of news.

Two, the author is Phil Carter, an army veteran who runs the blog Intel Dump. (I'd be curious to know if Phil ever had his opinions briefed at the Pentagon prior to leaving the military?)

By the way, the story itself is quite good, worth a read, and offers a truly balanced look at a very contentious issue. An issue on which Phil - a veteran and recent UCLA Law School grad - is uniquely qualified to offer his two cents.

On a somewhat related note: though I don't think Phil's status as a blogger had anything directly to do with his article's inclusion in the early bird, I must note that the Pentagon is aware of MilBlogs. Hugh Hewitt's archives are down, so I rely on fellow MilBlogger Chapomatic for this clip from his show:

Hewitt: General Myers, I have very narrow question. A lot of us who use the internet for a living and blog for a living are interested in this. There are a lot of military bloggers out there. Individual active duty servicemen and women who put their thoughts, their impressions of their duty stations and the world around them on the internet on milblogs. What’s your opinion of that? I love them. I hope you keep them, but what’s the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff think about those?

General Myers: You know, I don’t see that many of them, but based on this conversation Hugh, I will see more of them (laugh). I think, you know, when you get to the four-star level, you fight to get information from the troops and you don’t want to be a victim of just getting fed what the staff brings you every day. The way you work that is through the internet as you just mentioned or you visit places. You go to Iraq, you go to Afghanistan and you try and get down to the individual soldier, airmen, sailor, Marine level, coastguardsmen duty, civilian and look them in the eye and say, “How’s it going?” and establish enough rapport that they’ll tell you, and at my level it’s a constant fight to make sure that you get the straight skinny. I think it’s a good idea that I plug into some of those too in my spare time.

Interesting, in light of this discussion. Fear and Loathing is still being updated, by the way.

Fractures?

The Kerry campaign is beginning some tentative direct return fire in response to attacks from his fellow Swift vets. And a major daily has the story. The Washington Times reports:

Sen. John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that the Democratic presidential nominee is not hiding any of his war records and has, in fact, released them all to the public.

"Senator Kerry's entire military service record is posted on JohnKerry.com. His entire record," said Michael Meehan, adviser for communications to the campaign, at a press conference called to defend Mr. Kerry against recent charges that the former Navy lieutenant didn't deserve some of his war decorations — three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star.

Of course, those familiar with the story are well aware that the medical records - those that Kerry's fellow vets claim would reveal the real truth about his early ticket home from Vietnam - are not available and have not been released.

But later in the Times story comes an interesting quote from Jim Rassmann:

"There's no evidence that the president did not serve honestly and well. And until that shows up, if in fact it's true, let's leave it alone," Mr. Rassmann said. "But by the same token, no one has shown any kind of evidence that John did not perform honorably and well, and by the same token, let's leave that alone as well."

But President Bush, of course, didn't reach down into a river and pull Mr Rassman onto an Iowa stage, thus making his military record the centerpiece of his campaign. Bush's record, like Kerry's, was brought into play by Democrats. (And poured over by the press.)

Still later, a quote from Del Sandusky might give insight into why the Kerry campaign has allegedly discouraged the troops he abandoned in Vietnam from speaking directly to the press:

Also, Mr. Kerry has been asked recently whether he was being "honest" when he said he spent Christmas 1968 under fire in Cambodia — a memory he said was "seared in me."

The Swift Boat veterans say he wasn't in Cambodia then, and none of the 20 veterans who appeared to defend Mr. Kerry yesterday could say where he was that Christmas.

Mr. Sandusky said it doesn't surprise him that Mr. Kerry may have forgotten where he was then because, like many serving in Vietnam, they didn't want to think about Christmas.

"We didn't know where we were at for Christmas," he said. "If [Mr. Kerry] said it, I believe it. I've known John Kerry for 35 years, and he's never lied to me."

Perhaps that's so, but the idea that any US veteran didn't know it was Christmas when he was serving away from home is rather far fetched - to be kind - and John Kerry saying otherwise doesn't make it so. (Though we can't fault Mr Sandusky's loyalty to his superior.)

Kerry however, certainly has no fear of sailing into hostile waters today; his appearance before the Veterans of Foreign Wars aptly demonstrates that. His speech, interrupted occasionally and briefly by polite applause at the designated locations, probably evoked the same images in the minds of those who were there in person as in mine as I watched on TV from Europe.

As he spoke of not breaking faith with those who are serving or had served in the past, as he casually dismissed his post-Vietnam actions, surely many civilians gained that warm fuzzy "I support the troops" feeling. But 90 percent of GIs past present and future heard that speech, and likely saw it too, with these unforgettable images in mind (seared into their memory, if you will):

"They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."
-- John Kerry, speech to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, Washington DC, April 23, 1971

"As President, I will stand with you to complete that mission. The sacrifices that you have made on the battlefield are well known. But what is not as well known is how hard we have fought after we returned from service to keep faith with our fellow soldiers."
-- John Kerry, Speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars 105th Annual Convention, Cincinnati, OH, 18 Aug 2004

The Freemarket of Ideas

General Franks, on tour, with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: What do you make of those Vietnam War veterans -- and you served during the Vietnam War -- who are going after John Kerry bitterly right now, saying he didn't deserve to get those ribbons or those medals, that he simply made up a lot of that stuff? What do you make of this whole campaign against him?

FRANKS: Well, I'm one of the country's biggest believers in the First Amendment. And I have great respect for the fellows who served in Vietnam, and if they think that there's something that they need to say, I respect that. At the same time, I believe it's possible to support one of these candidates without demeaning the other.

BLITZER: So you don't want to make any -- go beyond that, in terms of saying, for example, what Senator John McCain, who himself was a POW in Vietnam, who blasted these critics of John Kerry's Vietnam War experience by saying it's dishonest and dishonorable, the entire attack against him.

FRANKS: Oh, I think there's room for a lot of views out there, and my preference is to just avoid the hyperbole. I think we have a very smart population in this country, and I think America can decide who it wants to be its next president.

Can't argue with that.

I'd might add this, too (see near botom of page):

Members are aware of the liklihood of difference of opinions between fellow members, and although we may not agree with each other on everything we say we will fight for the rights of each other to say it.

We mean that literally.

Our motto, of course, is "Free speech from those who help make it possible"

And with that, I'll welcome SlagleRock and Argus to the MilBlogs ring.

Thanks for your service, gentlemen.

Conventional Makeup

A big neener neener neener to the Dems, from The Washington Times' Inside Politics, 17 Aug '04 edition:

Nearly one in five delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention is a veteran of the U.S. armed forces or an active member of the military, the party announced yesterday.

"We appreciate their sacrifice and are grateful for their service, both to their country and to our democratic process," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said.

Veterans will make up 15 percent of the Republican delegation, and active military personnel will make up 3 percent of the delegates traveling. In comparison, veterans made up 11.5 percent of delegates to the Democratic convention last month.

About 720 veterans and 140 active-duty personnel will attend the Republican convention, which also will feature a delegation that is 17 percent minority and 44 percent female — numbers that stood at 10 percent and 36 percent four years ago.

Sadly this female will not be attending. I was looking forward to her reports, but I applaud her decision.

She does have a list of those bloggers who will be on hand.

Low

Having failed against the most decorated war hero in the nations history the Republicans are now attacking Edwards, who earned his millions by acting only in the interest of the most defenseless Americans.

Have they no shame?

Tonight's Contest

Guess the source of this op/ed and win a prize:

LET ME offer a brief summary of the left-liberal approach to foreign policy: we should stop Africans dying but Iraqis can go to hell. How else can one explain the hypocrisy that surrounds the now overwhelming calls for intervention in Sudan emanating from the same mouths which so opposed intervention in Iraq?

The revolting truth is that such sentiments are shared by most of the liberal Left, who rank their belief in humanitarian action below their antipathy towards President Bush and, more generally, the United States.

Your prize is this link to the author's blog.

On Leaving

More thoughts from me on leaving Europe later.

In the meantime, ponder this, from the Chaplain.

'Ello, Guv'nah'!

Not to be outdone by Republican Mitt Romney, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico is making his mark on America's literary landscape:

Flying Saucers In New Mexico? Governor Rekindles Roswell

Ten years after the U.S. Air Force closed its books on the claim that a UFO crashed in Roswell, N.M., in 1947, a top Democratic Party figure wants to reopen the investigation into the cosmic legend.

Despite denials by federal officials, many UFO buffs cherish the notion that in early summer of 1947, a flying saucer crashed in rural Roswell, scattering alien bodies and saucer debris across the terrain.

Now Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who chaired the recent Democratic convention in Boston, says in his foreword to a new book that "the mystery surrounding this crash has never been adequately explained -- not by independent investigators, and not by the U.S. government. ... There are as many theories as there are official explanations.

"Clearly, it would help everyone if the U.S. government disclosed everything it knows," says Richardson, who served as Energy secretary under President Bill Clinton. "The American people can handle the truth -- no matter how bizarre or mundane. ... With full disclosure and our best scientific investigation, we should be able to find out what happened on that fateful day in July 1947."

<...>

To the Air Force, though, there is no mystery -- and there hasn't been for a long time. In 1994, the Air Force published "Roswell Report: Case Closed, " which asserted that so-called saucer debris was, in fact, the ruins of an unusual type of military research balloon, which contained hypersensitive acoustic sensors designed to detect the rumble of any Soviet A-bomb tests. A subsequent investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office was unable to locate any unreleased records on the case.

Hence, Richardson's foreword drew scorn from veteran UFO investigators and science popularizers.

"We're kind of disappointed in Richardson for perpetuating the mythology of that thing," said Dave Thomas, president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason, a skeptics group in Albuquerque.

The Mudville Gazette, of course, calls on President Bush to immediately disassociate himself from Thomas' group.

Having been to the Secret Hangar I'm sworn to secrecy and can comment no further without risking a sudden disappea

Public Service

Found on the Republican National Committee website:

This is amazing for a couple of reasons, neither of which is made up. The John Kerry campaign, in an effort to burnish the nominee’s image on intelligence matters and spin their way out of his lousy committee attendance record, claimed on its website Monday, “John Kerry served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years and is the former Vice Chairman of the Committee.” Fact is John Kerry has never – ever! – served as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Turns out, there as a senator named Bob Kerrey from Nebraska who was vice chairman for a while. Kerry’s website later pulled the plug on the page, which might be construed as a metaphor for the whole campaign.

Update: I also have it on good authority that the Republican National Comittee is funded by Republican donors. We're investigating that claim, more to come, I'm sure.

Exit Strategy

Last one out turns off the light.

The Nuanced Hero

Russ Vaughn sends:

It truly hurt and I so swore
About that grievous scratch I bore,
From tense and darkened nighttime battle,
So fierce that it might surely rattle
Those who failed to see my deeds
And could sense not my future needs
For medals to lob o’er a fence
Then boast of in elections hence.
So thus it fell alone to me
To swear to what they didn’t see,
And gain myself a Purple Heart,
So they could soon see me depart.

I knew the rules and knew that three
Were all it took to spring me free
From that despised and desperate land
So I devised my nuanced plan,
To cry of wounds that hurt me naught,
But got me out ‘fore things got hot.
And thus I laid my lifetime track,
March in the front duck out the back.
So don’t expect the least contrition
When ere I boast about my mission,
And without shame brag every day
Of the medals I won in that fray.

Some vets may say they cannot see
How I could turn my back and flee
The oath I swore and my duty station
To fly back to a war-torn nation,
Where my deceiving perverse word
Was widely through the country heard,
And to forever falsely damn
Those left behind in Vietnam,
All branded by my condemnation
As villains to their saddened nation,
All while my pseudo hero throng
Gave succor to the Viet Cong.

But come now can you truly doubt
Because I got three hearts and out,
Abandoned combat and my mates
To run back early to the states,
Had any other goal in life
Than politics and richened wife?
To all you lesser men I say,
But in my subtle nuanced way,
So what I scorned you once before?
Put that behind you I implore,
Forget those slights and any others,
And join those fools in my band of brothers.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Lots more here.

More Outrage

This sort of story is becoming increasingly common:

Sgt. Peter Damon, who lost his right arm and left hand in Iraq, never set out to be a bit player in presidential politics and is furious at Michael Moore for making him one in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"It ticked me off," Damon said of the 10-second clip in the Bush-bashing documentary that shows him being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"I just feel it was wrong and I was violated in some way, seeing myself up there on the screen," said Damon, 31, of Brockton, Mass.

"I think [Moore] should be ashamed of himself," added Damon, who was severely injured in October in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, when a tire on a Black Hawk helicopter exploded as he was changing it. The blast killed Pfc. Paul Bueche, 19, of Daphne, Ala.

Damon said he has no regrets about his service with the Army National Guard or doubts about the U.S. mission in Iraq and resents his unwanted link with a film offering a contrary view.

"I'd like to go to the Republican National Convention and speak out about it," Damon said. "I agree with the President 100%. A lot of the guys down at Walter Reed feel the same way."

<...>

Joanne Doroshow, associate producer of "Fahrenheit," said, "Anybody who has seen the film knows we have nothing but the deepest respect for the soldiers who were wounded. One of the purposes of the movie was to examine the impossible situation they were put into and to raise questions about why they were sent there."

<...>

Lt. Col. Chester Buckenmaier, the anesthesiologist who treated Damon at the 21st Combat Support Hospital in Iraq and later at Walter Reed, said he also was angered at the Moore film after he took Damon to see it in Bethesda, Md.

"I was appalled. This was Joseph Goebbels-type propaganda," Buckenmaier said, referring to the Nazi propaganda chief.

Moore took "a very positive thing we're doing for soldiers" who lost limbs and "used it to tell a lie," Buckenmaier said.

<...>

Both Damon and Buckenmaier said they were most incensed at what they felt was the depiction of soldiers as naive, underclass "children" forced to pay in blood for the geostrategic whims of callous politicians.

"The whole movie makes soldiers look like a bunch of idiots," Damon said. "I'm not a child. We sent ourselves over there" as volunteers for a cause, he said. "It was all our own doing. I don't appreciate him calling us children."

It's worth remembering that Moore, the standard bearer for the 21st century Democratic Party, originated the 'Democrats are war heroes/Bush was AWOL' theme - although his original vision was of someone slightly higher ranking than a Swift boat commander. Terry McAuliffe's adaptation ocurred later.

Not content with merely using GI's as unwitting props in his film, the Moore camp will likely begin a campaign to either get the movie shown on military installations or gain a bit more free publicity for the fact that it won't be:

It's been hard to go more than a few days without hearing the name Michael Moore this summer, and in some places "Fahrenheit 9/11" might still be too hot to touch. As of Friday word came that the film won't be shown at any Army bases, with distributors and military officials pointing fingers at each other.

The Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the group that books flicks for military base theaters, said the decision had nothing to do with content and was based purely on financial considerations. Spokesman Judd Anstey said distributors did not make the group aware of the film's availability until it had booked movies through Sept. 3. With the DVD reportedly coming out a month later, Anstey said "for films screened within that type of time frame, the box office is marginal."

A spokeswoman for Lions Gate, one of the film's distributors, countered that "we have made all requested materials available to them, but unfortunately a commitment to show the film has not been made." A spokesman for Fellowship Adventure Group, another distributor of "Fahrenheit 9/11," went on to say that no official DVD release date has been given, and suggested that there were more obvious political motivations for not screening the film.

It occurs to me that a travelling presentation of the film, along with personal appearances by the many soldiers Moore used, would be of great benefit not just on military installations but for all of America.

Barring that, it seems some intrepid film maker looking to set the record straight could make quite an impressive series of on-camera interviews with these guys:

Soldiers in Iraq

The surviving family of Major Greg Stone, USAF

SSG Roy Mitchell and Spc Joe Roche, USA; Australian filmmaker George Gittoes and the GI's in his film, USA

Even more soldiers in Iraq

And probably the entire US Marine Corps

Or you can just "direct" any Moore fans you know right here.

Gotta Let the Little Ones Go

This needs no additional comment from me:

Four Marine Corps recruits fled from Parris Island under the cover of darkness early Wednesday and spent more than 17 hours hiding out in the marsh before being picked up by an off-duty drill instructor near The Sands in Port Royal.

The recruits were reported missing from their barracks at the training depot's Support Battalion at about 2 a.m. and were discovered in the marsh across from Parris Island at 7:20 p.m., said Maj. Ken White, the depot's public affairs officer.

The recruits, who apparently swam across Battery Creek, were taken to Naval Hospital Beaufort, evaluated and brought back to the depot, White said.

"I saw movement in the weeds over in the marsh area," said Gunnery Sgt. Chad Love, the drill instructor with 1st Recruit Training Battalion who found the four recruits near The Sands boat landing. "I saw a recruit take his shirt off and wave his shirt in the air."

Love, who had been fishing, pulled the recruits into his boat, took them to the landing and called 9-1-1.

One of the recruits was suffering from slight hypothermia and another had a sprained ankle.

<...>

The recruits said they had left their barracks around midnight and had been crawling around in the marsh, stopping twice when they thought they saw sharks, Love said.

The Ol' One-Two

Get The Message '04

Tom Harkin on non-veterans who don't support John Kerry:

"Those of us who served and those of us who went in the military don't like it when someone like a Dick Cheney comes out and he wants to be tough. Yeah, he'll be tough. He'll be tough with somebody else's blood, somebody else's kids. But not when it was his turn to go."

They have done a better job of damaging the reputation of the U.S. Navy than they have of damaging John Kerry.

Update: More here.

Kerrey for President?

Note the spelling.

Bob Kerrey, John McCain, George Bush and I have something in common. We're all veterans who didn't serve with John Kerry or his Swift boat contemporaries. What we have to say on their issues matters little compared to the comments of those who were there.

Rather than call on George Bush to condemn Kerry's fellow Swift vets, wouldn't we be better served by Kerry's release of all his military records? Really, rather than choosing sides, how about demanding the facts?

And though not a Vietnam veteran I agree completely with this sentiment from the column:

And as a Vietnam veteran myself, I do hope that one of our own will make it all the way to the White House before I die.

Because it resonates so well with this quote from the Swift vets:

We regret the need to do this. Most Swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican.

And although I'm inclined to vote against the very specific fellow veteran the Swifts describe all too well, I too would like to see the incarnation of Bob Kerrey's "one of our own". A guy I could count on for consistency and clarity, a guy who would stick to the mission until it's end.

Maybe in 2008?

Update:

"The former Navy personnel who are attempting to discredit Sen. John Kerry's record of service in Vietnam are doing so to argue that he is unqualified to be commander in chief. Most appear to be angry with him on account of his opposition to the Vietnam War, not his service in it. They have done a better job of damaging the reputation of the U.S. Navy than they have of damaging John Kerry."

Informal poll: which of these books does the best job of damaging the reputation of the Navy? Which does the most damage to John Kerry?

I say the one on the left is the answer to both, but I confess haven't yet read the one on the right.

Update 2: Scott O'Grady appears to be angry with Kerry on account of his opposition to the Vietnam War, not his service in it too. He damages the reputation of the U.S. Air Force here:

Scott O'Grady, the Air Force pilot who captured headlines in 1995 when he survived being shot down over Bosnia, on Friday said Sen. John Kerry committed "treason" during the Vietnam War.

O'Grady, in an appearance with other military veterans coordinated by President Bush's re-election campaign, said Kerry helped push North Vietnam's proposals for the United States to withdraw at a time when the two countries were still officially at war.

"I see that as treason," said O'Grady, who lives in Texas and has been speaking at veterans events for Bush around the country. He's now retired from the military.

A Bush campaign spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, said O'Grady's views were his own.

"The Bush-Cheney campaign does not and has not ever questioned John Kerry's patriotism," Schmitt said.

O'Grady said he was referring to Kerry's 1971 appearance before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In response to a question about how he proposed to end the war, Kerry mentioned that he was involved in peace talks in Paris.

"I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government," Kerry told the panel, according to a transcript.

A U.S. law prohibits citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on matters such as peace treaties.

(Via Jen Martinez).

VJ Day

News Flash: WWII is over!

Well, mostly. And a big 59th anniversary hat tip to all my fellow military members still serving in Japan. Been there, done that.

And if you're unaware of this discussion, don't blame me.

Updates from the Stan

A MilBlogger returns from Afghanistan.

Another is still there.

Wish them both well.

Ouch

The new Air Force uniform:

Larry Luckey gets a lot of comments on his appearance - so many that he keeps a log of all the things people say to him.

The technical sergeant is one of about 70 airmen at McChord Air Force Base who are test-wearing the service's striking new tiger-striped, blue-green-and-gray utility uniform.

<...>

Luckey's log includes the woman who told him the new uniform made him look cold. Another said he looked wet.

A soldier asked if he were Canadian, and a teenage girl asked if he were Russian.

The bluntest critics tend to be retired servicemen. One, noting the colors and the camouflage pattern, asked what he was supposed to blend in with. Another said, "That's the ugliest thing I have ever seen."

But Luckey's favorite is the retired guy who walked up to him at the base exchange one day, angrily thumped him on the chest and said, "This is a vote against!"

Doesn't look all that bad to me. But is that the best photo they could get? At least you can't say it looks better in the dark.