I can see and understand some people’s comments on YouTube that the Soldiers (Pilots) were a bit blood thirsty, callous, and a little to casual with humor in killing the insurgents. I think their wrong! Frankly, I’d never hold it against anyone in taking enjoyment out of their job. You might find that callous as well. Tough. If your living this 24/7 I doubt you would spend a year without laughing and having a good time. This is war, the thing video games are based upon and billions of dollars are spent for enjoyment (video games, paintball, chess, D&D, movies, ect).

(Update: I’d like to add to the comments I made in the paragraph above in regard to the Pilots.  My Marine housemate likes to remind me from time to time, “No one ever said Marines are Saints or Angels; They are the exact opposite; they are some brutal mother_____ers!”  These men aren’t Saints, they are life-takers.  Don’t confuse them with some ambivalent pansy politically correct Soldier in a movie who is highly benevolent.  They are trained killers, and guess what; they have potty mouths to be coupled with their desire to eliminate threats.  As the Bradleys came under fire nothing they went into action and became angered when they couldn’t perform their job.  Soldiers feel intense emotions when they know their fellow Americans lives are on the line.

The one thing I can never remove from my head is the Spirit of the Bayonet.  During my training our drill sergeants made us repeat it over and over again.  I’ll repeat it for you; Drill Sergeant screams, “What is the Spirit of the Bayonet.” Answer. “To KILL. To KILL! To KILL without mercy. Make the grass grow green with blood. Huah!”  If you enter the world of a Soldier you have to put away your Disney channel mindset.

To further push this.  Here are some vulgar quotes from a Great Soldier George S. Patton,

“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.”

“Some goddamn fool once said that flanks have got to be secure. Since then son-of-a-bitches all over the globe have been guarding their flanks. I don’t agree with that. My flanks are something for the enemy to worry about, not me. Before he finds out where my flanks are, I’ll be cutting the bastard’s throat.”)

Once again, these pilots did their job. They probably even saved American lives that day.

Now that I think of it this reminds me of the Battle of Mogadishu. During the Battle of Mogadishu when the blackhawk went down and the horde of angry skinnies and enemy Soldiers were on their way, it was said that US Troops fired indiscriminately into the crowd on unarmed civilians. Once again law of war has to be explained to naive college idiots. If you are walking with and it would seem to be in cohorts with the enemy, no matter if armed or not during a battle; that makes you a valid target. Especially during the Battle of Mogadishu, you don’t need an AK-47 or RPG to smash in the head of a pilot laying on the ground. People can kill with their bare hands and feet.

Update:

Little Green Footballs says, “Quite a few people are calling this clear evidence of a war crime. I’m not so sure it is, because at least in the initial group of men, some of them were evidently armed. The shooting of the rescuers, however, is highly disturbing.”

While I claim to be an expert on the military, I don’t claim to be an expert on Law of War.  However, I’m going to open my keyboard to my thoughts anyway. Is the shooting of the rescuers really that disturbing? While at first I thought the same thing, they didn’t seem to pose any kind of threat and were acting in the manner of medics. But the bullet is, they aren’t identifying themselves as such. Here is a good example, in Saving Private Ryan Vin Diesels’ character gets shot by a sniper. His buddies try to save him, which is a reoccurring scene in war movies, and the sniper takes shots at them. If your trying to perform the actions of a medic, but are either armed or/and not displaying the red cross your thus an enemy combatant. While it didn’t appear they were carrying weapons in the video, they did have a van which we all know has to be considered in the hands of insurgents to be a possible vehicle borne IED. While this is a stretch, this is war. Tough.

Oh.  Also.  The US never ratified the 4th Geneva Convention and hopefully will never be part of the International Court.  So suck it!

Update 2:

While a little unrelated.  I’d like to add a thing about my military training.  I was always told you should never make all your shots, kill shots.  Sometimes it’s a good idea to wound your enemy so his friends feel obligated to rescue him.  Which means with one bullet you’ve now taken at least three people out of the fight.

Update 3:

Sorry, thinking like a cop again. In wartime you don’t need a reason to kill the enemy. Just seeing the enemy is good enough. They don’t have to pose a threat or be armed. That’s what we call an advantage! If you drop a bomb on a barracks full of Soldiers while they are sleeping, that’s a victory. The only way you cannot kill your enemy is when they are actively surrendering. When that van showed up and assisted the insurgents they made themselves a valid target. By assisting them they showed the Apache pilots whose side they were on and made themselves a target.

For those who comment saying it doesn’t look like an RPG or Ak47s. Bull! Your not in a combat zone, your not flying 120mph at 1,000 feet in the air worrying about possible RPGs, and if you wait any longer lives are on the line.

Other people are just ignoring that out of a crowd of 8 to 10 people only 2 were journalist. The others were Insurgents.

To the people that comment and say that these guys aren’t combatants because they aren’t seeking cover from the helicopter till after it shoots at them. Your an idiot! Watch the video again. Notice the time difference from the weapon firing to the time it hits the ground. The Apache was at least a mile away. The Insurgents probably had no clue the helicopter was in the area or if they did was observing them.

Update 4:

I’d just like to add that bloggers have the ability to see the google search you used that brought you to their site.  I have an enormous amount of hits from people searching “Collateral Murder pilots names.”  I know what that’s about and I just want to comment, that is completely screwed up and very unethical.  What are you going to do?  Find out who the pilots are and try to find their home address and send them a nasty letter, bomb, hate mail?  Leave the troops alone, they don’t need to go to war and have to come home and be dejected to trolls like you.

For those who don’t know, I was stationed at Guantanamo Bay.  Many times the families of military police officers stationed there would get death threats through phone calls and in the mail.  It’s abhorrent, unethical, and un-American to treat America’s uniformed services with such disrespect (besides criminal).

I was about to have a conniption watching Obama’s speech.  It took me several days, but now that I’m no longer angry about it; I think I can write a valid blog without sounding like a complete ranting lunatic.

The first thing I’d like to point out is something he does in almost every speech.  He doesn’t realize he’s the president of the United States and not a candidate for election of the president of the United States.  His Surprise Afghanistan speech is one of many speeches that just sound like campaign propaganda.  Seriously!  Mr. President when are you going to get off the campaign trail?

The second thing is (which kind of relates to the first) stop talking about yourself to much.  It’s always me… me… me… (adversely I’d like to include I… I… I…) Can the people of the United States get a break from your Cult of Personality?  I assume that all politicians are pretty self-centered, but Obama takes first prize in the I Love Myself, and Talk About Myself All Day competition.  I’m pretty sure he would beat out Paris Hilton.  I mean who goes to support the troops and then talks about numbro-Uno?  If your going to entertain the troops you need to stay focused on them, not yourself.

And, Stop with the, “Oh, I’m such a great guy because I’d never make you do anything unless it was REALLY REALLY important.” Please, I’m tired of his propaganda that he’s so intelligent and that the War in Iraq was a huge worthless piece of crap. He’s basically walking up there and saying, “Hey, don’t blame me for any past wars, wasn’t this guy. If you were part of those wars they were really stupid weren’t they!”

A little taste I skimmed real quick:

“And to the Afghan people, I want to say that I’m honored to be a guest in your country.” (2 times in one sentence.)

“Now, I know for most of you, you didn’t get a lot of notice that I was coming. But I want you to understand, there’s no visit that I considered more important than this visit I’m making right now, because I have no greater honor than serving as your Commander-in-Chief. And it is a privilege to look out and see the extraordinary efforts of America’s sons and daughters here in Afghanistan. So my main job here today is to say thank you on behalf of the entire American people.”  (Seriously! He mentioned himself 7 times in the first 2 sentences.)

My third problem with this speech is that he’s either lying or forgetful or just plain stupid.  Let me just show you and then I’ll say my peace.

You are part of the finest military in the history of the world, and we are proud of you. And so I want you to know that everybody back home is proud of you. Everybody back home is grateful. And everybody understands the sacrifices that you have made and your families have made to keep America safe and to keep America secure in this vital mission.

So I want you to know, I want every American serving in Afghanistan, military and civilian, to know, whether you’re working the flight line here at Bagram or patrolling a village down in Helmand, whether you’re standing watch at a forward operating base or training our Afghan partners or working with the Afghan government, your services are absolutely necessary, absolutely essential to America’s safety and security. Those folks back home are relying on you.

So thanks to you, there’s been progress these last several months. But we know there are going to be some difficult days ahead. There’s going to be setbacks. We face a determined enemy. But we also know this: The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something. (Applause.) You don’t quit, the American armed services does not quit, we keep at it, we persevere, and together with our partners we will prevail. I am absolutely confident of that. (Applause.)

Right there I want to use that sound effect that Steven Crowder does, “Bahhh WHAA!! BAHHH WHAA!”  Clearly from a logical standpoint this paragraph is blatantly wrong.  It’s impossible that Everybody back home is grateful.  Obama clearly didn’t go to every single house in America and ask if they were grateful for the troops or not and there are no polls showing a 100% gratefulness in America.  While I clearly know this is a figure of speech I’m bringing this up because only a couple years ago Harry Reid made this sentiment about Iraq, “This war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.”  We don’t quit?  During the whole war the democrat party has been waiving the french flag… the one that’s all white.  The democrats have also be actively betraying our own troops and CIA operatives.  Doesn’t sound like you got our backs!

The last thing I want to add I can’t verify so take it with a grain of salt.  Every time I see president Obama speak to troops that are in a combat zone they appear to be missing their rifles.  At least for the Army once you go into the war zone you don’t get rid of it until you leave the war zone.  So that either means they aren’t letting in combat troops or they are taking away weapons when you enter the building that the president is in.  Now I would be fine with this if Bush did it; however, several Soldiers I’ve spoken too who were in Iraq while Bush and Cheney visited said that they walked amongst the troops and never took weapons away.  So what does this mean?  Is Obama scared of his own troops?  Does he fear the military?  Or, is it just his liberal democrat Chicago ideology that just makes him feel weak in the knees around guns?

Just to point out you can’t get anymore anti-American than the UCMJ and the American Military. It blows my mind how I and my fellow military members deal with such a slap in the face of American ideals.

To understand how America could allow something so anti-American to exist it important to understand American history. The United States never had a standing army until after World War II. We always had a very small force that could train a larger force very quickly. The US only raised an army when it was going to war. So in the sense of living under an authoritarian rule for the length of a war was a sacrifice that had to be paid. Since we never had a standing army the rights and privileges of the citizens inside of the organization was never an issue. Their can’t be any change when 2 or 4 years after enlistment the millions of fighters leave and go back to their farms and never care about the Army they had just left.

Many American Soldiers I speak with believe that every military must be the same because the way we run our military must be the most logical. This is of course is what happens when you brainwash people. Don’t get me wrong, in basic training it’s very fundamentally important to get a person to learn how to kill. Everything in our humanity pushes us away from wanting to kill another person.

Our brothers in Europe have a bit more liberty. It mostly stems from the fact that they have always had a standing military and things like the possibility of mutiny and voters demographic come into play. The voters demographic is a big one. Our total military power makes up roughly 3 million out of 300 million; which for my math challenged friends is 1% of the population. In America it’s becoming very rare that the common citizen is even related to uniformed service member. Also, deep rooted customs play a considerable role. The United States Military forces all of it’s males to pretty much have a high and tight hair cut with the side burns very high, and the only authorized facial hair is a small mustache. The only military guys your ever going to see with facial hair are special forces operatives trying to blend in with the local population. Even though in American history it was customary of our our generals to have very large beards. When the invention of chemical warfare came around, the US was very quick to nix the wear of beards. Unlike our Germany pals who to this day still rock awesome side burns and I’ve seen many beard wearing German Soldiers, even officers.

Which seems odd considering how as citizens Americans are much more free from their government than citizens of European countries.

Maybe not the best example but when Americans deploy to a combat zone it’s sure enough that the first order out of the commanders mouth is, “You are no longer authorized to drink beer.” Just like that. When I’ve worked with British and German troops I’ve brought this up and they have all agreed that if their commanders would order such a thing that their would surely be mutiny among the men. I’ve also noticed that the British, German and Canadian leaders treat their people with much more respect.

Once again we must look at history to understand the way things are. Before World War II it was very common for men to reach the 6th grade and leave school to pursue work. The common man was very uneducated. Officers were those who had received education and enlisted were the uneducated. In the simplest of terms you can’t have a uneducated moron running things. Officers were always with the men. Officers led the troops. They were responsible for everything they did.  However, in our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan you’ll find it very hard to find an officer anywhere off base. Officers very rarely go on missions. Everything is run by Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO). In the past you might have had a captain or a major in charge of a convoy you will now find a First Sergeant or Sergeant First Class in charge of a large convoy. In our current wars officer stay inside the base and write memos and push paper. They make strategy, policies, look at the broader war and run command and control or much larger elements.

This isn’t just possible because the world has changed, or that majority of Americans graduate high school with a degree but because the military requires a GED or High School Diploma to enlist. Because of educational benefits most senior enlisted possess a bachelors degree.

With this knowledge it seems absurd that people like LTC Allen West was brought up on charges for the actions of his men below him. Who shouldn’t have been in trouble in the first place. They assaulted an Iraqi Police Officer who betrayed his country and was selling it out to terrorists. He most likely had 200 to 300 men under his command, how can he be responsible for the actions of so many?

To expand on this, when I joined the military I had always believed that if I did something wrong accidentally or for the greater good that the military had your back. Your leaders had your back. Your country had your back.  Maybe because of the actions of those at My Lai during Vietnam that sent our policy to sell out our men for the smallest of infraction. Which is insane, it’s a war people are dieing and someone gets punched in the face and it’s to jail with you! How many enemies did those Soldiers kill for their country and your going to throw them in jail for punching one?

Warriors like the Navy Seals who are being charged for punching some low-life terrorist in the mouth and/or stomach could face time in prison for something they might or might not have done. The absurd thing is that it went so far that they requested a court-martial, but that it should have ended with their commander saying, “Don’t do that again *wink wink* Now get out of my face! Oh and take some much needed R&R.”

Something is wrong with our Leaders, our law, and our military that these things have to be even spoken about.

How many times did our World War II vets probably go a little over-the-line, we don’t know? Because that generation knew how to keep it’s mouth shut and watch each others back. We’ve lost Esprit de corps and it makes me sick.

article from CNSNEWS.com

The accuser, Ahmed Hashim Abed, is the alleged architect of the murder of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. The bodies of the four Americans were burned and hanged from a bridge for display.

The three Navy Seals–Matthew McCabe, Jonathon Keefe, and Julio Huertas–will be arraigned on Monday in Norfolk, Va. They are facing a special court martial–which is equivalent to a misdemeanor charge–and have each denied the allegations of abuse and cover-up.

The trial date for McCabe, the Seal charged with the alleged assault, is tentatively set for Jan. 19, 2010, McCabe’s attorney Neal Puckett said.

Defense attorneys told CNSNews.com that they are waiting to see the evidence from military prosecutors because it is still under review to determine if it is classified. Even the charges, the only court filings in the case thus far, are still under review.

“The government has not handed over anything,” Huertas’ attorney Monica Lombardi told CNSNews.com. “They are now claiming that things are classified, but they are not saying what’s classified and what’s not classified. I filed my discovery request, and they denied it, pending a classification review. … We have no photographs of the alleged injuries. We have no medical reports of these alleged injuries.”

Attorneys for both McCabe and Huertas said they would insist on cross-examining Abed. The Constitution grants Americans the right to face their accuser at a trial.

“If somebody was trying to claim that you assaulted them, but they refused to come into court, what prosecutor in what state would deny you your right to confrontation of the alleged victim?” Lombardi said.

When CNSNews.com asked what would happen if the military declined to bring Abed to the United States to testify for security reasons, Lombardi said, “It would be, at that point, we could ask the judge to dismiss the charges.”

McCabe, a special operations petty officer, second class, is charged with assaulting the detainee for reportedly punching him in the midsection; with dereliction of duty for failure to safeguard the detainee; and with making a false official statement on the matter.

Though news reports differ on whether it was a punch to the gut or a bloody lip, Puckett says the official charge is a punch to the mid-section.

Huertas, a special operations petty officer, first class, is charged with dereliction of duty, making a false official statement and impeding an investigation.

Keefe, a special operations petty officer, second class, is charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.

Under special court-martial rules, all three defendants would face the same maximum penalty, Puckett said, even though the charges against each one deviate slightly. The maximum penalty for the charges would be one year in military confinement, reduction of two-thirds of their pay for a year and discharge from the military for bad conduct.

Lombardi said Huertas greatly appreciates the public outpouring of support since the reports first surfaced of the arrest.

“My client is extremely grateful for all the support from the American public,” Lombardi said. “He’s a career professional who’s just doing his job. It boosts your morale when you know that you go over there and are doing your job and the American public actually does care about what you’re doing. He’s really humbled by it.”

The military first sought non-judicial punishment, called a “captain’s mast.” It would have spared them any chance of imprisonment but would have severely harmed and possibly ended their military careers, Puckett said.

“There was some pressure on them to accept a lesser form of punishment,” Puckett said. “That would have meant that some commander had predetermined their guilt and would have punished them in a way that would have ended their careers. They weren’t willing to accept that and felt that it would not be a fair hearing.”

They each refused the captain’s mast and opted for a court martial, which is a military trial, to clear their names. The punishment from a court-martial conviction could be greater.

Though it was a better option than accepting guilt, Puckett said, such charges should have never been brought.

“Forget what the punishment would be, even a conviction would be a federal conviction for these guys,” Puckett said. “A federal conviction alone–even before you consider what punishment they get–is grossly disproportionate to the misconduct that’s alleged.

“If we’re talking about the detainee getting punched in the gut by Petty Officer McCabe, given the evil that guy [Abed] is alleged to have wrought on American contractors back in 2004 in Fallujah, it seems that it’s overkill to think that it’s appropriate to send these guys to court martial,” Puckett added.

Puckett suspects this was an overreaction by military brass in regards to detainee abuse.

“The most obvious speculation to me seems to be that the American military and particular Army commanders, and this was an Army commander, are overly sensitive to allegations of detainee abuse in the wake of Abu Ghraib,” Puckett said. “I think they feel a need to overly punish, overly react to these allegations to keep future ones from happening again.”

The alleged punch happened on Sept. 1 when Abed was in captivity.

Abed, after his capture, was held at Camp Baharia, a U.S. base outside of Fallujah. He was briefly handed over to Iraqi authorities and then returned to U.S. custody. Another petty officer, not a Navy Seal, reported the alleged abuse, Lombardi said. It then went up the chain of command, and the commanding general ordered the charges.

Lombardi believes if there was any abuse, it might have happened on the Iraqi side.

“He was turned over to the Iraqi police,” Lombardi said. “He is an Iraqi citizen. Eventually, he’ll go home. Wouldn’t it be a lot better to claim the Americans abused you than the Iraqi police?”

Lombardi said there is a legal defense fund for the Seals, and that she is glad the public can see the Seals were doing the right thing.

“They were capturing a terrorist that we’ve been searching for, for five years. They did it in a professional manner,” Lombardi said. “When you think you’re doing everything right and you’ve got somebody saying, ‘no, you did it wrong,’ it’s really nice to know everybody is saying, ‘you did it right. You did us a favor. Why are you being punished?”

It’s really great that Steven could go entertain the Troops at Club Survivor (the dinky outdoor bar and club inside Camp America).  I remember seeing Toby Keith and other bands like Ballentine while I was there.

Cocktail; We used that terminology. My personal favorite was snicker attack, or being snickered; AKA Brown-log Attack! That’s when a detainee poops in his hand and throws it at a guard. They did however install a poop shield back in 2005 to prevent such things. However, the government as usual isn’t very effective at anything they do.

My only advice would be to Steven is to go back to Gitmo as a journalist (I’m pretty sure Pajamas Media can hook him up with that) and actually visit the detention facility.  If he went as a comedian I know for a fact they would have let him drive past Camp Delta; however he wouldn’t have had a tour of Camp Delta and or X-Ray.  All he has to do is go back with media credentials and he can get a first hand experience of the place instead of rely on his information from other sources.  Not that he’s wrong, but as someone who’s seen the entire place; it’s worth seeing first hand.

It’s also important to note that Camp Delta and X-Ray were completely built from the ground up.  Sometimes I cry at night thinking about how much money the government spent to build the place; only to have Obama close her down.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think they (They being the Dirty Stinking Detainee terrorists expletives) should be tried in court.  However, it should be the military tribunals that the Bush administration had intended.  While I was there the administration had continually tried to give them their day in court.  Except the stupid US Court of Appeals for the 9th circuit over and over again put a hold on the process.  In the case of the detainees getting their due process we can only blame San Francisco Elitists who think they should dictate to the military our right to try the detainees in a military court.  We found’em we should get to Fry’em.  Many have already plead guilty so I don’t know what’s the big deal.

The meanest thing on that island isn’t even the detainees, it’s those darn iguanas. Their mean suckas! They don’t give up either. The only difference between a detainee and an iguana is that if the detainee attacks you at least you can beat the crap out of him. The Cuban Iguana are protected by law as endangered species.

One thing Steven you forgot to mention about the health care of the detainees. If a detainee attacked a guard and both were injured in the process… the detainee would be treated first over the American Guard… It’s true, and it’s sad.

I however quickly learned that this wasn’t true.  In many cases, Soldiers are not even seeing their rifles for 6 months to 2 years at a time.

The federal government, especially the military has the biggest problem with trust.  The official explanation for Soldiers not being armed is that they are all living in the safest gated community in the United States.  However, on Army and Marine bases especially, the perpetrators are those already living on the inside.  I’m sorry but some of our service member’s are criminals who just haven’t been caught yet, and in some cases they have been caught (that’s what a MORAL WAIVER is for).  I hate to say this but the Air Force tends to have the ability to be picky about who they hire.

From a second amendment standpoint; “good” service members aren’t even safe in their own homes.  While gun ownership laws continue to get stricter, most Americans still have the right to bear arms in their own home.  They feel safe with a gun under the pillow.  Service member’s are not allowed to possess personal firearms.

While in government housing (which is mandatory for most) the possession of a firearm is a crime.  A service member can own a personal firearm but must put it in the base armory.  For example, when a Soldier wants to go hunting he/she has to sign out their OWN gun from the armory.

From a security forces perspective it even gets scarier.  A base with approximately 30,000 workers on it is going to have a police force of about 90 to 120 Department of Defense civilian police officers and military police combined.  Most bases work with three shifts, so that’s about 30 police officers protecting sometimes up to 40 to 80 square miles at one time.

Now while the off duty officers might be only 2 to 10 minutes away, they cannot respond.  Security forces (civilian and military alike) currently have to sign out their weapon at the beginning of each shift.  So if their was some kind of major attack on an installation; the police force would be quickly overwhelmed as their relief would have to first arm up before responding.

We have all given up the responsibility of protecting ourselves to police officers.  When a big scary person with a gun comes after you, what do you do?  Call the Police?  Why?  It’s simple, they have guns!  If this was anytime for the 1920s it was a simple solution, “Paw and Maw git yer gun!”  (unless of course they were already touting it.

Excerpt from this thing called the constitution:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Some people argue that the right to bear arms is referring to that of the military.  However, the use of the comma in the bill of rights is clearly used to show separate rights.  The comma is kind of used as saying this is a right, and oh by the way this is also a right and don’t confuse it with the previous this I states.  Like in the 1st amendment the freedom of speech is broken down with a comma showing that the freedom of the press, religion, and to peaceably assemble are all separate and equal rights. Plus, this little thing that states “The right of the people” I mean if the dudes that wrote the constitution meant it to be just the military they would have stopped at the word militia.  But, they were very smart and continued on with, that’s right adding in other people, like you and me!  The People!

Then their are those who say that to bear arms doesn’t include on your person.  A simple look at the word “bear” in the use of a verb reveals this in my trusty dictionary; “to hold up; support; to hold up under; be capable of; to hold or carry; to exhibit; to show; to have and use.”  Then my ever useful thesaurus says, “carry, convey, deliver, ferry, fetch, lug, move, pack, take, tote, transfer, transport.”  To just prove a point the antonym of bear is that of which gun laws provide, “refuse, take, throw away.”  Plus, the word Keep is usually a dead give away.

To boot at the end they added in this thing that says, “Shall not be infringed.”  By definition adding laws that govern the right to bear arms in itself is an infringement.

My point is that if you every watch a western, all the good guys aren’t calling cops to help them.  They all had guns!  You defended yourself!  While I believe we should have a well armed and powerful police force, I also believe that everyone has a responsibility to protect themselves.

If everyone is armed you will still see shootings, but you would never see one person kill 12 people and harm 30 others. You might get two people before the whole  crowd guns you down.

Currently their is a bill before congress H.R. 675 that would change the status of DOD police officers to Federal Police Officers.  They would be allowed to carry weapons at all times, make arrests and enforce laws.  They currently can subdue civilians but have to turn them over to local police.  Who in many cases just release them.  For an example, if a civilian brought a firearm onto a federal installation the DOD police would then arrest them, call the county police department, who would then show up and release the person because they didn’t break a state law.

While I think all citizens should be able to carry firearms on their person at all times without the government arresting them, I do think the DOD police should be able to enforce other laws.

When I use the term DOD police I’m referring to th Department of Army, Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force police.

I’ve been activated for deployment twice and I know all about this.  An entire unit shows up to this thing called SRP, (an SRP is basically a process of making sure all your paperwork, medical issues and equipment is ready for deployment).  The biggest deal with these things are the medical review.  When my unit was deployed, half of the people inside the unit had teeth pulled.  That’s right!  Teeth pulled!  It’s cheaper for the government to just pull your teeth out than fix them.

Well about two or three years ago, the military opened up Tricare to reservists, and about one year ago they opened up a dental plan.  The problem was they were losing to many people through the SRP process (if your too broken to deploy, they won’t send you) and it was costing the government a lot of money to fix people’s issues.

If you think government run health care is great.  Let me tell you about my experience.

Sure, while your on active duty it’s totally free!  You just show up and they take care of your problems.

However, it’s been my experience that they make it very unpleasant to go.  First off, ever wake up in the morning and feel like total crap?  Of course everyone does.  That’s when you call up work and call in dead.  Sometimes the best remedy is just rest.  Why go to a doctor if you know you just need some good old Zs?

Not in the military!  If you wake up and you just need some rest.  SICK CALL!  See the military (and government for that matter) has a process for everything.  If your sick, go to sick call.  Their view on it is; your not a doctor, so you can’t make a judgment like that on your own.  Want to go to sick call?  The night before you have to see your supervisor and fill out a sick call form.  You have to show up for the morning formation;  Usually around 4:30 or 5am (forget about that recommended sleep I was talking about earlier).  Then, you can be taken to the hospital or local clinic.  Since sick call is at a specific time, the waiting line is incredibly long.  I mean who thought sending everyone to the hospital at the same time was a brilliant idea?  So after you’ve waited around for a couple hours you finally get to see a medic.

Now be careful; I love medics, but those guys will try and convince you that you need an IV!  You go in for a headache and their like, ‘what you need is some H20 in your veins!’  Why do they want to stick you?  Well they need to do so many ’sticks’ a year to stay certified.  So they are always pushing for IVs.  My recommendation is if you came in with a hangover… take the IV, it’s WONDERFUL!

Now sick call is for minor things, if your issue turns out to be something bigger.  They will then schedule you to see a specialist.

Another problem is sometimes your chain of command will give you a hard time about seeing a doctor.  Just like a normal business, nobody likes to lose their employee for a day or two.

I’ve also heard people complain that health care insurance companies force people to go to only doctors inside of their plan.  That you have to call ahead to, ‘OK’ seeing a doctor.  Guess what!  Tricare does the same thing.  In my opinion they are even worse.  I had to get a physical and was told my closest choice was an hour and a half away.  Recently for a flight physical I had to get my eyes checked.  Even though their are plenty of doctors that do Eye Refractions, if I wanted the government to pay for it I had to go to the closest government medical facility.  It just so happens that it was about three hours away.  Efficiency, nope.

I’ve heard congress talking about preexisting conditions a lot recently.  Which kind of makes me laugh because of the enlistment process.  Everyone knows recruiters will tell you anything to get you into the military.  However, did you know that their are people whose job revolves around making sure you can’t make it into the military?  When potential recruits make the decision to join the military they take them to a place called MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station).  Now it’s the recruiters job to make sure you get into the military, and it’s MEPS job to make sure you don’t.  WAH!?  Yes!  The medical department at MEPS is tasked with weeding out people who are trying to enter with preexisting conditions.  Most people think they are just trying to see if you meet the standard of what is expected of a service member.  It’s just not true.  You see many people try to enter the military to get free health care.  They find out something is wrong with them that will costs MEGABUCKS, and they figure my only choice is the military.  Well, the truth is the government doesn’t want to fix broken people.  They, just like a corporation have to worry about costs.  Nobody wants to take on someone who already has problems.  So, if your planning on joining let me tell you, ‘those doctors at MEPS aren’t your friend!’

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s nice having free health care while on active duty.  Except, it’s not really free.  My taxes and your taxes are paying for it.  The military is full of great doctors who really care about helping troops.  My opinion is that health care is too big of an issue to pass it through quickly and it’s just sounds too complicated as some of the plans are 1,000 pages long.  It sounds like a lot of loop holes to me.

Free Market Military supports the effort to change the law so that health care can be bought across state lines.  If the president wants competition, start with allowing companies to go to any state!  That’s a no brain`er.  I think they should pass a bill now for tort reform and health care across state lines.  Once that’s done, hey, let’s see if we still even need the public plan.  Maybe, it will fix itself… with the FREE MARKET!

In my heart I’d really like to support single-payer solution.  Our taxes pay for police, fire departments, mail; why not my doctor?  If I thought it would work, I would support it.  Frankly, I think the only thing the government would do is mess it up.  I’ve always thought of the government as this person who is suppose to protect you and enforce standards.  But, if the government becomes your provider… who’s going to protect you from the government?

For Fox News and John Stossel this is going to be a career changer.  Especially for John, I mean is anyone watching anybody but Fox these days?

Most of my news comes from either Fox or the Internet.  Once in awhile I like to flip to MSNBC and CNN too see how they are reporting on the same story.  Sometimes they aren’t even covering it.  Most of the time they are talking about it and it just seems like Fox has about 200% more information on the story.

The best example of this; does anyone remember that story of the teenage highschool girls who made a pact to all get pregnant.  Well I started off watching it on CNN I believe (could have been MSNBC), and they were interviewing the teenagers.  The whole feel of the interview was basically, ‘Wow, look how cute this story is.  Aren’t these kids so mature and grown up to make cute decisions like these.  Wowwie!  How did you guys feel all about this?’

The story CNN was portraying was all positive; which as time went by I started thinking.  WTF?  These are a bunch of teenage girls who can’t vote, can’t smoke, can’t drink, and can’t get into a contract with anyone.  But, they should all decide to get preggers?  That’s not cute and smart, that’s naive and stupid!

So I switched to Fox News and they were talking about the same story.  I ended up getting a lot more information about the story that even though CNN had a live interview didn’t get to the bottom of the whole thing.

Fox was discussing how one or several of the girls had older men, twenty-something impregnate them.  Now most of the girls did it with their underage boyfriends, but CNN wasn’t even talking about this; which happens to then be a CRIME!

Now the thing I like about FOX is they are Fair and Balanced.  So they brought up the fact that these adult men should have been responsible enough to known they were committing a crime.  Then, added in an opposing view that maybe the adult guys shouldn’t be prosecuted because the girls who intended to get pregnant were almost predators in this situation.

Why bring this up?  Well, it’s becoming quite clear that nobody watches any of the other networks anymore.  They put out the statistics on how many people are watching each network, and I’d like to think that the actual numbers are even lower.  I have to consider that military offices and government buildings have TVs on displaying the news all day.  Somehow they are always on CNN or MSNBC.  So if they are basing these numbers on how many people are actively getting signal from those stations, considering how many TVs the government owns their are very very few actual citizens watching ABC, MSNBC, and CNN.

Why don’t they have FOX on you might ask?  I asked the same thing to my First Sergeant and at the time his response was, “Their is no point in watching those who support us, you gotta watch your enemies!”

The problem that arises from FOX becoming the only news channel watched on TV is apparent from anyone who believes in the free market.  Nobody watches CNN or MSNBC, then all of their advertisers pull out and they go bankrupt.  No matter how much I like FOX, I don’t want them to have a monopoly.

Monopolies are very evil, especially in the world of news.  *Cough Venezuela cough*

So while John Stossel improves FOX NEWS, I hope it also smacks MSNBC, CNN and ABC in the face and say, ‘Hey you better change your ways or you’ll be like GM, God forbid!’

I think I’ll start this post with a similar joke that the joke Petreaus told was probably based on.  It’s a pretty well-known joke in the military world.

The classic joke:

So I saw this poster the other day.  It was really great!  It depicts the 4 different services on it, the first one is a Soldier out at a checkpoint in the middle of the jungle and it’s raining and the bubble above his head says, ‘This Sucks!’  The next picture shows a Marine in the middle of the jungle with a 80 pound pack on and it’s raining and he’s covered in mud and he says, ‘This sucks, but I love it!’  Man, those Marines are crazy.  Then, there’s a picture of this Sailor and he’s out in the middle of the ocean and the waves are crashing over-top of his ship and washing over him and he says, ‘This SUCKS!’  The last picture shows this Air Force Officer sitting on his couch in his office looking at his TV.  He’s clicking the remote and he says, ‘The CABLE IS OUT! THIS SUCKS!’

Why is this evidence that Petraeus plans on running for president?  It’s simple, no self-respecting Soldier would ever apologize for telling this joke.  Only a politician who is very worried about offending a large section of potential voters would apologize for this kind of joke.

The Marines’ sense of toughness permeates the Corps’ lore as well as its reality.

To recall an illustrative story, a soldier is trudging through the muck in the midst of a downpour with a 60-pound rucksack on his back. “This is tough,” he thinks to himself.

Just ahead of him trudges an Army Ranger with an 80-pound pack on his back: “This is really tough,” he thinks.

And ahead of him is a Marine with a 90-pound pack on. And he thinks to himself, “I love how tough this is!” Then, of course, 30,000 feet above them, an Air Force pilot flips aside his ponytail — I’m sorry, I don’t know how that got in there, they haven’t had ponytails in a year or two — and looks down at them through his cockpit as he flies over. “Boy,” he radios his wingman, “It must be tough down there.”

You have to understand; Soldiers and Marines are Warriors.  We follow a Warrior creed, and we fight and kill the enemy under any condition.  However, Airmen are not warriors.  They are Technicians.  The only people in the Air Force that actually train to fight are Pilots and their Special Forces guys.  They can take their physical training test on a stationary bicycle for goodness sake!  The fact of the matter is that most of the time when you joke around with Air Force people about this, they are usually pretty proud of it.  Why are they proud?  The have insanely higher living conditions standards, and when they have to live in Army or Marine housing, they get paid extra!  Air Force Personnel are treated like civilians (business-professionals).  They have better housing, food, bases, everything!  They really don’t have a reason to feel bad.

So if you have really thin skin and get bent out of shape because of a joke that made you feel like your not working or enduring as hard as the rest of us.  Then, frankly, you shouldn’t have joined the Air Force.  That’s what I would have said.  But!  I’m not running for an elected position.  Not yet… at least.

Their have been several reports lately that soldiers in the employ of the Taliban and al-qaeda are under the same pretenses.  They aren’t true believers, they are just poor men looking for work.  Jobs and money mean a lot to everyone, in the free world and the not-so-free world.  Is it time for Afghanistan to face some reconciliation with those who have been openly fighting us?

Link to Story – Here

War with Iran now?  Unless the US completely pulls out of Iraq and lets Afghanistan become completely undermanned (again) would we be able to fight another war, without a draft.  We just don’t have the manpower to pull it off.  America is already too tired; I’m betting Iran is betting that too.  They will just continue on assuming we aren’t going to do anything about it.  My guess… they are right.  We won’t see an US led invasion of Iran.   The most the US will lead is to the UN asking for more sanctions.  I will guarantee that Israel will take care of the problem. So once again, don’t worry America.

From the Military Times / AP

The United States warned Wednesday that Iran is close to having the capabilities to produce a nuclear weapon and urged Tehran to join in fresh talks with key allies about its disputed intentions.Glyn Davies, Washington’s chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the latest report by the nuclear watchdog shows that Tehran is either very near or already in possession of sufficient low-enriched uranium to produce one nuclear weapon, if the decision were made to further enrich it to weapons-grade.

“This ongoing enrichment activity … moves Iran closer to a dangerous and destabilizing possible breakout capacity,” Davies told the agency’s 35-nation board of governors.

From Times of London

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

So what does this mean for America?  Given the fact that Israel is always willing to fight for it’s freedom, this move is almost a guarantee because Israel will not want to give up it’s biggest asset.  If Israel is no longer the only nuclear state in the Middle East, Iran will basically have taken away their hold on the region.  Pakistan and India have possessed nuclear weapons for over a decade and that hasn’t stopped their fighting over Kashmir.  Since Israel has had the bomb they have basically been allowed to do strikes against their opponents with a small amount of chance their target will strike back (Here, Here, Here).  To explain, if Israel attacks another nation, they cannot fight back for fear of being nuked.  By Iran having the bomb this means Israel is then checked.  But not in a good way.  This will lead to full blown conventional warfare.  I believe they can fight each other and not nuke one another.

This is why Israel has to take out their nuclear facilities now.  If they don’t it will end to a full scale war, or Iran using the nuke or giving/selling it to terrorists organizations who will definitely use it against them or anyone else for that matter.

Back to my question, “What does this mean for America?”  Say, we stay out of it completely until they start killing each other.  If they end up fighting each other we will  have to intervene with a combination of humanitarian aid and/or military power and a lot of blankets.