The Washington Times:

As he winds down one war and escalates another, President Obama is struggling to win over the troops he’s leading as commander in chief – and military advocates say the real test will come as the nation approaches final timelines for withdrawal in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama has earned strong reviews from veterans groups, which praise his willingness to listen and his aggressive funding of the Veterans Affairs Department.

His progress among active-duty service members, however, has been slower. A Military Times poll this year found that a majority disapproved of his leadership as their commander.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will meet with some of those troops when he travels to the Army’s Fort Bliss in Texas, hours before he delivers a prime-time speech from the Oval Office to mark the departure of U.S. combat troops from Iraq – the conflict that defined the presidency of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Mr. Obama has largely escaped the criticisms of President Bush about underfunding troops and acting outside the chain of command, but detractors say he should approach timetables in both wars with more flexibility to account for conditions on the ground.

Full story….

Washington Times:

As U.S. military forces continue to stream out of Iraq, formally ending combat operations on Tuesday, one of the most effective elements of those forces missed the drawdown completely.

There are as many special operations forces in the country now as there were when the exit began last year.

President Obama, who as a U.S. senator opposed a 2007 troop surge and called for withdrawing all troops from Iraq, is set Tuesday to tell the nation that combat missions by Americans are officially over. There are now fewer than 50,000 American troops in Iraq, down from a surge-high of 168,000 in late 2007.

New challenges begin. An Iraqi security force of about 670,000 troops will have to shoulder the brunt of attacking insurgents, while Iraqi politicians seek an elusive deal to form a new parliamentary government.

Full story….

The Navy wants to judge sailors by the color of their skin, not the content of their seamanship.

…

In practice, the Navy will be creating a list of privileged “diverse” officers who will enjoy special benefits and career mentoring not available to people of the wrong race, as well as a virtual guarantee of fast-track access to the highest reaches of command. Fifty-six years after the Supreme Court struck down the concept of “separate but equal” treatment of races, the U.S. Navy is erecting a wall of segregation between what will amount to two parallel promotion systems: one for the “diverse” and another for the monotone. If this isn’t illegal, it should be.

Read the whole thing….

When Obama wanted to justify the cost of socialized medicine he conveniently went to the age old Washington bullshit of saying he was going to cut $500,000,000 of “waste and fraud” from Medicare.

He gets no prize for originality. “Waste and fraud” are the words used over the years by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. John Warner (R-VA), Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), President George W. Bush, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Sec. of Defense Robert Gates to gut the military’s health care and military facility maintenance systems as well as gutting the National Guard and Reserves building and equipment maintenance and supply lines, see here, here, here, here and here.

Now the warriors are under attack from bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. AND CEOs all across the land:

As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars persist, some employers are becoming increasingly resistant to rehire service members who return from active duty as federal law requires, legal analysts say.

Washington lawyer Matthew Tully, who specializes in these cases, said that as the war on terrorism — which relies heavily on National Guard and Reserve units — stretches into its second decade, companies have become more familiar with the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

But Mr. Tully, a founding partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, said some employers have objections with the law and have been upfront with his firm about their failure to re-employ and sometimes even to hire citizen-soldiers. One prime reason is financial. He said, without specifying names, that airline companies have told the law firm that hiring military personnel has resulted in higher labor costs.

“We’ve seen the number of intentional violations skyrocket in the past three years,” he said.

The 1994 law requires employers to rehire workers who return from active military duty and, in the hiring process, prohibits discrimination against those who might become deployed.

A 2008 Labor Department report states that the employment law is entirely “complaint driven” and the government does not bring criminal charges against companies that violate the law.

Read the whole thing….

The corporate capers bastards should be tarred and feathered at a minimum, all of them.

ABC News — As the nation enjoys a holiday weekend celebrating the Fourth of July, word has come down from the Pentagon that for the first time since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a living serviceman could receive the Medal of Honor — the nation’s highest military decoration for valor.

It would be the first time the Medal of Honor has gone to a living serviceman since the Vietnam War.

U.S. officials have told ABC News that the Pentagon has sent a recommendation to the White House that a specific soldier be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic action during a 2007 firefight with the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan.

Read the whole thing….

Gen. David H. Petraeus fainted at a Senate hearing Tuesday while being grilled over the timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Fox News Channel reported.

Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, eventually walked out on his own volition surrounded by a small entourage. He was being questioned by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the Senate Armed Services committee at the time of the incident.

Read the whole thing….

Published: 27 November 2009, Michael Yon

By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
McClatchy Newspapers

Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.

This week, I’m turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army Lt. Col. Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here’s Lt. Col. Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Weblog of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Website.

“It is 110 yards from the “E” ring to the “A” ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.

This hallway, more than any other, is the ‘Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.

Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area.

The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares. “10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.

“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.

“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden … yet.

“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.

“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal, or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.

“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. My hands hurt… Please! Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway – 20, 25, 30…. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.

They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along…. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.

“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.

These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.

“Did you know that?

The media haven’t yet told the story.”

V/R TK
TOM KUNK
COL, GS
Division Chief for ODO
HQDA, G3/5/7

SOURCE

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – John “Jack” Agnew, one of the original members of a U.S. Army unit that operated behind enemy lines in World War II and is often credited with having loosely inspired the movie “The Dirty Dozen,” has died at age 88.

Agnew belonged to the Filthy Thirteen, an unofficial unit within the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He was pronounced dead Thursday at Abington Memorial Hospital after becoming ill at his home in the Maple Village retirement community in Hatboro, where he and his wife moved about a year ago, his daughter Barbara Agnew Maloney said.

The whole story….

This came in over the transom and got my attention because my grandson-in-law is in Afghanistan. I can’t vouch for authenticity but, true or not, it’s a hell of a tale.

Hi everyone.

I’m still alive but freezing my tail off. We got 8 inches of snow last week and it reached 5 degrees below zero that night. That’s not why I’m e-mailing though. You may have heard about a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul last Thursday. It was at one of our FOB’s (Forward Observation Bases) about 27 miles from here.

But the real story is why no one was killed. We employ several thousand Afghans on our various bases. Not to mention the economy that is fed by the money these locals are making. Anyway, there is this one Afghan that we call Rambo. We have actually given him a couple of sets of the new ACU uniforms (the new Army digital camouflage) with the name tag RAMBO on it. His entire family was killed by the Taliban and his home was where our base currently resides. So this guy really had nowhere else to go.

He has reached such a level of trust with US Forces that his job is to stand at the front gate and basically be the first security screening. Since he can’t have a weapon, he found a big red pipe. So he stands there at the front gate in his US Army ACU uniform with his red pipe. If a vehicle approaches the gate too fast or fails to stop he slams his pipe down on their hood. Then once the gate is lifted the vehicle moves on the 2nd gate where the US Army MP’s are. So he’s like the first line of defense.

Last Thursday at 0930 hrs a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives and some Jack Ass that thinks he has 72 Virgins waiting for him approached the gate. When he saw Rambo he must have recognized him and known the gig was up. But he needed to get to that 2nd gate to detonate and take American lives. So he slams his foot on the gas which almost causes the metal gate to go up but mostly catches on the now broken windshield.

Rambo fearlessly ran to the vehicle, reached thru the window and jerked the suicide bomber out of the vehicle before he could detonate and commenced to putting some red pipe to his heathen ass. He detained the guy until the MP got there. The vehicle only exploded when they tried to push it off base with a robot but no one was hurt.

I’m still waiting for someone to give this guy a medal or something. Nothing less than instant US citizenship or something. A hat was passed around and a lot of money was given to him in thanks by both soldiers and civilians that are working over here.

I guess I just wanted to share this because I want people to know that it’s working over here.

They have tasted freedom. This makes it worth it to me.

JOHN W. HUNT, CPT, US ARMY Operations Officer Bagram Afghanistan