I say again...

I knew this town was evil when I was there.

BAGHDAD – Coalition forces captured a key suspected Special Groups financier May 28 in Mahmudiyah, about 15 km south of Baghdad.

Intelligence sources led Coalition forces to the residence of the individual believed to be a key Special Groups financier. He is suspected to be the primary financier between Iranian intelligence elements and Special Groups criminals in Mahmudiyah and southern Baghdad and was reportedly distributing funds to weapons smugglers supplying criminals in those areas.

Every so often some little piece of info will trickle out that makes me really happy to have gotten out of there in one piece.

I do remember a few good guys down there - hopefully a few will still be around once all the rats have been rooted out. The region from Mahmudiyah west to the Euphrates is the last thing you'd expect to see in Iraq - green and fertile farmland. It would be nice to see that producing for the whole of Iraq, and not merely serving as tall grass for evil bastards to lurk in.

Go, Navy!

We know there are brave Sailors running around Iraq and Afghanistan, but for the most part it's an Army and Marine Corps show.

So it's nice to see the Navy getting down with its bad self.

American warships battled pirates Tuesday who had seized a tanker off the coast of Somalia as well as another vessel northeast of Mogadishu, combined reports said.

In the waters off Somalia, the warships reportedly sunk two pirate vessels and pursued a hijacked skiff carrying some of the fleeing hijackers.

That's our Navy - while everybody else is engaging in a no-fun grinding series of insurgent conflicts, they're killing pirates.

It's no Battle of Leyte Gulf, but actions like the Navy's are vitally important in what is probably the least-recognized theater of operations in the Global War on Terror.

Whether or not the warships engaged in pirate sinkin' today were technically, at that moment, acting as part of Joint Task Force Horn Of Africa (JTF-HOA), is not immediately apparent. However, that JTF is doing the hard work now that will prevent the rest of our military from having to do ugly work in the region later.

They're training troops, supporting communities and building infrastructure in a very touchy area in an effort to deny that territory to Al Qaeda. A lot of that is medical outreach and school building in those nations. And some it is law-and-order work.

Which includes whacking pirates off the coast of Somalia. So, Go Navy! Keep killing pirates - in addition to being a vital part of the war effort, it's really damn cool.

War News

Mr. Abby's little brother is in Iraq with the California National Guard. He's on Camp Victory, and, last we heard is happy to be anywhere as long at it's not Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He emails regularly and we send pictures and the occasional object and don't think much more about it.

We heard from him within the last few hours, we know this wasn't him.

Meanwhile in Iraq on Thursday, two coalition soldiers were killed and 38 others were wounded in an attack on Camp Victory, a large U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport, the U.S.-led coalition said.

[snip]

The military said the attack occurred by indirect fire, such as rocket or mortar. Such attacks on the base are not unusual, officials have said.

Even on the big, nice, base, Mr. Murphy is always somewhere in background, rolling his dice and chuckling.

Also, I note that someone in the Marine Corps planning structure seems to think that everything would be much simpler if the Marine Corps and Army juggled their forces a little, gave Iraq to the Army and made Afghanistan a Marine Corps show.

The suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders. While still under review, its supporters, including some in the Army, argue that a realignment could allow the Army and Marines each to operate more efficiently in sustaining troop levels for two wars that have put a strain on their forces.

There might be something to this - I'd think it would make planning easier. And Marines do "divide up" easily - the Corps has a (for lack of a better term) "modularity" in its organization that makes it much easier to mix and match units and pieces of units to achieve a desired balance of capabilities.

But, I gotta admit, that is not what I thought when I read the first couple of articles. I scrolled immediately to the bottom and started looking for something like this:

Naval officers also are quietly advocating for the Navy to be given primary responsibility for U.S anti-terrorism missions in seaport bars in both Italy and the Phillipines as part of a new "play-to-your-strength" deployment concept. The U.S. Air Force will be presenting a plan outlining the strategic advantages of pulling their personnel out of Iraq and redeploying them to several "very nice Mexican hotels" on the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard is expected to develop plans to realign all its personnel to Key West.

I'm not sure if the plan (the real one, not my version) actually has legs, but it's an interesting concept. We shall wait and see.

“This is not about trading one ground war for another,” said one Pentagon official briefed on the Marine concept. “It is about the nature of the fight in Afghanistan, and figuring out whether the Afghan mission lends itself more readily to the integrated MAGTF deployment than even Iraq.”

5.11 stock plummets

As Blackwater is tossed out of Iraq.

Iraq's Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater Security Consulting, an American firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead.

The firefight took place near Nisoor Square about noon, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday. In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, the official said.

Details were sketchy, but the official said witnesses reported that one side of the gunbattle involved Westerners driving sport utility vehicles, which security contractors often use. The state television network al-Iraqiya reported that a Western security company was involved in the shootout, but it did not identify the firm.

Black GMC sport utility vehicles? With a spare tire strapped on top of each one? Full of guys with absurd beards? (Hint - running convoy security in Iraq does not require you to blend in with the locals. This is even more absurd if you're cultivating a look that would blend you in with Afghan locals. Wrong country, nimrod.)

An official with the U.S. Embassy told The Associated Press that a State Department motorcade came under small-arms fire near Nisoor Square, and one of the vehicles was disabled.

My very limited experience with these guys leads me to not be surprised by this. They seemed to be the sort who came under small arms fire all the time. Then again, it's Iraq, and if you're in the habit of considering yourself "under fire" every time you hear a shot somewhere in the middle distance, that happens.

"We have revoked Blackwater's license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq," Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Monday. "The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday's killing will be referred to Iraqi justice."

It's questionable what, exactly, the Iraqi government can really do about this, but it's pleasing to see them take a stand on something useful.

Listen, I'm sure there are some very sharp guys running around with Blackwater. And I have already issued the disclaimer that my experience with them is limited - they ran security for State and other such things at the second place we worked in Iraq.

However, it doesn't take a whole lot of yahoos to cause serious trouble in a country we're trying to get up and on its feet. The U.S. military operates under monster, ponderous ROE for just that reason. And they do quite well in that difficult situation.

The contractors we employ need to do the same. The job is drive State Department people around, guys. Not live out Soldier of Fortune fantasies.

If you can't tell the difference, get your ass back to the States, or go guard a gate somewhere in Qatar, and leave those shoot-don't-shoot decisions to the kids making $22,597 a year (corporal over 3). They seem to do a better job.

The Report

It's raining here, which means my satellite TV is being less than useful. So I have CSpan.com up - is this technology stuff great or what?

I'm not going to do anything so ambitious as try to "liveblog" the Petraeus testimony, but until I get fed up, I'll watch and maybe comment.

The CSpan guys are chattering now, and I picked up one bit of info. They expect the general to testify from roughly 1230 Eastern until 1830. With two breaks. In front of a joint committee.

Does that sound worse than having bamboo jammed under your fingernails or what? I can imagine a lot of unhappy things, but six hours of nonstop grilling by a politicians primarily interested in posturing...that's torture, dammit. Amnesty Internation ought to come to the rescue of Gen. Petaeus around 1600, if the world were fair.

OK. I"m going to have a smoke and wait for this testimony to begin. We'll do further commentary below.

Is anyone going to let the General speak?

No - apparently not.

Hey - here's a powerful member of the ruling elite whose son and daughter-in-law are both Marine captains. They've both done time in Iraq, and the daughter-in-law is apparently currently in Afghanistan.

That would be Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL).

I like this woman. She's called out Moveon.org and Neville Chamberlain, as well as Congressional surrender weasels. All within a couple of minutes. More posturing, of course, but she's doing it well. Heck - she just quoted the most recent NIE on Iraq.

Holy crap! They're letting Petraeus talk! Or trying to - the microphone appears to have been installed by three hungover specialists....

(banter during the technical difficulty tells us the Rep. Lantos, who we talked about earlier, is the only Holocaust survivor serving in Congress. Huh - don't I feel like a jerk for making fun of his accent.)

Ike is throwing out more shouting people. And another of the committee members is blustering about how much more effectively he could throw hecklers out of the room.

Duncan Hunter, it appears, is suggesting he be allowed to punch hecklers.

I'm going to go have another cigarette.

Now I'm back and apparently, this audio problem is not resolving itself. Chris Matthews is talking, which is always a downer.

Oooh! We've got audio.

Quick political test - do you think the audio issue was a secret Bush plot to keep the people from hearing the truth, do you think it was sabotage by pinko-lefties designed to silence pro-Bush military leadership, or do you think it was a SNAFU?

"I believe that we will be able to reduce our forces to the pre-surge level of brigade combat teams by next summer" without giving up the progress made thus far, says the general. Throws a bone to that certain crowd that cares about being done more than about victory or defeat.

He's doing a splendid job of pointing out that his plan, what we call the surge, has only really been in motion since mid-June.

These charts are...charts. They follow a big old disseration on the validity of the numbers coming out of MNFI, and the solid methodlogy by which those numbers are produced.

Ruh-roh...here we are saying the quiet part loud, as Petraeus starts drawing the clear lines linking Iranian Revolutionary Forces and Hezbollah and the EFP attacks and assasinations across Iraq....

Whew...fortunately, some brave Voices of Dissent from one of the anti-war groups were there to stand up and begin shouting down the Man. Ike calls a halt and has the bums tossed out. Go, Ike!

Time for another smoke, and I need to rotate laundry. I may return if anything exciting happens.

Blatant thievery

I am totally stealing Murphy's shit, because it's cool. Check this out:



If you like his concept, the guy who does it all the time is over at Military Motivators - it'll give you a case of either the misty eye or the giggles, and, occasionally, both.

I laughed out loud when I saw Murphy's take, though, because we did that. We accumulated Beanie Babies. People back home sent them to our Soldiers, and since we were the people who hung out with locals, other soldiers in other units passed them on to us when their church groups and such sent them.

Swear to God, I participated in the distribution of Beanie Babies to every terrorist in every don't-go-there-if-you-want-to-live village in our AO. Really, once you've rolled out into Injun Country and done your basic assessment of infrastructure, atmospherics and local needs, why not hand out some stuffed animals while you hobnob with the insurgents?.

It actually took us a few months to figure out that simply driving out to any of the small, hostile villages we referred to as Mulla Jihad (all the little towns seemed to be named Mulla Something), asking questions and handing out stuffed critters was a really bad idea.

But we did have fun with the Beanie Babies. We lashed 'em to bumpers, and some of our guys would stick one in a helmet band now and again. They rode shotgun on the dash, and I think we lashed one to a radio antenna. And you know what? We all lived. Coincidence? Possibly, but I ain't gonna laugh at anybody's hood ornament. If it gets you back alive, it's good voodoo.

Thoughts provoked

I'm watching the Democratic candidates debating. There was significant discussion of whether or not Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were wrong in waiting until the last minute to vote AGAINST the recent re-vamped military spending bill.

Then I watched Bill Richardson do the world's most awkward tapdance around a question likening the Darfur genocide to what we could see in Iraq if we pulled out precipitously.

And now I'm watching the candidates talk about Iran and how they'd handle a nuclear weapon there.

It got me thinking about seriousness.

I tend to think most of these candidates are, in reality, serious people. The problem is, a significant portion of the Democratic "base," to which they must appeal in order to win their party's nomination, are not serious people.

I don't really think any of these candidates would yank us out of Iraq if elected (and let me point out that when I say "candidates," I'm not talking about the nutjobs. I'm talking about the real possibilities). They might run things differently, they might distribute forces differently, but I don't think they'd pull us out and let everything go to Hell.

But - and this is the awkward part - they have to pretend they will. I think that's a lot of what we saw with that war funding bill. It was always going to pass. It was always going to pass without timelines.

A couple of total whackjobs aside, most of our national leadership realizes we are in a situation we can't run away from in Iraq. However - since there really are powerful forces in the Democratic base that believe we can bring all our folks back from Iraq and that country will immediately have a collective Coke-and-a-smile, Democratic politicians have to make meaningless gestures - voting against a funding bill after they've run the numbers and know it's a lost cause.

"See! I voted against the bill (even though I knew it was going to pass but I figure it'll fool you idiots with your paper mache puppets)!"

Would a Democratic presidency mean a foreign policy based on capitualation and feel-good dreams, or does the Oval Office force a certain gravity on the decisions an individual makes?

I tend to think it's the later. But maybe I'm just being hopeful.

Bill Richardson might actually try to hand Iraq over to the UN. Bad idea. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would keep working the issue, I think. I can't quite get a read on Barack Obama, but we're not going to elect him, so it doesn't matter.

I wish the primary process worked differently, so we could hear more discussion of how these candidates would actually handle problems, rather than simply wasting months listening to them pander to the ANSWER crowd.

Good reading

I caught a news report about mental health statistics from Iraq recently. Seems there's been ongoing tracking by Army Mental Health Advisory Teams, and they recently released their fourth report.

The report, in its PDF entirety, can be read here.

A nice summary (courtesy of Slate.com) can be found here.

I'm not going to dig through it and comment a whole lot. I'm not a psychologist, and I'm not comfortable taking my weird and limited experience and using it as a podium on this particular subject. I'm going to point out a few helpful things from this summary (which I chose because I can copy and paste from it).

“The most stressful part of my job is going out every day and waiting to get blown up.”

This is comment from a junior NCO, and it gets to the heart of one of the most frightening things in this war - you can do everything right and still die.

...the Congressional Research Service reported in 2005 that IEDs caused about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and are killing hundreds of Iraqis

That's from a different report. But the randomness of the single largest threat in this particular theater makes it a heavy burden - soldiers and Marines are, by training, inclined to be aggresive. Dealing with a constant threat that can't be shot, often can't be seen and can exist pretty much anywhere takes a vastly different toll than engaging an organized force of enemy riflemen. Not necessarily a greater toll, or a lesser one, simply a different toll.

Another stressor cited...

Being in threatening situations where you were unable to respond due to ROEs

This is touchy. Strict ROE are vital in this kind of weird-ass war. But there are times when you don't want soldiers to hesitate. And once they watch a couple of vigorous 15-6 investigations over warning shots...it's going to stick in their minds.

OK. Enough parsing through this. It's good reading, and whether or not you support what we've got going on in Iraq, you should take the time to skim through it.

I'll add that the Army deserves a pat on the back for at least trying to get a handle on mental health issues. They are making an effort - there are Combat Stress Control teams deployed at the battalion level in theater, and they're doing good work. Returning soldiers fill out surveys including mental health information. It's not perfect, but it's much better than they've done in the past.

Read it and think about it. We owe it to our warriors to try to understand the repercussions of what they're doing for us.

Oh yes - one addition from pages 17 and 18 of the long version (the first link). Silly rules about the specifics of wear for the PT uniform aggravate the shit out of everyone who is supposed to be concerned with fighting a war. Go figure.

Driven to distraction

I keep clicking over to CNN, hoping for some news on our three missing guys.

And I find this: Iraqi insurgents warn: Stop search for U.S. troops

Hey, insurgents, fuck you.

We will search for them. We have, according to The Man, about 4,000 people doing nothing right now except searching for our three missing. We will search, and, eventually, we will find them. And bring them home.

That's what our military does. We have a standing task force and one of the best forensic labs on earth dedicated to finding and bringing home our missing. Such is our committment to the task. Where, I wonder, is its equivalent in the Muslim world? What does that say about the value of a life here, and there?

We are going to find them. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then someday. Today would be best.

You insurgent bastards, if you had a glimmer of logic through all that death-crazed haze in your brains, will not have harmed them. The smart thing to do would be turn them loose and let us pick them up on a roadside. But if that was too much, if your twisted death-loving minions couldn't not kill prisoners...then do yourselves a favor, and put the unmolested bodies out in the open so we can pick them up and bring them home.

You hear us talk about how thing we're stretched, and yet within 48 hours we can put 4,000 warriors on the street to find our guys.

That's the difference between us and you. You revel in a culture of death and misery, killing women and children and noncombatants to perpetuate a squalid chaos.

We recognize that the very least we owe every man and woman in uniform is a committment to get them home. Because each and every man and woman in uniform is valuable and in that uniform of their own free will, and keeping that promise is a matter of trust.

We waiver a lot in the United States, and often on things we shouldn't. But we don't waiver on this. We don't ask politicians for permission to do what we've promised we will. We don't do the cruel calculus of whether or not our people are worth it.

We're going to find them.

"Be safe"

It became the standard parting line when I was in Iraq. If we met other CA soldiers somewhere, when we parted ways, someone would say, "be safe." When my soldiers would run a mission without our truck, the last thing I'd say was, "be safe." When my truck would roll out without them (meetings and such), as I grabbed my gun to leave the tent, either the veterinarian or the specialist would always say, "be safe." When the vet would fly up to a meeting, "be safe."

It was a caution - don't do anything you don't have to do that might get you killed. It was a reminder - wear your eye protection, watch your ass. And it was a little bit of a prayer - be lucky, beat the odds, don't be in the bad place at the bad time.

Be careful isn't what you want to say - sometimes careful won't get the job done. Good luck isn't it either - luck alone will not save your ass when it's finally your turn.

Mr. Abby's rolling around Iraq right now. The guy he's traveling with - well, suffice it to say nobody wants that guy getting killed on his watch, so no unit is going to hang them out in the wind. But it's a dangerous place, and a random one. So every time I talk to him, I say, "I love you. Be safe."

There are three warriors missing right now in my old stomping grounds. Thousands are combing the canal roads and tall grass and the scary places to find them.

I hope against hope they find the missing, alive and defiant. And I hope that the searchers manage to be careful, lucky and ready. I hope they manage to be safe, and to bring our missing back.

Fort Dix

I really don't have much to say about the recently-revealed plot by a bunch of savages to massacre soldiers at Ft. Dix.

They're out there, people. There are the major leaguers. They have the nice membership cards and they've been to the real nice training camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Bekaa Valley. They've probably got baseball caps that say "I waged jihad in Chechnya/Najaf/Algeria." They might be Sunni (Al Qaeda) or Shiite (Hezbollah, etc). We can think of it as the American and National League of Terror.

Problem is, they've also got bush leaguers. Guys without enough talent, enough training. Guys who just need some seasoning. Guys who want to get noticed by a scout. Guys with nothing but ambition.

This group fucked up. They got stupid. They talked outside of school, used services outside their network. Dumb mistakes. But remember - we also got lucky.

No matter what anyone would like to believe, the threat is not gone. There are literally thousands of these evil bastards out there in the world who want to kill Americans. Hell, by their standards, these assholes were being honorable - at least they were targeting American warfighters.

We're having a war, whether we like it or not. We choose to fight them over there, and because they are not equipped (yet) with planes and ships and missiles, we can pretend, for the most part, that the entire war is there.

But there is just one battlefield. The war is wherever they think they can get to us.

Incidentally, I've been to Fort Dix. It's a dismal place. The only thing more depressing than spending time at Fort Dix would be getting shot by a bunch of yahoos waging My First Holy War while you were there.

The "broken" military

We hear a lot about our "broken" Army. Sometimes the talking heads tell us it's already broken, but more often they say it's about to be "broken." Or is "breaking." Or cannot possibly be far from some serious breakage.

[sneering child voice]
George W. broke the Army! Way to go, George!
[/sneering child voice]

As near as I can tell, this "broken" line means we have, or are about to have, used it up. Worn out the people, worn out the gear. It's a non-specific term, so we're going to refine it in order to deal with it.

The Army will be broken when we can no longer field the necessary forces with the necessary training and the necessary equipment to accomplish their mission.

Well, let's attack this in reverse order.

Equipment:

Buy more.

Oh. You want more detail? 'Cause really, we're the goddam United States of America. We've got the factories, we've got the smartest and most capable workers in the world, there are damn few raw materials we can't find within our own borders.

One of the fabulous things about our society is that there are almost no problems of supply, production and manufacturing we can't solve by throwing huge amounts money at them. Whether it's the vehicles, the ammunition, or the nifty ass-saving electronics we put in the vehicles, there are no supply problems a couple of big, fat government offerings (with no-bullshit timelines) couldn't solve.

It's only money, folks, and there's nothing else we should be spending it on first. Of course, that would require the actual co-operation of our Congress and a committment to make things happen, regardless of whether or not they were happening in one's home district.

Next! Training.

I saw a news bit a few weeks ago, and I think it was in reference to the 3rd Infantry Division. T'was terrible, the talking head announced, but Our Brave Boys were going to be sent back over without being trained! A bloodbath waiting to happen, because the Army is broken.

Now, I've never been through the Army pipeline, and I've never been an infantryman, but I have been around a little bit. As I recall, everybody gets trained.

Let's look. A young guy joins the Army. Then he goes to basic training (at Fort Benning, if he's going to be an infantryman). The Army does something called "one station unit training," wherein our young man spends 14 weeks knocking out both the basic training stuff and the infantryman stuff.

If we're talking about someone who's NOT an infantryman, say, an MP, then we've got basic followed by nine weeks of specific military police training.

I'll skip breaking down the Marine Corps process, but suffice it to say there's even more training involved. So, people, we are not signing your neighbor boy up and putting him on a plane to Ramadi as soon as we find boots that will fit him.

The training the talking heads were referring to was a trip to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin that most large active units do before they deploy. Now, NTC training evolutions are fabulous and valuable, but when the vast majority of your officers and NCOs and senior junior guys have recently been downrange, and when you still conduct several weeks of pre-deployment training at your home station before departing (which 3ID did), skipping the NTC trip is really not equivalent to putting Girl Scouts on an airplane.

Let's talk about personnel.

Our military is too damn small, folks.

Now, before Charlie Rangel has a stroke, could everyone please say it with me, "the fact that our military is too small does not require a draft. There will be no draft."

Seriously. No draft. Stop trying to scare the children, Charlie.

Let's say you own your own business. Dog toys. You make 'em and you sell 'em. You've got a full warehouse, and three guys doing your packing and shipping. The orders keep rolling in, but your three guys are overwhelmed. They're pulling, and packing, and shipping dog toys, but you keep falling further behind. Do you sit on the floor and cry, or do you hire more people?

Thank you.

Very nearly six years after 9/11, we've finally gotten around to authorizing a bigger military. Yes, authorizing. See, our active Army's authorized endstregth for FY2005 was slightly over 1.4 million. That number actually incorporates a small authorized "number in excess." See, the military can't, on its own, say, "hey - we're too small!" and grow. The military can't even say, "hey, we're too small! Let's not buy helicopters this year and hire people instead!" The military must spend every dime as directed by Congress, and must maintain a size directed by Congress.

Today the Secretary of Defense announced he has recommended to the President a permanent increase to the end strength of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. His proposal is for an increase of 92,000 personnel over the next five years: 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.

That's from a January DoD press release.

That's really great, but over five years? Folks, we need 'em faster.

We do have to point out that five years ago it was Spring of 2002. I don't think it required a crystal ball at that point to guess our country was going to be involved in operations in the Middle East for quite some time to come. If our Congrescritters had passed the above authorization then, it would be a done deal now. We should also point out that, fully-enacted, the above endstrength increases will still leave us with a military far smaller than we had in 1991. Food for thought.

We meet recruiting goals for the active Army and Marine Corps. The Army fell short in 2005, but added recruiters and relaxed standards and offered more money and they're doing fine now. You make Congress authorize the bodies, the recruiters will find them.

And about the "relaxed standards?" I caution you - trying to find current, non-partisan data on the subject is a challenge. I first point you to a USA today article with a useful sidebar. It's a nice summary of what exactly these "relaxed standards" are. For those of you who want more "ground truth," well...go forth and get some knowledge.

The scores are grouped into five categories based on the percentile score ranges shown in Table 2.1. Persons who score in Categories I and II tend to be above average in trainability; those in Category III, average; those in Category IV, below average; and those in Category V, markedly below average. By law, Category V applicants and those in Category IV who have not graduated from high school are not eligible for enlistment. Over and above these legal restrictions, each Service prescribes its own aptitude and education criteria for eligibility.

The Army has, effectively, increased the allowable percentage of initial accessions who are not high school graduates or GED holders with a certain amount of college credit from 2% to 4%. That's it.

Although the Services have long been aware that the completion of high school is a useful predictor of success in the first time of enlistment, that doesn't necessarily make non-graduates useless bastards.

We're not emptying the jails, folks, but the Army raised the bar quite high after the big drawdown in the 90s. A little too high to support a rapid expansion.

Meeting recruiting goals for the Reserves and National Guard is a little trickier. At least on the enlisted side, many of the folks in those two components have already served some active-duty time. They then join the Guard and Reserve because they don't want to be on active duty anymore.

We may have to look at some novel ways to handle the Guard and Reserve. If we're going to continue to disrupt civilian lives and employment with multiple, long deployments, we may have to offer some finiancial support to these guys as a sort of "retainer," beyond paying them for one weekend a month. Perhaps we can offer them the option of volunteering for a two-year activation, half in the US (perhaps training some of those newly authorized active duty guys?) and half downrange.

We are currently faced with a personnel issue. Nothing we can't overcome with cooperation and honest discussion, but we have to deal with it as it is - not as we wish it were. We need public figures to come out and encourage young people to sign up. We need them use words like "duty" and "obligation."

We need people like Charlie Rangel to shut the hell up. He is, as they say, static. We need signal.

Generally pissed off

I find I'm incapable of breaking down all the various war-related domestic news and addressing each topic individually these days. In all honestly, I'm disgusted past the point of speech. I just want to spit.

So I'm just going to open CNN in a second window and bitch my way down the page, more or less.

We've got these Pat Tillman/Jessica Lynch hearings going on. Jesus Christ. I am occasionally forced to wonder if the Army can do anything right. I used to not understand the purpose behind the echelons of command that are packed full of field-grade and above officers and senior NCO's making slideshows. Now I do. We have to do something with these people to keep them off the actual battlefield, or all our soldiers would instantly die. If a rifle company commander had his head as far up his ass the people in the decision-making chains on these two incidents...

Seriously - what fucktard thought the appropriate thing to do with the Tillman incident was lie with great creativity? Friendly fire happens, folks. Always has, always will. The appropriate thing to do would have been a release stating simply that Tillman had been killed "during combat operations," then a private meeting with the family to explain that it had been a friendly fire incident. I might not have even gone that far. KIA. One of the honorable fallen. Examine the situation to see what we can do to ensure it doesn't happen again, then keep marching. End of story.

Listen, guys, hint one. Bad shit cannot be made into good shit. The best thing an organization can do with bad shit is make it go away. The best way to do this is with a short, factual press release to defuse the situation. We then take all the details (no, Major, we don't HIDE them), and put them somewhere where they can be found. Ideally, we've already got a policy somewhere (written well in advance) saying that to spare families excessive pain, we do not publicize fratricide, although each and every occurance is reviewed for future improvement.

And Lynch? Good lord. I do not understand the number of people who seem to despise this young lady. Actually, I do - I simply choose to believe they're retarded. Listen - training wasn't up to snuff, NCO supervision was apparently not up to snuff, they were saddled with one of those officers the Army apparently doesn't bother training for a combat environment (because said officer's "branch" is not a combat arm - in the Army, this means these people are immune from hostile action. Betcha didn't know that).

Anyway, she is not the one to blame for this. I've never heard her claim to be anything other than what she was, and I have several times seen/heard her try to deflect any praise to those soldiers she was with who did fight like tigers.

The Army is the most Public Affairs-challenged of the services. Once upon a time I worked in PAO for the Marine Corps, and I am not full of it when I tell you that the Corps has it right, and the Army is eight kinds of fucked-up.

You know, back in PAO school, when we had our separate classes by service, the Marine instructors used to beat into us that our policy was (with the exception of anything that included the word "nuclear") "maximum exposure, minimum delay." The media asked, we answered. They wanted a subject matter expert? We found one. Might be a lance corporal, might be lieutenant colonel. The Marine Corps gambled that the American Public loved its Marines, and would forgive them their errors if we told them the truth. For the most part, that works.

Long ago the Marine Corps admitted that the country doesn't need the Corps, the country wants the Corps. And their entire PAO stance is geared toward that. The Army...discourages its frontline people from talking to the media, makes the embed process painful, and (as it does in oh-so-many ways), adds layer upon layer of useless staff paperwork and obstinate field grades to the process of getting information out. It's infuriating.

Here's the thing that Army PAO officers don't understand, apparently. Nobody on earth likes staff officers. The only thing more stupid and evil than a field-grade in a staff role is the processes that officer creates and the bright ideas he has. Sir (or Ma'am), if every single thing you do is not geared toward getting ground truth (and "ground truth" doesn't come from a brief) to the American People as quickly, painlessly and often as possible, you are wrong. Don't try to spin, you're not good enough. Don't try to get God and everybody to sign off on your new plan so you get "maximum visibility" for your next OER. Just make it your absolute mission every day in the war to get the truth to the people. And yes, you have to use the media to do it.

Soldiers are every bit as fabulous and amazing and brave and goodhearted as Marines. It drives me nuts that the Army PAO machine is so terrified of having a PV2 smoke on camera or say "the wrong thing" that their stories don't get out as well as the stories of their Marine brethren.

Tillman and Lynch - both decent soldiers done wrong by their Army. Do better, Army. We're watching.

OK. Next. Harry Reid.

"I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week," Reid told journalists.

I don't even know what to say. We can argue. I can say the surge is pretty definitely accomplishing something, but since it's not even in full swing yet, we don't really know if it's going to do the trick or not. I can say that last I checked, we don't base long-term strategy on a week's headlines from a combat zone.

Or I can say what in the Hell is this asshole talking about?!? Harry Reid is from Nevada. I thought people in Nevada were fairly sane. Can't you recall this guy or something? Jesus H. Christ on a stick. We've got the Speaker of the House meeting with the actual Forces of Goddam Evil, and we've got the Senate Majority Leader randomly declaring defeat because...I don't know. Because the President is a Republican? Because he truly believes he's been elected to orchestrate a defeat? Tell me, tell me please, that one of the most important positions in our government is not held by someone who thinks a particularly bad VBIED is cause for surrender.

Fukkit. Harry's worn out, folks, so let's call it a day. Afghanistan is also hard, so let's throw in the towel there. We've had some folks in the Horn of Africa for a while, and there hasn't been a formal Declaration of Victory there, either. Bring 'em home. We've some Guardsmen on the borders, but we've still got illegal aliens, so the Hell with that. Send them home. Let's dismantle the Border Patrol, too. Poor guys, probably wish they had more time to barbecue with their families. Coast Guard pulled a huge cocaine bust recently, so we're obviously not winning the War on Drugs either. Mothball the cutters and eliminate the DEA.

Aren't you glad this guy didn't have any power when we were fighting the Civil War? Or after Wake Island fell? What would Nancy Pelosi sound like speaking German with an Alabama accent? Harry Reid would've taken one look at the disgraceful lack of mittens at Valley Forge and immediately began holding talks with Cornwallis and Burgoyne

I just do not know, people. Our soldiers and Marines (and sailors and airmen) are amazing. Most of our military leadership is sharp, flexible, clear-eyed and willing to keep adjusting fire to maintain momentum.

But our political leadership is disgraceful. Our Republicans are still on my shit list for the amount of time it took to admit we were on the wrong track. And the Democrats...I just don't get it.

What I heard from the 2006 election was, "do it right. do it better. finish it." I did not hear "let's lose. let's give up. defeat is the goal!"

Maybe I heard the wrong thing. Sometimes I wonder. Maybe I just missed the memo when our country lost its collective mind and gave up.

Oh well. I'm still pissed, so I'm going to go run around the park or walk a dog or something.

Good people...and a Bright Idea

National Amusements is a company doing something good for our servicemembers.

The company, which operates more than 1,500 screens worldwide, said from April 17 through April 30, all active service personnel and their dependents will enjoy free admission and free small popcorn and fountain drinks at all its US theater locations.

This is a nice thing. Hell, I think movies are expensive, and we're two adults. There are junior enlisted guys out there with kids who might get to take the family to see a flick they otherwise couldn't afford to attend.

National Amusements will continue to show a little love even after the big promotion ends. Every little bit is appreciated.

As of May 1, the company will institute an on-going military discount price police for active service personnel, the company said; the special military program pricing will be $7 for general admissions and $5 for matinee and children.

Good stuff.

In related news, I'm still waiting for the retroactive gas-card giveaway to everyone who's served in Operations Iraqi and/or Enduring Freedom, or in support of. Hell, we keep hearing it's a war for oil.

Not to mention that with the rising cost of gas, handing a free-gas card to everyone on active duty (which could include mobilized Guardmen and Reservists) could really help keep us meeting our recruiting goals.

We could even sweeten the deal by extending that free-gas pass after active duty, for a period equivalent to the total number months the servicemember spent in a designated Imminent Danger Pay country.

Not only could we spank the recruiting goals, but Congress could authorize more people in uniform (oh yes - our military is too small, and Congress is entirely to blame for it) and we'd have zero trouble pulling them in. I might be on to something here...

Just an idea, Guys at the Pentagon. But you can use it. I won't even demand credit.

Sweet Ol' Uncle Mahmoud...

What a nice man! He let the British sailors and Marines go home. Group hugs for Uncle Mahmoud!

You know, anybody who tells you that how the release happened doesn't matter - it's the fact that the Brits are home which counts - they're wrong.

It's the difference between your dog pissing on the rug and stopping because he doesn't have to piss anymore (for a while), and stopping because you caught him, hollered at him, and tossed him outside to piss.

One course of action taught your dog a valuable lesson that, if repeated as necessary, will lead to a good dog, piss-free rugs and general peace and harmony. The other course of action will lead to damp, pee-smelling rugs for the life of the dog.

Or until you decide to live without rugs.

I lack the energy to go on about this today, but people - the Iranians learned a lesson from this, and it's not a good one.

To return to the dog analogy...when I was a kid, we'd put our pets through an obediance class taught by a very smart lady who always opened each session by reminding us that "you can't teach nothing."

That's true - your actions or lack thereof always carry a message and provide guidance to your pet. You have to be aware of this, and remain mindful to send only the messages you want received.

The rhetorical, diplomatic and military actions of a nation or group of nations also are always communicating something. I do not care for what we are teaching Iran and its filthy little co-conspirators these days.

Highly uncool - Surrender monkeys run amok

You know, I've made serious efforts to remain bipartisan about this whole "War on Terror" thing. I try to be middle of the road. The President's plan in Iraq has long needed some...refinement. I've admitted that there have been alternatives and better ways to do things.

I've been waiting for someone out there, on either side of the aisle, to come up a better way to fix the Islamic terror problems (I say problems because we have distinct issues with Sunni terror and Shiite terror - they're different but equally troublesome beasts).

I've been troubled that, Joe Lieberman aside, I'm not getting anything from the Democrats.

Maybe I need to make my entire position clear. Ahem:

There are people in the Muslim world who have killed Americans, both military and civilian, with relative impunity for more than 25 years. These attacks have been committed by both Sunni extremists (Al Qaeda) and Shiite extremists (Hezbollah). The will to continue this sort of attack is still very much alive.

It is better to prevent these attacks than to let them occur. It is our duty as Americans to protect ourselves and our countrymen. It is impossible to build a giant wall around our nation and retreat within our borders, so we must take the fight to the enemy. This includes murderous regimes that blame America and the West for their shortcomings and misery. Current Middle Eastern governments keep substantial numbers of their people in misery in subjugation, then redirect their powerlessness and rage toward the West. Any offensive strategy in the Middle East requires a comittment to build functioning representative processes to replace dictatorships, which is difficult since the region doesn't have a tradition of such processes.

This is where I'm working from. I cannot imagine any of our national leadership who thinks the best way to counter what happened in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania is to give up.

We've discussed before that I was lukewarm on Iraq as a target. Oh - we needed a target, but if Abby were Queen, it probably would have been a different country in the region.

But now we're there. And man, did we every goatfuck that place. The invasion worked, the immediate aftermath didn't, and we wasted several years while the Administration refused to admit the initial plan wasn't perfect.

Changes have finally been made. We've got a helluva commander on the ground in Baghdad in General Petraeus. You ask me, I'd tell you we still don't have enough guys on the ground, but we're doing better than we were. We've reversed that awful trend leading up to the 2006 elections in which we pulled our people onto the big bases to try to keep them safer.

And now we've got the fucking Democrats in Congress whining for a pullout date. My question - are they stupid, or are they craven weasels more concerned with political success than the long term security of our nation?

'Cause folks, it's one or the other.

A pullout date is nothing. It's meaningless. Spring of '08? What the hell significance does that have? Did I miss the release of the Deomcratic Party Timeline for Success, which outlined the steps and dates for finishing the training of the Iraqi Security Forces (including a robust and functioning border guard), ensuring the Iraqi government is stable enough to run and hold elections on its own (without interference from the Bad Neighbors), and specific benchmarks for establishing enough local security for the defunct factories and oil facilities of Iraq to get fully back on line and offer employment opportunities? Did I goddam miss the part where they explained how we are going to achieve success (that is, VICTORY) by Spring of '08?

No - I don't think I did. Because for some reason, these cringing weasels apparently think we can't win there. We can't do the things in the paragraph above.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is a load of bullshit.

What we may not be able to do is have our cake and eat it too. We may not be able to have our uniformed folks at war while, as the pictures suggested, the rest of America is at the mall.

Only recently did the US Army and Marine Corps get authorized end-strength increases. We've heard the defeatists whimper about how over-tasked our military is for several years now, and only JUST NOW are we getting around to, you know, fixing that. (We're not going to be rude and talk about how our forces were gutted during the 90s - apparently someone thought we'd seen an end to war)

And that's just the beginning. We're currently handling our Reserve and National Guard forces under a "partial mobilization." There are two more steps beyond that. There may be some very hard choices to make if we don't want to lose.

We have options. And we have obligations. There are good men and women in Iraq who will die at the hands of terrorists and criminals if we pull out and abandon them.

There is a large and evil country directly next to Iraq that has watched our wobbling, our lack of resolve, our cringing and which has decided it can get away not only with defying the UN in regards to production of nuclear materials, but has also felt bold enough to kidnap and hold British servicemembers.

Iraq is not just about Iraq. Iraq is also about Iran. There are moral reasons we must not leave Iraq, promises we have made to the people of that country, and upon which they've bet their lives. There are also very serious reasons that we cannot demonstrate to Iran that we have no resolve.

Iran has a puppet state, you know. That's Syria. Syria is, of course, where Hezbollah gets to live and get money and equipment (since they've been largely pushed out of Lebanon).

Guess who's visiting Syria?

Nancy, I got 241 dead American warriors who'd like to have a little talk with you about sitting down with those savages...

Folks, this is all tied together. The term "rat's nest" doesn't even begin to describe this region. We jumped the berm into Iraq and waded ass-deep into the mess that is the modern Middle East. It isn't easy, it isn't simple. It isn't always clear, and it sure isn't made to fit neatly into soundbites.

But there is one country in the world that's a prime target for the rage that brews over there, and that is the U.S. And there is only one entity on the planet with the money, resources, brains and capability to even begin trying to unfuck the region. Fortunately, that is also the U.S.

This is not a short war. This is, as the wise men have said, The Long War. Cutting and running from Iraq misses the point. We need to figure out how to win there, because we're going to need to do it again in the same region before all too long. Whether it's at a time and place of our choosing or theirs, our work in the Middle East is far from over. Iraq is where it's started, and where we can either learn how to win, or begin learning how to lose.

Any politician who favors the later can go straight to Hell.

Not a good neighbor

Well. Iran is at it again. They snatched up 15 Brits.

The Royal Marines and ordinary naval officers were believed to have been apprehended by up to six ships from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy who claimed they had violated Iranian waters

Of course, it really does not look like they invaded anything.

I have to admit I was a little perturbed to pull up the CNN home page this morning and saw the pet food issue was placed more prominently on the page.

I hate this shit. The enemy we face is a pack of savages. All they understand is force. They can certainly read between the lines when we dither, vacillate and wring our hands over this sort of utterly unacceptable behavior.

The British military is very, very good. As is ours. Those 15 Sailors and Royal Marines need to be "recovered" with extreme predjudice. Like yesterday. To not do so sends a dangerous message.

Dangerous men in black are available and ought to be tasked to rectify this situation immediately. Playing the diplomatic game with this nest of vipers may be alright in regards to Iran's nuclear program, but the seizure of personnel belonging to our ally...that sort of behavior warrants a real response.

"Real journalist" on Iraq

Via The Smallest Minority, we find two interviews with a UPI reporter who spent some time in Iraq.

There are two different video clips. The one on the bottom is shorter and from CNN, the one above is significantly longer. But you need to watch at least one of them. Go now.

Story Time - The World's Greatest Flashlight

I'm not overwhelmingly into expensive shit. Oh, I like it, but quite often, the really pricey version is overkill.

But not always. This occured to me as I was rummaging around my Jeep the other night trying to find my keys. A Maglite would have been helpful.

But a Surefire A2 Aviator is better. This is mine.



Ladies and gentlemen, I own guns that cost less than this flashlight. Story time!

Once upon a time, Abby was at an awful little base in Iraq. I had a small Maglite that annoyed me. I was making plenty of money, and for once, my husband wasn't spending it all on truck accesories (he must have been overseas at that point).

One day, we loaded up the trucks and made a run up to Disneyland (Camp Liberty - where you don't have to wear your body armor everywhere!). Often, these trips involved spending time at the World's Most Evil Civil Affairs Battalion HQ, but they also always involved a PX run.

Now, we had a "PX" down at FOB Crappy, but it was:
A- rarely open
B- rarely stocked because trucks couldn't get through
C- rarely stocked with anything useful. Seriously - you couldn't get toothpaste there. Or shampoo. Or cigarettes. You could get Mach 3 razor blades, Cheezit (if you were one of the first four people there when a truck came in), and an issue of Cosmopolitan in Spanish. I shit you not.

So - the Camp Liberty PX was...amazing. It had...stuff. More than one flavor of soda. Folding chairs. Pillows. Steaks (this was the most amazing thing in the world and we fully took advantage of it).

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but when I was over there, I did not give a shit about money. $150 bucks at Amazon.com so I could read something decent? Sure! $125 on steaks so my tentmates and I could eat good meat? Sure - don't worry about paying me back! A lot of the other folks seemed the same way. We had enough, and damned if we weren't going to pay for anything that might make us smile.

They had a rack of Surefire flashlights. They had obviously been pawed through, and were all mixed up. Most of them seemed to cost about $70. Seemed reasonable. So I pawed through, too, until I found one with features I liked.

Tossed it in my basket. Got steak, toothpaste, cigarettes, lighter fluid, root beer, and six month-old magazines. Got in the World's Longest Checkout Line. Finally got to the counter...my total was like $300.

I paid it. Whatever. If it was wrong, I'd look when I got outside and go back in and get it adjusted.

Got outside, looked at the receipt. The damn flashlight was $149.99.

Now, I walked around in a daze for a significant portion of my time in Iraq. If I was not on mission and there was no immediate threat to my life, I just did not pay attention. So I shrugged. I felt a little sheepish, but I resolved to look up this flashlight on the internet at the first opportunity and see if AAFES had mischarged me.

Later that night, it was time to head out and send the evening SITREP. So I put on my armor and my helmet and grabbed a gun and the Flashlight.

I went out into the pitch black night. I pushed the tailcap a little. A nice, white glow. Not very bright, but even and easy on the eyes. Totally sufficient for reading or close-up work. I pushed harder. Holy crap! It was Super Beam! This is the xenon bulb. And it is amazing.

I sent my SITREP. Then, as was my habit, I trudged across the FOB to get to the internet trailer. At that point, we worked with an armor unit. There was a big open space in the middle of our FOB (there's a story behind that space, but it involves a fire and I'll tell it another time). Crossing the open space was the best way to get where I was going, but the armor unit persisted in changing out track on their vehicles all the time. In the open area. So there were always several lengths of tank track stretched out there.

People, if you have never stubbed your toe on tank track while wearing running shoes...well, it hurts. So I shot the area with Super Beam. And damned if I couldn't see all the way across. Clearly.

I got to the internet trailer and found that the A2 normally retails for $185-$195. Seems I got a pretty good deal. So I kept it.

I did make my tentmates join me outdoors several times to admire the beam. They thought this was weird until I finally confessed what I paid for it. Then they really made fun of me.

It is the World's Greatest Flashlight, folks. But it is also overkill. I recommend the G2 from Surefire. Even brighter (but without the lower-output LED option), much less expensive, and unless you plan on really beating your flashlight to shit, it should hold up almost as well. And if it doesn't? You can buy another one. You'd have to go through four and be on number five before I became more frugal.

But here's the confession. I love my A2. I love it so much that I want more insanely expensive flashlights. I need a G3. And an E2E. And a C3. It's like a sickness.