Category: Military

Contrasts always make good food for thought, don’t you think? I’m rather fond of them, myself. They just seem to make things clearer for my knuckle-dragging conservative mind.

Take Afghanistan, for instance. Yes, I know there’s a cornucopia of contrasts just waiting to be observed there but for now, I’m going to stick to just a couple of things.

Let’s start off with the Phederal Fiberal Party of Canada®. You know the Fiberals, right? They’re the ones that got us into Bush/Harper’s Warâ„¢ in the first place (don’t mention that to the loopy leftosphere, though; they just hate it when somebody pops their balloon). They got us in, but didn’t really mean it, and now… Well, now they’re even eating each other over it:

Former defence minister John McCallum, in particular, is disarmingly frank, speaking openly about how Canada ended up being stuck with the unenviable job of trying to bring security to the increasingly dangerous province of Kandahar. “We dithered, and so all the safe places were taken and we were left with Kandahar.”

Is it just me, or did McCallum just take a potshot at his old boss? Ah, well, Lieberals turning on each other; what are the odds?

Then we’ve got the people that are actually putting their lives on the line in that foreign land. Soldiers like Sergeant Patrick Tower, Sergeant Michael Denine, Master Corporal Collin Fitzgerald and Private Jason Lamont from the CAF, and more recently, this lad who’s serving with the 1st Battalion of the Royal Welsh:

Fusilier Damien Hields used his grenade machinegun to destroy seven Taliban positions before his ambushers realised he was their main threat. After peppering his vehicle with bullets, they hit the 24-year-old soldier. He had to be dragged off for treatment by his driver after he tried to continue fighting.

“Fusilier Hields showed extraordinary courage under intense fire,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Huw James, his commanding officer. “I was astonished at the state of his vehicle. There were so many holes in it, it was like a teabag. The Taliban did everything in their power to neutralise [him] and Fusilier Hields was having none of it. His actions allowed his patrol to come out of the ambush in which they were outnumbered by three or four to one and probably saved a lot of lives.” […]

Hields was one of 28 Military Crosses announced last week. There were also five Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses, the second highest award after the Victoria Cross. […]

They were on their way back to Kandahar on June 3, driving south in a valley, when the Taliban attacked. One of the Land Rovers hit a landmine and was flipped upside down by the blast. “There were Taliban dug in all around and they started hitting us with AK47s and mortars. We could not see where they were at first.”

Hields followed the trail of RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades coming towards him and started firing grenades one at a time, trying to home in. “Then I switched to automatic fire,” he said. A grenade machine gun has a box with 32 grenade rounds. “I emptied a box onto that position and you could see all the dust and smoke flying about where they hit.

“After that no fire came back from that position and I moved on to the next one. One or two rounds until I got onto the target, and switch to automatic and empty the box.”

Realising that Hields was the main threat to them, the remaining Taliban fighters homed in on him with their RPG7s, Dushka heavy machineguns and Kalash-nikov rifles. Hields was undaunted and continued firing.

“I got through six boxes in about 15 minutes and we were winning the fight,” he said. “They started it. We were going to finish it.”

One of the Taliban rounds finally hit home as he was bending down to reload. “I felt a sharp punch in the kidneys on my right side,” he said. “It knocked me into the bottom of the [Land-Rover]. I looked down and saw a hole in my body armour and a bit of blood.”

Hields was dragged out of the Taliban fire and back about 20 yards where Lance-Corporal Carley Williams, the female medic attached to the troops, had dashed through enemy fire to set up a first aid position.

“The lads were screaming at me to get into cover,” said Williams, 23, from Llanelli. They saw one round actually pass between my legs.” She was awarded the Joint Commanders’ Commendation for her bravery.

Hields said: “It turned out the bullet had smashed a rib and gone out of me again without touching any internal organs which was very lucky. It was just a flesh wound really.”

He and the other wounded were evacuated by helicopter. After treatment and recuperation, Hields was back taking part in operations in Afghanistan in July. “Obviously I’m extremely proud but I’ve got friends still recovering from injuries and it’s them I’m more worried about.”

Funny, the way some things can look when you put them next to each other, isn’t it?

And some people wonder how I can be a monarchist…

Well, this ought to shut up the naysayers (a few of ’em, anyway). HRH Prince Henry of Wales (aka Prince Harry) may not have made it to Iraq like he was hoping to, but he sure as hell managed to get his ass in the grass in Afghanistan! And damned good for him, too. An Aussie mag, a German paper and Drudge sprung the story a while ago, and Britain’s Defence Ministry confirmed it today.

From Drudge:

They’re calling him “Harry the Hero!”

British Royal Prince Harry has been fighting in Afghanistan since late December — and has been directly involved in gun battle, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The prince, a junior officer in the Blues and Royals, and third in line to the throne, has been a “magnificent soldier” and an “inspiration to all of Briton.”

Prince Harry is taking part in a new offensive against the Taliban.

The Ministry Of What You Should Think has more:

“His conduct on operations in Afghanistan has been exemplary,” said the head of the British army, Gen. Richard Dannatt. “He has been fully involved in operations and has run the same risks as everyone else in his battle group.”

In an interview from Afghanistan that was made public Thursday, Harry told the BBC the deployment is “massively important” and a “turning point” in his life.

“It’s very nice to be sort of a normal person for once. I think it’s about as normal as I’m going to get,” he said, adding that he doesn’t miss anything from home, even alcohol. The prince often made headlines for his partying.

[…]

Harry has often complained he would quit the armed forces unless he is allowed to fight alongside his colleagues. When he graduated from military college in 2006, Harry told an interviewer he wasn’t going to put himself through military school “and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.”

After his deployment to Iraq was canned, about a dozen defence officials quietly hatched a plan to send the prince to Afghanistan, CBC correspondent Adrienne Arsenault said.

A handful of journalists were invited to observe Harry on the battlefield under the agreement they would not report the information until the deployment had ended. The news blackout was intended to reduce the risk to the prince and his regiment.

CNN gets in on the act, too:

He was deployed 10 weeks ago and his fellow soldiers were sworn to secrecy.

The prince’s status is currently being reviewed, the Ministry of Defense said.

Harry is third in line to the British throne and serves with the Blues and Royals

His main role has been as a member of a group called Joint Tactical Air Control, or JTAC.

“As far as I’m concerned I’m out here as a normal JTAC on the ground and not as Prince Harry” he said.

In a recent interview with CNN correspondent Paula Newton, Prince Harry said, “At the end of the day I like to sort of be a normal person, and for once I think this is about as normal as I’m ever going to get.”

And in a pre-deployment interview with the British Press Association, he said: “If I’m wanted, if I’m needed, then I will serve my country as I signed up to do.”

The head of the British Army, Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, said Harry’s deployment had been kept secret after striking an agreement with the media.

British and international media — including CNN — had agreed not to report Harry’s deployment because of security concerns for him and his unit. The military confirmed the operation after a U.S. Web site broke the news blackout.

Dannatt said: “What the last two months have shown is that it is perfectly possible for Prince Harry to be employed just the same as other Army officers of his rank and experience.

All I can say is: Damned fine job, lad! God bless you, and come home in one piece.

Canada’s foremost chickenshit, Taliban Jack!â„¢ was at it again lately. For those of you who’ve been under a rock (or smoking some liberal-approved crap) for the last couple of days, Jumpin’ Jack Jerkweed was wringing his hands and running up the white flag on our mission in Afghanistan faster than you can say “who gives a rat’s ass about duty, morality or any of that other shit, when I can milk the coward vote in the next election:”

“It’s an endless mission. There’s no end in sight. We say it’s a dead end,” Layton told reporters Thursday.

“No one has laid out, anywhere, that it’s possible to ultimately win a war in this region.

“No one. And historical experience shows that it’s been impossible — whether it be Alexander the Great, the British in the 19th century, or the Russians in the 20th century.

“We’re saying let’s recognize these historical realities.”

Will somebody… PLEASE… kick this asshole in the balls for me?

What the hell am I thinking? Balls?? On this weaselshit little prick??? Dennis, lad, give your head a goddamned shake. Not to mention the fact that if you were to shove his brain up a gnat’s ass, it’d look like a BB in a boxcar.

First off, if you think that Alexander the Great got stopped cold in Afghanistan, you’re even dumber than ol’ Jack!ass Layton is. Alexander ploughed through the Afghans and marched clear through to India. He even founded Khandahar (named after himself) in the 4th century, BC.

Second, the Brits did put down an “insurgency” in Afghanistan. It was a little thing called the Second Afghan War, around about the late 1800s, and the Brits stomped a mudhole in ol’ Ayub Khan’s ass at the Battle of Kandahar in September of 1880.

And if you really think that the big, bad Mujahideen managed to whup the Soviet Union’s butt all by themselves, then you take the top pinhead prize. It was massive foreign involvement and support, most of it by the Yanks in the CIA, that broke the bear’s back.

In other words, when it comes to tackling a professional foreign army, the Afghans are long on reputation and damned short on substance. But don’t just take my word for it; look at what’s happening in country with our troops. All you ever hear about is, a roadside bomb, an IED, an attack on a [school/hospital/aid group/bunch of Korean missionaries/whatever], a bomb hidden in a… blahblahblah ad nauseum. Why do you suppose this is?

The answer is simple: the reason that you never hear about any “major engagements with the Taliban” anymore is that, every time they crawl out of their hidey-holes and try to face our soldiers in any kind of a real fight, they get their asses handed to them! So, they hide like vermin and plant bombs in the night and only dare to face those who can’t fight back. And if they can behead somebody for teaching little girls while they’re at it, well its so much better then, isn’t it? And these are the assholes that Jack!off Layton loses sleep over, wondering if they’re being treated nice enough when they get caught.

So just what the hell does all that junk above have to do with the title of this post? Well, it has to do with where I ended it up: all the kumbaya moonbat bullshit worriying over the fates of the scumbags that fail to find their way to Allah and end up captured by our very own Jolly Green Giants. The loopy left thinks we should all pinch a collective loaf at the very thought that some medieval, murder-minded maggot might get a little banged up at the hands of their nasty turnkeys. General Rick Hillier, on the other hand, has a view that’s more in line with mine:

The general said he heard about the reports when he was on vacation in the Dominican Republic with his wife. “I was on my third rum and Coke and I really didn’t give a damn,” he said with a chuckle.

There you go. Come on, now… What’s not to like? 😀

…and learn some self-discipline while you’re at it.

For those of you that managed to snooze through it (I know I almost did, so don’t feel bad), the uberbullshit machine over at the New York Times recently puked up a load of crap that suggests, in not so subtle terms, that American veterans have a murderous bent to them:

Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles

[…]

Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.” Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment – along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems – appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Gimme a God damned break. Pure and utter bullshit but hey, the Leftbots that NYT never were ones to let the truth get in the way of a good cheap shot, were they?

I’m not the only one that got his/her back up over this vile slur. The right-wing blogoshpere and media (that would be Fox News) has, quite rightly (no pun intended, really), gone somewhat apeshit. No criticism of that here. The responses have ranged from eloquent to apoplectic, so I’m going to try to limit myself to citing the better angels of our collective nature. Without doubt, the best one I’ve found so far is from Winds Of Change; a big ol’ tip o’ the toque for some damned find number crunching on this one, lads…

The only reference I could find for the number of troops who have served in combat areas was at GlobalSecurity.com, citing a Salon article:

Three and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.

From the October 1, 2001 start of the Afghanistan war, that’s about 26,000 troops/month. To date (Jan 2008) that would give about 1.99 million.

That means that the NY Times 121 murders represent about a 7.08/100,000 rate.

Now the numbers on deployed troops are probably high – fewer troops from 2001 – 2003; I’d love a better number if someone has it.

But for initial purposes, let’s call the rate 10/100,000, about 40% higher than the calculated one.

Now, how does that compare with the population as a whole?

Turning to the DoJ statistics, we see that the US offender rate for homicide in the 18 – 24 yo range is 26.5/100,000.For 25 – 34, it’s 13.5/100,000.

The moral of the story? Simple:

If you’ve got a kid under the age of 25 and want to reduce the chance of him becoming a murderer by a whopping 62 to 73%… get his ass in the army.

’nuff said

Well, boys and girls, the brain blockage continues unabated. I’m still sitting at my keyboard for a bit every day, shaking my head like a thinking man at a Greenpeace rally, and nothing’s popped loose. Is there such a thing as ExLax for the brain?

So, since the only original stuff I seem able to write these days is Jack and shit (and Jack’s busy running the Dippers), kick back and soak this up for now.

A big ol’ tip o’ the toque to Paul over at CJ for finding this first.

Well, now… it seems that I can’t put up comments on ye ol’ “Dispatches from the Socialist Gulag” blog since I don’t have a Blogger account (don’t feel the need for one, either). But Mike put up a post the got under my fingernails and so, here’s my response.

And before some smartass out there even gets it into his head to bark at me: I did my bit for Queen and Country. I appreciate the sentiment, but those behind this idea… just … don’t … get it.

Call it something else. Something more honest.

Sorry, Mike, but I can’t get onboard with this one. The word “hero” gets bandied about far too much these days and it’s in danger of being reduced to meaninglessness.

These men weren’t heroes. Fred “Toppy” Topham was a hero. Ernest “Smokey” Smith was a hero. These men coming home now just died in action, that’s all. They weren’t heroes, they were SOLDIERS.

They were soldiers.

At what God damned time in our history did we arrive at the point where THAT wasn’t good enough?

I don’t go to the cenotaph to remember “heroes.” I go to honour soldiers.

Soldiers is what they are.

And that’s more than enough.

God bless them all.