Home at last!

Tonight, I've arrived home from a series of about two months of weekly road trips. Next week, I'm home all week. Yahoo! Now, I can catch up on store visit reports and other projects.

Last weekend, I was able to take my mom on a short cruise for Mother's Day. It was great fun for both of us.

Here we are at dinner on formal night:

An interview with Steven Vincent's interpreter

Nour al-Khal is the interpreter who was kidnapped and shot with journalist Steven Vincent in Basrah in August 2005. Here is an interview that was posted on American Public Media. The interview runs about 40 minutes.

It contains a first person account of the evil our soliders are fighting. Lisa Ramaci, Steven's widow also is included in the interview. Nour and Lisa talk at length about Nour's struggle to obtain refugee status in the United States.

A day in the life

In February, I posted about the deployment of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. Then, I set up a Google News search to follow their story. Sadly, one of the soldiers was killed in action.

A few days ago, David Finkel filed this story with the Washington Post. The headline and sub-headline are: A Grisly Problem, Grateful Iraqis and a Grim Outlook; Unit Planning Outpost Confronts an Obstacle Known as 'Bob'.

It is an interesting, if a bit macabre, story of the obstacles that were encountered when the U.S. Army wanted to set up operations in an abandoned spaghetti factory. This is the kind of writing that the Washington Post is very good at. There's no gottcha, just the sad facts of a day in the life in a war zone.

What I learned at Police Reserve training

One of the best things about being a police reserve is the training that we get. Yesterday, we were shown the usual gory first aid films that implore us to stay calm as blood and tissue flow out of wounds of various types.

For comic relief, we were treated to this film. I thought it was quite funny.

Update: Video clip removed because the incessant and unexpected playing of a boozing song was irritating my faithful reader. (Thanks, Bro.)

Find this and other videos at Guzer.com.

Cheers!

A reminder to wear your seat belt

I'm in the Garden State this week. While most newscasters around the nation are still rolling around in their new-found freedom of being able to say "Nappy headed ho" on the air, the lead story in New Jersey is that the governor is in critical condition after his SUV crashed on the Garden State parkway. In hearing and reading some news reports, I was shocked to learn that the governor does not usually wear his seat belt.

I've seen the pictures of the governor's crashed SUV and I've responded to many accidents as a police reserve. Sad to say, I've seen much worse crashes where people have come out without a scratch.

If you love the people around you and want to improve the chances of not ending up dead or in an ICU from a survivable accident, buckle up.

Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for Governor Corzine.

Military moms speak up

Via Lucianne.com here is a YouTube video of a meeting between some military moms and other relatives, and Congressman Paul Hodes of New Hampshire. It is a nine minute video, and starts out with what might be seen as typical talking points. But as the mother of a soldier who was slain in Afghanistan starts to speak, talking points are dropped and the truth of both sides in the exchange are revealed. Watch, particularly, the reaction of the Congressman's wife.

Sad news

In late February, I posted about an Army battalion whose deployment was featured in a front-page Washington Post story. I set up a Google News alert search for the commander, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, and the battalion. I was planning to post updates here, preferably from local news sources that tend to print good news stories about their hometown boys.

I have received many Google alerts on Lt. Col Kauzlarich, but they have all been related to the Pat Tillman friendly fire death investigation. Kauzlarich was involved in the original investigation.

This morning I found the following sad news for my alert on the "2nd Battalion" "16th Infantry Regiment" "4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team" "1st Infantry Division":

"Army Pfc. Jay S. Cajimat, 20, Lahaina, Hawaii, died Friday in Baghdad of wounds suffered when a vehicle-borne explosive detonated near his unit; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan."

May he rest in peace in the loving arms of his creator.

Update: Here is a picture of PFC Jay Cajimat

America's Broken-Down Media

Via RealClearPolitics, Ray Robison deconstructs an article in Time magazine that attempts to paint a mortally wounded soldier as a victim of poor training instead of the well-trained professional that he was.

I've been intensely interested in media coverage of soldiers since my son was deployed in early 2004. In the three years hence, despite tanker-loads of ink spread across NEWSWEEK, The New York Times, et al, reporters - in general - are no closer to understanding or supporting the men and women who fight and die for their freedom than they were when the press became engaged in the orgy of coverage of that twelve hour shift at Abu Ghraib.

God bless the soldiers and the families who will exchange Easter greetings via cell phone this year. May they keep on fighting the good fight until victory over radical Islamic terrorism is acheived.

Our Hillary

The caption for this AP photo says: "Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York reacts to seeing and old friend during a campaign stop at the National Education Association New Hampshire, in Concord, N.H., Friday, March 30, 2007. (AP Photo/Jim Cole)"

There's a phrase that goes: "With friends like this...."

H/T LauraW at Ace of Spades HQ

Minnesota (not so) nice

In this week's Jihad Watch video at Hot Air, Robert Spencer imagines what the news from Lake Wobegon might be like if Garrison Keillor took notice of the Sharia campaign in Minnesota.

The good news is that Minnesotans aren't yet ready to let anyone stand between us and our bacon. There was sufficient uproar about the Muslim cashiers' refusing to scan pepperoni pizza and other pork products that Target has reassigned cashiers who will not fully serve the public.

You may recall a blog-swarm a few years ago, in which Hugh Hewitt tried to get Target to change its mind about not allowing Salvation Army bell-ringers at its entrances. Target did not budge on that one, but must have found the reaction by its customers on this pork story to not be consistent with "Minnesota nice."

Also: See this previous post from January.

What We Call The News

You may remember the very funny political short animation film "This Land" that was made by Jibjab Media, Inc. in 2004. They've come up with another one that will make you laugh, for sure. It's called: "What We Call The News," and it takes a poke at TV news. Great stuff.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Let's see:

• Soldiers...check!


• Pigs...check!


• A gentle poke at Democrats who claim to "support the troops"...double check!!

This has all the elements of a great cartoon.

From US News & World Report, via Lucianne.com.

BBDS (Before Bush Derangement Syndrome)

This morning, I happened across this story from BBC News. It is dated October 11, 2002 and describes - via unnamed senior administration officials - the Bush administration's plan to occupy Iraq. The writer is skeptical that an occupation will really happen.

Here is the lede:

"It has been reported that the Bush administration is developing a detailed plan to occupy Iraq and install an American-led military government in Baghdad if the US topples Saddam Hussein.

The New York Times newspaper and the Associated Press news agency have been briefed on the plan by unnamed senior administration officials.

However, the Associated Press says the two officials it spoke to consider that of all the plans being studied in Washington, this is among the least likely to be approved.

One prominent Iraqi opposition figure told the BBC the Americans would be naive to attempt to occupy the country."

You may notice a definite lack of anti-Bush hysteria in this piece. That may be because it had been written only a year after 3,000 innocent Americans were killed on that sunny Tuesday morning in NYC, DC, and PA. It was a few short months since Daniel Pearl, journalist, was beheaded in Pakistan. In October 2002, al-Qaeda and anyone else who supported terrorism, was viewed as more of an enemy than President Bush.

Whither the poor pig farmer?

I recently met a pig farmer from Canada on a Caribbean cruise. The man was very nice, had a lovely wife - both physically and in personality, and I think they had five children. It seems that they worked very hard on the pig farm and made a comfortable living. As I spent the week with them, I did have one underlying worry - how long would it be before pork was banned and they would have no livelihood?

Overreaction, you say? Been reading a few too many right-wing opinion columnists?

Well, it looks like the pork jihad has come to Minneapolis. Here is a story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune's web site detailing an incident of a cashier at Target refusing to scan a pepperoni pizza. The post is by Chris Serres, a Star Tribune staff writer.

As an isolated incident, I'd say ignore this. But, as you read the many comments to the post, you find that this is not an isolated incident at all.

How long will it be before businesses decide to drop pork products because it is simply too difficult to deal with the multi-cultural issues surrounding it? How long will the pig farmer survive?

H/T Little Green Footballs

Some more thoughts on Walter Reed

I've been pretty quiet lately - busy at work, and now on the road again. I've been thinking a lot about this Walter Reed issue, and it still sticks in my craw. But not for the reasons that most Americans are getting riled about it.

You see, it seems to me that this story didn't get legs because of concern for the soldiers by the media. There is no doubt in my mind that members of the media have received reports of this type of treatment for years...and so have politicians. It is the nature of government bureaucracy and of war for horrific cracks to develop in the system. We have no perfect bureaucracies and no perfect wars. We do have bureaucracies that have benefitted the greater good and unfortunately we have needed wars to deal with real evils such as terrorism, Hilter's nazi regime and communism.

The fallout from the Walter Reed scandal is not going to create a perfect VA medical system. There will always be human failings. However, it has claimed a Secretary of the Army and a two-star general has been relieved of his command.

A follow-up story in the Washington Post says this: "Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- 'our neighbors,' said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. 'It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point,' he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. 'The country is embarrassed' to know otherwise, Glasser said."

Yes, you, the American public, are being told that up until now men like Senators Kennedy and Durbin and Kerry or Congressmen like Murtha and Pelosi had no national voice; that it took a cold-call to Dana Priest for anyone at all to realize that there was a problem.

Now, the military and administration are being painted as entirely uncaring of its vets. This is the perfect political tool for a nation that adores its troops.

What is forgotten in all of this is that soldiers sent to Iraq overwhelmingly re-up, that the vast majority do not have post-traumatic stress syndrome, and that Tri-care provides great coverage. And in this description, I'm not talking simply of the hundreds of thousands of unknown troops who have gone through Iraq. I'm relating the story of one soldier that I know very well - my son, who was wounded in Iraq, re-upped in the week he was coming back, and whose wife is likely alive today because of expensive medicines provided by Tri-care after the birth of my grandson. I, for one, am very grateful not just for the the Armed Forces' efforts to fight terrorism but for them returning my son home alive. An attitude such at this, however, does not garner much media attention.

If the media were terribly interested in the welfare of the soldiers you would hear more about the progress that is being made and less about fired generals. However, there are Pulitzer Prizes to be won and scalps to be had. Stories of success simply get in the way.

Meme alert

Readers (OK, the one reader, thanks Bro) of this blog may have noticed that I've sensed a strong new meme developing on the left side of the aisle. It goes something like this: "We really, really support the troops. We said it in our resolution. You (the administration) obviously hate them as you treat them like crap. We just want our beloved soldiers to come home."

This morning, McClatchy Newspapers' Margaret Talev says basically the same:

Support the troops.

Few phrases in American politics sound so innocuous but sting so much.

Republican backers of the Iraq war have revived a tactic from the Vietnam era, trying to put Democrats on the defensive by accusing critics of President Bush's decision to send thousands more troops to Iraq of failing to "support the troops" there.

This line of attack could explode this week, when Congress returns from a short recess. The Democratic majority will shift tactics from seeking nonbinding antiwar resolutions to trying to limit troop deployments and curb funding for the Iraq war.

Historians, political strategists and linguists say that questioning Democrats' loyalty to the troops is probably the best leverage supporters of the unpopular war have left.

"What that reflects is the aftermath of Vietnam and what happened to the Democrats," said Stephen Hess, a George Washington University professor and Brookings Institution scholar who worked in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations. Although polls show that solid public majorities oppose the war, Democrats still can be portrayed as undermining the troops.

The Bush administration and its congressional allies, however, are open to countercharges that they have overworked the Army and Marine Corps, failed to provide troops with adequate armor, and neglected serious problems in how the military and the Veterans Administration are caring for wounded warriors.

Democrats also can argue that the best way to support the troops is to bring them home, said Frank Luntz, the pollster and language consultant who shaped the Republicans' 1994 "Contract With America."

Army Battalion 2-16

The front page of today's Washington Post includes a 4500 word description of the days leading up to the departure of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. The central figure of the story is its commander, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich.

This is how the story begins:

FORT RILEY, Kan. -- Their camouflage on, their wives carrying infants, their older children carrying flags, the soldiers of George W. Bush's surge crowded into a gymnasium for their brigade deployment ceremony, a last public viewing before they disappeared into Iraq.

Baghdad, long an abstraction, was now imminent. Of the 21,500 additional troops President Bush decided to send to Iraq in the coming months, about 3,500 were coming from here. "Are you frightened?" a TV reporter called out. "I'm confident," one of those soldiers replied. An enormous American flag hung on the back wall. A military band lined up in formation. "Ready to go," another soldier said.

Outside, snow was coming toward this isolated place. Inside, as the bleachers filled and the doors swung closed against the cold, a 41-year-old soldier near the middle of the floor began clapping his hands in anticipation.

And now waved at his wife and children.

And now took his position in front of the soldiers he would soon be leading into combat.

While America obsesses about Anna Nicole, and Britney, and a catfight between Hillary and Obama, 800 soldiers are right now putting their lives on the line in hopes of securing a better Iraq for its and our future generations. The Washington Post will probably never run another story on Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich or his battalion. Even so, I have set up a Google news search for the battalion and for Lt. Col. Kauzlarich. I'm going to try to follow their story for the next year and I'll post here of their acheivements and heartaches along the way.

The Pride and Joy of the Washington Post

As Dana Priest collects bouquets for her selfless reporting on the outpatient treatment at Walter Reed, Howards Kurtz reveals a little too much about Ms. Priest's motivation.

Kurtz' Media Notes column starts out:

"To the Army's public affairs chief, it was simply an effort to 'get the facts out from our perspective.'

To Dana Priest, who covers national security for The Washington Post, it was a case of Army officials 'shooting themselves in the foot, because reporters are not going to trust them.'"

Ummm, because, you know, the reporters have always blindly trusted them before.

"The Post last week gave the Army six days to respond to the paper's investigation into decaying, cockroach-infested facilities and an overwhelmed patient-care bureaucracy at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington. The Army's public affairs office used the time to summon journalists from other news organizations to a briefing at which Walter Reed's commander responded to the findings -- in an article that had not yet been published." ...snip...

"When journalists seek a response from a government agency on a pending story, there is generally an understanding that the information will not be shared with rival news outlets before publication. Such unspoken agreements, however, are hardly iron-clad. Treasury Department officials last year gave the Wall Street Journal declassified information about a secret program to track the banking records of terror suspects after failing to persuade the New York Times to kill a planned story on the subject." ...snip...

I see. It's not really about the troops. It's about scooping the competition.

Priest, who reported the two-part series with Anne Hull, says she told an Army public affairs officer this week: "How do you think this is going to affect our relationship? Do you think I'm going to be willing next time to give you that much time to respond, if you're going to turn around and tell my competitors?" ...snip...

Not to mention that Priest sat on the story for four months and allowed untold numbers of soldiers to suffer untold misery. She and Hull kept this secret from not only her competitors, but also Congress, and anyone within the military system who could have addressed the situation. She and the WaPo chose to cause the most embarassment possible by plunking this on page A1 right during the most sensitive debates we've had yet in Congress and in the streets of America over the war.

"As for Weightman's complaint that the paper should have notified the Army of its conclusions earlier in the process, Priest called that 'ridiculous,' saying: 'You find wrongdoing and you don't report it to the public first? You report it to them first? That's not our role.'"

That's right, Dana. I guess in your world, it's your role to scoop the competition. Let someone else worry about the troops.

Good on ya, Secretary Gates

This is the way to effectively handle a media crisis.

From an A1 story in the Washington Post today:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates named an independent review panel yesterday to investigate what he called an "unacceptable" situation in outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and he said that some soldiers "most directly involved" in the problems have been removed from their positions.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to the Army hospital in Northwest Washington, Gates also warned that senior military leaders could be disciplined based on the findings of the review group.

Oh, brother

The major papers must have thought that Presidents' Day weekend means there's one extra day for dumping on the military. Here's the New York Times' contribution:

Jailed 2 Years, Iraqi Tells of Abuse by Americans
By MICHAEL MOSS and SOUAD MEKHENNET

...After his release from the American-run jail, Camp Bucca, Mr. Ani and other former detainees described the sprawling complex of barracks in the southern desert near Kuwait as a bleak place where guards casually used their stun guns and exposed prisoners to long periods of extreme heat and cold; where prisoners fought among themselves and extremist elements tried to radicalize others; and where detainees often responded to the harsh conditions with hunger strikes and, at times, violent protests...

...Mr. Ani said the electric prods were first used on him on the way to Camp Bucca. “I was talking to someone next to me and they used it,” he said, describing the device as black plastic with a yellow tip and two iron prongs. He said the prods were commonly used on him and other detainees as punishment.

“The whole body starts to shake and hurt,” he said. “And you lose consciousness for a couple of seconds. One time they used it on my tongue. One guard held me from the left and another on my back and another used it against my tongue and for four or five days I couldn’t eat.” ...

Hmmm, guess what? I know someone who was at Camp Bucca at the same time that Mr. Ani claimed the abuse took place in 2004 and 2005. I've heard the other side of the story of detainee/guard relations at Camp Bucca. Of course, any chance for another perspective is given only a few sentences in the Times' lengthy story.

And a few things about those tasers that are mentioned in the quote above. You don't lose consciousness and I can't imagine how it would be used on someone's tongue. This story has all the credibility of the Qur'an being flushed down the toilet fable.

Were some detainees mistreated at Camp Bucca? Definitely, yes. And the offenders were punished. For the New York Times to drag out this "newsflash" of treatment that happened two years ago makes one wonder what public good is being served.

Hey, New York Times - don't you know the "Soldiers are torturers" line is soooo yesterday? Today's meme is "We really, really support the troops. Let's just bring them home."