15 January 2010

Cobra Battery at FOB Frontenac
Arghandab, Afghanistan

Artillery is called “The King of Battle.”  When it comes to the delivery of force, probably nothing outside of nuclear weapons can outmatch the sustained delivery of extreme brutality.  Cannons also can deliver small atomic weapons. (more…)

First of all, sorry for the delayed release of this, I got a few big ideas for some big changes, and technical issues that arose in the process prevented me from meeting the series debut date of the 5th. It was a nightmare, and more work could be done, and it’s sans a real final credit sequence, but it’s time to roll.  You get the basic idea here. There will be a different final version for DVD.  Combat sequences  in the prologue were shot by myself or Marines.

Series Prologue:

Episode 1: “Return To Ramadi”:

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When I was just a kid, I saw the stage musical, “Peter Pan,” starring Mary Martin in the title role and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook.  It is to this day the only version of that old war-horse I ever liked.  I still don’t know why that story has retained its popularity since 1904.  Even Walt Disney couldn’t work his magic on it.

What I remember best about the show, the tunes aside, is that at the point when Tinkerbell’s light was flickering, and she was supposedly at death’s door, the audience was urged to start clapping in the hope that our applause would somehow save her.  Suddenly a woman seated behind me leaned forward and said, “Little boy, you aren’t clapping.  Don’t you want Tinkerbell to live?”

“I know the story,” I told her.  “She’ll live even if nobody claps.” (more…)

This is the time of year when most people are busy resolving to do better in the future. Some people vow to go on diets or exercise more, some promise to give up smoking or booze. But, year in and year out, I vow to cut liberals more slack and give them the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, just as with other people’s good intentions, my own rarely last until nightfall. The difference is that the reason mine die on the vine, as it were, has nothing to do with my own lack of character, but everything to do with the failings of liberals.

For one thing, liberals are hypocritical. They have agendas when they’d be better off having principles. They praise whistle-blowers and investigative reporters, but only when Republicans, conservatives and/or the U.S. military suffer the consequences. So it was that they lionized Daniel Ellsberg for turning the Pentagon Papers over to the NY Times and heralded Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward for their Watergate expose, but demanded that James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles be prosecuted for their ACORN videos and wanted the computer hackers who uncovered the East Anglia emails, the ones proving global warming to be a major hoax, to be tarred and feathered. (more…)

Arghandab, Afghanistan
New Year’s Eve, 2009

On this small base surrounded by a mixture of enemy and friendly territory, a memorial has been erected just next to the Chapel.  Inside the tepee are 21 photos of 21 soldiers killed during the first months of a year-long tour of duty.  The fallen will belong forever to the honor rolls of the 1-17th Infantry Battalion, 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and they will join the sacred list of names of those who have given their lives in service of the United States of America.

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20 December 2009
Arghandab, Afghanistan

As Christmas approaches, many people are thinking about the troops, who in turn are thinking about loved ones at home.  Cards and letters are tacked up on many walls.  The favorites are from the little kids, with questions like, “How do you go to the bathroom?”  “Can you eat dinner?”  “Does it hurt to get shooted?”  It goes on.

I emailed to Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger, asking if he had any words for the troops this Christmas.  Jeff came right back with this awesome letter:

Michael,

As you make your rounds over there, please to remind them that we know they are there and appreciate their performing their duty in such a magnificent manner.

Jeff

Then CSM Mellinger writes:

I awoke this Saturday morning at PT time (0430), and looked at my surroundings.  The worst winter storm in DC for a number of years had arrived in force.  Snow, and lots of it.  Roads are closed, planes are grounded, and people are huddled comfortably inside their homes or foolishly out trying to learn how to drive in snow.

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Based on the email I receive from my readers, I understand that I’m not alone in thinking that the left-wing lugnuts have turned America into the world’s biggest loony bin.  I’m not quite sure how they managed to pull it off, but the evidence of their mischief is obvious and overwhelming.

For openers, we have the administration’s refusal to let White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers explain how the Salahis crashed the state dinner for India’s prime minister, Dr. Monmohan Singh.  These are the same folks who spent eight years insisting that the American people had a right to receive regular status reports on Dick Cheney’s bowel movements.

For my part, I am less concerned with the presence of the Salahis in the White House than with Rahm Emanuel, Cass Sunstein and David Axelrod, having the run of the place. (more…)

13 December 2009
Kandahar, Afghanistan

People are confused about the war.  The situation is difficult to resolve even for those who are here.  For most of us, the conflict remains out of focus, lacking reference of almost any sort.  Vertigo leaves us seeking orientation from places like Vietnam—where most of us never have been.  So sad are our motley pundits-cum-navigators that those who have never have been to Afghanistan or Vietnam shamelessly use one to reference the other.  We saw this in Iraq.

The most we can do is pay attention, study hard, and try to bring something into focus that is always rolling, yawing, and seemingly changing course randomly, in more dimensions than even astronauts must consider.  All while gauging dozens of factors, such as Afghan Opinion, Coalition Will, Enemy Will and Capacity, Resources, Regional Actors (and, of course, the Thoroughly Unexpected).  Nobody will ever understand all these dynamic factors and track them at once and through time.  That’s the bad news. (more…)

–

The film’s producer Chris Moore:

And I’m sure every person there in Afghanistan is thinking about their family back here, thinking about the holidays, and I guarantee you all of them are thinking, “Why am I here? What am I doing here?”

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It seems these days
I’m in a haze,
And I can’t concentrate on things,
Don’t eat or sleep,
Feel incomplete,
And kinda scared and creepy.

I look over my shoulder lots
And shudder when I watch TV.
I bite my nails and cuticles
And watch my words very carefully.
I bite my lip a lot
And fidget with the buttons on my blouse.
Why?
…BECAUSE THERE’S A COMMUNIST LIVING IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!

I’m jittery, my teeth I grate
I twitch, I shake, I ruminate
Lately I’m perplexed and pinched
In pain, I pout and ponder. (more…)

There are few things I hate more in life than movie trailers that give away the entire plot of a movie. One of the things I do hate more is the modern Hollywood war movie, which is invariably anti-war and, worse, reflexively anti-American or anti-troop.

So when I saw the previews for the new film “Brothers,” I was doubly annoyed. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, who starred in the egregiously offensive anti-American film “Rendition” (2007), as well as fellow liberal loudmouth Natalie Portman in addition to Tobey Maguire, “Brothers” had a trailer that seemed to scream out the entire plot: A soldier (played by Maguire) was presumably killed in battle in Afghanistan, which lead to an affair between his widow (Portman) and ne’er-do-well brother (Gyllenhaal) as the brother steps up to help her and her children recover from their loss.

The affair is then disrupted by the fact that Maguire is alive after all, his return heralded in the ads by horror-movie music that makes it look like the entire rest of the movie will center on him being a psychopathic animal, ultimately having a showdown with police in which he screams, “Shoot me!” (more…)

Bonus!: Here’s a clip of me and a guest fighting over global warming:

Guests:
the delightful Barret Swatak
the delectable Jill Dobson
the determined Andrew Breitbart!
and the wonderful actor Joel David Moore
Plus – my mom!

Double Bonus!: After the jump, whatever that is! (more…)

Mark Twain’s famous quote, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,” resonates loudly in my mind as I finish Sarah Palin’s captivating story, Going Rogue.

But Palin ain’t buying it by the barrel, she’s got a whole pipeline of pure grade indigo flowing from the North Slope as she pumps up the volume on her NY Times #1 bestselling memoir.

When I got about halfway through the book I set it down, stepped outside of my Washington, DC townhouse and went for a run around the U.S. Capitol. Listening to the Outlaws, Marshall Tucker Band, and Lil Bow Wow (my daughter slipped that one in there) on my iPod, the recurrent thought in my mind was that this woman is far more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House. (more…)

I like finding examples of left-wing media bias as much as the next guy but I suppose that guy would have to be another right-wing nut job like me in order to enjoy it as much as I do. Anyway, over the weekend I was watching all the hype for the big Obama Afghanistan announcement on Tuesday when I saw a little gem of a news story on Headline News. There she was, the former darling of the left-wing press — Ms. Anti-War herself — Cindy Sheehan, leading a huge war protest in front of Travis Air Force Base outside of Sacramento, CA.

Except Ms. Sheehan’s protest really wasn’t all that huge. It looked like Cindy and about seven or eight of her aging hipster friends had gotten some gas money together, made a few signs and a rented U Haul truck for a trip from the Bay Area up to Sacto. I sometimes confuse Cindy’s pals in Code Pink with the pink hats my mother’s old friends in the Red Hat Society wore. Except the Red Hat ladies are out for fun and the Code Pink gals seem to have gotten out of bed on the wrong side. To be honest, I felt a little sad for Cindy. I think I could get more people over to my house for an Amway meeting. I didn’t see how less than a dozen people doing anything would rate national news time. However, Ms. Cindy was getting more airtime on HLN than the entire 9/12 weekend demonstration did, and though we may disagree about how many folks were there, I think we can all agree it was a little more than twelve. (more…)

Below are the first few paragraphs, but Moore’s closing plea — a  purely symbolic hand-wringing of concern for the Afghan people — is odd considering he wants President Obama to withdraw from Afghanistan, which can only mean turning 25 million innocent people over to brutal Islamics. Oh, well, being a Leftist means never having to make sense…

An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

“Dear President Obama,

“Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so. (more…)

We debated whether to rank “The Messenger” as “abhorrent,” but there are some lightly positive things about it. The more we thought about this movie after seeing it, however, the more the bad content in it stood out and annoyed us. 

Basically, the movie is about a sergeant wounded in the Iraq War who gets assigned to notify the next of kin of recently killed soldiers. Staff Sgt. Will Montgomery, played by Ben Foster in a star-making performance, is assigned to fellow officer Tony Stone, played by Woody Harrelson (also excellent), a recovering alcoholic who has never really seen action. Cynically, with a touch of sarcastic humor, Tony tries to show Will the ins and outs of performing this onerous duty. Even so, both are surprised by some of the reactions they get. One father angrily spits at Will when Will gives him the news about his son’s death.  (more…)

Many people were offended to see Barack Obama once again bowing to a foreign dignitary, the Emperor of Japan.  For my part, I was actually relieved that at least this latest breech of protocol didn’t involve his kowtowing to one of America’s sworn enemies. 

As most people are well aware, I have nothing but loathing for Obama’s policies, but even I am amazed by his reluctance to handle what I regard as the easy part of his job; namely, carrying off his responsibilities to be a figurehead, to be the proud symbol of this great and generous nation. 

Instead, he tours the world on our dime apologizing for our alleged failings and transgressions.  He goes to Denmark in order to lobby for the Olympics, in order that his corrupt Chicago cronies could cash in on crooked land deals, but he doesn’t go to Germany to help commemorate the falling of the Berlin Wall.  Next, instead of expressing the grief that every decent American felt over the slaughter of American soldiers and an unborn baby by an Islamic terrorist, this bozo gave a partisan shout-out at a Native American shindig.  Then, for good measure, he warned us not to jump to the conclusion that the Islamic terrorist was an Islamic terrorist.  (more…)