Uzbek and Turkmen
Though their exact number is uncertain and as with other communities are contested, previous estimates have suggested that Uzbeks (9 per cent) and Turkmen (3 per cent) make up a total of around 12 per cent of the population, Both Uzbeks and Turkmen live in the northern part of Afghanistan. In origin, Turkmen, also called Turcoman, Turkman or Turkomen, come from the Turkic-speaking tribes that emerged from Oghuz Khan, back in the seventh and eight centuries. Turkmen are Sunni Muslim of Hanafi tradition and are closely related to the people of modern Türkiye to the west, and identical to the majority Muslim population of their Central Asian kin state across the border to the north. Originally a purely tribal society, they have, in the more recent years adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

Uzbeks are also a Turkic-speaking ethnic group. They are believed to have emerged in Central Asia in the third century BCE, and some claim to be possible descendants of Genghis Khan. They indicate Turkic ancestry and are, in the vast majority, Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi tradition, which reflects a primarily cultural rather than religious identity. Their language is Uzbek and although it is their own Turkish dialect, it is closely related to the one spoken by the Uyghur Muslim minority of Xinjiang, China.

Uzbeks and Turkmen have tribal identities that still largely define the structures within their respective societies, and this is reflected both in their social as well as political life. Both groups have had an influence on Afghan culture mainly through sport and music.

Economic status

Turkmen and Uzbeks occupy the greatest share of Afghanistan’s arable land in the north, and are mostly farmers by occupation, growing grain and vegetables. In addition, they produce crafts and animal by-products that bring considerable supplementary income to their communities. Cotton production has also added significantly to the wealth of these two groups. However, a very important part of their economy and fame is based on the making of carpets, which is mainly considered women’s work. Because of their relative prosperity, Uzbeks and Turkmen have not been dependent on the central government and have not made a concerted effort to garner political influence in the past. However, the economy of northern Afghanistan was badly damaged by the Taliban conquest of 1998. The consequences of this were not only subjugation and repression, but importantly also resulted in the closure of the border with Uzbekistan by the Uzbek government resulting in significant loss of trade, and thereby reduction in the socio-economic independence of the groups.

Historical context

The Turkmen of Afghanistan originate from amongst the Turkic tribes of Central Asia who arrived in Afghanistan as refugees in the 1920s and 1930s along with many thousands of Uzbeks, to escape repression by the Soviet Union because of their participation in the unsuccessful Basmachi Revolt. Generally, the population in the region is not a product of recent immigration but of the way borders were drawn between the Republics during the early Soviet period.

In order to quell Pashtun dominance, the Soviets, during their occupation of Afghanistan adopted a divide and rule policy, especially in the northern areas where Uzbeks had a significant presence. This was relatively effective in stemming the influence of Pashtuns, who were the main resistance against them in Kabul. In keeping with their policy, Uzbeks and to a lesser extent Turkmen were given a degree of autonomy and trained to fight against the Mujahidin in case of attack. For the first time in the history of Afghanistan, except during periods of anarchy and rebellion, Uzbeks along with Tajiks and Hazaras exercised full administrative and political autonomy.

B.
Historical context
Pashtuns are historically the dominant ethnic community in Afghanistan, and they have actively fought to keep their predominance throughout Afghan history. In the years before 1978 Pashtuns made up about 40 per cent of the Afghan population. After the Soviet invasion in 1979, some 85 per cent of the more than 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan were Pashtuns. They have always played a central role in Afghan politics, and their dominant position has been a major catalyst in triggering conflict. For example, conflict arose between partners in the Mujahidin coalition which fought the Soviet troops and opposed the regime of President Mohammad Najibullah. Following Soviet withdrawal and that regime’s collapse, President Burhanuddin Rabbani represented the Tajik minority, whereas opposition troops led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and those of the Taliban, were mainly Pashtun.

The Taliban rule was based on a strict and controversial interpretation of Shari’a law and it was responsible, during its dominance, for grave human rights violations based on gender, and also for ethnic discrimination. This period brought severe poverty to Afghanistan, accompanied by food insecurity for most Afghans, and large-scale displacement and emigration, though some Pashtun communities were treated favourably and protected against the worst of the conditions. However, though Pashtuns were in power, the majority of the community nonetheless continued to suffer discrimination. This was particularly true for Pashtun families who had been moved to the north more than 100 years earlier by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, as part of a state consolidation effort. They were left to the mercy of the Tajiks and Uzbeks who are the predominant ethnic groups in the area. There have been reports of ethnic massacres at Mazar-e-Sharif in 1997 and 1998 and continuing reports of violence targeted against the Pashtuns (whether or not formely Taliban supporters) as vengeance for the Taliban regime’s excesses.

With the collapse of the Taliban regime and the signing of the Bonn Agreement in 2001, Pashtun dominance over the other ethnic groups in Afghanistan came to an end. Of the estimated one million internally displaced at that time, most of those remaining in displacement were Pashtuns, who had been uprooted by ethnic violence in the north and the west of the country.

Current issues

Since the fall of the Taliban, there has a fundamental shift in the traditional power balance. Although the first post-Taliban president, Hamid Karzai, belongs to a prominent Pashtun family from Qandahar, the central government was largely dominated by the Uzbeks and Tajiks of the Northern Alliance. This less privileged position in administration and power has created obvious dissatisfaction among Pashtuns. Following the final results of the most recent 2010 parliamentary elections, Pashtun parliamentary candidates from Herat and several other provinces staged protests, claiming that they were systematically excluded from the election process through fraud and intimidation. Nevertheless, Pashtuns remain the largest ethnic group and therefore in an increasingly democratic system are likely to regain their influence. Indeed, Karzai’s successor, President Ashraf Ghani is also a Pashtun, although when he took office in 2014, he signalled his intention to break through ethnic barriers by dropping his tribal last name from official documents.

Nuristanis
Nuristanis arrived in Afghanistan fleeing the eastward spread of Islam. They speak a unique Indo-European-language. Nuristanis were conquered by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in 1895-96 and were obliged to abandon their ancient religious beliefs in favour of Islam. They reside mainly in the east of the country – between the Pashtun tribes of Kunar, Kalash in Pakistan’s Chitral, and Tajiks of Badakhshan in the north. Nuristan (‘land of light’) is located on the southern slopes of the Hindu Kush mountain range and is spread over four valleys, with each valley having its own distinct language/dialect: Kati, Waigali, Ashkun and Parsun.

Nuristan has very little arable land, the vast majority of the territory being covered by forest. The main base of the economy is animal husbandry – mostly goat-herding. While maize and barley are grown in small quantities, the Nuristani people survive mainly on subsistence agriculture, wheat, fruit and goats. Very few Nuristanis have had access to education. Yet, among those who have travelled to Kabul and been able to gain access to schools, some have gained prominence as well-known figures in the army and the government in Kabul.

Historical context

The Nuristanis’ scattered settlement is another result of Amir Abdul Rahman’s late-nineteenth-century expansionism. During his rule, what was then called Kafiristan (‘kafir’ meaning non-believer as Nuristanis did not convert to Islam until the twentieth century) was renamed as Nuristan (‘land of light’) after the forced Islamization of the community. Nuristanis are still sometimes referred to as ‘Kafir’. Some Nuristanis claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great and his forces.

Nuristani men and women follow a strict division of labour with the men working in livestock herding, while the women work on grain production or irrigated terraces.

The province was the scene of some of the heaviest guerrilla fighting during the 1979-89 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Nuristan is still used as a route by Taliban into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan.

Nuristan’s distinctive cultural heritage was under considerable threat during the period when the Taliban controlled Kabul. A collection of life-size wooden sculptures dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries was smashed by the Taliban in 2001 in their effort to destroy artistic expressions of the human form, as well as evidence that parts of Afghanistan had in fact followed other faiths than Islam until relatively recently. The collection had been brought back by the forces of Amir Abdul Rahman and housed at the National Museum. The statues depict ancestors as well as animistic and polytheistic divinities. Although some remain lost, others were hidden away by museum staff. Fourteen sculptures could be carefully restored and incorporated in an inaugural display at the newly reopened museum in 2004.

Current issues

The Constitution recognizes Nuristanis as one of the national minorities entitled to Afghan citizenship. However, Nuristan remains isolated and poverty-stricken, and due to the lack of regional institutions, there is a widespread lawlessness. As a geographically remote region, it has been difficult to establish a central government presence, and after it was virtually abandoned by NATO in 2009, many areas of Nuristan have come under the control of the Taliban. A Nuristani provincial governor commented that Nuristan province has been largely neglected by NATO and the central government as a symptom of long-term neglect and discrimination of the Nuristanis as an ethnic minority, who have not been able to represent themselves adequately in Kabul. In 2017, fighting between Taliban and ISIS erupted in the province, following a concerted effort by ISIS to recruit followers there.

Neglect from the central government as well as continuing violence and insecurity has produced extremely poor health, maternal health and education indicators. In March 2017, measles outbreaks reportedly killed 70 children in Nuristan province and schools were closed due to fear of an imminent Taliban siege in May. Community members reported a serious lack of qualified teachers and education facilities.

Hazard

The size of the Hazara population, as with other communities in Afghanistan, is highly uncertain as the country’s authorities have never conducted a national census of the population. However, it is broadly recognized that none of the country’s ethnic groups form a majority, and the exact percentages of each group as part of the national population are estimates and often highly politicized.

The size of the Hazara community has also declined significantly as a result of forced migration, land grabbing and persecution. They were once the largest Afghan ethnic group, constituting nearly two-thirds of the total population of the country before the 19th century. Some estimates suggest that more than half of the Hazaras were massacred, forced to flee or taken into slavery during the 1891-93 Hazara War when the Afghan King Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901) led a genocidal campaign of violence against Hazaras. Many of the Hazaras who fled the persecution by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan settled in the Indian subcontinent or Iran, laying the foundation of the Hazara communities that now live in the Pakistani city of Quetta and various districts in Iran’s eastern provinces. These communities have increased in size as more Hazaras who fled from Afghanistan over the past four decades have settled within them, especially in Quetta.

The origins of the Hazara community are much debated. Although a common myth suggests that Hazaras originated from a contingent of the army of Genghis Khan in the 13th century, there is no historical evidence to support these claims. Other more plausible theories suggest that Hazaras are more likely to have descended from communities that inhabited the region well before the advent of Genghis Khan.

Hazaras speak a dialect of Dari (Farsi dialect) called Hazaragi and the majority of them follow the Shi’a (Twelver Imami) school of Islam. As a result, Shi’a Hazaras constitute a religious minority in a country where the majority practice Sunni Islam. Significant numbers of Hazaras are also followers of the Ismaili Shi’a school of Islam or are Sunni Muslims. Within Afghanistan, Hazaras are known for their distinctive music and literary traditions with a rich oral history, poetry and music. Hazaragi poetry and music are mainly folkloric, having been passed down orally through the generations.

In Afghanistan, the majority of Shi’a Hazaras live in Hazarajat (or ‘land of the Hazara’), which is situated in the rugged central mountainous core of Afghanistan with an area of approximately 50,000 square kilometres. The region includes the provinces of Bamyan and Daikundi and several adjacent districts in the provinces of Ghazni, Uruzgan, Wardak, Parwan, Baghlan, Samangan and Sar-e Pul. There are significant Sunni Hazara communities in the provinces of Badghis, Ghur, Kunduz, Baghlan, Panjshir and other areas in the northeast of Afghanistan. Ismaili Hazaras live in the provinces of Parwan, Baghlan and Bamyan. In addition, Shi’a as well as Sunni Hazaras are based in substantial numbers in several urban centres of Afghanistan, including Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Herat.

Traditionally, the majority of the Hazara community were involved in subsistence farming or working as peasants and artisans. In Afghanistan’s cities, Hazaras traditionally engaged in unskilled labour as they faced discrimination in education and public sector employment. This has contributed to their further stigmatization, reflected in the low rate of intermarriage between Hazaras and members of other groups. Systematic discrimination, as well as recurrent periods of targeted violence and enforced displacement, have led the Hazara community to lose much of their population and standing in the social hierarchy of modern Afghanistan.

Baluch

Though their exact numbers are uncertain and as with other communities are contested, previous estimates have suggested that Baluchis make up around 2 per cent of the population. They are part of the larger Baluchi community, the majority of whom live across the border in Pakistan, and the rest live in Iran. The Baluchis of Afghanistan live in the pastoral lands of the south-west and south in Hilmand and Faryab Provinces and practise Sunni Islam. Their language is Baluchi, although some speak Brahui (who are known as Brahuis or Brahui Baluchis).

The Baluchis’ main economic activity is agriculture and animal husbandry. They are traditionally nomads and have preserved their ancient tribal structure with patriarchal, male-dominated kinship. Traditional and acquired skills have made them relatively self-sufficient, with the ability to build their own homes and develop the tools necessary for daily life. Rugs are woven for trade and household. Their farming activities follow a strict division of labour between women and men. Women work in groups threshing and separating the harvest while men are responsible for ploughing and planting. In keeping with Baluchi nomadic tradition, lands are not privately owned but belong to the whole tribe.

Historical context

Divided between three countries – Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan – the Baluchis are one of Asia’s classical cross-border minorities. They have a strong awareness of their ethnic identity which has resulted in several rebellions against their respective central governments in a bid to maintain their autonomy. While there has been a strong Baluchi pull for self-determination with the view to the formation of an independent Baluchistan, these demands have gradually faded through sustained political repression at the hands of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Unlike the Kurds’ struggle for independence the Baluchi struggle has rarely attracted attention in the outside world.

In the 1970s the strongest organised Baluch group in search of independence were the Baluch People’s Liberation Front (BPLF). Most PLF guerrillas were based in training camps in southern Afghanistan and were reportedly given sanctuary by Daoud’s regime.

Current issues

Baluchis are one of the named ‘national’ ethnic minorities in the Afghan Constitution. Accordingly, they have all the rights bestowed to Afghan citizens. Nevertheless, Baluch leaders have expressed concern that their rights to their language have not been protected by the government, and that their children do not receive mother-tongue language education.

"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."
- C.S. Lewis

"In his book, The Abolition of Man, Lewis was prophetic in pointing out that relativism—the idea that there are no absolute truths—would lead to the decay of morality and a lack of virtue within society. Without a belief in and the teaching of universal moral laws, we fail to educate the heart and are left with intelligent men who behave like animals or as Lewis puts it, “Men without Chests.” Read slowly to follow Lewis’s apologetic:

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that ‘a gentleman does not cheat’, than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.

In battle it is not syllogisms (logical arguments) that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.

The crudest sentimentalism about a flag or a country or a regiment will be of more use. We were told it all long ago by Plato. As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the ‘spirited element’. The head rules the belly through the chest—the seat, as Alanus tells us, of Magnanimity, of emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment—these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man.

It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal. The operation of The Green Book (a book promoting relativism) and its kind is to produce what may be called Men without Chests. A persevering devotion to truth, a nice sense of intellectual honour, cannot be long maintained without the aid of a sentiment... It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive’, or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity’. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

Praise GOD From Whom All Blessings Flow!

Never Forget! - Never Quit!
NSDQ!

via: SEAL Of Honor
· 25 March, 2024
LT Michael P Murphy's Official Medal Of Honor Citation
FOR SERVICE AS SET FORTH IN THE FOLLOWING

CITATION:

FOR CONSPICUOUS GALLANTRY AND INTREPIDITY AT THE RISK OF HIS LIFE ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AS THE LEADER OF A SPECIAL RECONNAISSANCE ELEMENT WITH NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TASK UNIT AFGHANISTAN ON 27 AND 28 JUNE 2005. WHILE LEADING A MISSION TO LOCATE A HIGH-LEVEL ANTI-COALITION MILITIA LEADER, LIEUTENANT MURPHY DEMONSTRATED EXTRAORDINARY HEROISM IN THE FACE OF GRAVE DANGER IN THE VICINITY OF ASADABAD, KONAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN. ON 28 JUNE 2005, OPERATING IN AN EXTREMELY RUGGED ENEMY-CONTROLLED AREA, LIEUTENANT MURPHY’S TEAM WAS DISCOVERED BY ANTI-COALITION MILITIA SYMPATHIZERS, WHO REVEALED THEIR POSITION TO TALIBAN FIGHTERS. AS A RESULT, BETWEEN 30 AND 40 ENEMY FIGHTERS BESIEGED HIS FOUR-MEMBER TEAM. DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL RESOLVE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY VALIANTLY LED HIS MEN IN ENGAGING THE LARGE ENEMY FORCE. THE ENSUING FIERCE FIREFIGHT RESULTED IN NUMEROUS ENEMY CASUALTIES, AS WELL AS THE WOUNDING OF ALL FOUR MEMBERS OF THE TEAM. IGNORING HIS OWN WOUNDS AND DEMONSTRATING EXCEPTIONAL COMPOSURE, LIEUTENANT MURPHY CONTINUED TO LEAD AND ENCOURAGE HIS MEN. WHEN THE PRIMARY COMMUNICATOR FELL MORTALLY WOUNDED, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REPEATEDLY ATTEMPTED TO CALL FOR ASSISTANCE FOR HIS BELEAGUERED TEAMMATES. REALIZING THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF COMMUNICATING IN THE EXTREME TERRAIN, AND IN THE FACE OF ALMOST CERTAIN DEATH, HE FOUGHT HIS WAY INTO OPEN TERRAIN TO GAIN A BETTER POSITION TO TRANSMIT A CALL. THIS DELIBERATE, HEROIC ACT DEPRIVED HIM OF COVER, EXPOSING HIM TO DIRECT ENEMY FIRE. FINALLY ACHIEVING CONTACT WITH HIS HEADQUARTERS, LIEUTENANT MURPHY MAINTAINED HIS EXPOSED POSITION WHILE HE PROVIDED HIS LOCATION AND REQUESTED IMMEDIATE SUPPORT FOR HIS TEAM. IN HIS FINAL ACT OF BRAVERY, HE CONTINUED TO ENGAGE THE ENEMY UNTIL HE WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED, GALLANTLY GIVING HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY AND FOR THE CAUSE OF FREEDOM. BY HIS SELFLESS LEADERSHIP, COURAGEOUS ACTIONS, AND EXTRAORDINARY DEVOTION TO DUTY, LIEUTENANT MURPHY REFLECTED GREAT CREDIT UPON HIMSELF AND UPHELD THE HIGHEST TRADITIONS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE.

SIGNED GEORGE W. BUSH

via: Commemorative Air Force
·
It was #OTD that Frank Piasecki piloted the first flight of the PV-3 prototype tandem rotor helicopter, in Morton Grove, Pennsylvania. Can you guess in what year? It may be earlier than you think!

This helicopter, later designated as XHRP-X by the United States Navy, earned the nickname "the Flying Banana" due to its unique fuselage design facilitating vertical clearance between its rotors.

Piasecki also became the first pilot to receive a helicopter license from the C.A.A. without having a prior airplane license.

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/p-v-engineering-forum-pv-3/

MIgrated the "Vet HR/S1" into this page Here is the comparison for SGLI/VGLI - other options.

While there is just a letter changed in the acronym. There is a major difference between these programs. Here are some:
*Coverage/Cost*
SGLI - The lowest cost insurance period for the coverage amount of $500k. Usually is around $31 a month.
VGLI - Starts at the rate & coverage you ended with during service. Then every 5 years the rate goes up.

*Med exam: most insurances require this.*
SGLI & VGLI - None.

*Claiming Death Benefit*
SGLI - must keep OSGLI (Office of SGLI) up to date with who the beneficiary is. It's a bit complicated, yet extremely important to have that record and access up to date.
VGLI - as this is run through an insurance carrier (like Prudential) the policy can be updated through their client platform.

*Enrollment*
SGLI - Automatic in service; you can opt for lower premium/opt out.
VGLI - must be enrolled within a time window after service

*Special Coverage*
SGLI -Accelerated Death Benefit & a Traumatic Injury Protection (access to an amount for some types of injuries). Family Coverage: $100,000 for spouse, $10,000 for dependent children (FSGLI).
VGLI - Accelerated Death Benefit: in the case of being diagnosed with <9months to live; 50% of the policy may be accessed (only for insured)

*Cash Accumulation*
SGLI & VGLI: none - They are term insurance.
You'll only find this benefit with whole or universal type policies.

*Is it enough?*
SGLI - It can be, depending on the family's needs. For lower rank and less service: It could cover around 10x annual income. At the point of retirement ~2x-3x annual income.
VGLI - See above. It's also exclusive to the Veteran.
**use a calculator, or have a chat with me to determine overall insurable need**

*What else is there*
In Service - Some insurances have limited access to service members, however having coverage for a spouse and dependents is important as well.
Past Service - Calculate and ensure you're insured

More info: reply, chat with me, or setup a short call some time.

Small Town America = Perfect Bugout Location? Part 3

Location Location Location...

A simple rule from the battlefield for those not used to conflict,
Space = Time = Responding vs Reacting to a situation

Responding to a situation allows time to evaluate a situation, critical thought and strategy to be applied, a plan to be implemented.

Reacting means dealing with the hand you are dealt relying almost solely on training and instinct which has a significantly higher probability of a less than ideal outcome.

There is a 15-mile buffer of corn, soybeans, and wheat surrounding my small town of 16k people. While you can be more isolated by sitting in the woods somewhere there are many things you give up by doing so. If you are isolated in the woods, who will give you information about what is going on around you? Your "secret" location may not be secret and definitely won't remain a secret once you start living there. We're not even going to get into maintaining 24-hour security of a remote location in this post, if you're managing security who is working? If you're sick whos' maintaining security?

Small Town America is the perfect balance between isolation and community support. There will always be a bad actor or two...but they are well known and easy to keep track of within a community, not so much while isolated in the woods. In your environment do you have space/time? Do you still think isolation in the woods is your best option?

#America #veteran #commonsense

The Enduring Solitude Of Combat Vets:

Retired Army Special Forces Sgt. Maj. Alan Farrell is one of the more interesting people in this country nowadays, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who teaches French at VMI, reviews films and writes poetry. Just your typical sergeant major/brigadier general with a Ph.D. in French and a fistful of other degrees.

This is a speech that he gave to Vets at the Harvard Business School last Veterans' Day. I know it is long but well worth the read:
--------
"Ladies and Gentlemens:

Kurt Vonnegut -- Corporal Vonnegut -- famously told an assembly like this one that his wife had begged him to "bring light into their tunnels" that night. "Can't do that," said Vonnegut, since, according to him, the audience would at once sense his duplicity, his mendacity, his insincerity... and have yet another reason for despair. I'll not likely have much light to bring into any tunnels this night, either.

The remarks I'm about to make to you I've made before... in essence at least. I dare to make them again because other Veterans seem to approve. I speak mostly to Veterans. I don't have much to say to them, the others, civilians, real people. These remarks, I offer you for the reaction I got from one of them, though, a prison shrink. I speak in prisons a lot. Because some of our buddies wind up in there. Because their service was a Golden Moment in a life gone sour. Because... because no one else will.

In the event, I've just got done saying what I'm about to say to you, when the prison psychologist sidles up to me to announce quietly: "You've got it." The "it," of course, is Post Stress Traumatic Traumatic Post Stress Disorder Stress... Post. Can never seem to get the malady nor the abbreviation straight. He's worried about me... that I'm wandering around loose... that I'm talking to his cons. So worried, but so sincere, that I let him make me an appointment at the V.A. for "diagnosis." Sincerity is a rare pearl.

So I sulk in the stuffy anteroom of the V.A. shrink's office for the requisite two hours (maybe you have), finally get admitted. He's a nice guy. Asks me about my war, scans my 201 File, and, after what I take to be clinical scrutiny, announces without preamble: "You've got it." He can snag me, he says, 30 percent disability. Reimbursement, he says, from Uncle Sam, now till the end of my days. Oh, and by the way, he says, there's a cure. I'm not so sure that I want a cure for 30 percent every month. This inspires him to explain. He takes out a piece of paper and a Magic Marker™. Now: Anybody who takes out a frickin' Magic Marker™ to explain something to you thinks you're a bonehead and by that very gesture says so to God and everybody.

Anyhow. He draws two big circles on a sheet of paper, then twelve small circles. Apples and grapes, you might say. In fact, he does say. The "grapes," he asserts, stand for the range of emotional response open to a healthy civilian, a normal person: titillation, for instance, then amusement, then pleasure, then joy, then delight and so on across the spectrum through mild distress on through angst -- whatever that is -- to black depression. The apples? That's what you got, traumatized veteran: Ecstasy and Despair. But we can fix that for you. We can make you normal.

So here's my question: Why on earth would anybody want to be normal?

And here's what triggered that curious episode:

The words of the prophet Jeremiah:

My bowels. My bowels. I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me... [T]hou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoilt and my curtains... How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

I dunno about Jeremiah's bowels... or his curtains, but I've seen the standard and heard the sound of the trumpet. Again. Civilians mooing about that "Thin Red Line of 'eroes" between them and the Darkness. Again. ‘Course it's not red any more. Used to be olive drab. Then treetop camouflage. Then woodland. Then chocolate chip. Now pixelated, random computer-generated. Multi-cam next, is it? Progress. The kids are in the soup. Again. Me? I can't see the front sights of me piece any more. And if I can still lug my rucksack five miles, I need these days to be defibrillated when I get there. Nope. I got something like six Honorable Discharges from Pharaoh's Army. Your Mom's gonna be wearing Kevlar before I do. Nope. This one's on the kids, I'm afraid, the next generation.

I can't help them. Not those who make the sacrifice in the desert nor those in the cesspool cities of a land that if two troopers from the One Oh One or two Lance Corporals could find on a map a few years ago, I'll be surprised. Nobody can help... except by trying to build a society Back Here that deserves such a sacrifice.

We gonna win the war? I dunno. They tell me I lost mine. I know I didn't start it. Soldiers don't start wars. Civilians do. And civilians say when they're over. I'm just satisfied right now that these kids, for better or worse, did their duty as God gave them the light to see it. But I want them back. And I worry not about the fight, but about the after: after the war, after the victory, after... God forbid... the defeat, if it come to that. It's after that things get tricky. After that a Soldier needs the real grit and wit. And after that a Soldier needs to believe. Anybody can believe before. During? A Soldier has company in the fight, in Kandahar or Kabul, Basra or Baghdad. It's enough to believe in the others during. But after... and I can tell you this having come home from a war: After ...a Soldier is alone. A batch of them, maybe... but still alone.

Years ago, maybe... when I was still in the Army, my A Team got the mission to support an Air Force escape and evasion exercise. Throw a bunch of downed pilots into the wilderness, let local guerrillas (us) feed them into a clandestine escape net and spirit them out by train just like in The Great Escape to... Baltimore, of all places. So we set up an elaborate underground network: farmhouses, caves, barns, pickup trucks, loads of hay where a guy can hide, fifty-five gallon drums to smuggle the evadees through checkpoints in. We've even cozened the Norfolk and Western Railroad out of a boxcar.

Sooooo... come midnight, with our escapees safely stowed in that car, we wait for a special train to make a detour, back onto the siding, hook it up, and freight the pilots off to Maree-land. Pretty realistic, seems to us.

Now, for safety's sake the Railroad requires a Line Administrator on site to supervise any special stop. Sure enough, just before midnight two suit-and-ties show up toting a red lantern. Civilians. We sniff at them disdainfully. One of them wigwags to the train. With a clank she couples the boxcar and chugs out into the night. The other guy -- frumpy Babbit from the front office -- shuffles off down the track and out onto a trestle bridge over the gorge. He stands there with his hands behind his back, peering up at the cloud-strewn summertime sky, a thousand bucks worth of Burberry overcoat riffling in the night breeze. I edge over respectfully behind him. Wait. He notices me after a while, looks back. "You know," he says, "Was on a night like this 40 years ago that I jumped into Normandy."

Who'da thought?

Who'da thought? Then I thought... back to right after my return from Vietnam. I'm working nights at a convenience store just down the road from this very spot. Lousy job. Whores, bums, burnouts, lowlifes. That's your clientele after midnight in a convenience store. One particular guy I remember drifts in every morning about 0400. Night work. Janitor, maybe. Not much to distinguish him from the rest of the early morning crowd of shadows shuffling around the place. Fingers and teeth yellowed from cigarette smoke. A weathered, leathered face that just dissolves into the colorless crowd of nobodies.

Never says a word. Buys his margarine and macaroni and Miller's. Plunks down his cash. Hooks a grubby hand around his bag and threads his way out of the place and down the street. Lost in another world. Like the rest of the derelicts. One night, he's fumbling for his keys, drops them on the floor, sets his wallet on the counter -- brown leather, I still remember -- and the wallet flops open. Pinned to the inside of it, worn shiny and smooth, with its gold star gleaming out of the center: combat jump badge from that great World War II... Normandy maybe, just like the suit-and-tie.

Who'da thought?

Two guys scarred Out There. Not sure just where or how even. You can lose your life without dying. But the guy who made it to the top and the guy shambling along the bottom are what James Joyce calls in another context "secret messengers." Citizens among the rest, who look like the rest, talk like the rest, act like the rest... but who know prodigious secrets, wherever they wash up and whatever use they make of them. Who know somber despair but inexplicable laughter, the ache of duty but distrust of inaction. Who know risk and exaltation... and that awful drop though empty air we call failure... and solitude! They know solitude.

Because solitude is what waits for the one who shall have borne the battle. Out There in it together... back here alone.

Alone to make way in a scrappy, greedy, civilian world "filching lucre and gulping warm beer," as Conrad had it. Alone to learn the skills a self-absorbed, hustling, modern society values. Alone to unlearn the deadly skills of the former -- and bloody -- business. Alone to find a companion -- maybe -- and alone -- maybe -- even with that companion over a lifetime... for who can make someone else who hasn't seen it understand horror, blackness, filth Incommunicado. Voiceless. Alone.

My Railroad president wandered off by himself to face his memories; my Store 24 regular was clearly a man alone with his.

For my two guys, it was the after the battle that they endured, and far longer than the moment of terror in the battle. Did my Railroad exec learn in the dark of war to elbow other men aside, to view all other men as the enemy, to "fight" his way up the corporate ladder just as he fought his way out of the bocages of Normandy? Did he find he could never get close to a wife or children again and turn his energy, perhaps his anger toward some other and solitary goal Did the Store/24 guy never get out of his parachute harness and shiver in an endless night patrolled by demons he couldn't get shut of? Did he haul out that tattered wallet and shove his jump badge under the nose of those he'd done wrong to, disappointed, embarrassed? Did he find fewer and fewer citizens Back Here who even knew what it was? Did he keep it because he knew what it was? From what I've seen -- from a distance, of course -- of success, I'd say it's not necessarily sweeter than failure -- which I have seen close up.

Well, that's what I said that woke up the prison shrink.
And I say again to you that silence is the reward we reserve for you and your buddies, for my Cadets. Silence is the sound of Honor, which speaks no word and lays no tread. And Nothing is the glory of the one who's done Right. And Alone is the society of those who do it the Hard Way, alone even when they have comrades like themselves in the fight. I've gotta hope as a teacher that my Cadets, as a citizen that you and your buddies will have the inner resources, the stuff of inner life, the values in short, to abide the brute loneliness of after, to find the courage to continue the march, to do Right, to live with what they've done, you've done in our name, to endure that dark hour of frustration, humiliation, failure maybe... or victory, for one or the other is surely waiting Back Here. Unless you opt for those grapes...

My two guys started at the same place and wound up at the far ends of the spectrum. As we measure their distance from that starting point, they seem to return to it: the one guy in the darkness drawn back to a Golden Moment in his life from a lofty vantage point; t'other guy lugging through God knows what gauntlet of shame and frustration that symbol of his Golden Moment. Today we celebrate your Golden Moment. While a whole generation went ganging after its own indulgence, vanity, appetite, you clung to a foolish commitment, to foolish old traditions; as Soldiers, Sailors, Pilots, Marines you honored pointless ritual, suffered the endless, sluggish monotony of duty, raised that flag not just once, or again, or -- as has become fashionable now -- in time of peril, but every single morning. You stuck it out. You may have had -- as we like to say -- the camaraderie of brothers or sisters to buck each other up or the dubious support (as we like to say... and say more than do, by the way) of the folks back home, us... but in the end you persevered alone. Just as alone you made that long walk from Out There with a duffle bag fulla pixelated, random computer-generated dirty laundry -- along with your bruised dreams, your ecstasy and your despair -- Back Here at tour's end.

And you will be alone, for all the good intentions and solicitude of them, the other, the civilians. Alone. But...together. Your generation, whom us dumbo civilians couldn't keep out of war, will bear the burden of a soldier's return... alone. And a fresh duty: to complete the lives of your buddies who didn't make it back, to confect for them a living monument to their memory.

Your comfort, such as it is, will come from the knowledge that others of that tiny fraction of the population that fought for us are alone but grappling with the same dilemmas -- often small and immediate, often undignified or humiliating, now and then immense and overwhelming -- by your persistence courting the risk, by your obstinacy clinging to that Hard Way. Some of you will be stronger than others, but even the strong ones will have their darker moments. Where we can join each other if not relieve each other, we secret messengers, is right here in places like this and on occasions like this -- one lousy day of the year, your day, my day, our day, -- in the company of each other and of the flag we served. Not much cheer in that kerugma. But there's the by-God glory.

"I know..." says the prophet Isaiah:

... I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass...I have shewed thee new things, even hidden things. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have [refined] thee...in the furnace of affliction...

Well, all right, then. Why on earth would anybody want to be normal? Thanks for Listening and Lord love the lot of youse."

via: The Giant Killer
·
Pictured are the eight U.S. Marines of the suicide mission "Doom Patrol" to recover the body of a dead Marine, Charlie Company, 7th Marine in Quảng Nam Province, 1968.

In February 1968, eight Marines volunteered for a suicide mission. After 32 US casualties were incurred during the first 30 hours of Operation Pursuit. The operation was initiated in mid-February 1968 by the 1st Marine Division to search for enemy rocket caches in the mountains west of Da Nang.

Operation Pursuit began at 11 a.m. on Feb. 14 as Charlie Company crossed the western end of Hill 10 while Delta Company departed from Hill 41, about 2 miles to the southeast. Accompanying them were 1st Division combat correspondent Sgt. Robert Bayer and photographer Cpl. R.J. Del Vecchio.

The two companies linked up on the approach to Hills 270 and 310. The dense jungle growth at the base of Hill 270 channeled the Marines into a single-file column during the slow, exhausting climb that forced the men to hack out a trail with machetes. By 6:30 p.m., Delta Company had secured Objective 1, the saddle between Hills 270 and 310. Charlie Company had secured Objective 2, the top of Hill 270.

Pfc. Michael J. Kelly, a member of the point squad who had been with the company for only two months, was hit by an enemy bullet that struck a grenade on his cartridge belt. The detonation killed Kelly, severing a leg in the process.

Lt. Col. Bill Davis ordered Charlie and Delta companies of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, to get off Hills 270 and 310 and return to their base camps in the flatlands to the east.

A little later the morning of Feb. 16, the acting commander of Charlie Company, 1st Lt. Dana F. MacCormack, whose men were descending from Hill 270, radioed Davis: “Here come the NVA, Colonel! I’ve got one more KIA that the last helo did not have room for. We are having a hell of a time carrying this body, and the bones are cutting up the body bag.”

Davis, on Hill 310 with the battalion command group, told MacCormack to get Charlie Company off the mountain immediately to avoid any more casualties. And that meant leaving the body behind.

Thousands of North Vietnamese Army troops had trekked down the Ho Chi Minh Trail in eastern Laos and moved through South Vietnam’s A Shau Valley before making their way to high ground, including Hills 270 and 310, overlooking an area known as Happy Valley and the Marine positions to the east.

In early afternoon, out of food and water and low on ammunition, the weary, battle-shocked Marines of Charlie Company arrived at Hill 10 and were met by the actual company commander, Capt. Karl Ripplemeyer, who had been on leave and just returned. Delta Company, meanwhile, had reached its base camp on Hill 41.

Davis radioed the regimental commander, Col. Ross R. Miner, and told him that the Marines were back at the command posts, but added that a dead Marine had to be left behind. A few hours later, Miner told Davis that a B-52 bombing mission was scheduled to strike Hills 270 and 310 and ordered him to send a team to recover Kelly’s body before the bombing started. Davis, however, did not want to risk any more lives in those mountains before the bombing runs were completed and argued against an immediate recovery mission, but Miner wouldn’t rescind his order.

Davis discussed Miner’s order with Ripplemeyer, as well as the battalion operations officer and the officer who coordinated air support for the battalion. Davis decided to use Charlie Company volunteers for the recovery since they knew the location of Kelly’s body.

“It was 100% a suicide mission,” Whittier, the 2nd Platoon lieutenant, would write to his wife on Feb. 17. “This is a point I can’t too heavily emphasize.”

“Suicide mission” was an unintentionally appropriate term, given Charlie Company’s longstanding nickname: “Suicide Charley.” The unit had earned its nickname during the October 1942 Japanese assault on Guadalcanal, when 1st Battalion was led by Lt. Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, who later became the Corps’ most decorated Marine and finished his career as a lieutenant general. During that battle, Charlie Company held its line against a far larger Japanese force despite suffering heavy losses. The day after the fight, a white flag of parachute cloth with a picture of a skull and crossbones rose over the company’s position. Emblazoned on the flag was “Suicide Charley.”

The patrol to recover Kelly’s body had only a few hours to prepare for its departure. A runner was sent to Charlie Company seeking the volunteers, including an experienced squad leader. John D. McCreless, then a 20-year-old sergeant, recalled: “When the decision came down to use a squad of volunteers, I got crazy and raised my hand and said I’d lead it.”

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. McCashin responded similarly: “When I heard they were asking for volunteers, I said anyone who would go back into those mountains again would have to be crazy. I thought it was a suicide mission, but since I’m on my second tour here, I must be crazy, so I decided to go.”

Pfc. Joseph A. Hamrick signed up because, he said, “I was the only one of the volunteers who knew exactly where the body was, so even though I had only been in the ‘Nam’ for a month and had never walked point, I figured I could go right to it.”

The other Marines on the eight-man patrol were Pfc. Thomas M. Adamson, Lance Cpl. Tyree Albert Chamberlain, Pfc. Alfred P. Granados, Cpl. Billy R. Ranes and Pfc. Pedro A. Rodriguez. Someone—no one can remember exactly who—dubbed the volunteers the “Doom Patrol.”

Granados, the radio operator, remembers their preparations. “Our equipment was light for a short recon patrol—no helmets, flak jackets or cartridge belts, and all but one of the men of the Doom Patrol asked to trade their M16s for the more reliable M14, and permission was granted,” he said. “We were to make no enemy contact, travel by stealth in the dark, get the body and return. If we ran into a superior enemy force, we were to abort, split up and get back any way we could.”

Before the men departed, a senior staff sergeant told McCreless: “None of you will probably return alive, but to increase your chances, if things get hairy you can just bring back the leg.” The eight Marines weren’t totally on their own for the mission. The battalion air officer had arranged for continuous air support for the patrol.

At 2 a.m. on Feb. 17, McCreless’ squad left Hill 10. A little more than an hour later, near the abandoned village of Phuoc Ninh —military maps distinguished villages with the same name by numbering them—the Marines spotted NVA soldiers moving toward their position. Chamberlain opened fire and killed one of them, but the patrol was now compromised. McCreless faced a difficult decision: abort the mission or stay the course. He spoke to the battalion command center and was told to proceed. No one wanted an empty casket sent to Kelly’s family, and the men on the mission knew the odds when they volunteered.

On the move again toward the base of Hill 270, the Marines observed another enemy patrol, and McCreless stopped for an hour near another abandoned village, Phuoc Ninh, a precautionary pause in the dark to make sure there was no other NVA activity in the area before continuing their journey.

By sunrise, around 5 a.m., the patrol had cleared the open rice paddy areas and started into the dense jungle on the side of the mountain—with a long march still ahead, which meant they would have to conduct their “stealth” mission in broad daylight. Three hours later, the men were in a flat area above the bomb crater where Kelly’s body lay, covered with a poncho. There they waited while pilots in O1-Bird Dog propeller-driven planes called in airstrikes.

One of the pilots radioed McCreless to tell him that napalm drops by F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers would land just forward of the bomb crater. He instructed the patrol members to take cover, take three deep breaths, exhale and hold their next breath. The napalm struck about a 100 yards in front of the patrol.
Granados still remembers the intense heat and dust being sucked past his face into the inferno. The shock waves from the blast seemed to raise him off the ground.

After the napalm flames diminished, Granados saw NVA soldiers emerging from bunkers and spider holes.
McCreless, worried that the enemy troops were about to move against his seriously outnumbered men, yelled: “Get the leg, and let’s get the hell out!”

Moments later, Ranes and Adamson dashed to the crater. They grabbed the severed leg and quickly strapped it to a backpack that Chamberlain carried. The eight Marines then ran back down the trail, amid the still-smoldering napalm and the enemy fire tearing into trees and brush around them. A final strafing run by F-4 Phantoms silenced the firing.

After reaching the flatlands, the patrol came upon Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon, sent to assist the squad if any of the men had been wounded or killed. The platoon escorted McCreless’ squad to base camp, and by 2 p.m. all the Marines were back on Hill 10.

Amid great rejoicing, Davis summoned the men to his quarters and handed them cigars and cold beer to celebrate their incredible accomplishment. (He wasn’t aware at that time that the full body had not been recovered.) As recounted in his autobiography Tet Marine, Davis told the Doom Patrol that he had been a fan of Suicide Charley since the Chosin Reservoir battle during the Korean War. “I’ve been proud of them during all these years, because they did great things at the Reservoir,” he said. “But never did they do anything greater than YOU did, as volunteers, last night and today.”

McCreless said: “The only reason I can think of why we were able to pull it off is that the NVA just couldn’t believe that we were stupid enough to go in there and do what we did. They must have thought we were bait for some kind of trap.”

After the celebration, Davis typed a letter to the commander of the 7th Marine Regiment:

“Dear Colonel Miner, I’ve never been prouder to be a Marine than at this moment! This magnificent squad [from Suicide Charley] went on what appeared to be a suicide mission. I wish you could have heard this young Marine [Pfc. Joseph Hamrick] describe why he volunteered. He just couldn’t imagine that an empty casket would go to a Marine’s parents. He knew they had to do the job, and while he was scared all the way out, and all the way back, he knew that they just had to succeed. I’ve just lived through an experience that I’ll always hold dear to me. Semper Fi.”

Within 10 hours of the patrol’s return, the B-52s from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam devastated the high ground on Hills 270 and 310. But the NVA would return to Hill 310, and many more Marines were wounded or killed there the following month during Operation Worth and in August during Operation Mameluke Thrust.

On March 8, Whittier and McCreless were wounded. Later that day, at the Navy hospital in Da Nang, Whittier died from his wounds. A few days later, McCreless was medevaced to Japan for additional surgery. During fighting on May 30, Doom Patrol volunteer Rodriguez was killed.

Men from E Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, found Kelly’s body on March 25 during Operation Worth. A medevac helicopter picked up the remains and took them to the mortuary in Da Nang. A funeral with a casket containing Kelly’s leg was held in his hometown of Findlay, Ohio, in March 1968. A second funeral, with the rest of his remains, was held in April 1968.

Story by Jack Wells
— Jack Wells served in Vietnam during 1968-69 as an artillery forward observer with Alpha and Bravo companies, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, and later as executive officer of H Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

SALUTE!

Shared by Art Reynolds from a friend of his:

"Those who fight monsters inevitably change. Because of all that they see and do, they lose their innocence, and a piece of their humanity with it. If they want to survive, they begin to adopt some of the same characteristics as the monsters they fight. It is necessary. They become capable of rage, and extreme violence.

There is a fundamental difference, however. They keep those monster tendencies locked away in a cage, deep inside. That monster is only allowed out to protect others, to accomplish the mission, to get the job done, Not for the perverse pleasure that the monsters feel when they harm others. In fact, those monster tendencies cause damage, GUILT, ISOLATION, DEPRESSION, PTSD.

There is a cost for visiting violence on others when you are not a monster. Those who do so know one thing: The cost inflicted upon society as a whole is far greater without those who fight monsters. That is why they are willing to make that horrible sacrifice so that others may live peaceably.

Before you judge one of us, remember this:
We witness things that humans aren't meant to see, and we see them repeatedly. We perform the duties that you feel are beneath you. We solve your problems... Often by visiting violence upon others. We run towards the things that you run away from. We go out to fight what you fear. We stand between you, and the monsters that want to damage you. You want to pretend that they don't exist, but we know better. We do the things that the vast majority are too soft, too weak, too cowardly to do.

Your life is more peaceful because of us.

The current political climate in this country holds that there is nothing worth fighting for. Submission is the popular mantra. Warriors are decried, denigrated, and cast as morally inferior. We know how childish, how asinine, and how cowardly that mindset is.

We know this: There ARE things worth fighting, and dying for. We know that not every problem can be solved through rational discourse, that some problems can only be solved through the application of force and violence. And, while we do prefer the former, we are perfectly capable of the latter.

We believe that fighting what others fear is honorable, noble, and just, and are willing to pay the price for that deeply held belief.

Why? For us, it isn't a choice...

It is what we are. We are simply built that way."

~ SHARED BY A FRIEND AND WARRIOR BROTHER!!

Worth a read...

Strong words from Soldiers such as Willy McTear come in Loud and Clear to Leaders, if they have the stones to face such realities and they provide us, as a Nation, with some Hard Truths that must be heard/faced.

How our Vietnam Veterans were treated upon their return from the green hell of that conflict is something every American who is worthy of such a title should be ashamed of. That must Never happen again... it is Ok, and Right even to hate War (I know that first hand), but when we hate Our Warriors, well, that Must Never Happen Again...

May God Bless our Vietnam Veterans, May He bring them a calm to their heads and hearts from such memories, and grant them Peace for the rest of their days - we must Never Forget how we treated them upon their return to our Homeland, ever...

SALUTE!

via: The Giant Killer
·
Powerful words from a Vietnam vet!

Photo of Willie McTear, McTear served in Charlie Company of the Army 9th Division's 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, 1967.

McTear gives his opinion of the draft, the brotherhood of war, and what it was like to be spit on & cursed at upon his return from Nam.

"I’m just one of the approximate 9,000 men who were drafted and made up the Ninth Infantry Division. This is my opinion based on my personal experience.

We, the draftees, were designated well in advance for the Ninth Division to occupy the Mekong Delta.

We fought in the most difficult terrain in all of South Vietnam: jungles, mud and swamps. The only volunteers were the officers. The rest of the entire division, with exception of some non-commissioned officers, were draftees. I was in one of the first integrated companies of all draftees.

We had the best officer, Jack Benedict. Rest In Peace.

Each patrol was a suicide mission. We would have liked the choice to choose the branch of service and a Military Occupational Speciality. But that was not an option for draftees, only a carrot that was dangled to get us to enlist.

We viewed this as punishment for not volunteering. We all gave some and some gave all. R.I.P.

After several firefights we realized how the draft board and America really felt about us. Sergeant Bill Reynolds said it best. “America is not with us.”

Enough said.

Without a word said, we understood that we had a special bond and from this point on we will fight for each other because we had been abandoned.

More abandonment was revealed and manifested upon our arrival home, not as heroes but as villains. We were spat on and cursed at. Our government didn’t have the decency to give us a heads up upon our arrival.
That hurt really deep.

The wounds inflicted are invisible and manifested in many ways. Many of us grapple with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a sense of not belonging and not being good enough to be accepted as Soldiers.

So thank you draft board for souls lost and lives destroyed beyond repair.

I try not to remember the suffering you inflicted upon us, but remember our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility and the courage to endure past and current hardships.

I think I can speak for the Ninth Division, 4th Battalion, 47th Infantry and especially Charlie Company.

God did through Andrew Wiest what we could not do for ourselves when he wrote the book, The Boys of ’67: Charlie Company’s War in Vietnam.

Writer and arm-chair general Abigail Pfeiffer said it best: “Wiest addresses the ugliness and humanity of war but also the loving bonds that are created between Men who experienced war together and the indelible marks it leaves on their minds.”

And a big thank you to National Geographic for “Brothers in War,” for bringing The Boys of ’67 to life with that documentary, the story of Charlie Company.

To the draft board, we forgive you, but we hope and pray the draft board will be eliminated."
- Willie McTear

The Giant Killer book & page honors these incredible war heroes making sure their stories of valor and sacrifice are never forgotten. The book which features the incredible life of the smallest soldier, Green Beret Captain Richard Flaherty (101st Airborne & 3rd SF Group 46th Co.) and several of the other heroes featured on this page is available on Amazon & Walmart. God Bless our Vets!

via: Special Operations Association
February 18, 2019
·
Today we pause to remember SFC William “Buck” M. Fernandez, TF2A3 Covey Rider, and 1LT James L. Hull, Pilot.

1LT Hull was a Covey Forward Air Controller assigned to the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron at Da Nang. 1LT Hull and SFC Fernandez were flying an O-2A (#68-11001) searching for an Army helicopter shot down in southern Laos. They were shot down and crashed near Ban Pelou, 55 miles west of Da Nang. Neither survived the crash. An Army Special Forces team reached the crash site and recovered SFC Fernandez’s body, but 1LT Hull’s body was trapped in the wreckage and could not be recovered.

William Fernandez was born into a military family. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, he was raised on various Army posts, both overseas and stateside. He had four brothers and four sisters. His father, CSM George Fernandez , and three of his brothers also served in Vietnam (all in Airborne units).

He entered the Army 1956 in Richmond, Virginia and was on his third tour in Vietnam. A brief history of his assignments are Basic Training at Ft Jackson, SC, AIT at Fort Gordon, GA, Airborne School and assigned to 2d Battalion 327th Infantry, 101st Airborne Div, Fort Campbell Ky. Around 1960, he joined the Special Forces at Fort Bragg. His first Special Forces assignment was in Panama. He was later assigned to Special Forces in Okinawa and Korea. Between Vietnam tours, he served at Bragg as a Special Forces instructor. He was survived by two children, his parents and siblings. He is buried in the Fort Bragg Main Post Cemetery, Fort Bragg, NC.

In 2006, it was announced that 1LT Hull’s remains had been located and positively identified and would be returned to his family for burial. Between 1993 and 1997, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command led three investigations with U.S. and Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) teams, and one trilateral investigation with a Lao People's Democratic Republic team. During the first investigation, the team interviewed a Vietnamese citizen who produced human remains and an identification tag for Hull that he claimed to have recovered from a crash site located just inside Laos. The joint team was not allowed to cross the border and the investigation was suspended. The Vietnamese turned over the bone fragment to U.S. officials, but the ID tag's whereabouts are still unknown. Additional investigations yielded some information concerning a crash site located just inside the Laotian border. The S.R.V. allowed a Vietnamese national to walk to the purported crash site and collect a fragment of the wreckage. Based on the location, type of aircraft and retrieved wreckage, analysts determined it was Hull's crash site. In May 2006, a joint U.S. and L.P.D.R. team excavated the site where they recovered additional evidence and human remains. He was awarded the Silver Star, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Purple Heart, and nine Air Medals.

Delete if not allowed

Does anyone know this gentleman on the right his name is Jerry wolf he was in group out of bragg (me on the left)

This is an old pic between 11-15
I would love to get in touch with him of anyone can help

The Enduring Solitude Of Combat Vets:

Retired Army Special Forces Sgt. Maj. Alan Farrell is one of the more interesting people in this country nowadays, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who teaches French at VMI, reviews films and writes poetry. Just your typical sergeant major/brigadier general with a Ph.D. in French and a fistful of other degrees.
This is a speech that he gave to Vets at the Harvard Business School last Veterans' Day. I know it is long but well worth the read:
--------
"Ladies and Gentlemens:
Kurt Vonnegut -- Corporal Vonnegut -- famously told an assembly like this one that his wife had begged him to "bring light into their tunnels" that night. "Can't do that," said Vonnegut, since, according to him, the audience would at once sense his duplicity, his mendacity, his insincerity... and have yet another reason for despair. I'll not likely have much light to bring into any tunnels this night, either.

The remarks I'm about to make to you I've made before... in essence at least. I dare to make them again because other Veterans seem to approve. I speak mostly to Veterans. I don't have much to say to them, the others, civilians, real people. These remarks, I offer you for the reaction I got from one of them, though, a prison shrink. I speak in prisons a lot. Because some of our buddies wind up in there. Because their service was a Golden Moment in a life gone sour. Because... because no one else will.

In the event, I've just got done saying what I'm about to say to you, when the prison psychologist sidles up to me to announce quietly: "You've got it." The "it," of course, is Post Stress Traumatic Traumatic Post Stress Disorder Stress... Post. Can never seem to get the malady nor the abbreviation straight. He's worried about me... that I'm wandering around loose... that I'm talking to his cons. So worried, but so sincere, that I let him make me an appointment at the V.A. for "diagnosis." Sincerity is a rare pearl.

So I sulk in the stuffy anteroom of the V.A. shrink's office for the requisite two hours (maybe you have), finally get admitted. He's a nice guy. Asks me about my war, scans my 201 File, and, after what I take to be clinical scrutiny, announces without preamble: "You've got it." He can snag me, he says, 30 percent disability. Reimbursement, he says, from Uncle Sam, now till the end of my days. Oh, and by the way, he says, there's a cure. I'm not so sure that I want a cure for 30 percent every month. This inspires him to explain. He takes out a piece of paper and a Magic Marker™. Now: Anybody who takes out a frickin' Magic Marker™ to explain something to you thinks you're a bonehead and by that very gesture says so to God and everybody.

Anyhow. He draws two big circles on a sheet of paper, then twelve small circles. Apples and grapes, you might say. In fact, he does say. The "grapes," he asserts, stand for the range of emotional response open to a healthy civilian, a normal person: titillation, for instance, then amusement, then pleasure, then joy, then delight and so on across the spectrum through mild distress on through angst -- whatever that is -- to black depression. The apples? That's what you got, traumatized veteran: Ecstasy and Despair. But we can fix that for you. We can make you normal.

So here's my question: Why on earth would anybody want to be normal?

And here's what triggered that curious episode:
The words of the prophet Jeremiah:

"My bowels. My bowels. I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me... [T]hou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoilt and my curtains... How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?"

I dunno about Jeremiah's bowels... or his curtains, but I've seen the standard and heard the sound of the trumpet.

Again. Civilians mooing about that "Thin Red Line of 'eroes" between them and the Darkness.

Again. ‘Course it's not red any more. Used to be olive drab. Then treetop camouflage. Then woodland. Then chocolate chip. Now pixelated, random computer-generated. Multi-cam next, is it? Progress. The kids are in the soup.

Again. Me? I can't see the front sights of me piece any more. And if I can still lug my rucksack five miles, I need these days to be defibrillated when I get there. Nope. I got something like six Honorable Discharges from Pharaoh's Army. Your Mom's gonna be wearing Kevlar before I do. Nope. This one's on the kids, I'm afraid, the next generation.

I can't help them. Not those who make the sacrifice in the desert nor those in the cesspool cities of a land that if two troopers from the One Oh One or two Lance Corporals could find on a map a few years ago, I'll be surprised. Nobody can help... except by trying to build a society Back Here that deserves such a sacrifice.

We gonna win the war? I dunno. They tell me I lost mine. I know I didn't start it. Soldiers don't start wars. Civilians do. And civilians say when they're over. I'm just satisfied right now that these kids, for better or worse, did their duty as God gave them the light to see it. But I want them back. And I worry not about the fight, but about the after: after the war, after the victory, after... God forbid... the defeat, if it come to that. It's after that things get tricky. After that a Soldier needs the real grit and wit. And after that a Soldier needs to believe.

Anybody can believe before. During? A Soldier has company in the fight, in Kandahar or Kabul, Basra or Baghdad. It's enough to believe in the others during. But after... and I can tell you this having come home from a war: After ...a Soldier is alone. A batch of them, maybe... but still alone.

Years ago, maybe... when I was still in the Army, my A Team got the mission to support an Air Force escape and evasion exercise. Throw a bunch of downed pilots into the wilderness, let local guerrillas (us) feed them into a clandestine escape net and spirit them out by train just like in The Great Escape to... Baltimore, of all places. So we set up an elaborate underground network: farmhouses, caves, barns, pickup trucks, loads of hay where a guy can hide, fifty-five gallon drums to smuggle the evadees through checkpoints in. We've even cozened the Norfolk and Western Railroad out of a boxcar.

Sooooo... come midnight, with our escapees safely stowed in that car, we wait for a special train to make a detour, back onto the siding, hook it up, and freight the pilots off to Maree-land. Pretty realistic, seems to us.

Now, for safety's sake the Railroad requires a Line Administrator on site to supervise any special stop. Sure enough, just before midnight two suit-and-ties show up toting a red lantern. Civilians. We sniff at them disdainfully. One of them wigwags to the train. With a clank she couples the boxcar and chugs out into the night. The other guy -- frumpy Babbit from the front office -- shuffles off down the track and out onto a trestle bridge over the gorge. He stands there with his hands behind his back, peering up at the cloud-strewn summertime sky, a thousand bucks worth of Burberry overcoat riffling in the night breeze. I edge over respectfully behind him. Wait. He notices me after a while, looks back. "You know," he says, "Was on a night like this 40 years ago that I jumped into Normandy."

Who'da thought?

Who'da thought? Then I thought... back to right after my return from Vietnam. I'm working nights at a convenience store just down the road from this very spot. Lousy job. Whores, bums, burnouts, lowlifes. That's your clientele after midnight in a convenience store. One particular guy I remember drifts in every morning about 0400. Night work. Janitor, maybe. Not much to distinguish him from the rest of the early morning crowd of shadows shuffling around the place. Fingers and teeth yellowed from cigarette smoke. A weathered, leathered face that just dissolves into the colorless crowd of nobodies.

Never says a word. Buys his margarine and macaroni and Miller's. Plunks down his cash. Hooks a grubby hand around his bag and threads his way out of the place and down the street. Lost in another world. Like the rest of the derelicts. One night, he's fumbling for his keys, drops them on the floor, sets his wallet on the counter -- brown leather, I still remember -- and the wallet flops open. Pinned to the inside of it, worn shiny and smooth, with its gold star gleaming out of the center: combat jump badge from that great World War II... Normandy maybe, just like the suit-and-tie.

Who'da thought?

Two guys scarred Out There. Not sure just where or how even. You can lose your life without dying. But the guy who made it to the top and the guy shambling along the bottom are what James Joyce calls in another context "secret messengers." Citizens among the rest, who look like the rest, talk like the rest, act like the rest... but who know prodigious secrets, wherever they wash up and whatever use they make of them. Who know somber despair but inexplicable laughter, the ache of duty but distrust of inaction. Who know risk and exaltation... and that awful drop though empty air we call failure... and solitude!

They know solitude.
Because solitude is what waits for the one who shall have borne the battle. Out There in it together... back here alone.

Alone to make way in a scrappy, greedy, civilian world "filching lucre and gulping warm beer," as Conrad had it. Alone to learn the skills a self-absorbed, hustling, modern society values. Alone to unlearn the deadly skills of the former -- and bloody -- business. Alone to find a companion -- maybe -- and alone -- maybe -- even with that companion over a lifetime... for who can make someone else who hasn't seen it understand horror, blackness, filth Incommunicado. Voiceless. Alone.

My Railroad president wandered off by himself to face his memories; my Store 24 regular was clearly a man alone with his.

For my two guys, it was the after the battle that they endured, and far longer than the moment of terror in the battle. Did my Railroad exec learn in the dark of war to elbow other men aside, to view all other men as the enemy, to "fight" his way up the corporate ladder just as he fought his way out of the bocages of Normandy?

Did he find he could never get close to a wife or children again and turn his energy, perhaps his anger toward some other and solitary goal Did the Store/24 guy never get out of his parachute harness and shiver in an endless night patrolled by demons he couldn't get shut of? Did he haul out that tattered wallet and shove his jump badge under the nose of those he'd done wrong to, disappointed, embarrassed? Did he find fewer and fewer citizens Back Here who even knew what it was? Did he keep it because he knew what it was? From what I've seen -- from a distance, of course -- of success, I'd say it's not necessarily sweeter than failure -- which I have seen close up.

Well, that's what I said that woke up the prison shrink.

And I say again to you that silence is the reward we reserve for you and your buddies, for my Cadets. Silence is the sound of Honor, which speaks no word and lays no tread. And Nothing is the glory of the one who's done Right. And Alone is the society of those who do it the Hard Way, alone even when they have comrades like themselves in the fight. I've gotta hope as a teacher that my Cadets, as a citizen that you and your buddies will have the inner resources, the stuff of inner life, the values in short, to abide the brute loneliness of after, to find the courage to continue the march, to do Right, to live with what they've done, you've done in our name, to endure that dark hour of frustration, humiliation, failure maybe... or victory, for one or the other is surely waiting Back Here. Unless you opt for those grapes...

My two guys started at the same place and wound up at the far ends of the spectrum. As we measure their distance from that starting point, they seem to return to it: the one guy in the darkness drawn back to a Golden Moment in his life from a lofty vantage point; t'other guy lugging through God knows what gauntlet of shame and frustration that symbol of his Golden Moment. Today we celebrate your Golden Moment. While a whole generation went ganging after its own indulgence, vanity, appetite, you clung to a foolish commitment, to foolish old traditions; as Soldiers, Sailors, Pilots, Marines you honored pointless ritual, suffered the endless, sluggish monotony of duty, raised that flag not just once, or again, or -- as has become fashionable now -- in time of peril, but every single morning. You stuck it out. You may have had -- as we like to say -- the camaraderie of brothers or sisters to buck each other up or the dubious support (as we like to say... and say more than do, by the way) of the folks back home, us... but in the end you persevered alone. Just as alone you made that long walk from Out There with a duffle bag fulla pixelated, random computer-generated dirty laundry -- along with your bruised dreams, your ecstasy and your despair -- Back Here at tour's end.

And you will be alone, for all the good intentions and solicitude of them, the other, the civilians. Alone. But...together. Your generation, whom us dumbo civilians couldn't keep out of war, will bear the burden of a soldier's return... alone. And a fresh duty: to complete the lives of your buddies who didn't make it back, to confect for them a living monument to their memory.

Your comfort, such as it is, will come from the knowledge that others of that tiny fraction of the population that fought for us are alone but grappling with the same dilemmas -- often small and immediate, often undignified or humiliating, now and then immense and overwhelming -- by your persistence courting the risk, by your obstinacy clinging to that Hard Way. Some of you will be stronger than others, but even the strong ones will have their darker moments. Where we can join each other if not relieve each other, we secret messengers, is right here in places like this and on occasions like this -- one lousy day of the year, your day, my day, our day, -- in the company of each other and of the flag we served. Not much cheer in that kerugma.

But there's the by-God glory.

"I know..." says the prophet Isaiah:
... I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass...I have shewed thee new things, even hidden things. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have [refined] thee...in the furnace of affliction...

Well, all right, then.

Why on earth would anybody want to be normal?

Thanks for Listening and Lord love the lot of youse."

51 years ago today, a peace accord was reached between the United States and Vietnam (Jan. 23, 1973). The sacrifices made by our Vietnam Veterans must never be forgotten:

Pilgrim’s Progress
By MATT GALLAGHER

Home Fires features the writing of men and women who have returned from wartime service in the United States military.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

War destroys without regard to what’s fair or just. This isn’t a new or terribly profound revelation, but witnessing it, and sometimes participating in it, makes it seem like both. In a professional military, the entire point of training is to minimize the nature of chance in combat. But all the training in the world will never eliminate happenstance in war, or even render it negligible.

I returned from Iraq with all of my limbs, most of my mental faculties and a book deal. I wake up every morning in an apartment in New York City. I’m working toward a graduate degree. I have a beautiful fiancée who reminds me to slow down when I’m drinking. And every day I feel more and more detached and removed from the Iraq dustlands I promised myself I’d shed like snakeskin if I ever got back home.

Like I said, one of the lucky ones.

I didn’t really appreciate the concept of becoming ‘unstuck’ in time until I returned from war.

Meanwhile, the black bracelet on my wrist carries the names of four individuals who weren’t so lucky. One got shot through the armpit with a ricocheting bullet and bled out on an outpost roof. Two drove over the wrong piece of street at the wrong time and likely didn’t even know it was a roadside bomb that ended it all. The last one made it through 15 months of war only to get drunk one night back in the States and shoot himself in the face during an emotional breakdown.

In Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel “Slaughterhouse-Five,” the protagonist Billy Pilgrim becomes “unstuck in time.” Much of the novel focuses on Pilgrim’s experience of the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II, something Vonnegut himself survived as an American prisoner of war. Like many American literature students, I was required to read “Slaughterhouse-Five” in high school, and if memory serves, I even enjoyed that assignment at 16. But I didn’t really appreciate the concept of becoming unstuck in time until I returned from war. Just like anyone who poured blood, sweat and tears into missions in faraway foreign lands, I left part of myself over there, and it remains there, while the rest of me goes about my business 6000 miles away — a paradox of time and space Vonnegut captured all too brilliantly.

I’ve walked by manholes in New York City streets and smelled the sludge river I walked along in north Baghdad in 2008. I’ve stopped dead in my tracks to watch a street hawker in Midtown, a large black man with a rolling laugh and a British accent, who looked just like my old scout platoon’s interpreter. And I’ve had every single slamming dumpster lid — every single damn one — rip off my fatalistic cloak and reveal me to be, still, a panicked young man desperate not to die because of an unseen I.E.D.

Despite these metaphysical dalliances with time travel the names on my black bracelet are, in fact, stuck in time. Or, more accurately, stuck in memory, where they’ll fade out and disappear like distant stars before becoming shadows of the men we served with and knew.

So it goes.

So it went for my friend Rob. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 his unit drove through a neighborhood near Baghdad airport in doorless Humvees. A civilian vehicle pulled out in front of them, temporarily blocking their path. A group of teenage boys stood aimlessly on the street, and one exchanged nods with Rob, who sat in the front passenger seat. Rob glanced away quickly, to see if the civilian vehicle had moved yet, and then, suddenly, a grenade bounced off of the inside of the windshield and into the vehicle. Rob followed the small plume of smoke and rattling noises, grabbing the grenade from behind the radio to his left. He picked it up, intending to throw it back out of the vehicle, but it slipped out of his hand and dropped, landing between his feet. He reached back down for it, fingers just meeting casing when it exploded. He lost a hand and suffered severe nerve damage in his right leg as a result.

Back from Iraq, I carried my self-righteousness around in the form of a portable soapbox.

Recounting the story over drinks one night Rob said he wished he and the other soldiers in his Humvee hadn’t taken their eyes off of the Iraqi teens. Then he added that “luck was for sure on our side that day,” because had he not dropped the grenade but tossed it away as planned, it would’ve exploded at head level, likely killing him and possibly the Humvee’s driver, as well. He laughed deeply, and clinked his prosthetic hook against my pint glass.

Everything’s relative, I guess. Especially luck.

If chance is war’s dirty little not-so-secret, self-righteousness is the veterans’. Upon returning to American society, it’s all too easy to fall into pitfalls about what civilians get or don’t get. Nine years of war fought by an all-volunteer force that constitutes less than 1 percent of the total population has augmented this disconnect between soldier and citizen; in many ways, a separate warrior caste has evolved into being. The impact on our republic of fighting protracted, landlocked wars with an all-volunteer force can be debated. The impact of it on those actually fighting can’t be.

After returning from Iraq and separating from active duty, I carried my self-righteousness around in the form a portable soapbox for many months. Occasionally this proved necessary — sometimes the pejorative “they” really didn’t get it. There was the drunk Wall Street-type who told me, without a trace of irony but with plenty of faux-jingoist twang, “it must be awesome to kill hajjis.” And there was the too-cool-ultra-progressive who couldn’t help but smirk condescendingly while pointing out that “we” signed on the dotted line, after all, so “we” should’ve been ready for anything and everything before we departed for Iraq. Then, as passive-aggressively as possible, he analogized modern American soldiers to mercenaries.

Though I’m certainly no tough guy, the primal urge to put both of these guys’ faces through the nearest window was very real and very pointed. I didn’t do that though, for better or worse. Instead, I told the former that some of my best friends were Muslim and that such a black-and-white understanding of the war is what got us into so much trouble over there in the first place. For the latter, I nodded and smiled, telling him that for someone who hadn’t left the borough of Brooklyn in over a decade, he certainly possessed one hell of a world view.

Neither talked to me again. So it goes.

Most of the time though, my soapbox and self-righteousness and sardonic wrath were unnecessary. Not because people didn’t get it, but because I finally realized it wasn’t their fault they didn’t get it. They’re not supposed to get it — this isn’t Sparta, nor is it even post-World War II America. Sometimes — many times, actually — they wanted to get it. Slowly and surely, I found the all too obvious solution of simply answering people’s questions as considerately as I could, careful not to ascribe my experiences as universal to all of Iraq or all of Afghanistan. I’d rather ramble, I reasoned, and provide nuance and opinion than serve as the representational hollow caricature born only to sacrifice for fast food and online shopping and general postmodern excess.

Just one man’s solution to a litany of complexities, I guess.

I got unstuck in time again last month, right when winter graced the Eastern seaboard with its presence. I was getting out of the Union Square subway station, headphones in, mind tuned out, stomach craving a cheeseburger. I don’t qualify as a full-fledged New Yorker yet, but I’ve lived here long enough not to be disturbed by the sight of a cold and decrepit-looking homeless person. So, coming up the subway steps, I strolled by a young man with a scraggly yellow beard wrapped in an urban camo jacket without anything more than a passing glance. He held a cardboard sign marked in black marker with the words “IRAQ VET, HOMELESS, PLEASE HELP.” I didn’t help, nor did I give the man a second thought until two blocks later, when I cynically scolded him in my head for using the veteran title to his advantage.

Coming to terms with this permanent state of combat readiness has made me realize just how much I miss war (or parts of it).

“But what if he really is an Iraq vet?” I asked myself. I’d read the statistics — according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 100,000 veterans are homeless on a given night in America; the figure is twice that over the course of the month. Not all of the unlucky ones are dead, after all. So the old platoon leader in me kicked in, and I turned back around, to see if I could verify any of this. Certainly a legitimate vet would remember names, units, places … something. And then? And then I’d help. Or I’d bring him to the people or organizations who could help. Maybe, if he seemed legit and came across as relatively stable, I could talk my fiancée into letting him sleep on the couch for a night or two. Just to get him back on his feet, of course.

He was no longer there. Or anywhere nearby. Maybe someone else had helped him. But probably not. I initially breathed out a sigh of relief, and then a sigh of shame. I thought about how these wars may be coming to some sort of end, but veterans’ issues for my generation are really just beginning. I only deployed for 15 months, and had all kinds of support systems in place upon my return. What about the men and women who have done nothing but deploy, redeploy, rinse and repeat since 9/11? What about those soldiers who return to broken homes, mountains of debt, no professional goals beyond not going to war again? What about them?

I smacked my lips and tasted guilt. Then I walked to a restaurant and ate a cheeseburger.

Like the veterans who came before and the ones who will come after, I walk the streets of New York City forever the soldier I no longer am. Oh, I’m no longer lean, hungry, or clean-cut — I’ve put on a little weight, grown my hair out and sport a patchy beard that can best be described as pirate-fashionable. But I still scan crowds for suicide vests, seek out corner vantage points like a bloodhound and value competency in a human being above all else. Jumping back into civilian life headlong, like I originally attempted, proved both disastrous and shortsighted. And coming to terms with this permanent state of combat readiness has made me realize just how much I miss war (or parts of it), and how lucky — and twisted — I am to be able to even write those words. I miss the camaraderie. I miss the raw excitement. I miss the Iraqi locals, from the kids who walked our daytime patrols with us to the frightened mothers who just wanted us to go away. I miss the soldiers, the N.C.O.’s, and even some of the officers. I miss that daily sense of purpose, survive or die, that simply can’t be replicated in everyday existence. I miss standing for something more than myself, even if I never figured out just what the hell that something was supposed to be.

I don’t miss all of it, of course. I got out of the Army for some very good reasons. Love. Sanity. Bureaucracy. A Holy Trinity for our time. But there is a messy ambiguity at the core of this that must be conveyed, if not necessarily understood.

I’m one of the lucky ones. Unstuck in time. Stuck with chance. Stuck at war. Considering the alternatives, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Giant Killer:

Vietnam – The Men With Green Faces
Shortly after being established in January 1962, SEAL Team ONE deployed CPO Robert Sullivan and CPO Charles Raymond to take initial surveys and make preparations for training indigenous South Vietnamese in the tactics, techniques, and procedures of maritime commandos.

During this same period, the U.S. Government agreed to increase aid to South Vietnam in the fight against Viet Cong rebels. The agreement included paying for a larger Vietnamese army as well as for more U.S. advisors in the field. The Viet Cong (properly the Viet Nam Cong San or Vietnamese Communists), was the term applied to about 10,000 troops that had been left in hideouts in South Vietnam after the Geneva Conference of 1954 ended the French Indochina War (1946–1954).

The Viet Cong, or VC, as they were commonly known, first tried subversive tactics to overthrow the South Vietnamese regime and later resorted to open warfare. They were subsequently reinforced by huge numbers of North Vietnamese troops infiltrating south.

Platoons from SEAL Team ONE and SEAL Team TWO were assigned to a specific operating area in Vietnam, and for the most part operated autonomously. Each SEAL platoon had a mobile support team (MST) boat element assigned. The MSTs were small groups of men specially trained to support SEAL operations. MSTs operated a variety of boats that included the light, medium, and heavy SEAL support craft (LSSC, MSSC, and HSSC, respectively).

By mid-1968 the SEAL Teams were fielding 12-man platoons, each comprising two squads of six men each, and most missions Vietnam were squad-sized operations. Generally four or five platoons at any given time were deployed to South Vietnam. SEAL platoons were never assigned permanently to Vietnam, but were sent on temporary duty assignments; generally for period of about six months time. Many of the men made several tours.

While the majority of SEAL operations were conducted after inserting from boats, it was in Vietnam that SEALs first began developing hit-and-run air-assault tactics using Army and Navy helicopters. Operations involved helicopters in “slick” or passenger configurations, but were also lightly armed with door guns.
SEAL platoons carried out day and night ambushes (but much preferred night operations), hit-and-run raids, reconnaissance patrols, and special intelligence collection operations. Calling them the “men with green faces” because of the face camouflage they used, the VC feared SEALs and often put bounties on their heads.

involvement in Vietnam, the relatively small group of SEALs accounted for 600 confirmed VC killed and 300 more almost certainly killed. Numerous others were captured or detained. No statistical tally can be placed on the effects of the intelligence gathered by SEALs, but there is no question that they made a contribution to the war out of all proportion to their numbers. In the psychological war, too, they were extraordinary; going some way towards evening up the unspoken balance of terror and gaining a reputation as fearsome and extraordinary warriors.

The last SEAL platoon departed Vietnam on 7 December 1971. The last SEAL advisors left Vietnam in March 1973. Between 1965 and 1972 there were 46 SEALs killed in Vietnam. They are forever remembered on the Navy SEAL Memorial at the Museum.

Note: Three U.S. Navy SEALs were recipients of the Medal of Honor during Vietnam. They were: Lieutenant Bob Kerrey, Lieutenant Tom Norris, and EM2 Mike Thornton. Mike Thornton was awarded the Medal of Honor for the rescue and exfiltration of Lieutenant Norris under withering fire on the night of 31 October 1972. There is no other recorded instance where two Medal of Honor recipients are known to have been involved in the same combat operation.

Story by Navy SEAL museum

The Berserker
January 16, 2023

The last Berserker was a Viking who fought in the Battle of Stamford Bridge (1066) between Harald Haldrada's army and the Anglo-Saxons.

I will hardly recount the battle because they do not give me the characters. The combat took place in the province of York and after several hours of battle Harald's army was being defeated, they had to do something or they would all die.

It is here where "The Last Berserker" comes into play, according to the chronicles, a Norwegian monster of more than 2 meters who went to battle bare-chested and armed with an axe. The berserker positioned himself on the Stamford Bridge that connected the battlefield with an unoccupied field. Harald's army withdrew across the bridge into the open so they could organize a new tactic based on the few men they had left.

The berserker positioned himself on the bridge and with inhuman fury held off the Anglo-Saxon army for approximately 2 hours, killing about 80 enemies on the spot. To defeat him, some Anglo-Saxons crossed submerged in the river that was under the bridge, to finally appear under the berserker and skewer him with their spears, killing him instantly.

By the time they managed to finish him off, Harald's army was already prepared with his new tactic. However, their efforts were in vain as not only did they lose, but King Harald was killed with an arrow to the throat.

What fascinates me most about this story is that it was told and reached our days thanks to the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, being his own enemies who wanted to record his impressive feat.
Cred for the Text to Chloe Giordano

His views on human nature are encapsulated in a poignant observation: "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man."
This statement underscores Twain's perspective on people.

https://www.facebook.com/theintellectualist/posts/pfbid02z6Y5gJcMVhAerasH9EocKxJ1WVbeRP5iN21TC6XUbhoLe2jJ7fKnLEbGr7EZdk7Nl

The incredible story of POW Navy Pilot Dieter Dengler and his escape from a prison camp in Laos.

Dieter Dengler (May 22, 1938 – February 7, 2001) was a German-born United States Navy aviator during the Vietnam War and, following six months of imprisonment and torture, became the first captured U.S. airman to escape enemy captivity during the war. Of seven prisoners of war who escaped together from a Pathet Lao prison camp in Laos, Dengler was one of two survivors (the other was Thailand citizen Phisit Intharathat). Dengler was rescued after 23 days on the run.

Dieter Dengler was born and raised in the small town of Wildberg, in the Black Forest region of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. He grew up not knowing his father, who had been drafted into the German army in 1939 and was killed during World War II on the Eastern Front during the winter of 1943/44. Dengler became very close to his mother and brothers. Dengler's maternal grandfather, Hermann Schnuerle, claimed he refused to vote for Adolf Hitler in the 1934 elections. Subsequently he was paraded around town with a placard around his neck, was spat upon, and was then sent to labor in a rock mine for a year. Dengler credited his grandfather's resolve as a major inspiration during his time in Laos. His grandfather's steadfastness despite the great risks was one reason Dengler refused a North Vietnamese demand that he sign a document condemning American aggression in Southeast Asia.

Dieter grew up in extreme poverty but always found ways to help his family survive. Dieter and his brothers would go into bombed-out buildings, tear off wallpaper, and bring it to their mother to boil for the nutrients in the wheat-based wallpaper paste. When members of the small group of Moroccans who lived in the area would slaughter sheep for their meals, Dieter would sneak over to their lodgings to take the scraps and leftovers they would not eat and his mother would make dinner from them. He also built a bicycle by scavenging from dumps. Dieter was apprenticed to a blacksmith at the age of 14. The blacksmith and the other boys, who worked six days a week building giant clocks and clock faces to repair German cathedrals, regularly beat him. Later in life Dieter thanked his former master "for his disciplined training and for helping Dieter become more capable, self-reliant and yes, 'tough enough to survive'".

After seeing an advertisement in an American magazine, expressing a need for pilots, he decided to go to the United States. Although a family friend agreed to sponsor him, he lacked money for passage and came up with a plan to independently salvage brass and other metals to sell.

In 1956, when he turned 18 and upon completion of his apprenticeship, Dengler hitchhiked to Hamburg and spent two weeks surviving on the streets before the ship set sail for New York City. While on the ship he saved fruit and sandwiches for the coming days and when going through customs the agent was astonished when the food tumbled out of his shirt. He lived on the streets of Manhattan for just over a week and eventually found his way to an Air Force recruiter. He was assured that piloting aircraft was what the Air Force was all about so he enlisted in June 1957 and went to basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. After basic training, Dengler spent two years peeling potatoes and then transferred to a motor pool as a mechanic. His qualifications as a machinist led to an assignment as a gunsmith. He passed the test for aviation cadets but was told that only college graduates were selected to be pilots and his enlistment expired before he was selected for pilot training.

After his discharge Dengler joined his brother working in a bakery shop near San Francisco and enrolled in San Francisco City College, then transferred to the College of San Mateo, where he studied aeronautics. Upon completion of two years of college he applied for the US Navy aviation cadet program and was accepted.
Dengler would do whatever it took to become a pilot. In his inaugural flight at primary flight training, for example, the instructor told Dengler that if he became airsick and vomited in the cockpit that he would receive a "down" on his record. Students were only allowed three downs then they would wash out of flight training. The instructor took the plane through spins and loops causing Dengler to become dizzy and disoriented. Knowing he was about to vomit and not wanting to receive a "down", Dengler took off his boot, threw up into it and put it back on. At the end of the flight the instructor checked the cockpit and could smell the vomit, but couldn't find any evidence of it. He didn't get a "down".

After his completion of flight training Dengler went to the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas for training as an attack pilot in the Douglas AD Skyraider. He joined VA-145 while the squadron was on shore duty at Naval Air Station Alameda, California. In 1965 the squadron joined the carrier USS Ranger. In December the carrier set sail for the coast of Vietnam. He was stationed initially at Dixie Station, off South Vietnam then moved north to Yankee Station for operations against North Vietnam.

On February 1, 1966, the day after the carrier began flying missions from Yankee Station, Lieutenant, Junior Grade Dengler launched from the Ranger with three other aircraft on an interdiction mission against a truck convoy that had been reported in North Vietnam. Thunderstorms forced the pilots to divert to their secondary target, a road intersection located west of the Mu Gia Pass in Laos. At the time, U.S. air operations in Laos were classified "secret". Visibility was poor due to smoke from burning fields, and upon rolling in on the target, Dengler and the remainder of his flight lost sight of one another. Visibility was poor, and as Dengler rolled his Skyraider in on the target after flying for two-and-a-half hours into enemy territory, he was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

"There was a large explosion on my right side," he remembered when interviewed shortly before his death in 2001.

It was like lightning striking. The right wing was gone. The airplane seemed to cartwheel through the sky in slow motion. There were more explosions—boom, boom, boom—and I was still able to guide the plane into a clearing in Laos.
He said: "Many times, people have asked me if I was afraid. Just before dying, there is no more fear. I felt I was floating."

When his squadron mates realized that he had been downed, they remained confident that he would be rescued. Immediately after he was shot down, Dengler smashed his survival radio and hid most of his other survival equipment to keep Vietnamese or Lao search parties from finding it. The day after being shot down Dengler was apprehended by Pathet Lao troops, the Laotian equivalent of the Viet Cong.

He was marched through the jungle, was tied on the ground to four stakes spreadeagled in order to stop him escaping at night. In the morning his face would be swollen from mosquito bites and he was unable to see.

After an early escape attempt he was recaptured while drinking from a spring. According to Dengler he was tortured in retaliation:

I had escaped from them, [and] they wanted to get even. He was hung upside down by his ankles with a nest of biting ants over his face until he lost consciousness, suspended in a freezing well at night so that if he fell asleep he might drown. On other occasions he was dragged through villages by a water buffalo, to the amusement of his guards, as they goaded the animal with a whip. He was asked by Pathet Lao officials to sign a document condemning the United States, but he refused and as a result he was tortured as tiny wedges of bamboo were inserted under his fingernails and into incisions on his body which grew and festered.

"They were always thinking of something new to do to me." Dengler recalled. "One guy made a rope tourniquet around my upper arm. He inserted a piece of wood, and twisted and twisted until my nerves cut against the bone. The hand was completely unusable for six months."

After some weeks Dengler was handed over to the Vietnamese. As they marched him through a village, a man slipped Dengler's engagement ring from his finger. Dengler complained to his guards. They found the culprit, summarily chopped off his finger with a machete and handed the ring back to Dengler.

"I realized right there and then that you don't fool around with the Viet Cong", he said.
Dengler had trained in escaping and survival at the Navy SERE survival school, where he had twice escaped from the mock-POW camp run by SERE instructors and Marine guards and was planning a third escape when the training ended. He had also set a record as the only student to gain weight (three pounds) during the SERE course; his childhood experiences had made him unafraid of eating whatever he could find and he had feasted on food the course instructors had thrown in the garbage.

Dengler was eventually brought to a prison camp near the village of Par Kung where he met other POWs. The other six prisoners were:
Phisit Intharathat (Thai)
Prasit Promsuwan (Thai)
Prasit Thanee (Thai)
Y.C. To (Chinese)
Eugene DeBruin (American)
Duane W. Martin (American)

Except for Martin, an Air Force helicopter pilot who had been shot down in North Vietnam nearly a year before, the other prisoners were civilians employed by Air America, a civilian airline owned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The civilians had been held by the Pathet Lao for over two and a half years when Dengler joined them.

"I had hoped to see other pilots. What I saw horrified me. The first one who came out was carrying his intestines around in his hands. One had no teeth - plagued by awful infections, he had begged the others to knock them out with a rock and a rusty nail in order to release pus from his gums". "They had been there for two and a half years," said Dengler. "I looked at them and it was just awful. I realized that was how I would look in six months. I had to escape."

The day he arrived in the camp, Dengler advised the other prisoners that he intended to escape and invited them to join him. They advised that he wait until the monsoon season when there would be plenty of water.

Shortly after Dengler arrived, the prisoners were moved to a new camp ten miles away at Hoi Het. After the move, a strong debate ensued among the prisoners with Dengler, Martin and Prasit arguing for escape which the other prisoners, particularly Phisit initially opposed.

As food began to run out, tension between the men grew: they were given just a single handful of rice to share while the guards would stalk deer, pulling the grass out of the animal's stomach for the prisoners to eat while they shared the meat. The prisoners' only "treats" were snakes they occasionally caught from the communal latrine or the rats that lived under their hut which they could spear with sharpened bamboo. At night the men were handcuffed together and shackled to wooden foot blocks. They suffered chronic dysentery and were made to lie in their excrement until morning.

After several months, one of the Thai prisoners overheard the guards talking about shooting them in the jungle and making it look like an escape attempt. They too, were starving and wanted to return to their villages. With that revelation, everyone agreed and a date to escape was set. Their plan was to take over the camp and signal a C-130 Hercules flare-ship that made nightly visits to the area. Dengler loosened logs under the hut that allowed the prisoners to squeeze through. The plan was for him to go out when the guards were eating and seize their weapons and pass them to Phisit Intharathat and Promsuwan while Martin and DeBruin procured others from other locations.

"I planned to capture the guards at lunchtime, when they put down their rifles to get their food. There were two minutes and twenty seconds in the day when I could strike." In that time Dengler had to release all the men from their handcuffs.

Escape
On June 29, 1966 while the guards were eating, the group slipped out of their hand-cuffs and foot restraints and grabbed the guards' unattended weapons which included M1 rifles, Chinese automatic rifles, an American carbine and at least one sub-machine gun as well as an early version of the AK47 automatic rifle, which Dengler used during the escape from the POW camp. Dengler went out first followed by Martin. He went to the guard hut and seized an M1 for himself and passed the American carbine to Martin. The guards realized the prisoners had escaped and five of them rushed toward Dengler, who shot at least three with the AK47. Phisit killed another guard as he reached for his rifle. Two others ran off, presumably to get help, although at least one had been wounded. The seven prisoners split into three groups. DeBruin was originally supposed to go with Dengler and Martin but decided to go with To, who was recovering from a fever and unable to keep up. They intended to get over the nearest ridge and wait for rescue. Dengler and Martin went off by themselves with the intention of heading for the Mekong River to escape to Thailand, but they never got more than a few miles from the camp from which they had escaped.

"Seven of us escaped," said Dengler. "I was the only one who came out alive."
With the exception of Phisit, who was recaptured and later rescued by Laotian troops, none of the other prisoners were ever seen again. DeBruin was reportedly captured and placed in another camp, then disappeared in 1968.

Rescue
Escape proved to be hazardous. Soon, the two men's feet were white, mangled stumps from trekking through the dense jungle. They found the sole of an old tennis shoe, which they wore alternately, strapping it onto a foot with rattan for a few moments' respite. In this way they were able to make their way to a fast-flowing river.

"It was the highway to freedom," said Dengler, "We knew it would flow into the Mekong River, which would take us over the border into Thailand and to safety."

The men built a raft and floated downstream on ferocious rapids, tying themselves to trees at night to stop themselves being washed away in the torrential water. By morning they would be covered in mud and hundreds of leeches. When they thought they were on their way to the Mekong, they discovered that they had gone around in a circle. They had spotted several villages but had not been detected. They set up camp in an abandoned village where they found shelter from the nearly incessant rain. They had brought rice with them and found other food, but were still on the verge of starvation. Their intent had been to signal a C-130 but at first lacked the energy to build a fire using primitive methods of rubbing bamboo together. Dengler finally managed to locate carbine cartridges that Martin had thrown away and used their powder to enhance the tinder and got a fire going. That night they lit torches and waved them in the shape of an S and O when a C-130 came over. The airplane circled and dropped a couple of flares and they were overjoyed, believing they had been spotted. They woke up the next morning to find the landscape covered by fog and drizzle, but when it lifted, no rescue force appeared.

Martin, who was weak from starvation and was suffering from malaria, wanted to approach a nearby Akha village to steal some food. Dengler knew it was not a good idea, but refused to let his friend go near the village alone. They saw a little boy playing with a dog and the child ran into the village calling out "American!" Within seconds a villager appeared and they knelt down on the trail in supplication, but the man swung his machete and struck Martin in the leg. With the next swipe, Martin's head came off. Dengler jumped to his feet and rushed toward the villager, who turned and ran into the village to get help.

I reached for the rubber sole from his foot, grabbed it and ran. From that moment on, all my motions became mechanical. I couldn't care less if I lived or died.

Dengler recalls, it was a wild animal who gave him the mental strength to continue.
"I was followed by this beautiful bear. He became like my pet dog and was the only friend I had."
These were his darkest hours. Little more than a walking skeleton after weeks on the run, he floated in and out of a hallucinatory state.

"I was just crawling along," he said. "Then I had a vision: these enormous doors opened up. Lots of horses came galloping out. They were not driven by death, but by angels. Death didn't want me."

Dengler managed to evade the searchers who went out after him and escaped back into the jungle. He returned to the abandoned village where the two had been spending their time and where he and Martin had signaled the C-130. That night when a C-130 flare-ship came, Dengler set fire to the huts and burned the village down. The C-130 crew spotted the fires and dropped flares, but even though the crew reported their sighting when they returned to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, the fires were not recognized by intelligence as having been a signal from a survivor.

Deatrick has long marvelled at the fact that had he stuck to his original flight schedule on the morning of July 20, 1966, Dieter would not have been at the river to be sighted at that earlier hour. "If God put me on the earth for one reason," Deatrick says, "it was to find Dieter over there in the jungle." As it was, Deatrick describes it as "a million-in-one chance."
-Excerpt from Dengler biography regarding the role of pilot Eugene Deatrick

When a rescue force again failed to materialize, Dengler decided to find one of the parachutes from a flare for use as a possible signal. He found one on a bush and placed it in his rucksack. On July 20, 1966, after 23 days in the jungle, Dengler managed to signal an Air Force pilot with the parachute. A 2-ship flight of Air Force Skyraiders from the 1st Air Commando Squadron happened to fly up the river where Dengler was. Eugene Peyton Deatrick, the pilot of the lead plane and the squadron commander, spotted a flash of white while making a turn at the river's bend and came back and spotted a man waving something white. Deatrick and his wingman contacted rescue forces, but were told to ignore the sighting, as no airmen were known to be down in the area. Deatrick persisted and eventually managed to convince the command and control center to dispatch a rescue force. Fearing that Dengler might be a Viet Cong soldier, the helicopter crew restrained him when he was brought aboard.

According to the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly Dengler said one of the flight crew who was holding him down pulled out a half eaten snake from underneath Dengler's clothing and was so surprised he nearly fell out of the helicopter. Dengler was stripped of his clothes to ensure he was not armed or in possession of a hand grenade. When questioned, Dengler told Air Force pararescue specialist Michael Leonard that he was a Navy Lieutenant JG who had escaped from a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp two months earlier. Deatrick radioed the rescue helicopter crew to see if they could identify the person they had just hoisted up from the jungle. They reported that they had a man who claimed to be a downed Navy pilot who flew a Douglas A-1H Skyraider.

It wasn't until after he reached the hospital at Da Nang that Dengler's identity was confirmed. A conflict between the Air Force and the Navy developed over who should control his debriefing and recovery. In an apparent attempt to prevent the Air Force from embarrassing them in some way, the Navy sent a team of SEALs into the hospital to steal Dengler. He was brought out of the hospital in a covered gurney and rushed to the air field, where he was placed aboard a Navy carrier delivery transport Grumman C-2A from VR-21 and flown to the Ranger where a welcoming party had been prepared. At night, however, he was tormented by awful terrors, and had to be tied to his bed. In the end, his friends put him to sleep in a cockpit, surrounded by pillows. "It was the only place I felt safe," he said.

Dengler's deprivation from malnutrition and parasites caused the Navy doctors to order that he be airlifted to the United States.

Later life and death
Dengler recovered physically, but never put his ordeal behind him. As Werner Herzog described it in his documentary about Dengler, "Men are often haunted by things that happen to them in life, especially in war Their lives seem to be normal, but they are not."

He remained in the navy for a year, was promoted to Lieutenant, and was trained to fly jets. When his military obligation was satisfied, he resigned from the Navy and applied for a position as an airline pilot with Trans World Airlines (TWA). He continued flying and survived four subsequent crashes as a civilian test pilot.

In 1977, during a time when he was furloughed from TWA, Dengler returned to Laos and was greeted as a celebrity by the Pathet Lao. He was taken to the camp from which he had escaped and was surprised to discover that at one point he and Martin had been within a mile and a half of it.

His fascination with airplanes and aviation continued for the remainder of his life. He continued flying almost up until his death. He took an early-retirement as a pilot for TWA sometime prior to 1985, but continued flying his meticulously restored Cessna 195, putting it on static display at numerous California air shows.

In 2000, Dengler was inducted into the Gathering of Eagles program and told the story of his escape to groups of young military officers. Dengler was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable neurological disorder; on February 7, 2001, he rolled his wheelchair from his house down to the driveway of a fire station and shot himself. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. A Navy honor guard was present at the burial as well as a fly-over by Navy F-14 Tomcats.

Rebel History

2034 years ago today in 49 BC, against the orders of the Roman senate, Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon river with his army sparking a civil war.

The years presiding, Julius Caesar essentially ruled over the ancient Roman Republic in a triumvirate with Marcus Crassus and Pompey Magnus. Crassus was killed in a foreign adventure, and Pompey married Caesar’s daughter to seal a political alliance. Caesar spent the last decade conquering Gaul making him; one of the richest men in the Republic, beloved amongst the common people, and earning him the loyalty of hardened war veterans. Fearful of his rise to power, the Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army on his return to Rome as was customary. The Rubicon river was a boundary between Gaul and Italy, and once Caesar crossed the river with armed soldiers it was considered insurrection, treason, and a declaration of war upon the Roman Senate.

The Senate turned to Pompey to help, and Caesar would end up defeating him in the upcoming civil war over the next few years and becoming the most powerful man in Rome. Eventually the Senate would assassinate Caesar causing another civil war where his nephew Octavian would come out victorious as the first emperor of Ancient Rome.

[Online References]
(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/.../julius-caesar.../ )
(http://penelope.uchicago.edu/.../Caesar/Civil_Wars/home.html )
(http://sites.psu.edu/cams.../the-fall-of-the-roman-republic/ )

Authored by R.E. Foy

Awesome read; if it doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you're not human; I am so proud to have been in an organization that instilled the values described in LTC Lofaro's speech below:

Dining-in speech at U.S. Military Academy
by LTC Guy Lofaro:

"Let me say before beginning that it has been my pleasure to attend several dinings-in here at West Point and hence I have some basis for comparison. You people have done a fine job and you ought to congratulate yourselves. In fact, why don't we take this time to have the persons who were responsible for this event stand so we can acknowledge them publicly.

I guess I am honored with these invitations because there exists this rumor that I can tell a story. Cadets who I have had in class sometimes approach me beforehand and request that, during my speech, I tell some of the stories I've told them in class. For the longest time I have resisted this. I simply didn't think this the right forum for story-telling, so I tried instead, with varying degrees of success, to use this time to impart some higher lesson - some thought that would perhaps stay with one or two of you a little longer than the 10 or 15 minutes I will be standing here. I tried this again last week at another dining in and I bombed. Big time. Of course, the cadets didn't say that. They said all the polite things- "Thank you, sir, for those inspiring words" - "You've provided us much food for thought" - "We all certainly learned something from you tonight, sir." And I'm thinking - yeah - you learned something all right. You learned never to invite that SOB to be a dining in speaker again.

So in the interim I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about what I would say to you to night. What can I say that will stay with you? And as I reflected on this I turned it on myself - what stays with me? What makes a mark on me? What do I remember, and why? How have I learned the higher lessons I so desperately want to impart to you? Well - I've learned those higher lessons through experience. And as I thought further, I realized that there's only one way to relate experience -that is to tell some stories. So I'm going to try something new here this evening. I'm going to give you your stories and attempt to relate what I've learned by living them. I'm going to let you crawl inside my eye-sockets and see some of the things I've seen these past 18 years.

Imagine you are a brand new second lieutenant on a peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula. You are less than a year out of West Point, and only a few weeks out of the basic course. You are standing at a strict position of attention in front of your battalion commander, a man you will come to realize was one of the finest soldiers with whom you've ever served, and you are being questioned about a mistake - a big mistake - that you've made. You see, your platoon lost some live ammo. Oh sure, it was eventually found, but for a few hours you had the entire battalion scrambling. Your battalion commander is not yelling at you though, he's not demeaning you, he's simply taking this opportunity to ensure you learn from the experience. And you do- you learn that people make mistakes, that those mistakes do not usually result in the end of the world, and that such occasions are valuable opportunities to impart some higher lessons. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see your platoon sergeant emerge from behind a building. He's an old soldier - a fine soldier though - whose knees have seen a few too many airborne operations. He sees you and the colonel - and he takes off at a run. You see him approaching from behind the colonel and the next thing you see is the back of your platoon sergeant's head. He is now standing between you and your battalion commander - the two are eyeball to eyeball. Your platoon sergeant says, a touch of indignance in his voice "Leave my lieutenant alone, sir. He didn't lose the ammo, I did. I was the one who miscounted. You want someone's ass, you take mine."

And you learn another lesson - you learn about loyalty.

It's a few months later and you are one of two soldiers left on a hot PZ on some Caribbean island. There's been another foul up - not yours this time, but you're going to pay for it. It's you and your RTO, a nineteen-year-old surfer from Florida who can quote Shakespeare because his Mom was a high school literature teacher and who joined the army because his Dad was a WWII Ranger. The last UH-60 has taken off on an air assault and someone is supposed to come back and get you guys. But the fire is getting heavy, and you're not sure anything can get down there without getting shot up. You're taking fire from some heavily forested hills. At least two machineguns, maybe three, maybe more, and quite a few AKs, but you can't make out anything else. You and your RTO are in a hole, hunkered down as the bad guys are peppering your hole with small arms fire. Your RTO is trying to get some help - another bird to come get you, some artillery, some attack helicopters - anything. But there are other firefights happening elsewhere on this island involving much larger numbers.

So as the cosmos unfold at; that particular moment, in that particular place, you and that RTO are well down the order of merit list. You feel a tug at your pants leg. Ketch, that's what you call him, Ketch tells you he got a "wait, out" when he asked for help. The radio is jammed with calls for fire and requests for support from other parts of the island. "What we gonna do, sir?' he asks. And all of a sudden, you're learning another lesson. You're learning about the weightiness of command, because it's not just you in that hole, it's this kid you've spent every day with for the last five months. This kid you've come to love like a kid brother. There is only one way out and that's through the bad guys. You see, you are on a peninsula that rises about 100 feet from the sea. The inland side is where the bad guys are. You figure you are safe in this hole, so long as they don't bring in any indirect fire stuff, but if they come down off those hills, onto the peninsula, then you're going to have to fight it out. And that's what you tell your RTO. We either get help or, if the bad guys come for us, we fight. He looks at you. You don't know how long. And he says only four words. Two sentences. "Roger, sir. Let's rock." Appropriate coming from a surfer. Then he slithers back down to the bottom of the hole. Staying on the radio, your lifeline, trying to get some help. You are peering over the edge of the hole, careful not to make too big a target. You're thinking about your wife and that little month-old baby you left a few days ago. It was two o'clock in the morning when you got the call. "Pack your gear and get in here." You kissed them both and told them to watch the news. Hell, you didn't know where here you were going or why, but you were told to go, and you went.

Then all of a sudden it gets real loud, and things are flying all around and then there's a shadow that passes over you. You look up and find yourself staring at the bottom of a Blackhawk, about 15 feet over the deck, flying fast and low, and as it passes over your hole you see the door gunner dealing death and destruction on the bad guys in those hills. It sets down about 25 meters from your hole, as close as it can get. You look up and see the crew chief kneeling inside, waving frantically to you, the door gunner still dealing with it, trying to keep the bad guys' heads down, who have now switched their fire to the bird, a much bigger, and better, target. You look at Ketch and then you're off - and you run 25 meters faster than 25 meters have ever been run since humans began to walk upright. And you dive through the open doors onto the floor of the Blackhawk. There are no seats in the bird since this is combat and we don't use them in the real deal. And you are hugging your RTO, face-to-face, like a lover, and shouting at him "You OKAY? You OKAY? You OKAY?" but he doesn't tell you he's OKAY since he's yelling the same thing at you -- "You OKAY? You OKAY? You OKAY?" And then the pilot pulls pitch and executes a violent and steep ascent out of there and had you not been holding on to the d-rings in the floor and the crew chief not been holding your legs you might have fallen out. Then you're over the water, you're safe, and the bird levels out, and you roll over to your back and close your eyes - and you think you fall asleep. But then you feel a hand on your blouse, and you open your eyes and see the crew chief kneeling over you with a head set in his hand. He wants you to put it on so you do. And the first thing you hear is "I-Beamer, buddy boy. I Beamer." You were in I-4 while a cadet, and that was your rallying cry. And you look up to where the pilots sit and you see a head sticking out from behind one of the seats. He's looking at you and it's his voice you hear, but you can't make out who it is because his visor is down. Then he lifts it, and you see the face of a man who was 2 years ahead of you in your company. He tells you that he knew you were there and he wasn't going to leave an I-Beamer like that. And you learn about courage, and camaraderie. And friendship that never dies.

It's a few years later and you've already had your company command. You're in grad school, studying at Michigan. You get a phone call one night, one of the sergeants from your company. He tells you Harvey Moore is dead, killed in a training accident when his Blackhawk flew into the ground. Harvey Moore. Two time winner of the Best Ranger Competition. Great soldier. Got drunk one night after his wife left him and took his son. You see, staff sergeants don't make as much money as lawyers, so she left with the lawyer. He got stinking drunk, though it didn't take much since he didn't drink at all before this, and got into his car. Then had an accident. Then got a DUI. He was an E-6 promotable when this happened, and the SOP was a general-officer article 15 and a reduction one grade, which would really be two for him because he was on the promotion list. But Harvey Moore is a good soldier, and it's time to go to bat for a guy who, if your company command was any sort of a success, played a significant part in making it so. And you go with your battalion commander to see the CG, and you stand at attention in front of the CG's desk for 20 minutes convincing him that Harvey Moore deserves a break. You win. Harvey Moore never drinks again. He makes E-7. And when you change command, he grabs your arm, with tears in his eyes, and thanks you for all you've done. Then the phone call. And you learn about grief.

And then you're a major and you're back in the 82d - your home. And one day some SOB having a bad week decides it's time to take it out on the world and he shoots up a PT formation. Takes out 20 guys. You're one of them. 5.56 tracer round right to the gut. Range about 10 meters. And you're dead for a little while, but it's not your time yet - there are still too many lessons to learn. And you wake up after 5 surgeries and 45 days in a coma. And you look down at your body and you don't recognize it - it has become a receptacle for hospital tubing and electronic monitoring devices. You have a tracheotomy, so there's a huge tube going down your throat and you can't talk, but that thing is making sure you breathe. And there's a tube in your nose that goes down into your stomach - that's how you eat. And there are four IVs - one in each arm and two in the veins in the top of your feet. There is a tube through your right clavicle - that's where they inject the high-powered antibiotics that turns your hair white and makes you see things. But disease is the enemy now and it's gotta be done. And there are three tubes emerging from three separate holes in your stomach. They are there to drain the liquids from your stomach cavity. It drains into some bags hanging on the right;side of your bed. And they've shaved your chest and attached countless electrodes to monitor your heartbeat, blood pressure, and anything else they can measure. They have these things stuck all over your head as well, and on your wrists and ankles. And your family gathers around, and they are like rocks, and they pull you through. But there's also a guy, dressed in BDUs, with a maroon beret in his and, who stands quietly in the corner. Never says anything. Just smiles. And looks at you. He's there every day. Not every hour of every day, but he comes every day.

Sometimes he's there when you wake up. Sometimes he's there when you go to sleep. He comes during his lunch break. He stays an hour, or two, or three. And just stands in the corner. And smiles. No one told him to be there. But he made it his place of duty. His guard post. You see, it's your sergeant major, and his ranger buddy is down, and a ranger never leaves a fallen comrade. And you learn, through this man, the value of a creed.
(Note from Guy): if you've never read the Ranger Creed, Google it. The men of the Ranger Regiment live this creed every day. It is probably more powerful than wedding vows, and once you've lived by it, it's part of your life forever)

And every four hours two huge male nurses come in and gently roll you on your side. The bullet exited through your left buttock and made a hole the size of a softball. The bandages need to be changed. Take the soiled wads out and put clean ones in. And a second lieutenant comes in. She seems to be there all the time. She's the one changing the bandages. And it hurts like hell, but she, too, is smiling, and talking to you, and she's gentle. And you know you've seen her before, but you can't talk - you still have that tube in your throat. But she knows. And she tells you that you taught her Military Art History, that now it's her turn to take care of you, that she's in charge of you and the team of nurses assigned to you, and she won't let you down. And you learn about compassion.

And then it's months later and you're still recovering. Most of the tubes are gone but it's time for another round of major surgeries. And you go into one of the last, this one about 9 hours long. And they put you back together. And you wake up in the ICU one more time. Only one IV this time. And when you open your eyes, there's a huge figure standing over your bed. BDUs. Green beret in his hand. Bigger than God. And he's smiling. "It's about damn time you woke up you lazy bastard" he says. And you know it's your friend and former commander and you've got to come back with something quick - something good. He's the deputy Delta Force commander, soon to be the commander. And you say "Don't you have someplace else to be? Don't you have something more important to do?" And without skipping a beat, without losing that smile he says "Right now, I am doing what I consider the most important thing in the world."

And you learn about leadership.

So there you have them. Some stories. I've tried to let you see the world as I've seen it a various points in time these 18 years. I hope you've learned something. I certainly have."

For the record, I know these men personally, and I served during these times the writer is describing, I was there @ Hill AFB that dark night on 29 Oct '92 during the final hit of Operation Embryo Stage when RANGER Moore departed this rock, he was my buddy... I also recall very clearly that damn sniper doing his evil down @ Bragg... this world just never quits jackin with the good folks seems like. My point of all of this is while you are in the middle of it all, this Serving stuff, pay attention to those around you, that is what is Truly of most importance, gubmints will come and go, Honor, Courage, being Solid under extreme pressure and circumstance will be your test... make this world a little better of a place while you are among the living... and Never Forget the RANGER Harvey Moore's that you will meet along the way...

HOOAH!
RLTW! - NSDQ!

Love the Night Sky
NGC 6357: THE LOBSTER NEBULA

Why is the Lobster Nebula forming some of the most massive stars known? No one is yet sure. Cataloged NGC 6357, The Lobster Nebula houses the open star cluster Pismis 24 near its center--a home to unusually bright and massive stars. The overall blue glow near the inner star forming region results from the emission of ironised hydrogen gas. The surrounding nebula, featured here, holds a complex tapestry of gas, dark dust, stars still forming, and newly born stars. The intricate patterns are caused by complex interaction between interstellar winds, radiation pressures, magnetic fields and gravity. NGC 6357 spans about 400light years and lies about 8,000 light years away towards the constellation of the Scorpion.

Taken from Astronomy Picture of the Day

Rebel History
December 31, 2021

27 years ago today in 1994, Russian forces enter the Chechen capital Gronzy during the First Chechen War.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia became a federation. However within this Russian federation were many ethnic groups of people who still felt subjugated since the old days of the Russian Empire. The most militant of these ethnic groups were white Muslims located in southern Russia in the Caucasus region. Two provinces in this region that had fought the Russians for centuries was Dagestan and Chechnya. The people of Chechnya wasted no time organizing a serious independence movement as the dissolution of the Soviet Union began in 1991.

Chechen separatists stormed a session of the Soviet installed government and killed their communist leaders. They were adamant that Chechnya was not only a free republic outside of the Soviet Union, but also the Russian Federation. Russia was not going to let a province that had been under their domain for centuries separate without a fight. Small instances of violence began to occur between both sides as Russia started applying military pressure in the region and building up their forces. It was decided that a three-pronged attack would be launched on the Chechen rebel capital of Gronzy on New Year’s Eve.

As part of the Russian forces were about to enter the city, a Chechen commander begged over the radio to the incoming Russians not to come into their capital because they would die, the chilling audio was recorded (See references).

“Ivan, maybe while it’s not too late,” the Chechen said over the radio:
“Tell your men to retreat. Don’t do this, don’t do this. In any case, Ivan, you and I will die. What’s the point of all this? Who will win this? You and I will not win this, understand? If we or I see you in the action, I won’t show you mercy, just like you won’t, understand? It’s better if you come to me as a guest. Retreat your men, have pity for their mothers, have pity for your guys, retreat them. Give the order to retreat.”

After a pause, “I can’t give that order,” the Russian commander responded.

“Ivan, listen to me!” the Chechen said, raising his voice. “From my heart, I wish that you survive this, but you better leave.”

“I don’t have a choice!” he responded. “I have orders and I will obey them in any case.”

The first wave of the Russian forces entering the city were mostly young conscripts and the result of the New Year’s Eve battle was a disaster for them. When the captured Russian soldiers were shown on TV, some of their mothers without assistance of the Russian government went to Gronzy to successfully negotiate the release of their sons. Over the next two months fighting would rage on in the Chechen capital and Russia would secure it in a pyrrhic victory only to lose it in August 1996. Demoralized from this encounter, Russia would be brought to the negotiation table. But over the next 20 years the fight for absolute Chechen independence would continue until a Pro-Russian government was successfully installed that kept Chechnya in the federation to this date.

The fighting during the Chechen Wars is considered to be the toughest war the Russians have experienced since World War 2.

[Online References]
Chilling video of audio from Chechen Commander pleading to the Russian Commander to not come into the city: (https://youtu.be/bWzB8IkXWJI )

First Chechen War:
(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-18190473 )
(https://www.rand.org/.../monograph.../MR1289/MR1289.sum.pdf )
(https://sites.tufts.edu/.../08/07/russia-1st-chechen-war/ )

Battle of Gronzy:
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/482323.stm )
(https://www.rand.org/natsec_area/products/chechen.html )
(https://popularmilitary.com/chilling-radio-message.../ )
Authored by R.E. Foy

Judy, a purebred pointer, was the mascot of several ships in the Pacific and was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and taken to a prison camp. There she met Aircraftsman Frank Williams, who shared his small portion of rice with her.

Judy raised morale in the POW camp and also barked when poisonous snakes, crocodiles, or even tigers approached the prisoners. When the prisoners were shipped back to Singapore, she was smuggled out in a rice sack, never whimpering or betraying her presence to the guards.

The next day, that ship was torpedoed. Williams pushed Judy out of a porthole in an attempt to save her life, even though there was a 15-foot drop to the sea. He made his own escape from the ship but was then recaptured and sent to a new POW camp.

He didn't know if Judy had survived, but soon he began hearing stories about a dog helping drowning men reach pieces of debris after the shipwreck. And when Williams arrived at the new camp, he said: "I couldn’t believe my eyes! As I walked through the gate, a scraggly dog hit me square between the shoulders and knocked me over. I’d never been so glad to see the old girl!"

They spent a year together at that camp in Sumatra. "Judy saved my life in so many ways," said Williams. "But the greatest of all was giving me a reason to live. All I had to do was look into those weary, bloodshot eyes and ask myself: 'What would happen to her if I died?' I had to keep going."

Once hostilities ceased, Judy was then smuggled aboard a troopship heading back to Liverpool. In England, she was awarded the Dickin Medal (the "Victoria Cross" for animals) in May 1946. Her citation reads: "For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, which helped to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners, and also for saving many lives through her intelligence and watchfulness".

At the same time, Frank Williams was awarded the PDSA's White Cross of St. Giles for his devotion to Judy. Frank and Judy spent a year after the war visiting the relatives of English POWs who had not survived, and Frank said that Judy "always provided a comforting presence to the families."

When Judy finally died at the age of 13, Frank spent two months building a granite and marble memorial in her memory, which included a plaque describing her life story.

For a singer born in Mount Olive, Alabama, it all started with a song he wrote for himself!

King Hiram "Hank" Williams was born, September 1923 in rural Alabama, very rural. Never one much for attending school or "book learning", a young Mr. Williams was on the road to being a country music entertainer in his early teens. With his Mother's help and blessing, a very young Hank Williams played beer joints, "skull orchards", and various types of other night clubs of, shall we say, “dubious repute”.

Hank Williams also started writing songs when he was in his teenage years. As a teenager, Mr. Williams won a talent contest in the late 1930's performing a song he in fact wrote, one called the "WPA Blues". A young Hank Williams was also a regular guest and performer on local country radio stations as well.

At one point during World War II, Mr. Williams, growing tired of the struggle of trying and trying to become a successful country music singer and musician, briefly worked at a shipyard. His mother could tell, and realized the young Hank was unhappy, discontented and unbeknownst to the young Hank, his mother booked him a couple of months of shows causing Hank to tell his mother she had made him “the happiest boy in the whole wide world”.

After getting married to a beautiful young lady named Audrey, Hank Williams' wife, the Ms. Audrey pushed him to audition for Acuff-Rose publications of Nashville, Tennessee in 1946.

Fred Rose and his son Wesley were playing ping pong one day at lunch when Ms. Audrey and Hank Williams showed up. After sitting, listening and hearing a few of Hank's songs, they quickly signed him to a songwriting contract. Then, quickly placed his songs with the then-popular Molly O'Day on the Columbia Records label.

When a small record label in New York City, the Sterling Records label, wanted to make some country music records, Acuff-Rose Publishing placed Hank Williams and the Oklahoma Wranglers (better known today as the Willis Bros.) with this small record label. Hank made 4 records for them and while they were not officially hits, they paved the way for a better, more lucrative contract with the new MGM Records label.

Hank's 1st record, "Move It On Over" was an immediate hit. The record climbed to #4 on the Billboard music charts in the fall of 1947. 3 more hits followed before Hank Williams hit #1 in early 1949 with the mega hit “Lovesick Blues". “Lovesick Blues” was #1 for 10 weeks and stayed on the country music charts a remarkable 42 weeks! It’s a really good chance that we think all of you know the Hank Williams story from there!!!!

Hank Williams placed 42 singles on the Billboard Music charts between 1947 and 1999. 33 of those songs came during his lifetime with the last 9 posthumously. They included a produced, “electronic" duet in 1999 with his son, Hank Williams Jr. “There's a Tear In My Beer", a song written for Big Bill Lister. Mr. Lister found the original demo in his attic, forwarded it to Bocephus and the rest is history as they say! #Legendary #hank

The iconic, the bigger than life, the legendary Hank Williams scored 37 top 10 records with 11 of those hitting #1. Hank Williams passed away in the back of his Cadillac in the early morning hours of January 1st, 1953 on the way to a live engagement. His death, at the highest peak of his popularity, left many to wonder what his career could have been had he lived.

Most fans of real, traditional, classic country music pause and reflect on the life and career of Hank Williams, Sr. at the end of each year.

January 1st marks 71 years since his death but let not your heart be troubled, without a doubt, Hank Williams continues to be a major influence on so many in the country music industry and the country music community!

And it all started with a song he wrote about being in the dog house!

You may heard of Hadrian’s wall but not so many have heard of Antonine wall. The Antonine Wall is a remarkable historical monument that stretches across central Scotland, from Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth to Old Kilpatrick on the River Clyde. Built by the Romans in the 2nd century AD, it served as a barrier between the Roman Empire and the native Caledonian tribes of Scotland.

The Antonine Wall was constructed in AD 142-144 by soldiers from three Roman legions to serve as a barrier between the Roman Empire and the native Caledonian tribes of Scotland. It was a massive engineering feat that required the movement of thousands of tons of earth and stone, and it marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. Despite its relatively short lifespan, the 39 mile Antonine Wall remains an impressive engineering and cultural monument that provides a unique insight into the history of the region.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=750981920399445&id=100064629316310&mibextid=Nif5oz

An old military tradition is that friends who have not seen or heard from each other for long periods of time never question their friendship.

These friendships resume at the same time they left off regardless of distance and time between them. We call these friends "Family".

If you are fortunate enough to have such friends like this in your Life make sure and reach out to them, check on them, and wish them well during our Holiday Season.

To all the people who I know and have had the pleasure to serve with and work alongside Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your families. Thank You for being part of my Family.

burt

NSDQ!

There is a lot that goes into making silver jewelry, even the simple pieces. Knowing how to solder is a skill every jeweler has to learn. The range between soldering temperature and melting temperature is finite and it is easy to overheat a section and melt it. It still happens to me occasionally if I'm not paying attention. I've been silversmithing for about 2 years now, focusing more on it this year, and I'm completely self-taught. I hope by seeing this process, you are more appreciative of the craft and that you check out my page @ariaelainejewelry to see more of what I've created and will be creating in the future. Website is linked on my page. Thanks for watching!

I’m shutting it down!

No you’re not! We got a wounded eagle in the back. A Hot LZ is not a place to be, fly it outside the city. Transload onto -3.

The wounded eagle was Kent Solheim. On one of the hundreds of missions I’ve been on, I remember this one quite well.
It was 2007. I was a FMQ (fully mission qualified) crew chief sitting on the right seat.
We flew from Balad to an SF outpost south of Baghdad. We had a mission brief with the ground force. I remember one of the SF guys say, it’s been a while since any US forces were walking the streets of Karbala. It’s was supposed to be a quick and easy snatch and grab of one of the targets they had on file.

4 H-60’s, I was in dash 4 that night as a CASEVAC bird. All 4 of us were to rope in the center of the city and then hold 2km off of the target until the GFC cleared us to go get fuel.
Upon conducting the insertion, the ground force was under immediate fire. I can see tracer rounds coming toward the aircraft, not effective so I decided not to engage but to focus my attention to the guys roping out my side. “Last man” I called out over ICS, I looked over my right shoulder and saw my BMQ had his thumb up, an indication that his side was empty and his rope was clear, we were clear to cut ropes. I called out “ropes clear, clear for flight”! (With that statement you should know which battalion of the regiment I was from). We caught up with the rest of the flight and held off target by 2km. At this point, flight lead is getting everyone’s fuel numbers, to see how much time we had to hold until we were at Bingo fuel. The call came over SATCOM, we need CASEVAC at Black LZ time now. Grid as follows! They sent the grid coordinates and we plugged them in. Flight lead sent both -3 and -4 to the LZ. We followed 3 in and landed 100 meters short of the intended LZ. We were in a brown out condition, I hear the Ground force say, you are 100 meters south of where you need to be I need you here right F’n now!
At this point, I told my pilots, I got -3 insight come up and I’ll call you passed them. We all agreed. I told my BMQ, keep on eye on the wires out your door (we crossed over them when landing). Ok come forward 20, keep coming forward sir let’s go, 15, 10 ,5 we are clear of -3. He flew it till the GPS read 0. He said are we clear. No Joy on the right is what I replied with, we were browned out. He said I’m coming down. Bam! My spine compressed then I hit the ceiling and the back of the pilots seat. Bells and whistles going off (both the aircraft and I) had a black cockpit, rotors and engines sounded weird. While the pilots were working those issues I waved the ground force in to load the wounded eagle Kent Solheim. While loaded the FMQ pilots says, I’m shutting it down! I immediately responded with
“No you’re not! We got a wounded eagle in the back. A Hot LZ is not a place to be, fly it outside the city. Transload onto -3.”
He said we got all the chip detector lights on, we are shutting down! Then Flight lead came on and said Fly it out of there. We secured the passengers in the back, doc went straight to work on Kent.
We flew out and headed straight to Baghdad Cash. Doc needed help in the back so he gave me some shears to start cutting uniforms and sleeves. We moved his IV to another place and applied another tourniquet. I stayed in the back holding the bag and occasionally taking his pulse on his ankle and his wrist while doc worked on other things. We assessed the integrity of the aircraft and troubleshoot systems on the way and concluded that it was safe enough to fly. We get into the Baghdad CASH area and I see tracer rounds come between us and -3. I didn’t think anything of it cause all I wanted to do was get this guy to the hospital. Luckily we didn’t get hit and landed on the pad at the hospital safely.
When we got back to Balad, we needed to replace the TRGB and IGB and replace all the filters along the oil system. I never knew who he was until recently when I was scrolling through another social media platform that Socom Archive posted. It brought me back to that night instantly. I have never known the persons names during the 20ish CASEVACs I’ve done but this one and it only took 16 years to know who he was and what he’s done after that night. A true hero and a perfect example of bravery and resilience.

This is to you Kent! We may never meet but just wanted you to know the perspective from your Air Uber!

NSDQ!

#combatstories

Know who you are, your role and your responsibility. Join your tribe and help start the Fall In Legacy!

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