First Annual Milbloggers Shootout

I mentioned that I would be at Ft. Lewis this summer and
Barb from Righty in a left state mentioned that many milbloggers from the region could probable get together for a range day. Since I love a good range day I am proposing the First Annual Milbloggers Shootout to be held at a location to be determined on 15 July 06. If you are interested in attending then drop a comment below and steal the banner above.

Please check back for more information.

Moonbat Invades a U.S. Army Recruiting Tool

I was quite thrilled when the U.S. Army Recruiting Command announced that they were releasing a computer video game. I downloaded the game while still in Afghanistan but did not have a reliable internet connection to play on until I returned home three months later. I play the game and was active on the official forums and believe that I helped promote a good image of the U.S. Army and furthered the recruiting roll the game provided.

Today I learned of an art professor at the University of Nevada Reno who thinks that the game is his personal art studio where he can protest the war by typing a list of Iraqi War casualties. I cannot fathom how typing a list of names in a game can constitute art but he thinks it is. One of his other “art forms” includes strapping a pencil to his mouse while he plays Quake.

If you want to read more about this moonbat you can read the GameSpy article at: http://www.gamespy.com/pc/americas-army/709854p3.html

If you do not mind giving his personal web site a hit then you can check it out here: http://www.unr.edu/art/DELAPPE/DeLappe%20Main%20Page/DeLappe%20Online%20MAIN.html

I suggest that anyone who has played Americas Army should look for this game spoiler, who uses the name “dead-in-iraq,” online and fill the server he is on with veterans and military supporters who can let him know how misguided and ill-conceived his concept is.

Catching up

OK, I finally took the time to check out this nut case. I know, he’s already been shot down like the Hindenburg so I’ll just say that any one of the 13 answers he gave the commie web site had “poser” written all over it; so much so that I got quite a chuckle from each one. Then I found this, apparently he's from Tucson and not Tacoma as indicated in the previous interview. Apparently somebody in the Coffe Plantation knew what a "poser" looked like and didn't want one soiling any real veterans reputation in their establishment.

On the personal front, I’m in Fayetteville, NC for the next few weeks with free internet access in the hotel so I’ll be online when I’m not working. I will be traveling to Ft. Lewis on the 18th of June and already looking forward to meeting some bloggers there. Meanwhile, since I missed out on the Milbloggers conference in D.C., I suggest a Milbloggers Shoot-out on the west coast this summer. Anybody up for a 4th of July weekend barbeque and shoot?

Defiling a Gift So Precious

Yesterday I was going through a bunch of my army gear trying to sort what I would and would not need this next year. Some of the stuff I have not used since my first deployment to Afghanistan four years ago. I found the article below scrawled into a notebook. I cannot remember exactly when I wrote it but I feel it’s a powerful article so I’m sharing it with you.

All too frequently the price of our freedom is the blood of your youth and, in our military today, the very best that we have are the first to be called upon.

What we do not appreciate is the value of that freedom. we enjoy our opulence in a society where our very poorest live in comfort and leisure beyond the imagination of the majority of the worlds population. To help you appreciate our freedoms and wealth, I wish you could have been with me on the streets of Uganda to watch a polio stricken young woman hand pedal a tricycle/wheelchair more than a mile to enjoy her new found liberty of attending a Christian church. Or if you could have been with me while an army special Forces medic operated an aid station near a Congolese village that administered aid and comfort to hundreds in a single day which would likely be the best medical treatment they would ever receive.

We are fortunate that the fighting for our freedom has been paid in distant lands. No enemy had freely walked on our land in almost 190 years. But, the vast majority of the price is still paid within the walls of many homes. It is paid in the memories of our servicemen of friends that are no longer with us and often represented by an upturned chair at a lonely place setting during a regimental dinner. It is paid in the hearts of families torn apart with separation and occasionally death. By children who will grow old without a parent.

Far too often we cheaply copy the pain that comes from the price of freedom with our own foolishness. We tear our heats and families apart because we use divorce as a personal convenience. And, we throw our own freedoms away when we become dependant on a government handout.

As a soldier I have had friends gravely injured and some have died standing between your home and wars desolation. I beg you to please respect their sacrifice by improving that for which they fought. Do not take offense over those minor issues from a friend, neighbor, or spouse and make a concerted effort to contribute something more to our great society.

Military control of the CIA?

I don't have much time typing from the public library so this one is short and directly to the point.

Anybody who thinks it is wrong for someone from the military to run the CIA needs to do a reality check. With all the bickering about every presidential appointee it pretty obvious why the Democrats have been loosing ground since Jimmy Carter took office.

All you have to do is look at the history of the CIA and they readily admit that they are decended from the OSS in WWII. For those of you too busy to click and read, the OSS was a military operation that dropped small teams into enemy controlled territory like France and Burma. After the war, they decided that having covert intelligence types in other countries was a good idea and they started the CIA.

The Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency both are tasked to develop international intelligence. Since they CIA was formed the DoD has satisfied its self with tactical (local) intelligence and left the strategic (global) intelligence up to the CIA. But, keep in mind, the Army has been in the intelligence business a LOT longer than the CIA

I'm still alive...

I've been extremely busy lately in a course I cannot discuss. I finally managed to get off a little earlier than usual and decided to get away and say hi. I'll be bouncing around the country for a few more months before going overseas. While I'm traveling, if any of you are in the Ft. Bragg or Ft. Lewis areas drop me a line, perhaps we can have our own mini milblog conference.