Pfc. Michael Pearson, R.I.P.

Michael Pearson, one of the victims in the Ft. Hood massacre, laid to rest:

Sobs could be heard throughout the funeral parlor and in an overflow room where families watched the services on a television monitor. Other televisions flashed childhood pictures of the soldier who was also known for writing poetry and giving impromptu guitar lessons.

“He enjoyed making people happy with music,” said Scott Lorich, Pearson’s former guitar teacher. “He was doing music theory as a hobby. He loved it that much.”

Lorich said Pearson had enrolled in his beginning guitar class at Bolingbrook High School, even though his skills far exceeded the skills of others in the class, including the teacher.

He was just 22 years old. He was murdered in cold blood by a maniac who should have been kicked out of the Army, but was instead protected by cowardice at both the individual and institutional levels.

I have 3 sons, the oldest is 21, the youngest ones are 10 and 8. All three of them play guitar, mostly because I play, and bought them all a guitar of their own.

This hits home for me. Yeah, you could say that.

And Pfc. Pearson was just one of the 13 dead, not to mention the dozens of wounded.

More than 100 motorcycles bearing American flags, led the procession to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in nearby Elwood, where Pearson was buried with full military honors under a cloudy sky early Saturday evening. Hundreds gathered by the casket as gun shots were fired in salute and a bugle played “Taps.”

The honor guard fired three volleys. Three spent shell casings were placed inside the folded flag and presented to his mother. Each casing represents duty, honor and country.

May he rest in peace.

And may we re-discover sanity in our culture. Soon.

 

Thank you for your service

On this Veteran’s Day, I want to pay tribute to those who serve our nation.

Your tremendous efforts and sacrifices, and those of your families, are hereby noted.

And I instruct my children to respect the military, and to honor those who fight for our country and the greater cause of freedom in the world.

So I offer my most humble, and most sincere, “thank you” to all who serve the United States military, today and in the past. The world is a better place because of it. And I don’t just think about that on Veteran’s Day, I think it every day of every year.

Even Google (!) is showing respect for Veterans today:

 

Torture? That’s not torture. THIS is torture.

Remember.

Darrell “Shifty” Powers, R.I.P.

Click on over to Blackfive and read about the heroic life of one Darrell “Shifty” Powers, a genuine WWII hero who died a few weeks ago to almost no fanfare.

He served in Easy Company, 101st Airborne Division as a paratrooper, along with Major Dick Winters and the other guys from the 101st who were featured in “Band of Brothers”. An excellent series, by the way, and if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth watching. You feel like you know these guys after it’s done.

He landed at Normandy on D-Day. He jumped at Arnhem in Operation Market Garden. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

But when he died recently, the media yawned. They don’t have time for men like him any more. They create other types of heroes that we’re expected to worship, built on image and appearance and never having done an honest day’s work in their lives. Polar opposites, in other words, of a man like Shifty Powers.

There’s a great story embedded in an email at the Backfive post, some of which I’ve copied here:

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle”, the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said “Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . ” at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said “I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?” At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said “I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem.” I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said “Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip.” My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.

He said “No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy.” His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Mine too, as I read it.

Real heroes are humble, and always deflect attempts to label them as such. In fact, that seems to be a pretty reliable way to separate real heroes from the loudmouth types who crave publicity about their alleged wartime medals and heroism, and are nearly always found to be lying about all of it.

And all these WWII vets ask is that we remember. That’s all. Just remember.

Because remembering is a form of honor. The cheapest form of honor, in terms of the price we have to pay, but still a form of honor.

“Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy.”

Oh, but he was more than just an old man. He was a symbol of a time when attitudes were different, when people accepted epic responsibilities at terribly young ages so that we could be free today.

Are we thankful enough? You tell me.

I’ll remember, and I’ll teach my kids to remember, and I’ll ask family and friends to remember. It is the very least, the absolute least, we can do.

May he rest in peace.

More Restrictive Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan

Sounds to me like this another way of saying “we don’t want to win”:

GIs Told Not to Risk Civilian Lives

KABUL — Beginning today, American Soldiers in Afghanistan will be under orders to back down when they’re chasing Taliban fighters whenever they think that civilians might be at risk.

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, will issue the directive as part of an effort to cut down on civilian casualties, which have enraged the Afghan government and residents. Instead of calling in air support or firing into civilian homes where Taliban fighters have sought refuge, commanders will be instructed to reach out to tribal elders or undertake other efforts to dislodge the fighters.

The order is consistent with what national security adviser James L. Jones told McClatchy Newspapers in Washington Wednesday was President Barack Obama’s concern about civilian casualties in Afghanistan.

“General McChrystal has been given instructions when he left here that, in all military operations, that we redouble our efforts to make sure that innocent loss of life is minimized, with zero being the goal,” Jones said, noting that, “In one mishap you can create thousands more terrorists than you had before the mishap.”

Nobody wants civilian casualties, obviously. It is a PR problem, it kills people who may or may not be innocent, and it stirs up local anger.

But we aren’t fighting uniformed fighters on a battlefield with tanks and planes. We are fighting insurgents, who use the fact they blend into the scenery as a tactical advantage. You could even call it a strategic advantage, especially now, with these new rules. In that world, you have to be willing to accept civilian casualties, or you might as well throw your weapons down and go home.

Plus, what is a civilian, anyway, when the local population supports the insurgency, as in a place like Waziristan? It is, essentially, Taliban-istan.

Whose interests are served by pretending there is a bright line to be drawn between civilian and militant in such a place?

We’d better be pretty careful with this question, because it will be used to our opponent’s advantage, and it will hurt our chances of success. It is perceived as weakness during a fight, because that’s exactly what it is. And in a more general sense, it has already affected our perception of who has the moral high ground, in a war against terrorists who blow up children running for candy.

We were already fighting under too-restrictive Rules of Engagement, and now we’ve gone even further in the wrong direction. Supposedly, Obama wants to win in Afghanistan. This is not how you do that.

And don’t be surprised when terrorists play us for suckers by dressing up like women in order to escape confrontation. Hey look, they already did.

Tiger Woods Gives Back Quite a Bit, In Fact

Recently Jim Brown called out Tiger Woods for not giving back enough.

Well, Jim Brown can just suck it, because Tiger Woods gives back plenty to military families, who deserve it more than most: Tiger Offers Troops a ‘Fore!’ of July.

How about 30,000 free tickets to active-duty military and reservists? Allowing two wounded veterans with prosthetic arms to tee off with Tiger, and devoting a large section of the seating at the first tee to a group from Walter Reed Army Medical Center?

What the hell has Jim Brown done for anybody lately? Maybe I missed his big benefit for those who risk life and limb to defend our freedoms, and our “right” to lead cushy lives.

May God bless Tiger Woods and all he does for our military and their loved ones. They surely deserve all that, and more. And he deserves the credit for providing the leadership to make it all happen.

Best Use of Government Money EVER

Iranian protesters avoid censorship with Navy technology

Iranians seeking to share videos and other eyewitness accounts of the demonstrations that have roiled their country since disputed elections two weeks ago are using an Internet encryption program originally developed by and for the U.S. Navy.

Designed a decade ago to secure Internet communications between U.S. ships at sea, The Onion Router, or TOR, has become one of the most important proxies in Iran for gaining access to Web sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

The system of proxy servers that disguise a user’s Internet traffic is now operated by a nonprofit, the Tor Project, that is independent from the U.S. government and military and is used all over the world.

According to the Tor Project, connections to TOR have gone up by 600 percent since mass protests erupted after the June 12 vote, which gave a purported landslide victory to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Over the past two weeks, we have seen a doubling to tripling of new client connections,” Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project, told The Washington Times Thursday. “We are up to a thousand new clients a day.”

Read the whole thing.

The Internet is good for lots of things. And, it has a downside or two, as well.

But the fact that it allows development of advanced technology like this, which can then be leveraged to fight oppression by freedom-seeking people, is the best part of all.

I supported Bush’s war in Iraq, because I knew that a primary goal was to establish freedom in the Middle East in order to put pressure on the oppressive governments in Iran and Saudi Arabia, in particular. Maybe, looking back, a project like this would have been just as effective, without the downsides of fighting a war. Iraq was considered the low-hanging fruit, although that assessment proved to be incorrect.

In any case, kudos to us for exporting technology to fight oppression. We do lots of things right, but rarely get any credit for doing anything right.

Via one of my newest daily reads, Danger Room.

Pander to Terrorist Sympathizers? Sure!

The White House is siding with the ACLU loons in a battle over releasing more pictures of alleged mistreatment of various thugs and murderers by our uniformed armed forces personnel.

Steve Schippers at The Tank is very unhappy. His viewpoint is mine, pretty much.

Is the President still the Commander-in-Chief?

Because sometimes he seems kind of … I don’t know … anti- military.

Would seem to be a conflict of interest, no?

Some People Aim Higher Than Others

Every once in a while, we hear about a young person who digs down deep and shows us that all those negative stereotypes we think we know about young people can be wrong.

Way, way wrong.

My latest column at The Love of Sports is about one such young man.

Ryan Paxson is the 20-year-old son of John Paxson, former NBA star and current GM of the Chicago Bulls. Ryan was the son of privilege, and he knew it. Last year, instead of continuing down that easier path of life, he chose to become a US Marine.

Here is my treatment: Off the Field … With Ryan Paxson.

The original version is on my Essays page: Off the Field with Ryan Paxson, USMC.

“Taking Chance”

“Taking Chance” has been made into a movie.

If you don’t already know about it, please, click that link and set aside 15 minutes to read the amazing, moving, true story, about the journey across the country, back to Wyoming, to deliver the body of PFC Chance Phelps to his family and bury him in his hometown. The original version of this story is a letter written by Lt. Col. Strobl and published at blackfive.net in April 2004. It is, truly, one of the most moving tales I have ever read.

All along the route, every single person that LTC Strobl encounters, from pilots to flight attendants to cargo crew to hearse drivers, go out of their way to pay respect in simple yet moving ways. They do this with no glare of camera lights, and no journalists scribbling notes. LTC Strobl asks for nothing, yet they all do it, because it is so right, and natural; they can’t imagine not doing it.

It’s a story that captures the real America, the one that shows humility, and honor, and respect for the sacrifices of others on its behalf. It’s the America that, sadly, Hollywood prefers to mostly ignore, by not telling any of the reaffirming stories these last few years. Maybe they’ll get this one right. All they have to do is tell a great human story with deferential respect; just get out of the way and let the story tell itself.

Like I wrote in my comment at Dirty Harry’s Place:

I really, really hope the film version of “Taking Chance” tells this story straight without embellishing it in any way. It sure doesn’t need any; the story is powerful and moving exactly as originally posted at blackfive.net, where I read it in 2004.

The fact that Kevin Bacon is in it seems like a good sign to me. I’ve never gotten any kind of anti-military vibe from him, and he played a JAG in “A Few Honest Men”, straight up. He seems like good people.

I think we owe it to the memory of Chance Phelps, and LTC Strobl, to give it a fair shot.

IF this movie is done right — and that’s a big IF — it has a chance to resonate, and maybe even to be a big hit, because there is lots of pent-up demand for movies that do not spit in the face of the military by marginalizing the value of honor, valor, and sacrifice. What a concept!

The movie trailer looks very promising. It airs on HBO in February, and at Sundance later this month.

Chicago Blackhawks Supporting the Troops

Among the many, many things I have to be thankful for this Christmas season — more to come on that later — I’ll add a couple more to the list: Operation Homefront, and Chicago Blackhawks like Brent Sopel, who hosted 20 families at his home on Monday.

The Blackhawks chose Operation Homefront Illinois as their designated charity this year.

Other Blackhawks to help the cause: Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, and Colin Fraser.

To all of them, and to all the rest of our military, God Bless, and Merry Christmas.

In Memorium, Dec. 7 2008

U.S. Navy sailors man the rails on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan as they pass by the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Nov. 17, 2008. Ronald Reagan pulled into Pearl Harbor for a scheduled port visit. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Joshua Scott

Via defenselink.mil

Reliably Clueless, Part II

The New York Times takes a story with one source, and spins it as “combat veteran goes psycho”.

Yet again.

You have to admire their tenacity, if not their brains.

Once again, let’s stick with the facts: the idea that combat veterans return as whack jobs is wrong.

In fact, an entire book was written about sloppy, biased, factually unsupported, and libelous media coverage of military veterans: Stolen Valor, by B. G. Burkett. My summary of it is here.

Maybe journalists should crawl out of their shells once in a while, and learn something true and useful, so they could start writing articles about the military that are based on facts, instead of emotions and narratives.

Yeah, that is sooooo going to happen.

Sign Me Up

Zombietime is tired of waiting for a public declaration of what is blatantly obvious to those of us paying attention to the war in Iraq: we won.

Rufus says “All We Are Saying … Is It’s Over and We Won”:

So Zombietime is declaring November 22, 2008, Victory in Iraq Day. I’ll gladly participate, keeping in mind those who have died to make this happen, and the leadership of President Bush in committing to winning the damn war.

But lots of people don’t like President Bush, so by their tortured logic, that means we didn’t really win, after all. Or if we did, it isn’t very important. After all, he talks funny.

So never-you-mind that today, Iraq is mostly peaceful, due to both the change in strategy and the people of Iraq finally turning against Al-Qaeda in Iraq about two years ago, after realizing that terrorists care about nothing except killing innocent people by the truckload in order to gain power. And give the people of Iraq credit — lots of credit — because they risked their lives (including the lives of innocent women and children) in order to actively start fighting against terrorist scumbags who blow up little kids running for candy and strap bombs to kids with Down syndrome and then detonate them via remote control.

Just don’t expect much comment on this historic victory over the terrorists and the unmitigated evil they represent. Nah, we live in a post-modern bubble here, where such things can be ignored, because they don’t fit the narrative. It’s cool. You just make up the facts you wish to be true, and ignore the true ones, and voila! A new reality is born.

So no front page headlines in 72 point type announcing victory, no victory parades, and no admission from the 20-30% of the country that suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome, that they were wrong. That would require intellectual honesty, and in a post-modern world, well … who has time for that silliness?

And they fought so hard, for the other side, these rabid Bush-haters in the media and Congress and various leakers at State and CIA. During wartime, too! How exhausting for the poor dears. Of course, normally, this is borderline treason, but somehow we’ve gotten to a place where it’s “the highest form of patriotism”. Um, sure. OK.

Read the whole thing.

And I’ll be participating, with great pride, in Victory in Iraq Day, November 22, 2008.

Meanwhile, Over in Pakistan, Good News

Taking a Break from the Presidential Campaign, Because It’s Making Me Crazy

A new level of cooperation?

Two weeks ago, insurgents in Pakistan lobbed mortars at US forces in Afghanistan. When the Americans alerted the Pakistani Army, its response was unambiguous. Not only could the US fire back, but Pakistani soldiers acted as spotters.

It is one small example of how Pakistan is starting to cooperate more with the US and Afghanistan in fighting the insurgency in its tribal areas. Attempts to find solutions jointly are being made across a wide spectrum, from the opening of border coordination centers shared by the three nations’ armies to talks among tribal leaders.

The shift is born of a growing recognition in the Pakistani Army of the danger of the insurgency, as well as thawing relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There are suspicions to overcome – going back decades, in the case of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The council, or “jirga,” of Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders in Islamabad, Pakistan, that ended Tuesday is a sign of strengthening cross-border ties that have long been strained. Yet the US campaign of unilaterally firing missiles at militant targets inside Pakistan is evidence of lingering mistrust.

Still, both regional experts and General Milley, deputy commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force 101 in Afghanistan, say greater regional cooperation is central to defeating an insurgency that pays little attention toborders.

“This [Afghan] insurgency is only half the insurgency,” says Milley. “What we have to do is work closely with the sovereign nation of Pakistan and the sovereign nation of Afghanistan to have success in full.”

A very encouraging sign.

In the past — and probably still to this day — the Pakistani Military Intelligence branch, called the “ISI”, was actually a key organizer of the same insurgency that the Pakistani Army is now trying to fight. There are numerous ties between the ISI and Al-Qaeda, and evidence that they knew about 9/11 in advance.

So this will be an interesting struggle to watch.

No Other Choice, Really

Tigerhawk, commenting on the release of 17 Al-Qaeda types from Gitmo into the United States:

The incentives here are insane: If our soldiers take prisoners on the battlefield without collecting evidence against them sufficient to win a conviction in a criminal court, and if those prisoners come from countries that might mistreat them (that is, virtually every country we would fight in a war), we risk having to release them into the United States.

Obviously, we should just stop taking prisoners.

Yes, that would solve all kinds of sticky legal problems. Plus, it would leave big piles of dead terrorists.

Win/win!

More at Belmont Club, NRO, Long War Journal.

Too Bad GWB Didn’t Deliver a Speech Like This Sometime In The Last … Oh … Six Years Or So

Well worth reading: “Why We Went To Iraq” by Fouad Ajami, of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

That is a beautiful piece of writing, about a very serious and profound subject. I read a lot of verbiage about Iraq, and I can honestly say that in my view this is one of the most concise, honest, rational accounts of what the last six years are truly all about.

Even moreso, because the media has done such a shoddy job of presenting an accurate picture of this war, or how history will view it in regards to defeat of Islamic terrorism as a political movement.

And how the drastic, winner-take-all tactics of the Islamic jihadis have produced a backlash even amongst themselves.

And how, ultimately, the war itself may be justified on those grounds alone.

We keep hearing about how unpopular the war is. My contention is that most people are ill-informed about it, due to reliance on a news media that has proven itself incapable of covering wars of any kind over the last 40 years.  And this one is the worst, by far, of all of them, including Vietnam.

There’s a lot of change going on out there.  It would be good if the American people knew about it.

(Edited for content 5 June ‘08)

Just For Laughs

Click to see hi-res versions at the defenselink.mil Lead Photo Archive for March ‘08:

Captions L to R:

Karlo, a U.S. Army working dog, relaxes in the sun in front of a painted building after completing a full day’s work with his handler in Kirkuk, Iraq, March 20, 2008. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class James Boucher smiles as an Iraqi child enjoys trying on his helmet and sunglasses during a community outreach visit to the Al-Fahdl Clinic in Baghdad, March 21, 2008. Boucher is assigned to the 10th Mountain Division’s Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, attached to Multinational Division – Baghdad. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Grant Okubo

John Ondrasik (of Five for Fighting) is Good People

A Rock Star That Supports The Troops — And Not in That Ironic “But I Don’t Support the War” Kind of Way

He started a site about a year ago, called whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com, that was inspired by his pro-troops song “Freedom Never Cries”.

The video for it is called “World”, and was debuted — and this is about the coolest thing I can imagine — at a party for Medal of Honor recipients at the Reagan Library, and Ondrasik sang the song live for them.

The site is intended to raise money for various charities, such as Operation Homefront and Fisher House, among others.

Ondrasik does this good work in spite of a lack of media love for his efforts. Which tells me two things: his sincerity is beyond dispute, and the media only recognizes entertainers who pretend to support the troops.

Cool New Book

“Playing With The Enemy” by Gary W. Moore

Where baseball, history, military, reading, and fathers all come together … and what could be better than that?

For years, Gary Moore knew little about his father’s unfulfilled would-be baseball career.

That is, until his father, Gene, had a health scare later in life and the younger Moore pushed for details on his father’s invitation from the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1949 to play for them.

The elder Moore never made his date for reasons that if disclosed here, would spoil parts of Gary Moore’s book, “Playing With the Enemy.”

Mr. Moore is a local man who owns a business in the Kankakee area, and the first thing he asks prospective employess is how much they read.

“When you read a book, you are creating a movie in your head.  Reading keeps you going and enhances your imagination. Not reading causes atrophy.”

My kind of guy.  The story:

“Playing With the Enemy” tells the story of Gene, a 15-year-old baseball phenom who played in far downstate Sesser. Headed for stardom with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Gene’s destiny is interrupted by Pearl Harbor. As a Navy man charged with guarding German sailors captured from the U-505 submarine, Gene teaches the enemy the game of baseball so he and his teammates could play while waiting for the war to end.