MsUnderestimated » 2006 » September

‘Americans Will Not Make it Out Alive,’ by Sean Kimmons

September 4th, 2006 at 09:50 by MsUnderestimated

I found a heart-warming yet very sad piece from the June 14th “Stars & Stripes” edition. What a brave tale these guys tell. These heroes are never lauded in public or in the mainstream press. They are only recognized within the military, and every once in a while, an alternative-media source will outline their heroism.

This will tear your heart out, but it describes truly what our men and women in uniform are made of. From the Stars & Stripes article, from writer Sean Kimmons:

Screams from fellow Marines being attacked by insurgents in a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan were all that 1st Lt. Stephen Boada needed to hear.

The moans from the dying Marines of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, sparked a rescue attempt led by Boada, the fire direction officer for the 1st Battalion, 12th Marine Regiment, on May 8, 2005.

In February, the 27-year-old from Bristol, Conn., was awarded the Silver Star for his actions that day.

While on a dismounted patrol through the Alisheng Valley, Boada’s unit of about 30 Marines began to pick up radio traffic between insurgents on their Icom scanners. Interpreters informed the Marines that the insurgents — concealed in the rough terrain — were plotting an ambush.

“The Americans will not make it out alive,” Boada remembers one of the insurgents saying on the radio.

But they forged ahead, and tried to get to their men out. Nothing can match the heart nor the intestinal fortitude of a U.S. Marine. The article goes on:

To keep one step ahead of their enemies, the Marines tried to call in helicopter support. However, the weather did not permit such action, so the Marines forged ahead in a movement-to-contact approach, said Boada, who was a forward air controller at the time.

A few Marines on top of a hill scanned the area and spotted 10 armed individuals walking across the valley. A single rifle shot, believe to have been fired by one of the individuals, prompted the Marines to open up machine gun fire on the enemies, about 800 meters away.

The other Marines, including Boada, pushed toward their adversaries, who were fleeing up the mountainside as the machine gun team on the hill provided supporting fire.

While making their way up the ridge, Boada called for fixed-wing air support. Four A-10 Warthogs came roaring over the valley, unleashing 30mm cannon fire and 2.75-inch rockets onto the enemy locations, as Boada, with help from the machine gun team, called in target adjustments to the aircraft.

After about eight passes by the A-10s, the Marines searched for enemies killed or injured by the barrage, he said.

Lance Cpl. Nicholas C. Kirven came across a body and called out to Cpl. Richard P. Schoener to provide security.

Boada was about 25 meters from Kirven and Schoener when he heard the bursts of an AK-47 rifle and the screams of both Marines, he said.

The rest of the Marines began to circle around Kirven and Schoener, who were lying near a cave whose mouth spat out persistent gunfire.

Using a smoke grenade for concealment, Boada and Cpl. Troy Arndt made it up to the Marines.

“Corporal Kirven was dead, but the other one was still alive and talking to us,” he said.

We take every day we live here in America, the land of the free, because we’re the home of the brave, for granted. It is only because of people like Boada and Arndt that we are able to live our lives as we do. Every American citizen owes their very freedom to Marines like these. Without them, we would have no America.

As I heard someone so succinctly say it today; “Peace at any price is no peace at all.”

God bless our troops, and God bless the U.S.A.

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Iranians Like Bush….

September 4th, 2006 at 09:32 by MsUnderestimated

… and this is one of the reasons why the weird-beard Ahmadinejad HATES him. He knows that since the liberation of Iraq, and the recent fledgling democracies that have been springing up in the Middle East, his people have a divine hope that they, too, can soon be free from his tyrannical rule.

Don Surber writes a brilliant piece today on this, reflecting an article by Steven Knipp, the D.C. correspondent for the South China Morning Post, who wrote in today’s washington Post, and and here’s a bit of it:

1. “What took place over the next fortnight astonished me. … I was overwhelmed by the warmth and, dare I say it, pro-Americanism of the people I met.”

2. “Initially, when Iranians asked me where I was from, I’d suggest they guess. But this game quickly proved too time-consuming — no one ever guessed correctly. So instead I would simply mumble “American.” And then their faces would light up. For better or worse, Iranians are avid fans of America: its culture, films, food, music, its open, free-wheeling society.”

3. “During my visit, I could not pause on a street corner for more than 30 seconds without someone coming up and shyly asking if they could help. Discovering that they had an American in their midst, they would often insist on walking me to my destination.”

4. “Many people I spoke with did voice fears of what President Bush might do to Iran. Some were frightened of being attacked. But others were concerned about what effects U.S. economic sanctions would have on an economy that is already appallingly managed by mullahs. Yet I never sensed any personal hatred toward Bush.”

Now why is this? Why is America liked in a nation that has had no formal diplomatic relations in 28 years? Why do they like Bush but fear him?

Could it be that people divorce themselves from their government in a despotic government? Iran is a theocracy. Could it be that for all of Hollywood’s lefty politics — I’m 53; Hollywood has been lefty all my life — it still provides an image of this nation that is yet positive? Could it be that America despite all this angst over the War for Freedom remains the lone beacon of light to the dark corners of the world.

Does anyone get in a rowboat to escape to Sweden? Anyone pay a smuggler $1,000 to stick him and his family in a trunk and drive them to the middle of Germany? Has anyone crossed a river in the middle of the night to get to Belgium lately?

We have 11 million illegal immigrants in America. We have three times that number in legal immigrants. They come from all over. This season my beloved Indians had on their roster at one time or another natives of Borneo, Vietnam, Korea and the usual slew of Caribbean and South American countries.

If it were not for people from former colonies and gastarbeiters, Europe would have no new blood.

Knipp is not some starry eyed kid. He’s been around. He knows how to get beyond the tourism facade. They love us in Iran. Maybe Bush should take the Iranian president up on his offer to debate. Do it in Tehran. It’s not as if anything else we’re trying actually works.

From what I’ve read around the international blogs, the Iranian dissidents and freedom-lovers everywhere would love to see Ahmadinejad defeated. And that would be one less idiot we have to deal with.

Thank you, Don.

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“Defensive Misgivings,” by Russ Vaughn

September 4th, 2006 at 09:18 by MsUnderestimated

This isn’t Russ’ normal wonderful poetry, but a thoughtful ponderance on defense contractors and what’s happening to the troops because of that. Here’s part of Russ’ post:

The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, already faced with budget constraints and mission limits, are ill equipped to deal with this societal mission creep. Recognizing that reality, Dr. Wagner and other concerned citizens and professionals have formed an organization called MVFA, Military Veteran and Family Assistance, www.mvfa.org to take up this slack by providing needed services in a family based program that seeks to combine the support and resources of community, corporate, military and government agencies.

One program, the aptly named Phoenix Project, provides community-based retreats for warriors and their families. In tranquil, pastoral settings such as the Heart of the Hills Camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country, soldiers and spouses spend a week relaxing with such activities as hiking, fishing, canoeing, riding horses, or if they choose, just lounging around. But there are also group sessions where couples can freely discuss the problems they face and learn how others just like them are coping with similar difficulties.

But MVFA has encountered a problem not anticipated in its formative stages. Thinking that the huge military contracting corporations who take in hundreds of billions of dollars from manufacturing every conceivable item our warriors take into combat and use to fight on our nation’s behalf, the organization sent letters soliciting contributions to support their unique programs to all the leading American defense contractors. To his utter astonishment, Dr. Wagner received refusal after refusal, some with explanations that such programs do not fit within the guidelines of their gifting programs. When he related this amazing situation to me, I was as astonished as the doctor and quickly remarked that if these veterans and their families were dealing with AIDS or sexual identity issues, contributions would be rolling in. Sure enough, according to the good doctor, that is exactly the response MVFA received from IBM, which has lucrative contracts with our military: “Sorry, AIDS research is our priority.”

May I suggest to the CEO’s of IBM and EDS, United Technologies, and Raytheon, who also are on record as refusing to support these wounded warrior programs that perhaps you should reconsider your corporate “gifting” guidelines to reflect that you have at least as much concern for those harmed in the application of your weapons systems as you do for gender-challenged San Franciscans seeking funding for those ever so essential sex-change operations. Somehow, I think that most American voters and taxpayers, and their elected representatives wouldn’t mind a moderate redirection of corporate gifting away from pet programs like providing safe sex warning posters for gay bathhouses and healthy nutrition programs for inner city crack junkies, to something a little more mainstream America; like, hey, assistance programs for wounded American warriors.

What say you CEO’s of Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics, Boeing, ITT Industries, and all the rest of you titans of the defense industry? How about you Michael Dell? Everywhere I travel to military installations in my little consulting business, I see Dell computers. Surely out of the hundreds of millions in revenue generated by those computer sales you should be able to shake loose with a million or so for the troops who come to harm while using them. You know, gentlemen, it suddenly occurred to me that, offhand, I simply can’t recall the last time I heard of an AIDS infected, trans-gendered, crack head buying a multi-billion dollar computer or weapons system. Can any of you guys?

Russ just said it best. Take this for what you will, but it’s worth a lot of contemplation.

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Posted in Government Spending, Military, Military Support & Patriotism |