February 28, 2009 By CJ
Posted in Uncategorized
I’ve just returned from the Winter AUSA Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The symposium is mainly a vendor-to-vendor conference designed to demonstrate the cutting edge of military technology. While there were major military representatives present to take an interest in the wares, for the most part this was a display of our country’s resourcefulness, innovation, and might.
Walking more than 40 miles through the entire week of the conference, I had an opportunity to check out many of the new technologies being hawked to contractors and the military alike. I present to you a list of the some things that I think were the coolest new technologies.
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By CJ
Posted in Charities/Contests, Uncategorized
Navy veteran Michael Kuhn of Ocala, Florida, is brain injured and receives care at the VA medical facility in Tampa, Florida. He will participate in the Tampa Gasparilla Marathon on Sunday March 1, 2009 as an ambassador for the AFF and the WWP. Marc Reed (Veteran USMC) from SRI St. Petersburg will push Michael, in his wheelchair, all the way to the finish line to help raise awareness for America’s veterans.
There will be a bunch of troop supporters at the finish line cheering these guys on with their accomplishment. Please get the word out to your organizations, families, and friends if they can be there or are nearby. I know it’s short notice. If you’d like more information about linking up, contact Tampa Area Marine Parents Assoc., Inc. President and Executive Director Cyd Deathe at www.usmcfamilysupport.org. Cyd is also the mother of a wounded warrior herself.
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By Claire
Posted in Spouse and Family
I cross posted this at KDH. I woke up this morning dreaming about this. I guess it hit me harder than I even realized last night. My son is heading back to the sandbox and now we have ONE more crap detail to consider before he leaves. We are wondering if he can, as a soldier, write up a “special instruction” in his will that says that if he dies while deployed he does not want any media present at Dover when he comes home to his wife and family. I hate that we even have to talk about this.
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There is a lot of typing going on in the blogosphere, and it’s understandable. Yesterday’s news that the ban put in place in 1991 that kept the media from Dover when fallen soldiers return home was lifted by Obama. So far I have read a lot of outrage. Count me among that particular group of people.
The people who say it’s justified seem to be singing the same song, “He wants us to understand the cost of war!”
Does anyone really believe that line? We have been at war since October 2001 when Operation Enduring Freedom was launched and the War on Terror was declared. No, actually we were at war, only not officially, before that. We saw the cost of war on September 11, 2001. I saw it up close and personal in Washington DC that day. We saw it as our enemies stole planes filled with fuel and filled with innocent civilians and carefully guided them where they would do the most damage. They aimed them at US, the citizens of this Country. They did not aim them at our Military on the battlefield. They chose the battlefield and it was declared in New York City and Washington DC.
The one plane that went down before reaching it’s target had it’s battlefield reclaimed by the brave citizens who took it down before it reached its target. Americans fight to preserve life. Our enemy fights to take it and they take it indiscriminately.
If any American wants to know the cost of war, then I challenge them to know it as an American. We, as Americans value life and we value freedom. Our Veterans fight in wars to keep us free so that we may have life, have freedom and then work as citizens to keep this Country strong and viable. If you want to know the cost of war, then find a Veteran who is willing and able to talk to you about his experiences in war. Buy that Veteran a cup of coffee, sit with your mouth shut, your mind open, and your ears tuned in and LISTEN to him! You will hear about the cost of war. You will see it on his face. You will understand through the stories he tells you, and through the losses he tells you about. Veterans are the experts on the cost of war, NOT politicians.
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February 26, 2009 By Troy
Posted in Life in the Military, Spouse and Family
http://www.notalone.com/ is a great site and resource for anyone who has deployed to combat and come back or for a family member or close friend of a service-member who has deployed and is now back. I was turned onto this site by Brandon Friedman of http://votevets.org.
There are stories here that you can relate to or you can easily reach to others like you and get help. You can reach out via the forums and link up with other guys/gals that have deployed and come back to deal with the reintegration at home. It only takes a few minutes to click around the site and may be the best few minutes you have spent since getting back. The people that run this site are not book-trained shrinks or chaplains, they are soldiers, they are families and friends of soldiers. Most importantly they are like you, becuase you are NOT ALONE.
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By Troy
Posted in Life in the Military, MilBlogger Interviews, Podcast
Tonight on You Served Radio we will be talking with NY National Guard LT. Amy Bonanno. Amy just returned from a one year tour in Afghanistan as part of Task Force Phoenix. She was the Public Affairs Officer (PAO) for the the southern Afghan region, based out of the volatile Kandahar region. We will be talking about her tour as a PAO, some of the things that happened then, like the prison break, Focused District Development Teams, and the famed Nick Meo affair. Also keeping in line with our theme of talking about the challenges of women serving in the military we will probably chat about what challenges and unique issues she saw versus her male counterparts.
We’ll also be talking with Dana Canedy, author of “A Journal For Jordan”. The book is based off the private journal of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King. In the book, 1SG King gives timeless advice from a father to his son in the form of a regular journal. When 1SG King was killed in Iraq, Dana published his journal for all generations to read.
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By CJ
Posted in Uncategorized
When the Civil War ended, 21 African- American Soldiers wore the Medal of Honor. Blacks have earned our nation’s highest honor in every war since then, except, strangely, during World War II. More than a million blacks served in that conflict and many bravely died in it, yet not one received any of its 433 Medals of Honor.
Finally, on Jan. 13, 1997, a wrong was addressed as seven black heroes joined those ranks. Our state proudly associates with one of them, a California native, the late Army Staff Sgt. Edward Allen Carter Jr. His is a story of a true military man with more than his share of tribulations. Today, the California State Military Museum celebrates his victory over all challenges except that of being physically here to receive our thanks.
A career Army noncommissioned officer, Carter was born May 26, 1916 in Los Angeles, Calif. He was the son of missionary parents who went to the Far East and finally settled in Shanghai, China. Edward ran away from this home when he was a young teen to begin a military odyssey. However, it was not to be an ordinary journey as his material and spiritual paths intertwined.
His first tour was short-lived, yet not too short to prevent the 15-year-old Carter from rising to the rank of lieutenant in the Chinese Army. When he was discovered to still be a child, he was promptly discharged and returned to his parents. It was also long enough for Carter to believe he was visited by a spirit in the Chinese Army, which informed him would be a great warrior, but would not die in war. Now having a spiritual military destiny, as soon as he was old enough, Carter enrolled in a Shanghai military school. There he received extensive combat training and learned at least four languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and German.
Next he fought in the Spanish Civil War as a corporal in the socialist Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It was an American volunteer unit opposing Gen. Franco’s fascist troops. In 1938, they were forced to flee into France. This led to his return to the United States.
Here he met and married his wife Mildred in Los Angeles in 1940. It wasn’t long, though, before destiny called again. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Sept. 6, 1941, shortly before World War II, and quickly rose to staff sergeant. In 1942, just months after he enlisted, the Army opened a counterintelligence file with his name on it.
On May 18, 1943, an unidentified intelligence officer at Fort Benning, Ga. “deemed it advisable” to put Sergeant Carter under surveillance and start an investigation. The officer did so because Carter had been a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Allegedly, “while not necessarily communist,” he had been “exposed to communism.”
The report further alleged “Subject… capable of having connections with subversive activities due to… early years [until 1938] in the Orient” and had a speaking knowledge of Chinese. Every commander Carter had thereafter secretly reported what he read, where he went and what clubs he joined.
In 1944 he was shipped to Europe and ended up assigned to supply duties. When Gen. Dwight Eisenhower ran short of combat-arms replacements in December 1944, he instituted the volunteer Ground Force Replacement Command for rear-echelon Soldiers of all races. By February 1945, a total of 4,562 black Soldiers were serving in units up to company size attached to previously all-white infantry and armored divisions.
At the height of his career he was even close to Gen. George S. Patton, serving as one of the general’s guards. Patton had no room for prejudice in the ranks. They had a strong bond with the fact they both believed they had been visited by a spirit who foretold accomplishments on the battlefield.
After months of volunteering, Carter’s platoon made it into combat, yet he had to accept demotion to private. This was because his superiors would not allow a black to command white troops. He eventually served in the “Mystery Division” of blacks in Patton’s Third Army. (The Mystery Division performed missions requiring uniforms without identifying unit insignia.)
On March 23, 1945, Private Carter earned his Medal of Honor, was recommended, but received the nation’s second highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross because of his race.
After recovering from his wounds in less than a month, he was restored to his staff sergeant rank and finished the war training troops.
At this point in his career, he had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, American Defense Service Medal, Combat Infantry Badge and numerous other citations and honors.
(In 1946, Secretary of War Robert Patterson noted an irregularity in the lack of black recognition and promised to investigate.)
The war over, Carter found himself stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., and politely known as a Negro or colored. A lot of the battlefield camaraderie had faded, however, as black soldiers were becoming increasingly common and were blending into the ranks.
When Carter attempted to re-enlist, his “suspect” background apparently became an issue and the Army barred his enlistment and discharged him without explanation on Sept. 30, 1949. He received an honorable discharge dated October 1949, probably the darkest “honor” of his life.
He moved into a life as a family man and steadily worked in the vehicle tire business the rest of his life. In 1962, although he smoked, he and his doctors attributed the discovery of lung cancer to shrapnel still in his neck. He died peacefully of lung cancer in the UCLA Medical Center, a Los Angeles hospital, on Jan. 30, 1963, at 47 years of age.
Carter was laid to rest in the National Cemetery on the grounds of the Veterans Hospital in West Los Angeles near where he died. His remains have since been moved to Arlington National Cemetery.
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By CJ
Posted in Uncategorized
On Aug. 26, 2008, Staff Sgt. Andrew Swilling received the Bronze Star with Valor Device for his actions in Diyala province, Iraq, on Aug. 31, 2007.
Staff Sgt. Swilling’s police training team had just received intelligence on an Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) cell that was meeting at a local mosque. Working with his Iraqi counterpart, Staff Sgt. Swilling developed a plan to take the insurgents by surprise. Two U.S. squads and one truckload of Iraqi police came up on the mosque and found 20 startled insurgents who immediately engaged with small arms fire. Staff Sgt. Swilling and his men overtook the insurgent strongholds within 10 minutes. A supporting element of insurgents counterattacked, as Staff Sgt. Swilling anticipated, and they continued to fight for another 20 minutes. Staff Sgt. Swilling later said “There’s only one thing I keep thinking during a firefight—if we can hold the initiative, we can control the enemy.” Staff Sgt. Swilling’s planning and execution resulted in six enemy killed, seven wounded and 18 taken prisoner and with no loss of his own men.
For his gallantry in action, Staff Sgt. Swilling is this week’s Warrior-Soldier.
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February 24, 2009 By CJ
Posted in Uncategorized
Why weren’t these guys recommended for the Medal of Honor?
Navy Cross medals were presented Friday to the families of two Marines killed while thwarting a suicide bomber and saving the lives of dozens of Marines and Iraqis.
Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter and Cpl. Jonathan Yale have earned “a place of legend in Marine Corps history for generations to come,” Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter said at an emotional ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico, Va.
Haerter, 19, and Yale, 21, were killed April 22, 2008, while guarding a Marine and Iraqi police compound in Ramadi, Iraq.
Twenty-five Navy Crosses, the second-highest medal for bravery that can be bestowed on a Marine or sailor, have been awarded since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
As Haerter and Yale stood guard, a truck laden with 2,000 pounds of explosives raced toward the compound gate. As Iraqi guards fled, the Marines continued to fire at the truck speeding at them.
The truck slowed, then exploded, fatally injuring the two Marines and flattening nearby buildings. But more than 50 Marines and Iraqi police in the compound were spared.
“The explosion blew out all of the windows over 150 meters from where the blast hit,” Lance Cpl. Benjamin Tupaj said. “They saved all of our lives.”
Parents of some of the Marines saved by Haerter and Yale attended the ceremony as a sign of respect and to express their gratitude to the families.
“When Nick was in Iraq, we prayed to God to protect him,” said Steven Xiarhos, father of Lance Cpl. Nicholas Xiarhos. “But in reality, it was two of his brother Marines who saved him.”
Yale, of Burkeville, Va., was part of the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment. Haerter, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., was part of the 1st Battalion, 9th Regiment. Both regiments are based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. While in Iraq, the battalions were attached to the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Regimental Combat Team.
The two men were assigned to guard the main gate to the Joint Security Station Nasser in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province.
“Although not from the same unit, they acted as one in response to the threat,” Winter said. “They stood their ground.”
On the morning of the attack, Haerter had only just arrived in Iraq; Yale was a few days from going home.
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