What do you get when you have 5000 colored eggs and nearly 500 military children? You get the kick off to the 7th annual Month of the Military Child festival. The event is help by the Marine Corps Community Services Youth and Teens department at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni.
Month of the Military Child Festival
4/16/2009
Sgt. Robert Durham
EXCERPT
Marine Corps Community Services’ Youth and Teens department held its 7th annual Month of the Military Child festival here April 13.
The event kicked off with an Easter egg hunt with more than 5,000 eggs.
Almost 1,000 people, including nearly 500 children from on and off station are attended both events.
“Every day is kid’s day,” said Eugene Clark, MCCS Youth Activities Supervisor here. “But here we give the best and biggest in the Far East, the DOD, in the Marine Corps. We wanted to continue that tradition” said Clark.
There were more than enough activities to keep everyone busy at the event.
Three large inflatable play areas allowed younger children to bounce off the walls, including a giant inflatable dragon, a triceratops shaped bouncing pen, and a blow-up carousel.
Many activity booths allowed children to play games, get their face painted, or learn about organizations they could join such as the local Boy Scout troop. READ MORE
I would like to
share with you the music video for Pat McGee’s song “Come Back Home”. The moving story behind the song is tragic, inspiring and is best told by Pat himself…
“Come Back Home was written in the wake of me losing my longtime drummer and former Army soldier John C. Williams. But the song started off as a reflection of how a military couple deals with separation. After the release of Come Back Home, Johns little brother was killed by an IED in Iraq. His name was Blake Williams. His platoon used this track as the audio to a memorial slide show presentation they did in March of 2008. It was for all the courageous men and women they had lost in the month of March.
I am humbled by their service to our great country and I hope this song brings them some peace. My father served in Vietnam and I truly appreciate their dedication and bravery.”
-Pat McGee
Tonight on You Served Radio, we will be talking with Ed Darack, Author of the new book Victory Point which tells the enthralling and much broader story of Operation Red Wings and the follow-up mission, Operation Whalers. Missions that ultimately led to enabling free elections in Afghanistan.
We will also be speaking with Pete Hegseth, Chairman of Vets For Freedom. He will be on to discuss how contrary to the Administration’s rhetoric, the President’s budget request does NOT grow our military to meet the needs of our obligations. In addition to that we will be talking with Pete about the recently leaked DHS report classifying returning war veterans as possible terrorists.
Last by not least, we will talk with Eric from Tygrrr Express blog, who will talk about his new book “Ideological Bigotry.”
All of that plus our new special feature of starting the show with the Pledge of Allegiance from a very awesome group of kids. Of course, there will also be no shortage of Troy and CJ ranting about many other military related topics, and playing of some new music by bands stepping up to support America’s Military.
I put that in quotations because I highly doubt that this man is a vet at all. I say that for a number of reasons. First, his lack of specific information relating to his experience. Second, the fact that he “doesnt’ give a damn” about my combat experience. Third, our back and forth email conversations.
In a follow up email on Saturday evening, I sent Mr. Hart the following email:
Mr. Hart,
We spoke on the corner of Whitesburg and Airport on Saturday. I’m in the process of writing up my story and need a little more information.
Can you please tell me which units you were in while in the Pacific theater?
What type of dive bomber did you fly in?
Who was your co-pilot?
What are your dates of service?
You mentioned that war wasn’t declared in Iraq and therefore it was an illegal war. Can you explain how that is possible in light of House Joint Resolution 114 that authorized force against Iraq?
Thank you for your time. I look forward to speaking with you again in the future. Again, my blog is called A Soldier’s Perspective and can be found below.
In response he reverted to the standard quotations of the famous anti-war, WWII Medal of Honor recipient General Smedley D. Butler. He’s the one credited with the “war is a racket” quote and equates war with some sort of corporate creation designed to line the pockets of the military industrial complex.
He attempted to cast some focus back on me with the following:
I doubt that there are many veterans who never did anything, under orders, that they’re not proud of.
I’m sorry that we won’t have an opportunity to talk again. However, I wish you good luck in tracking down terrorists.
And at least I learned a few things, among them not to agree to an interview by a hostile interviewer when I’m chilled, at my age. I guess it’s never too late.
I can say there are some things I did I’m not proud of, but I was never ordered to do them. And even the things I did weren’t illegal, immoral, or unjust. I just wish I had done them differently. I’m sure you’ll see from the following video that I was anything BUT “hostile” to Mr. Hart.
When I recognized that he wasn’t answering my questions, I reiterated and even gave him a by on the hardest question:
Thank you, Mr Hart. I must have just misinterpreted your statement that you “don’t give a damn” about my service. Thankfully, I’m not one easily offended or beholden to grudges. Life is too short.
Are you able to answer any or all of those questions I posed earlier
so that I can more accurately tell your story? Don’t worry about the
HJ Resolution 114 question, just the ones about your service will
suffice. If there are any stories from your campaigns you’d like to
share, those are naturally welcome as well.
Good luck to you and I hope to hear from you soon so I can get the
piece written today.
Again, I was rebuffed and redirected as if to get me off a trail that was going cold quickly.
Sorry, CJ. I don’t believe an interview would be productive for either of us.
I’m proud of my six years years in the Corps, especially of the 21 months I was in the Pacific, most of that time engaged in combat at Guadalcanal, Munda, Bougainville, Green Island, and on our drive to neutralize Rabaul. Nothing heroic, but trying all the time.
I don’t like reneging on a commitment, but I’m sure you’ll find many much more fruitful sources than myself.
At that point, I decided to reevaluate my tactics and held off on replying for the moment. There was obviously more to this than meets the eye. Could this be another fake veteran that the peace movement likes to parade around as authorities on combat and all things “veteran”? Without provocation, I began to receive a series of emails from Mr. Hart attempting to further explain himself without saying anything.
Sorry, CJ. Guess I’d rather boast than keep my mouth shut.
I’m more proud of what I’ve done in combat situations, trying to bring peace and comfort victims of combat. The things that help me with memories in my old age are the time I spent in Central America, trying to help struggling peasants under attack and wounded veterans from both sides after ceasefires were reached.
The time I spent in the islands during WWII were satisfying—I did my best, but nothing heroic. But the satisfaction I harvested from my time in pursuit of peace and trying to bring comfort to veterans who’d lost legs and the function of other body parts, as well as time in the mountains while others were producing crops and learning trades.
I hope you’ll understand.
Thus began a series of redirects. He sent me emails that focused on others instead of answering the simple questions about what plane he flew in, his periods of service, and other non-invasive questions. I didn’t want to know about his “heroics” or anyone else’s for that matter. I simply wanted biographical data. I got everything but.
There’s no way I can claim my service in WWII to be worth the time you’d have to invest in it. Nothing I did was particularly noteworthy. I fell far short of being a hero, but I knew many men who met the definition.
This was just a small snippet of a large email about Private First Class William R. Caddy, a Medal of Honor recipient with whom he allegedly served and a fellow pilot. Again, no answers to simple questions, only redirections.
I’ve been trained a lot in interrogation methods. I’ve been to the Reid Course on Interrogation, Stan Walter’s course on Tactical Kinesic Interrogation, and LSI Scan. Mr. Hart’s emails are classic examples of what criminals use to lie their way out of trouble, to get the focus off of them. Speaking to him one on one, the deception indicators were pinging left and right.
I really hate that a gentle old man had to be caught by a “hostile” young stud like myself, but no one gets a pass when claiming to be a veteran. You put up or shut up. I don’t have the money to request a FOIA on Mr. Hart, so I’m not going to follow through with that. You see, I donate seven times more money to charity than our Vice President, pay taxes, and have a family to raise so my funds are short for this sort of stuff. I’ll just leave you with with the complete interview and you can tell me if I was hostile or just seeking some facts.
I have been collecting links to sites with resources that are specifically targeted to support military children. April is the month of the military child, and I am posting something weekly (or a little more) in conjunction with this month where we recognize America’s youngest heroes. Today I want to direct you to Our Military Kids a resource for Children of National Guard and Reserve Service Members. Children of wounded warriors are also eligible for services as they deal with the life changing injuries a parent has sustained. Below is an excerpt about the site, the program, eligibility criteria and a link to apply.
Comfort. Stability. Routine. Fun!
All children need these ingredients to thrive but especially those who have a parent deployed in military service to our country or recovering from injury at home.
Along with the sacrifice of having a parent away in service for months at a time, many Guard and Reserve families are so financially stretched they cannot afford the fees for sports, fine arts, or tutoring programs so crucial to their children’s sense of well-being. Children of severely injured service members face similar financial difficulties along with the challenges of learning to adapt to the physical, mental, and emotional changes in a loved one.
Our Military Kids, founded in 2004, stepped in to fill these gaps with a simple grant program that pays for children’s activities. Eligible families apply for a grant and within days of receipt in the Our Military Kids office, a packet is sent to the child thanking them for their service to our country and notifying them of the award, then a check is sent directly to the service provider.
Our Military Kids helps families who often fall outside the parameters of established support programs – the families of National Guard and Reserve service men and women who have been and are continuing to sacrifice so much for our country.
Working with a team of volunteers, a dedicated staff, Board of Directors and Advisory Board, Our Military Kids has distributed grants to children in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and most U.S. territories. From its pilot program in March 2005 in Winchester, Virginia, Our Military Kids has extended its reach to families nationwide.
Severely Injured Program Guidelines and Criteria
Our Military Kids supports the children of severely injured military personnel (Guard, Reserve, and Active Duty) through grants for sports, fine arts, or academic tutoring programs. Such activities help nurture and sustain the children during a parent’s lengthy recovery and/or rehabilitation.
Children of severely injured military personnel between the ages of 3 and 18 are eligible for a grant. Grant awards average $390 with a $500 limit per child. Qualified families complete a simple one page application and submit it along with the following documentation: 1) a brochure, flyer, or letter documenting the cost of the activity, 2) a copy of the child’s military dependent ID, OR Form 1172, OR birth certificate, 3) a letter from a case manager certifying the service member’s status as severely injured, and 4) the most recent copy of the service member’s military orders. Our Military Kids evaluates each request and, provided all requirements are met, awards a grant paid directly to the organization providing the activity.
The following criteria are required for families of the severely injured to be eligible for an Our Military Kids grant:
* service member must be a veteran of either OEF or OIF
* service member must be classified as severely injured in one of the six categories designated by the Department of Veteran Affairs (burns, amputation, mental health, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, or PTSD)
* service member must have a case manager who certifies the above information and recommends the service member’s family for the grant program
I was recently introduced to the site, www.caringbridge.org, but more specifically to a certain site that is part of CaringBridge. However before I talk of that specific site let me talk about CaringBridge in general. CaringBridge is a 501-c-3 non profit with the whole purpose of allowing family members of those that are suffering critical illnesses, treatments or recovery to have a personal and private website, 24/7. It allows those that are friends or family of a ill or recovering person to stay in contact with the family at the hospital and to track progress, share messages, see photos, etc. It is an awesome concept that I am glad someone thought of to create. There are over 150 new CaringBridge sites created daily, which just goes to show what an impact this site and the use of common technologies has on people.
Now to talk about a specific CaringBridge site (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kevindupont), I would like to highlight SFC Kevin Dupont’s site. SFC Dupont is a 52 year old National Guardsman that was severely injured when his Humvee was struck by an IED on March 8th, 2009. One soldier was killed in the blast and another soldier along with SFC Dupont were trapped in the burning remnants of the Humvee. He suffered 3rd degree burns to over 65% of this body, and has been in the US Army Burn Center ever since. The CaringBridge site allows his many family, friends and fellow soldiers to “keep an eye” on him from afar and to send encouraging messages, etc. It also allows perfect strangers to leave messages of encouragement and well-wishes. Many people look to adopt a deployed soldier, but through this technology Americans can “adopt” a wounded warrior like Kevin.
You can leave donations for the family; send comfort items that may be needed or just pass along a note to Kevin or his vigilant family by his side. So take a few moments out of your day, drop by to Kevin’s site and let him know how much he means to you as a defender of freedom and to let him know there is one more person out there saying prayers for him.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Josh Hedetniemi does pushups while playing with Iraqi children outside a school near Sheik Hammad, Iraq, April 8, 2009. Hedetniemi is from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division. (DoD photo by Sgt. Jacob H. Smith)
Everyone knows how much our nation’s “institutes of higher education” treat our military. They denigrate us and fail to accurately capture our contributions to this nation. I’m currently taking Western Civilization and our book was rereleased in 2008, so it contains a chapter about the Iraq War. Naturally, it’s a completely skewed and tunnel-visioned few and uses the term “occupation” more times than probably necessary. So, it’s isn’t a surprise that this is the kind of veteran that is portrayed to educators to teach them how to deal with combat veterans:
Garbage! Utter garbage. Once again, our liberal educational system is poking its protectors in the eye!
On Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to the weekly protest one of the corners in Huntsville, AL. Unlike the big city protests, these are generally attended by fewer than 20 people on both sides combined. It wasn’t until Israel retaliated for Hamas rockets and mortars that the normal corner exploded with dozens of Hamas and Palestine and anti-Israeli supporters. It has since trickled back to the normal 6-10 war protesters.
This weekend, I decided that instead of just standing there waving, I was going to speak to a gentlemen that stood out to me a few weeks ago during the whole anti-Israeli silliness. An older gentlemen wearing a “Veterans For Peace” silly hat and carrying a sign with the same language on it stuck out to me. I decided that I’d interview him and find out about his history.
With Chris in tow, I approached the man and explained that I was a military blogger, told him my name and website, and asked if I could interview him. His name is Ed Hart and he gave me permission to record the conversation. I’m going to cut out snippets of the conversation for the purposes of this post, but I will make a complete, unedited copy available so no one thinks I’m taking things out of context.
Mr. Hart explained to me that he was in the Marine Corps during WWII. He fought in some of the more widely known campaigns in the Pacific as well as some lesser known ones. They include Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Rabaul, Green Islands and others. He claimed to have been a rear seater in the a dive bomber at the time. While he didn’t specifically mention it, but I would assume that meant he was in the Douglas SBD Dauntless since I think it was the only two seater diver bomber at the time. Most Marine Corps Aviation units in the Pacific theater had Corsairs during the campaigns he was in. The Helldiver didn’t ever really replace the Dauntlesses because they were produced so late in the war. But, I digress.
I wanted to get to the crux of why a WWII veteran was amongst a bunch of feminine hippies with “End The War” signs. I wanted to know which war they wanted to end.
I asked him about going into Iraq and he couldn’t think of any reason for going into Afghanistan. A discussion ensued about whether we waged war against Afghanistan or the Taliban.
Then things got really good. We started talking about authorizations for war and that he fought in the last war that was “legitimate” and “declared”. I tried tripping him up with his history because I was beginning to doubt he was really a veteran. You’ll see that this pissed him off a little.
The fact is that more than 6,000 Marines fought in Africa and Europe. Some of those Marines even took part in the storming of Normandy. They augmented British forces in keeping Iceland from falling to the Germans. Marines planned the Canadian and British raids of Dieppe, a French port city. Marines went ashore in Arzeu, Algeria, and Oran – where they occupied a strategic Spanish fortress at the tip of the harbor. They secured an airport in Morocco. On Jan. 7, 1942, Brigadier General Lewis G. Merritt, a Marine Corps pilot serving as an observer with the Royal Air Force in Egypt, was aboard a Wellington bomber shot down by ground fire behind German lines in the Halfya Pass. Therefore, I look forward to going back to the good “veteran” and pointing out that Marines served a much more vital role than just sitting around in embassies.
The interview ended abruptly there and as I began to walk off he tried to plead his case with me, so I turned the recorder back on. Ed continued explaining to me that he isn’t there to convince me of anything or change my mind. Like most anti-war buffoons, he just wanted “hold his sign” and I was getting in the way (even though I specifically asked permission to interview him, which was granted). Then, a fellow combat veteran said the following:
“I don’t give a damn about what you think…I really don’t!” This “Marine” combat veteran didn’t give a damn about what another veteran’s experiences were. Obviously, his feminine minder hadn’t prepped him that this wasn’t how “real” vets spoke with each other. During the interview, you can barely make her out in the background kind of prompting him to say certain things.
But, I’m a realist. I put words like “Marine” and “veteran” in quotes, but I don’t doubt that he is a WWII veteran. It’s interesting that all the WWII I’ve personally spoken to are bit more specific than “dive bomber” when speaking about what they did during that time. However, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. He was about the right age to have been a veteran and deserves respect. After I shut off the recorder and returned back to my car, I turned back around to shake his hand again. I thanked him for leaving me with a free country to which I am now dedicating my life to defending and thanked him for his service. I told him that though he doesn’t respect my service as a combat veteran, I still respected his. At that point, I walked off before he could try to backtrack.
