I’m fed up with the reluctance or outright lack of desire to call what happened at Fort Hood an act of terrorism. This was brought up in a Facebook discussion and a journalist – a member of the media – said “it’s not our job to read into things. we can analyze, and find the “why,” but we can’t say it’s terrorism.”
I find that interesting considering all the media ever does is read into things. When was the last time the media waited until the results of an election were certified before declaring a winner? They didn’t have any problems blaming PTSD as soon as it was discovered that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan worked with troops suffering from the disorder. Yet, they ignored the facts of PTSD which are obvious that it isn’t contagious.
Militant and extremist Islam has declared war not only on this country, but on our military specifically. Recently, it started in March 2003 when SGT Akbar tossed a grenade on Camp Pennsylvania and killed his fellow 101st Airborne Troops. Akbar was a Muslim and didn’t kill those troops because he snapped, but because of his religion.
Two years ago, six Muslim extremists were charged in a plot to kill Soldiers at the Army’s Fort Dix military installation in New Jersey. The plot involved “assault rifles” and grenades with the intent to kill as many Soldiers as possible. Because these guys weren’t Soldiers and didn’t fall under the political correctness of coddling extremist religious views, this plot was thankfully foiled before any Soldiers were killed or injured.
In June of this year, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad – a 24-year-old Little Rock resident formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe – killed one Soldier and injured another in a shooting that took place at an Army recruiting center. Police said that based off interviews with the killer, he executed the shooting because he was angry with the military’s supposed treatment of Muslims. A young Soldier – Pvt. William Long whom had nothing to do with the cause of Muhammad’s anger – was killed. Muhammad stated to police that he would have killed more if they had been outside at the time.
Now, we have the case of Maj. Nidal Hasan, in which he killed 13 people (including a pregnant Soldier) and wounded over 30 others earlier this month at Fort Hood. The media continues to pound the drum beat that he just “snapped.” A man who had never deployed in his military career somehow snapped and that is why he killed those brave warriors and Americans. They are painting HIM as the victim of this because he was “teased” in his military career. (Side note: will a Soldier of any faith who has never been teased please send me an email. That is worthy of a story in itself.) The media is further eroding their credibility by ignoring statements and evidence that prove this was an extremist ideological attack and not a mere case of stress.
The media is searching far and wide for so-called mental health professionals to support their biased positions of a Soldier broken by a failed war policy. They refuse to interview prominent Muslim scholars and religious leaders who could easily diffuse the religious backlash being heaped upon Muslims. These scholars could explain that this man was no Muslim in the strictest terms, but a radicalized terrorist who bent the teachings of Islam. But, that’s not the slant the media wants us to believe. Instead of reporting on the elephant in the room, they’ve taken the easy road of expounding upon the terrible tragedy that war brings to our troops, either real or made up.
They ignore the more than 34 clues as to why Hasan REALLY committed those premeditated murders and attempted murders of 43 Americans. Never mind that he visited websites espousing radical Islamist ideas. Never mind that he was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues. Never mind that he wrote an internet posting defending suicide bombers: “…..Suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers. If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory…..”
And yet the military is expending great deals of energy to ensure that the rest of us don’t unfairly blame the religion of peace for what is happening to our troops around the world and in this country at their hands. They are worried that Muslims will be victimized, not that more troops will be victimized by Muslims. They are expending resources – at least publicly – in the hunt for more radical Islamic extremists within our ranks, but the the radical non-Muslim elements that may be seeking revenge, whoever these people are. They can continue to spout their rhetoric free of consequences until Soldiers die.
Political correctness is the friend of the extremist Islamic radical. They know that we have no backbone to seek out more potential perpetrators and will use that against us. The military is so publicity shy, that they don’t want to risk being called bigots for searching the ranks for more like-minded extremists. Instead, the rest of us who are concerned about the impact of all these attacks against us by a religious philosophy that doesn’t value life but exalts martyrdom will be treated like racists, bigots, and extremists in our own right. They will get away with it, but if you’re not a Muslim, don’t you dare stand up for anything you believe in. The militarywill attack youfor it.
I wanted to provide a list of the Medal of Honor recipients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars so that you have one place in which to read their story. These are just brief descriptions, but give you an idea for future research into these American heroes:
* Lt. Michael P. Murphy, Navy. Led a four-member team against between 30 and 40 Taliban fighters in the vicinity of Asadabad, Afghanistan. When the primary communicator fell mortally wounded, Murphy repeatedly attempted to call for assistance for his injured colleagues. Realizing the impossibility of communicating in the extreme terrain, and in the face of almost certain death, he fought his way into open terrain to gain a better position to transmit a call. His actions deprived him of cover and exposed him to direct enemy fire. Finally achieving contact with his headquarters, Murphy maintained his exposed position while he provided his location and requested immediate support for his team. He continued to engage the enemy until he was mortally wounded.
* Cpl. Jason L. Dunham, Marine Corps. While attempting to search vehicles for weapons near the town of Karabilah, Iraq, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Dunham. In the ensuing struggle, he saw the insurgent release a grenade. Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Without hesitation, Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his colleagues from the blast.
* Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis, Army. Manned a machine gun as an insurgent dropped a grenade into his vehicle in northeast Baghdad. Reacting quickly, he yelled grenade. Then, rather than leaping from the gunner’s hatch to safety, McGinnis covered the live grenade, pinning it between his body and the vehicle and absorbing most of the explosion.
* Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, Navy. While providing protection from a rooftop in Ramadi, Iraq, an insurgent threw a grenade that hit Monsoor in the chest. He threw himself onto the grenade to absorb the force of the explosion with his body, saving the lives of two teammates.
* Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, Army. He was helping to build a holding area for prisoners of war near the Baghdad airport when his unit was attacked by a company-sized enemy force. As the fight developed, Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and he organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers.
* Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti, Army. He was shot as he attempted for a third time to rescue a wounded comrade while conducting combat operations in the mountains near Gowardesh, Afghanistan. The actions took place as he ordered firepower that broke the enemy attacks and killed 22 enemy fighters. President Barack Obama will present the award on Sept. 17 at a White House ceremony.
I was cleaning off my camera from our vacation to Chattanooga and found some photos I took a few months back that I wanted to blog about and just got busy.
In May, Roush Racing visited Redstone Arsenal. The purpose of the visit was to talk about the meshing of racing technology with the needs of the Army. Many safety features used in NASCAR have been incorporated into Army equipment and vice versa. Roush landed on the base in his own P-51D Mustang plane.
While at the Arsenal, he set aside some time to have lunch with the troops, sign autographs and answer questions. Many of the troops are avid NASCAR fans and ecstatic about the opportunity. Mr. Roush signed over 600 autographs during his visit to Redstone for both Soldiers and civilians. He signed everything from pictures, to T-shirts, to die-cast cars, and even dashboards.
Mustang fans were so happy to hear he was there that an impromptu car show started in the parking lot with over 30 Mustangs showing up during the session. One Soldier even asked Mr. Roush to sign his brand new 2008 Ford Mustang.
Here are some photos of Mr. Roush interacting with the troops at the dining facility.
I also took a moment to interview some of the Soldiers that had an opportunity to meet with him and get an autograph using my handy-dandy You Served Flip Camera. This first video is just a simple video of Jack Roush signing a Soldier’s new Mustang (how do they afford these things?)
After the signing was complete, I interviewed the owner of the Mustang. I apologize that the video is unedited. I also should apologize for asking him about “Mr. Fenway”! What was that all about?!
The Gathering of Eagles need our help. The domestic insurgents have been protesting outside the West Point graduation ceremonies for years. They line West Point Highway with flag draped coffins and banners with disgustingly negative messages to demoralize our graduates and their families. The families of these graduates already have a high anxiety level with their children embarking on a military career in a time of war. The additional stress is unwelcome and unwanted.
For the third year the Gathering of Eagles (GOE) will provide a counterpoint to the insurgents. We will hold flags and signs of encouragement for the graduates, our troops and their families. Their efforts are greatly appreciated.
This Saturday, May 23rd, they ask all who are able to come join them in a show of solidarity and support for our new graduates and their families. We have no prior knowledge of protester activity, but they have been consistent in their protest activity there for so long that it is expected they will be there.
What: Support Our Graduates and their Families Rally Where: Memorial Park, Mill Street and West Point Highway, Highland Falls, NY Maplink: http://tinyurl.com/4j863x When: Saturday, May 23, 2009, 7am to 1pm
The early start time is to avoid traffic congestion with family and visitors arriving for the ceremony. Contact Dan if you have any further questions.
I arrived safely last night here in majestic D.C. for the annual Milblog Conference. As you know, Troy and I are covering the event exclusively for You Served. Hopefully, you caught the radio show last night.
Today kicked off the pre-event festivities. Some of us, myself being one of them, were invited to the White House to meet with members of President Obama’s National Security Council. Before we walked into the Roosevelt Room for our meeting, I used the Presidential Toilet again. There’s just something cool about taking a leak in the bathroom right outside the Oval Office!
This is me in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, literally right next door to the Oval Office. Me outside the West Wing of the White House before the meeting.
Because the meeting was off the record, I’ll suffice it to say that we met with Senior Administration Officials. The reason we’re keeping it secretive is that we wanted to be candid in our discussions, which I can talk about.
The White House reached out to us as military bloggers because we tend to have our ear on the pulse of what is going on within the services at the troop level. The messages we put across on these blogs are unfiltered and told from a raw, rounded perspective. There is no Public Affairs “spin” or party line glossing over on most milblogs. The administration wanted to give us the philosophy of its national security policy and see what kind of input we may have. Can you believe it? Military bloggers are actually being sought out to provide some input to national security strategy. Not policy, mind you, but strategy. Only the President establishes policy and we are NOT in the advisor chain.
We spoke about the pirate issue, but didn’t get into the nuts and bolts of all the decision-making behind what really happened. One of the issues I brought up for discussion were all the gaffes by the administration and the perception is that they don’t care about the troops. With the scrapped possibility of charging veterans for private insurance, the DHS secretary calling us potential terrorists, the release of the OLC memos, scrapping military projects at a time of war and the upcoming release of yet more Abu Ghraib photos (still not sure what good that will do), it’s not too hard to draw a line straight to the administration and come to the conclusion that they don’t have our best interests at heart. I asked what the administration is doing to do more than just talk about supporting the troops and actually encourage military service. The answer was that this was just perception, not reality, on our parts. President Obama has met numerous times with Wounded Warriors that he has invited to the White House. But, I pressed, why isn’t the President going out there and directly speaking out about how his administration has falsely portrayed our troops thanks to DHS? While a political, non-direct answer was given, I could tell that I made my point and rested my case. And here’s the kicker, I have a “glimmer of hope” that what I had to say will be seriously taken into consideration.
To his benefit, however, President Obama has chosen a recently separated Naval Special Warfare officer, Matthew Flavin, to head the new Veteran Policy and Wounded Warrior Committee – or something like that. Matt served tours in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Having him and other military detailed personnel on the NSC can’t hurt. General Jones was another good choice, I think.
After the meeting at the White House, several of us proceeded directly to the Pentagon. Lindy Kyzer, from Army Public Affairs, had arranged a special tour of the Pentagon for milbloggers. After the tour, we met with the Secretary of the Army, Pete Geren. He noted that he hadn’t fully appreciated the military blogosphere until the whole Dan Rather incident pertaining to President Bush’s service records. Shortly before the 2004 elections in which President Bush won reelection, 60 Minutes, with Dan Rather as the anchor, presented documents challenging President’s Bush’s service in the Air National Guard. Thanks to milbloggers, myself included, these documents were exposed for the forgeries they were.
Geren was impressed that the man who was at the top of his game wasn’t brought down from the traditional adversaries in competing networks. He was brought down by bloggers. We had succeeded where others had failed and it cost him dearly and it only a day or two. When he became Secretary of the Army, he decided he needed to know more and instantly began a drive to reach out to us. The Army is leaps and bounds ahead of the services because of him.
We also met with the others senior Public Affairs officials from each branch of the military: Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The contrasts amongst the services couldn’t be more start. On one end of the spectrum you have the Marine Corps who is still looking at what to do with the whole blogging situation. They are taking a sort of wait and see approach by studying how the other services are handling it and plan to take the best practices from each for their policy. On the complete opposite side is the Air Force who seems to be micromanaging every aspect of Air Force bloggers with the publication of their “New Media and Air Force” guide. It’s 31 pages of “do this” and “don’t do this” micromanagement. Meanwhile, the Army is so organized and advanced in accepting the blogging community that it just sits back and enjoys the show. The Navy seemed like it could not care less about the medium and basically told they have no time to deal with our requests. “I have to choose between the New York Times, the Pensacola Tribune, or a blog,” said Admiral Thorpe while raising his arms like a scale and placing the MSM on a higher plain.
After the nearly two-hour meeting at the Pentagon, thankfully punctuated with some of Lindy Kyzer’s absolutely delectable cookies, we headed back to the hotel to prep for the screening of the “At War” film. Check out the You Served Twitter (@YouServed) for my remarks about that. Otherwise, I’ll leave those thoughts for Troy to flush out.
The panels begin tomorrow, so I’ll have more then. It’s almost 4am and I need to get some sleep!
Regional security agents from the Department of State race toward the scene of a simulated improvised explosive device attack during a joint training exercise on Ali Air Base, Iraq, Feb. 28, 2009. The exercise tested search and rescue procedures of U.S. Air Force and Army and Department of State agencies in response to a terrorist attack. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Marasky, U.S. Air Force)
An F/A-18C Hornet aircraft flies above guided-missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69) prior to landing on the flight deck of aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), under way in the Gulf of Oman, Feb. 21, 2009. The aircraft carrier and embarked Carrier Air Wing 8 are conducting operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Wilyanna Harper)
“Are you pro-war or pro-peace?” was the first question that came out of the mouth of one of the war protesters as I explained that I was there to talk to them about their presence on a major intersection here in Huntsville, AL. I explained that I’m a Soldier, I hate war and love peace. But, I also recognize that peace comes at a price. It went downhill from there. Continue reading this post…
This is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. General Petraeus is the man! There’s really no other way to describe it. He’s a natural leader and it’s an honor to serve in the same Army he does.
U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, commanding general, Multinational Force Iraq, reenlisted 1,215 U.S. servicemembers from all over Iraq July 4, 2008, during a ceremony in the Al Faw Palace rotunda at Camp Victrory in Baghdad. Photo by MNF-I Public Affairs Continue reading this post…
