Thermopylae, USA

Yon's call on Afghanistan

2012-01-25T11:43:00.002-05:00

This is disturbing. For those who don't remember, Michael Yon made the call that we had turned around the Anbar province and defeated the insurgency well before that notion became mainstream. For those who also don't remember, he's probably spent more time on the front lines of the War on Terror than most generals and many soldiers. If he thinks there's nothing left to be gained, then, well...

Death by a thousand cuts redux: only off by $490,000,009,000

2012-01-09T19:37:00.005-05:00

Yeah I said I'd be on hiatus until deployment. My blog, my rules. Deal with it.

So, in a proud moment last week, with all the service chiefs and secretary of defense present, it was announced to the nation - and the world - that the American military would no longer be able to do what it's planned to do - and done - for the last ten years. Money's tight, wars are winding down, we need to get "leaner", etc. This is not the first time we've been down this road, and to a certain extent it's understandable. Yes, the economy sucks; yes, we've "ended" one major conflict and are trying to "wind down" another; yes, there's "fraud, waste, and abuse" we can always cut down on to save cash; yes, everyone needs to take a haircut (more on that in a second) and the military, with all its expensive toys, should not be exempt.

But, as I said in my last post on the topic, let's go down this road with both eyes open and cut the bullshit. Making us "leaner" does not make us better. We are admitting, to friend and foe, that our military is surrendering its capacity to do what it's done over the last ten years: namely, fight two major conflicts simultaneously, while retaining the capacity to handle any 'brushfire' problems that might arise. If you think we haven't been doing this over the last decade, you're wrong. We've had a large footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still done other things like fight pirates, keep an eye on things in Yemen, police the sea lanes with our Marine Expeditionary Units and carrier groups, and found time to kill bin Laden. No longer; now, it's win one major conflict while "spoiling" another. If you're North Korea and, say, Iran is already the big show, this is good news; otherwise, I don't see anything to celebrate. We are imposing our own limits on ourselves. This may be necessary, but let's not pretend it's great.

Let's also not forget that, contrary to nobly "turning the page on a decade of war", our enemies still get a say in world affairs, and this reduces our ability to deter and influence the extent of that say. We abolished war once, if you'll remember - the Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928 - and unfortunately Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini didn't get that memo. War and conflict do not end because we say they do, and we can no more "turn the page" on armed aggression than we can on poverty or crime. It's a part of living in a world of imperfect men. All you can do is prepare, or react, to unforeseen events. With the "two-war" strategy, we prepared; with "win-spoil", more and more we'll be forced to react, and it won't be pretty.

Don't think so? Let's look back on other times we decided to 'turn the page' on war and cut back our military. We did it after World War I, and entered World War II with a small, technologically inferior, and poorly trained force that suffered some embarrassing setbacks (Kasserine Pass) before finally dominating the battlefield. Then we drew down after World War II, and when North Korea invaded the south in 1950, all we had to oppose them was a (wait for it) small, technologically inferior, and poorly trained force that was either slaughtered (Task Force Smith) or forced to retreat to a tiny perimeter until more men could be scraped together from across the ocean to counterattack. After Vietnam, we were tired of war and again dismantled and emaciated our military, and men died in the darkness and sand of Desert One. Then the Iron Curtain fell, and we spent another decade blissfully reducing our military, until 9/11 rolled around and we found ourselves scrambling to recruit and train more boots on the ground. We've seen how this movie ends over and over again, and the ultimate victory at the end makes us forget the bloodiness of the beginning and that, if we'd just kept the team together from the LAST war, we might not have gotten hurt so badly in the opening round.

To counter the drastic cuts - in the tens of thousands - of those boots on the ground from the Army and Marine Corps, we're told that an increasingly robust, unmanned, and advanced Navy and Air Force will continue to project our power around the world. Except . . . we've seen this movie too, and how it ends. Again, since World War I, there's always been the 'next big thing' that will supposedly reduce or eliminate entirely our dependence on the grunts. Between the world wars, it was air power. After World War II, it was nuclear power. After Korea, it was special forces. After Vietnam, it was precision weapons and stealth technology. After 9/11, it was unmanned aircraft, satellite imagery, and precision weapons that were even more precise. Yet every single time, the next big thing could not replace the need for a man and a rifle to defend that trench, hold that ridge, storm that beach, or take that hill. Nothing will ever replace him, nothing; and now, we'll have a hundred thousand fewer of those men to defend that trench or storm that beach. And in the next war, someone in Washington will throw up their hands and angrily demand why we didn't have enough men to accomplish our objective; and some family will wonder why their loved one didn't come home because he died trying to accomplish that objective against all odds.

These cuts may yet be reversed; but until then, we've still advertised to the assholes and shitheads of the world that whatever it is they're thinking right now, they might be able to get away with it, especially if our attention is diverted elsewhere. Get ready for a more dangerous and less stable world.

P.S. Having the entirety of military leadership on display when telling them that what they've accomplished over the last decade won't be repeatable in the near future was a nice touch. I await the day when the secretaries of Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, the EPA, Commerce, and the rest are hauled in front of the cameras for a similar announcement. I have this nagging feeling I won't see it.

Hiatus: statistically my most common post

2011-12-15T09:54:00.002-05:00

Um, yeah. Not much going on here. Facebook arguments notwithstanding, I actually have a billet that engages most of my time, leaving less for annoying people both on Facebook and here. So, probably until my next deployment comes up, don't expect much activity on this page. I know, I know, but stop crying, the hurt will go away. Until deployment, then; or something else interesting happens.

The day of fire, ten years later

2011-09-10T17:27:00.004-04:00

There's much to say about the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The first thing to be said is that we do a disservice to the memories of those who died that day, and who died in the months and years following to avenge that day, by calling it anything else but an attack. I hear it called "the events of 9/11" and it sounds like someone's referring to nothing more deadly than the minutes of a staff meeting. 9/11 was not a series of "events"; it was a chain of murder, violence, terror, hatred, and brutality, interlinked with astounding acts of courage, love, and selflessness. 9/11 was an act of war; Americans immediately responded with acts of brotherhood, faith, and in the case of Flight United 93, steel, firm resolve, and righteous retribution.

There are many other things to say. Unfortunately today I don't have the time for much more than the above in terms of creative thought. I'm packing for a three-week 'vacation' to lovely Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, starting tomorrow, where I'll be 'auditing' the academic portion of the Weapons and Tactics Instructor class. Maybe that says something in itself; that for myself, and the hundreds of thousands of others who where the uniform, 9/11 is not a dim spark of a memory where we exchange a few platitudes with our friends and coworkers and return to our business. 9/11 - its villains, its organizers, its supporters, and its current spiritual brethren - has been our business for the last ten years, is our business today, and will be our business for the foreseeable future. Others will say it with prettier words; America's warriors say what they can with their day-to-day actions. We have not forgotten; don't you forget either.

Also, while I might not have time for creative thought, as I've said in the past, nothing still captures my own thoughts better than this post first written in 2005.

It's been four years since I woke up one Tuesday morning, looking forward to a relaxing start to an easy day with only one class late in the afternoon, to find my roommates glued to the television, newscasters almost unable to comprehend what they were reporting on, and, apparently, the whole world on fire. By the time I finally tuned in, both towers of the World Trade Center were burning and the Pentagon had a hole in it; reports were just beginning to come in about a plane crash of some kind in Pennsylvania; and rumors were flying wild, including one of a bomb set off on the Washington Mall. We sat there, watching reruns of the planes striking each building, watching smoke pour out of the gaping wounds in the Twin Towers, watching people hanging their heads out the windows for air and, in some cases, flinging themselves down into the streets below, choosing death by falling rather than death by incineration.

I remember the first person I called that morning was my Marine selection officer: I wanted to know if there was anything I had to do, if we might get called up to do something or other (a silly question, of course, since I had all of 12 weeks of extremely basic training and I'd be lucky if all I did was shoot one of my fingers off without hurting anyone else). The second person was my mother. I wanted to know what she made of all of this, whether they were even reporting it in Canada, if perhaps Canadian news had some outside tidbits of information we lacked. She was the original American in my life; I thought maybe she'd have some insight from all her years here about who, what, why this was happening. But few people knew anything that morning, other than the fact that we were under attack. So all we could do was watch.

The first Tower fell. Clouds of smoke, dust, and ash billowed through the streets of downtown New York as people tried to outrun it. At the Pentagon, flames roiled up out of the gash that had been cut to the very center of the building. Rumors of a fourth plane wreck were confirmed, and we got our first look at the gaping scar of earth where Flight 93 had come to grief. The second Tower fell. Manhattan was now obscured by sheets of haze and smoke as the debris spread and fires burned. I don't remember what we said to each other, if anything. It was all so unexpected, so unbelievable. It was supposed to be a Tuesday like any other. What was it now?

My one class for the day was cancelled, but I still had to go to cross-country practice. I was a co-captain of nine or ten guys who also thought that today was going to be just like any other day. I tried to think of something to say to them; I think what I came up with was something about our country getting hit hard, but that we still had to press forward and not let this interrupt our lives. Whatever I said, it wasn't memorable. Someone else on the team said something far better in far fewer words as we practiced. We were running laps around the track, and our workout was almost done when Chris Ambrose, crossing the start line, yelled out, "Let's do it for New York and DC!" The guys jumped across the line, and I thought I would break down completely right there.

The rest of the week was turned upside down. Classes were cancelled the next day, as I recall, and we had a memorial service instead. I remember Father Jonathan trying to hold back tears as he told us that he'd learned of an alumnus who'd died in the World Trade Center. I heard from my parents that the father of several kids who attended my old high school had also died there. That morning of rapid destruction was starting to ripple across the country and across borders.
At some point that week we learned that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were taking credit for the attacks. I think my first reaction was, "What the heck is al Qaeda?" I'd heard of bin Laden a few times, in connection with the USS Cole bombing and the attacks on American embassies in Africa; but he certainly wasn't a topic of daily conversation in the news. Now, his face was everywhere, and eventually a video tape emerged of him gloating as he learned how successful his plans had been.

By then I really didn't care who was behind it. All I knew was that these attacks had given my rather general decision to join the Marine Corps a focus that it previously lacked. Before 9/11, I'd wanted to join up out of a fascination with the American military tradition, a general desire to serve my country, and go with the Marines because they had a bad-ass reputation and the coolest uniforms. Now there was a specific purpose: I would make it my personal responsibility to make sure that no one I loved would ever have to see what we saw that morning ever again, or be threatened by the kind of men who perpetrated it.

9/11 gave focus to something else too. It made me realize that my fun little fling with this big ole sea-to-shining-sea country had, over the last couple of years, developed into a full-fledged love affair. I could no longer joke around that I had one foot North of the 49th parallel and one foot South: when the Towers fell, I knew that both feet would be forever here. Because what I saw that morning hurt me more than anything I could remember in the twenty-odd years of my life. This wonderful country where I'd found an incredible school, even more incredible friends (and ultimately, in the months to come, the love of my life), a way of life that was energetic, freewheeling, and boisterous, neighbors and acquaintances who challenged me and made me think about who I was and what I believed - this place that had given me so much was now reeling under a blow from petty, angry little men who couldn't even begin to understand what they were attacking. I hadn't felt so stung by any single event before or since. Hurricane Katrina has come pretty close, but Katrina was a natural event, one beyond our power to control. It was a force without guidance or malice. 9/11 was committed malice aforethought. It was the purposeful decision by a group of men to kill as many of their fellow human beings as possible.

The rage and pain that this barbaric act generated were indescribable, and though the years have dulled these feelings, they've never subsided. They come flooding back to me now as I write this, and I'm actually a little surprised that they're still this strong. That's a good thing, though: it means that I still haven't forgotten what it felt like that Tuesday morning, on what was supposed to be an easy, relaxing day. I hope I never forget, and that the rest of America never does either.

Death by a thousand cuts

2011-07-20T18:15:00.003-04:00

As I admitted over on Facebook, when it comes to the topic of cuts to defense spending, I'm not an uninterested party. But I find it disturbing that, in the debate over how to keep this country from plummeting over a financial cliff and becoming another Greece, decisions on the big drivers of fiscal armageddon - entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare - have been punted and are only discussed in the vaguest terms, whereas defense has been examined with a microscope and hacked away at with knife. This is not to say that there aren't places where cuts could be made, or that, given the nation's dire debt situation, defense spending should be immune. It's fair to say that there are any number of places where cuts could be made - like reducing the bloated civilian contractor workforce - and I've heard some pretty innovative suggestions on issues that don't immediately pop to mind when thinking about defense spending (like turning over the exchange/commissary system, currently run by someone in uniform, to a commercial agency like Wal-mart, and allowing them to buy the rights to establish stores and sell their products on base, combining the price value and efficiency of an experienced private entity with the shocking notion of actually MAKING some money for the military in the process). But the very real, specific cuts being forced on the military stand in stark contrast to the vague promises of future efficiency and reform only hinted at for the entitlement programs that, all agree, will grind our national economy to a halt without a major course correction. Abolish the Defense Department in its entirety and the 'most predictable crisis in history' caused by entitlement spending will still be there. And with each cut in the defense budget, our military's warfighting ability will suffer.

Never mind that reducing defense spending while hostilities are ongoing is unprecedented; we're still lightly engaged in Iraq, heavily engaged in Afghanistan, and doing something or other over in Libya. The American military is currently tasked with a variety of missions that no other country can readily take over. The global commerce that requires open and secure sea lanes is only possible under the aegis of the United States Navy, whose surface fleet has dwindled to its lowest numbers in a century (fun fact: more ships were involved in the landings on Okinawa, only one of many theaters in which the Navy was engaged, than we have in the entire Navy today). No one superpower yet rivals the United States, but there are a multitude of regional powers like China, North Korea, and Iran who have strong localized military capabilities and do not have our best interests at heart. The threat from radical Islamist groups like al Qaeda is diminished but not gone. And, as has been embarrassingly demonstrated in Libya, our NATO allies cannot conduct anything resembling a sustained military campaign, even in their own back yard, without American support. Extensive reductions in the defense budget will necessarily mean that our capability to effectively conduct operations like those above will be reduced as well; and since nature abhors a vacuum, as we pull back less desirable and benign forces will flow in to take our place (already happening off the coast of Somalia). Any politician advocating a diminished Defense Department had better be honest about the consequences, and damn well better take responsibility when, predictably, something goes wrong and people start to die.

Summer reading/watching

2011-07-08T14:27:00.003-04:00

Since I seem to keep blowing my opinion pieces on Facebook, which is probably the last thing most people want to hear about, I don't have any currents ones for this ol' blog. So let's try something lighter, like my summer read/watch/don't watch list:

Reading:

The Saxon Tales (Bernard Cornwell) - fans of historical fiction know Cornwell mostly for his Richard Sharpe series (turned into great TV movies in Britain), but with Sharpe having fought his way from the plains of India to Waterloo, vanquishing Napoleon and showing up in some rather unlikely places - like Trafalgar - in the process, that ship had pretty much sailed and Cornwell turned elsewhere. He's written some other short series about the Civil War and Arthurian Britain, but his latest is set in a dark time period I knew little about. Thus, along with his typically bloody but riveting battle narratives, I've picked up some knowledge about the birth pangs of the nation the world came to know as the United Kingdom. Following the trials of Uthred, a pagan Briton who, in the aftermath of the Vikings invasions of the 9th century, finds himself in the service of the Christian king Alfred, we follow the Norsemen as they overrun most of the island, leaving only Alfred's Wessex as the last English kingdom in the realm. Book by book, Alfred manages to cling to power and slowly turn back the Viking tide with the help of Uthred's sword. Due to the paucity of written records from the time, some events are heavily fictionalized, but as always Cornwell paints a scene that makes one feel that if things didn't actually happen this way, they should have. Quite readable, though those without a strong hankering for historical fiction in general might find working through the various Old English place-names rather trying.

History of the English-Speaking Peoples: Vol 1, The Birth of Britain (Winston Churchill) - Cornwell's Saxon Tales dovetailed into my picking up the first volume of this series, which I'd ordered a mere three years and three deployments ago. Churchill has a lot of ground to cover, however, so there wasn't quite as much detail on King Alfred the Great's reign as I'd hoped (he's a small blip in between the Romans and William the Conqueror). As such, my pace of reading the first volume has slowed in direct relationship to the farther away from King Alfred it got. At this rate, I'll probably finish volume one in time for my next deployment a year from now.

Sharpe's (fill in the blank) (Bernard Cornwell again) - reading Cornwell's new stuff make me hanker for some of his old stuff, so I decided to pick up the Sharpe chronicles again and go through them in chronological order (I've read them all before, but Cornwell first inserted a book here and there in between those from his original pantheon, and then he rewound time twenty years and went all the way back to India for several books). The Sharpe series is one of only a few by modern authors that I followed expectantly for years, from start to finish. Sharpe's a one-trick pony throughout - gets in a scrape which quickly requires vengeance against an old or new enemy, finds a girl along the way, and has his vengeance requited during a large, bloody battle - but Cornwell is at least as good a historian as he is a writer, and has a detailed and generally quite accurate backdrop behind each tale. Sometimes Sharpe takes the place of an actual historical figure who played a critical role in various battles during the Napoleonic period, but otherwise the battle descriptions are true and vivid, and one can learn a great deal about the clashes, big and small, that made Arthur Wellesley the preeminent general of his time. There's also something delicious in watching Sharpe, born and bred in the gutters of London, continually prove himself a better officer and warrior than the aristocrats who paid for their commissions rather than earn them.

Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban (Stephen Tanner) - on the relatively good chance that Afghanistan is my next deployment destination, I figured a little background knowledge would be useful. Tanner's history claims to be the only military history of a nation that's known little else but warfare for over 2,500 years. Some curious notes: generally Afghanistan has only garnered the interest of warlords as a prize to be kept from someone else, not as something intrinsically valuable on its own; this trend accelerated with the growth of ocean-going trade by European powers which bypassed the old Silk Road. Also, Genghis Khan's conquest of that area almost a thousand years ago may have done more to contribute to its poverty and backwardness than any other single event. He annihilated powerful urban centers and large populations so thoroughly that they never recovered. Tanner writes well up until the American intervention in 2001; the last two chapters covering 9/11 and the last several years of counterinsurgency are much choppier, with obnoxious editorializing and non-sequiters popping up frequently (like so many, Tanner seems taken in by the fallacious notion that the Israel-Palestine issue is the cause of unrest throughout southwestern Asia; it's mentioned on almost every page in the last two chapters with virtually no attempt to tie it in to the larger narrative, not to mention that most Afghanis have lived in such isolation from the wider world that the conflict is meaningless to them). Perhaps another revised edition later down the road will allow time to provide a better perspective on our actions there now; but overall, despite the weak ending, it was a decent one-volume overview of the history of the graveyard of empires.

A Song of Ice and Fire - A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast of Crows (George R.R. Martin) - there's a funny story on how I started reading this series (not funny "ha ha", but it certainly illuminates the dark and twisted alleys of the mental labyrinth I call my thought process). I saw some promos for a new HBO series starring Sean Bean, of the British Sharpe TV special-Boromir in LOTR-Irish terrorist from Patriot Games-general baddass fame. I cared less about the series than the fact that he was in it. However, I did not, at the time, subscribe to HBO, so I started reading the books instead. After getting through the first two, I bought HBO and slowly started watching the series (which is based on the first book), already knowing what's going to happen throughout the entire season. So because of one promo poster, I now have four new books and ten new channels, and have spent more time watching How to Train Your Dragon on HBO than the series that was the inspiration for the whole thing. So don't get lost in my mind; it's scary up there. Anyway, I don't read modern fantasy since - in my opinion, founded on nothing specific - it's generally a poor derivation of Lord of the Rings or the computer game Warcraft; in the former case, I think once you've immersed yourself in LOTR you'll never be satisified with anything less, and the latter, computer games don't make for good books. But I've been pleasantly surprised; Martin's cycle cares less about magic and mystical creatures and more about the political and military machinations of the various noble houses in his fictional world. It reminded me greatly of Dune (the first three books, before Frank Herbert got really weird and his son spoiled the franchise for all time), with intrigue, betrayals, plots-within-plots, and outright war between different powers seeking the might of the crown for themselves. Unlike Dune, LOTR, and, I suspect, most other fantasy books, Martin also presents the reader with the gritty realities of medieval warfare, where princes, kings and knights fight according to aristocratic notions of virtue while making the lives of the baseborn utterly miserable. A knight can expect some quarter during a battle, and be ransomed later for the proper fee; the king's levies, however, simply die, their lands sacked and scorched as royal armies march back and forth across them. There IS fantastical mystery, however, and it's teased out at a pace sufficient to keep the reader engaged. Martin doesn't reveal the boundaries of his created world, as Tolkien did not; there are little-known lands over the horizon, holding mysterious powers and peoples, and wild places where unknown evils lurk. Readers looking for a gentle frolic through a peaceful fairyland should probably give this series a pass - the bloody violence and sexual escapades of the nobility are not for the faint of heart - but if you can handle that, it's a captivating journey.

Watching:

Game of Thrones - no need to repeat everything I just said above. Given the constraints of television, many little details from the books have been omitted from the show, but overall it remains true to Martin's vision (helped, in no small part, by having Martin on board as a co-producer). Strong actors like Sean Bean tie it all together. I'd read the books first.

The Pacific - watched it after coming back from my own tour of the Pacific. Many reviews I'd read about it were mixed, with a common criticism being that it was too depressing and less noble than events portrayed in its sister series about the Western front, Band of Brothers. Well, having visited many of the islands where Marines fought these battles, and studied the memoirs of those who fought them, The Pacific is not too far off the mark. The Marines in that theater fought brutal, unforgiving battles against a vicious enemy under the worst possible physical conditions. Comeraderie and the occasional light moment are shown, but the misery and violence of the island-hopping campaign simply can't be white-washed without diminishing what those Marines went through. Island by island, the Marines ground away at the Japanese, taking horrific casualties in the process. The weakest point in the series wasn't the constant darkness of the story but the attempt to tie several different war stories together into a cohesive narrative. Band of Brothers had the luxury of following one small group of people who were in the same unit the entire time; The Pacific follows three different Marines whose experiences barely overlap. The producers did about as well as they could, and I admire their attempt to ensure that as many stories as possible were heard. But it's choppy.

Cars 2 - I had high hopes for this. By and large, everything Pixar touches turns to gold. But they went badly off the rails on this one. As I said on Facebook, we all know that Hollywood types cling to certain trendy beliefs. Sometimes, they put those beliefs aside and focus on making good movies; Pixar generally does this. Sometimes, those beliefs slip through a little bit, but the movie itself doesn't suffer; Pixar got in its shots about big-box stores and pollution in Wall-E, but then went on to tell a cute story about a robot with puppy-dog eyes and the triumph of humanity over machinery. With Cars 2, the mask came completely off. Apparently John Lasseter, Pixar's creative genius, thought really really hard about who would make a good 'bad guy' in a spy movie starring cars, and in a flash of inspiration came up with: Big Oil (you could literally hear the capital B and capital O as the bad guys plotted their dastardly deeds). Never mind that gas is the life-blood of all the characters; never mind that Dinoco, the Big Oil of the first Cars, was nobly portrayed by the venerable The King race car; never mind that there were a half-dozen storylines introduced and then abandoned during the course of the movie, all of which would have made for better antagonists (lemon cars taking over the world would have been amusing and more in line with the Cars world overall). Hollywood had to make its point, and as a result the movie fails. Pixar would have our children believe that oil companies will literally murder to prevent "alternative fuels" from getting their due (for those parents who haven't seen it already, this is by far the most violent movie Pixar has made; and while the Incredibles had its share of explosions and baddies getting thrown around, race cars are, no kidding, assassinated and tortured throughout the film). I think I'm going to pass on the merchandising for Pixar's latest offering (except for the Legos Aaron got before we saw the movie...) and see if they can do better next time. They could hardly do worse.

Happy 4th to all, and to all a good summer

2011-07-01T18:54:00.002-04:00

In the absence of much else to say right now, I hope everyone has a great 4th of July weekend, wherever they are. My plans include a visit to the San Diego Fair, the roasting of an 80-pound pig (caught and cooked by someone else, not by me), and maybe an oil change. Exciting stuff, I know, but I'm an old man and my body can't handle the thrills of my younger years. There might be some Game of Thrones watching in there too, possibly some computer gaming, but most definitely some Lego-playing and puzzle-building with Aaron, and vomit-wiping and diaper-changing with Molly. These are a few of my favorite things.

"Got you, you son of a bitch"

2011-05-02T15:06:00.006-04:00

Those were my first thoughts, mixed with surprise and a little disbelief, upon learning yesterday that Osama bin Laden, the man who unexpectedly brought fire and death to our country ten years ago, was just as unexpectedly killed by fire 24 hours ago. I had my phone in hand, trying to find some night-time entertainment in the area for Bree's family to enjoy before leaving San Diego, when a message popped up on the screen from one of my cousins. It simply said, "Osama dead." For a second I was more surprised by getting a random text message from her late at night, and then the meaning registered and I loaded up Fox News and saw the same headline blazing in red. Leaving the dinner table and turning on the TV, I told everyone what I'd just heard, and I think they all experienced the same surprise. No one saw this coming, and many probably never thought that this day - at least, in this way - would come.

We watched the president's speech, and the spontaneous celebrations breaking out in front of the White House and in Times Square. Bree and I sat watching in silence, and I daresay we shared similar thoughts. Relief that at least one danger to our family and friends was gone. Shock that now, suddenly, the man whose actions had propelled our military to the other side of the globe for a decade was finally brought low. And the bitterness of remembering what it cost, in time away from home, in the fear and uncertainty of deployments, and in the blood of our friends, to make this happen.

No doubt, as more details come out in the wash about how we found him, how we got him, and - perhaps most importantly - how he was able to hide for so long and so securely in a country that ostensibly was trying to help us find him, the sheen of last night will fade. But right now, there are certain things I'm glad of, and take comfort in. First and foremost, that the architect of decades of murder and terror can no longer threaten the world. How telling it was of his vile disregard for human life that, at the end, he grabbed one of his own wives and used her as a shield so that his existence might be prolonged for a few more seconds. Muslim or infidel, it didn't matter who died so long as his twisted vision lived. One of the greatest mass murderers in recent history is gone, and while there will always be others ready to spill the blood of innocents, men with his grotesque ability to inspire hatred and ghoulish creativity in devising methods of maximizing death are, fortunately, rarer. He will be hard to replace, and I'm glad of it.

I'm also glad of what this success demonstrates about our greatness as a nation. This greatness is not about having the coolest spy gadgets, the most precise and lethal weapons, or the best soldiers (though we do, yet they're not at the root of our greatness, but branches of it). Good cannot exist in this world in the absence of justice. Bin Laden's continued freedom was justice incomplete so long as he continued to release videos and tapes condeming the West, taunting us, and promising more death and misery so long as he lived. Our greatness, then, was not demonstrated by the precision marksmanship required to put two bullets through the man's skull, but rather that we never stopped our pursuit of bringing the unjust to justice. Would his capture and trial, viz. Saddam Hussein, have been preferable to his death? Would it have been more 'just'? I don't see how. Saddam turned his trial into a mockery of justice. And there has never been any question of bin Laden's guilt; indeed, it was a point of pride for him. You couldn't find an impartial judge or jury on this planet, as bin Laden and al-Qaeda have either murdered people on, or people from, every populated continent. And every day he lived, his existence would inspire his followers and insult the families of those whose futures he snuffed out. Regardless, if the current reports are accurate, he was offered a chance to surrender and he declined. So be it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Either way, our pursuit of justice for bin Laden was the pursuit, also, of protecting what is good in this world. That pursuit brings greatness. And it is also a testament to our greatness that we have trained a cadre of warriors who can bring that bloody justice to the evil while taking care to protect the innocent. Bin Laden thought that greatness was demonstrated by killing civilians in large numbers and destroying everything around them; true greatness is sending a monster to his maker while leaving his neighbors unharmed.

Finally, I'm glad that, at last, this great chase had an end, and that the pursuit, after its great cost, was not abandoned. We have paid too great a price since that September morning ten years ago to declare the trail cold and the chase a failure. The dead of New York, DC, and Shanksville deserved better. The anguish of their families demanded more. And our warriors who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, impelled by the horrors of 9/11, and did not return, required resolution. They got it. Through three presidential terms, uneven success abroad, and incredible pressure at home, our leaders nevertheless refused to accept anything less than delivering on the original promise: dead or alive. For those who doubted it, the message could not be clearer: America does not give up. As President Bush said while the Twin Towers still smouldered, whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.

Perhaps it seems like Americans are gloating over the violent death of another human being. Certainly the celebrations that broke out last night were hardly somber and restrained. But I don't think we're 'celebrating death' as the jihadists and their supporters do. In a very immediate sense, the completion of this task which we long ago assigned ourselves is cathartic. For years its success seemed more and more out of reach. Add that to the economic turmoil since the housing crash, the social upheavals overseas, and the recent destruction wrought by the hand of nature at home, and finally putting one in the 'win' column is a relief. We won. The bad guy lost. It feels good. We've earned this. I don't think that's wrong. But I believe the celebrations are about more than that. Is it wrong to rejoice in the triumph of good over very real evil? Is it wrong to be relieved that a threat to our security and our loved ones has been removed? Is it wrong to be proud that the tremendous efforts of our intelligence and military forces have finally come to fruition, or that the sacrifices made by them and their families achieved something? Is it wrong to take satisfaction in the knowledge that, whatever future injustices might be visited on our citizens, our leaders still have the fortitude and courage to pursue the wrong-doers to any corner of the globe in which they choose to hide and rain justice down on them? I think all of the above is at work in our celebrations, and all of the above is worth celebrating. We celebrated and took pride in the destruction of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, not because we enjoyed killing others but because we knew that right triumphed, and that the future, while not perfect, would be better for our victory. That's not always the case; we should be glad when it is.

So I won't be raising a glass and toasting the fact that bin Laden's pretty face has two holes in it that the fish are now nibbling on at the bottom of the ocean. But I'll toast to the evil being brought to justice. I'll toast the steel in the belly of the country that pursued him. I'll toast the warriors who ended his reign of terror. I'll toast the other warriors, especially my friends, who thanks to 9/11 found themselves in unfriendly lands and died fighting his equally vile followers. And I'll toast the fact that, however many monsters might roam this earth seeking death and destruction, there's now one less monster to threaten my family.

And perhaps, in my weaker moments, I'll still think to myself, after remembering all the sorrow and ruin that Osama bin Laden wrought in his life: got you, you son of a bitch.

Back in the wild blue yonder

2011-04-07T18:57:00.011-04:00

You all have my solemn promise that at some point in the not-too-distant future, I will finish my tales about our MEU (though honestly, everything from Singapore on was sight-seeing). Yet I don't want to linger in the past at the expense of the present. So here's what's happening now. All or most of you know that I finished my FAC tour with the grunts at the end of February, preparing myself for returning to the aviation community while helping Bree out with her various and sundry medical issues. My homecoming was non-standard, as so much about my tour at the Stumps was; Bree was unfortunately in the hospital due to kidney stone problems (a situation that would repeat itself over, and over, and over . . .), so two of our friends from the 53 community generously made the 2.5 hour drive to pick me up. During the drive back home I wondered how this third reunion with Aaron would go. First time around he was terrified of me for a good two days; second time, a little timid but after lunch at Chili's (and a new toy) he seemed to think I was okay. This time, apparently, I needn't have worried; he came straight to the door and not only remembered who I was but seemed happy to see me (a new Lego Buzz Lightyear space-ship didn't hurt matters either). Our many video chats via Skype paid off (a glorious invention, Skype; you can videochat/call anywhere in the world for peanuts, and it's given me dividends in both Iraq and Okinawa. Think I'll buy stock, if the government gets around to giving me a paycheck next week. But I digress). I can only hope that the next homecoming will be that good; my seven months of week-long 'deployments' to 29 Palms helped Aaron prepare emotionally for a longer separation, and Skype was at least better than not seeing his face at all for another six months. I'm not sure how he'll react after having me home for a long period of time (combined with the fact that, by next summer, he'll probably be old enough to honestly feel resentment at the thought of me leaving again). We'll see.

Anyway, I got plenty of time at home to start making up for all my time abroad. Some of it wasn't quite planned - I ended up getting two free weeks off work to help Bree with kidney stone problems - but all of it was good. I took Aaron to the park so many times I'm surprised he didn't burn through every layer of skin on him. He also enjoyed showing me off to all his friends at preschool (though on the first day I picked him, his teachers wouldn't take his word for it that I was his daddy, demanding instead two forms of photo ID before I was allowed to leave with him). All in all I had five straights weeks to reintegrate myself back into home life and pick up some of the slack so that Bree could relax (at least, relax as much as is possible for a ninth-months pregnant lady). By the time my leave was over, my time with the battalion was also drawing to a close. The only things I had left to do with them were go to a belated birthday ball in Vegas, get farewelled, and check out. The official farewell - done, as they generally are, at a place where the consumption of large quantities of alcohol and loud noises are encouraged - was touching, even a little sad. Now, no disrespect at all to the battalion, but I was pretty excited to be getting back to Miramar and the cockpit. However, with the exception of the time spent away from my family, overall my FAC tour was a positive and highly educational experience. It was non-standard in many ways - few FACs spend months in command of one of the battalion's companies, or get tapped to be the number two to the MRF - but I learned a tremendous amount about how the bigger Marine Corps works, and the year I spent with the grunts certainly made me a more well-rounded officer than most of my time in the Corps up until then. The exchange seemed to work both ways too; many kind words were said at the farewell (some of them even true), and at the very least I think I did a decent job of representing Marine aviation to our ground brethren. And of the various plaques and pictures hanging on my Marine wall of fame in the dining room, one of the ones that means the most to me is the farewell plaque I got from the Marines in H&S company after my (second) change of command. I think it would have been very easy for the company to simply 'tolerate' my presence until a 'real' (non-pilot) CO assumed command, but by the time I finally gave up the reins there was a great deal of mutual respect between me and my staff, having worked through a demanding pre-deployment training cycle, an unexpectedly fired CO, and supporting the battalion in a major field exercise. They were certainly some of the finest officers and staff non-commissioned officers I've ever worked with, and without their knowledge and professionalism my tenure in command would have been much harder than it was.

After the ball, and my checking out of the battaliona and back into my old squadron, the next big event on the horizon was not flying, or getting settled in a new ground job, but preparing for the arrival of the child I'd only referred to as "dash two" for the last several months. I briefly greeted my old squadron-mates (and the new ones whose names I didn't bother learning since I figured I'd just forget them and have to re-learn them after paternity leave anyway) and then promptly checked out on baby leave when dash two child became Molly Kate on March 5. Her arrival (and pregnancy as a whole) was like night and day compared to Aaron's. Aaron's pregnancy wasn't too uncomfortable but the delivery sucked; Molly's was preceded by months of extra pain from kidney stones and a pee tube, but her delivery was, thankfully, pretty mild (I speak from my expert position as the guy standing beside the bed while the pushing was going on). Bree was scheduled to be induced, and on the big day we checked in bright and early to the birthing suite (this hospital was much nicer than Balboa Naval Hospital; the 'delivery room' was much bigger, featured several different delivery zones included a jacuzzi, and included amenities like a TV, DVD player, and actual fold-out bed for significant others to sleep on, as opposed to the cold hard floor I slept on at Balboa). The epidural was placed much better this time (i.e. it actually worked), and things were going so calmly that I decided to shoot back home briefly to check on Aaron. But no sooner had I gotten to the house than Bree called and said the doctor was waiting on me to come back, and with visions of an irate wife holding the baby in, I expeditiously made my way back to the hospital. No sooner did I arrive then the doctor started the pushing process and in about twenty minutes, amazingly, the whole thing was over, and Molly was getting the goop wiped off her. She quickly assumed the position she's adopted for the last two months - eating and sleeping simultaneously - and both mom and daughter were doing so well that I called my cousin, who'd been watching Aaron, and said they could both come by to say hello. Aaron was quite impressed with his new friend, giving her lots of kisses, and seemed to accept his new competition for attention gracefully (also, Molly 'getting' him a new Lightning McQueen monster truck as an ice-breaker present didn't hurt either.)

*********************************

I'm gonna take a page from my 31st MEU wrap-up and call it good here lest I let it lie fallow for too long. Suffice it to say that we are one family member larger, she's doing well, Mama no longer has kidney stones, and number one son has a strange interest in the process of changing his sister's dirty diapers, which apparently requires his presence to be completed effectively. It's summer in San Diego, I get to fly occasionally, and life is pretty good. Please return to the top of the blog for any updates in the future.

At it again

2011-03-16T12:23:00.003-04:00

Greetings all, with the dust settling (not completely settled, there's still a good deal of debris in the air, but at least it's on a downward trajectory) from returning home, checking out of the battalion and back in a squadron, and welcoming the newest member of our family, I'm endeavoring to finally finish off my account of my Pacific tour and bring this whole blog up to date. It will still be slow going, but keep checking back for newish material.

From the department of the Completely Obvious: hiatus

2011-01-26T21:10:00.003-05:00

Yes, I've been back from Oki for a while now. No, I haven't forgotten about this blog. Yes, I'm risking irrelevance by not updating it. No, frankly I don't care right now, because I'm spending my time with my family and giving my wife a break from the various and sundry burdens (kidney stones, pregnancy, 4-year-old powered by perpetual motion machine) she's carried for the last six months. Eventually, I'll be back.

Ah, Singapore

2010-12-29T17:28:00.016-05:00

At last, the end is in sight! Just a couple of port visits to go and this float is a wrap (almost a month after the fact, I know. I've been busy).

Having done what we could in the aftermath of Megi, it was time to try and get back on schedule, which meant full steam ahead for Singapore. We were all very excited to get off the ship (for longer than a few hours this time) and enjoy some culture, though in the days leading up to our disembarkation, we were presented with a rather stern picture of Singaporean mores. Every liberty brief seemed to focus almost exclusively on the "don'ts": don't spit, don't chew gum, don't jaywalk, don't make loud noises, don't look at Singaporean women, don't think about looking at Singaporean women, don't think about women period, or the police will grab your ass, toss you in the can, and then beat the skin off your ass with a cane (to get the point home, photos of asses that had encountered Singaporean law enforcement were included). Singapore seemed pretty intimidating, so much so that more than a few people decided to stick close to the ships in port fearing pictures of their asses would wind up in liberty briefs for the spring patrol.

However, the next week would show that Singapore was hardly the police state it was made out to be. All the "don'ts" boiled down to this: exercise some basic frigging common sense and Singapore could be a great time. In our travels around the island we rarely saw any police presense at all. As it was, the group I was traveling with wasn't looking to tear up the town; we were, indeed, looking for culture. While we were enroute I did some research into local sights and, history major that I am, my focus was on Singaporean history. Turned out Singapore had a lot to offer in that department - much more than we could absorb in the short time we had, so I narrowed it down to World War II sites. My knowledge of what happened in the British part of the Pacific was pretty scant; mostly it had to do with the embarrassment suffered by the British Empire at just how quickly the Japanese were able to dismantle their Pacific holdings, especially Singapore which had been hailed as a "Gibralter of the East". Judging from Singapore's tourism websites, the Japanese conquest and aftermath had a pretty significant impact on the country's attitude from then on, so the battlefield sites seemed like a good way to see what made Singapore tick. I proferred this information to one of the battalion's other FACs and our Intelligence officer who were to be my liberty buddies, and so long as they could slide some of their own non-geek suggestions into my itinerary, they were game.

We pulled into Changi harbor late in the afternoon and I'll admit it - I napped through everything and only woke up after we were tethered to the pier. The view from the flight deck, though, was impressive. A majority of the world's container ship traffic comes through Singapore, and it seemed like all of it was arrayed before us at once. Anywhere you could see water, you could see ships, a trend that followed us regardless of where we went on the island. Also lined up at the pier itself were several ships from Singapore's navy. They were an impressive collection of vessels; most of them looked like they were fresh from the naval yard, and our flotilla of rust-streaked ships didn't cut the most dashing picture beside them (but I felt better about the state of our Navy after realizing that Singapore doesn't have to patrol the world's oceans year-round; we can be forgiven a little rust in exchange for keeping the sea lanes open). And, right next to us, was a Japanese Navy amphibious ship (modeled closely on our own small-deck amphibs), complete with Rising Sun naval ensign flapping in the breeze on the stern. How the times have changed, methought: back in the time of our grandparents, any American and Japanese ships finding themselves in such close proximity would've started blasting away at each with broadsides of 16-inch shells. Now here we are, cozily tied up next to each other and sharing some liberty time.

Staring at various and sundry ships was all I accomplished that day, as we'd pull into port late in the afternoon and getting anywhere worth going in Singapore first required us to take a shuttle bus to the nearest train station, then riding the train thirty minutes to the good spots. So, my liberty buddies and I decided to save our energy and head off first thing the next morning. That turned out to be around 1000, but eventually we got ourselves out of bed and headed off to Changi Prison, our first site. Changi became infamous during World War II as the holding camp for European POWs and civilians after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. As with virtually all Japanese prison camps, conditions were atrocious and violence against the prisoners routine and brutal. But some prisoners found ways to cope and keep alive the hope that someday they'd be free again. Art seemed to be a popular coping mechanism, and the prison museum featured a large variety of sketches and paintings, from cartoony pictures of inmates mending shoes and building toothbrushes to an elaborate and moving series of murals depicting the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ that one prisoner painstakingly placed on the prison's chapel walls. We even met a former POW who was making his own tour of the place he'd once been held. He was Belgian, he told us, and this was first time he revisited Singapore in sixty years since his liberation. Held in Changi from the fall of Singapore for the duration of the war, he said he never expected to live to see his home again; having lived through that hell, he's spending his golden years enjoying the good things life has to offer.

The rest of our first day was spent mostly poking around the downtown area, doing recon on potential targets for future operations. We stopped for lunch along the riverfront, watching dragon boat races and quickly discovering that we needn't worry about ordering too little food; in both Singapore and Hong Kong, the average entree was more than sufficient for two people, though chronic fears of undernourishment resulted in chronically taking doggie bags back to the ship and then chronically throwing them away since we didn't have any way of reheating them onboard. Downtown Singapore offered interesting contrasts in architecture: government buildings, for example, consisted of a classic British colonial-style 'old' parliament house, next to which a flying-saucer-looking modern structure we dubbed the Galactic Imperial Senate had been constructed. There was also a casino, shaped like a cruise liner, straddling three different hotels. Odd choices, but then when most of the nations of the world hand you money to park their shipping, I guess you can build whatever you want (see: Bahrain). Our wanderings also took us past a World War I/World War II memorial to the 'glorious dead' of both wars, and the Civilian War Memorial (known as the Chopsticks since it looks like four chopsticks glued together) which commemorates - in the four different languages spoken throughout the island - the many civilian casualties of Japanese occupation. Again, this is a country that has not forgotten its sufferings.

Then we moved west and climbed up what little high ground downtown offered to Fort Canning Park. Built around one of the city's reservoirs, the park has some performing arts-type areas similar to downtown parks in many cities (like Balboa), but also features the "Battle Box", the underground command post from which the defense - and, ultimately, surrender - of Singapore was conducted. Being late in the day, we figured we'd come back another time, and instead went to drink beer at a microbrewery further along the river. We happened upon our CO and some other higher-ups at the brewery; I think that night was the only time in the next week that I saw any of the senior members of the command. Being off the radar was glorious.

***

Sigh, I am forced to concede failure. I am so far behind in this update, with so many other things to do right now, that, with a heavy heart, I must admit it's highly unlikely I will complete it in the detail it deserves. But I'm reluctant to utterly abandon the effort, so I offer you instead a heavily abbreviated version of my last months on the MEU.

We did end up seeing the Battle Box, along with several other significant sites from the British defense such as Fort Siloso on Sentosa Island (infamous for "having its guns pointing in the wrong direction"; actually they DID support the defense of Singapore as they could be traversed, it's just that British planners never in their wildest dreams imagined the Japanese would attempt an overland assault), Bukit Chandu (site of a tenacious 2-day defense by two Malay regiments, who so enraged the Japanese by their audacity to fight back that they were killed almost to a man), and the Kranji military cemetary, home to a diverse polyglot of graves of soldiers from all over the Commonwealth. We also swung through many cultural sites, like Chinatown and the Shrine of the Wooden Tooth (a relic from one of the many thousand Buddhas. I always thought there was just the one, but there are actually numerous reincarnated versions of him), and Haw Par Villa. Haw Par Villa (which we ended up calling Tiger Balm Villa for simplicity) is one of the most unique parks I've ever seen; founded after the turn of the century by the Chinese family that gave the world Tiger Balm, its purpose was to share Chinese culture, history, and mythology with the world, and it did so through thousands of miniature statues depicting religious figures, legend, and historical leaders. One of the main sub-attractions in the park is the Ten Circles of Hell, which guides you, in elaborate detail, through the Chinese underworld and the various punishments one can expect for misdeeds during life (they're all very painful, and portrayed in vivid detail. Not for the faint of heart).

So, Singapore was a blast, and I was fortunate to get to spend a few extra days there as I had moved myself over to the Denver to support some of their training. The Denver was the last to leave, as the rest of the ARG headed south to provide some presidential support in Indonesia. We pulled out and spent almost two weeks on our own as we steamed around waiting to rejoin the rest of the group in Hong Kong. While underway, I had a chance to get some much-needed FAC training with the embarked company's squad leaders and a detachment of Cobras that required training too. For two days and nights we called in rocket and Hellfire strikes on targets real and imaginary (the Denver generously provided one of their inflatable boats to run around astern the ship and play the target, otherwise our targets would've been entirely imaginary). From there we cruised generally north through the South China Sea toward Hong Kong (spending a full day and night getting tossed around by the shallow, rough seas south of HK; certainly made getting on the elliptical a more challenging experience), and finally rejoined our sister ships in the harbor. From the moment we pulled in to the moment we cast off three days later, I really only saw Hong Kong for a few miles in each direction before smog blotted out the horizons. You think pollution in your city is bad, I guarantee you Hong Kong has it beat; and its smog comes sixty miles from the north before winding up in the city itself. Wouldn't want to live in the area that actually generates it.

Our trips in and around the city (starting and ending with painfully slow ferrys by local water taxis) were an abbreviated version of our Singapore expeditions: visiting local cultural sites, like Buddhist temples and the world's largest outdoor sitting bronze Buddha statue on Lantau Island and old walled villages; climbing up and down the hills where the Japanese fought the British; eating lots of cheap local food (also, we spent a great deal of time trying to pin-point precisely which skyscaper it was that Batman was sky-hooked off of in The Dark Knight). Hong Kong is also a true vertical city; with land at a premium (and a surprising amount of the 'Special Administrative Region' is undeveloped or devoted to agriculture) the city grew up, not out, as evidenced by everything from the famous skyline crowded with giant office buildings to the dozens and dozens of government-run apartment complexes (300 square feet for a family-sized apartment, or about the size of the average American walk-in closet). Also, interestingly, we learned that each and every one of the concrete fingers reaching for the sky was built using bamboo scaffolding. Bamboo is apparently very strong; but you will not get me five hundred feet in the air on nothing but hollow tree branches.

The three days there flew by and, one new digital camera and a couple dozen free books from the naval liaison shore library later, I was re-embarked on the Essex and our little fleet made its merry way back to Oki to end the patrol. With a little luck and some assistance from the 53 detachment on board (my old squadron), I scored a seat on their fly-off, flying almost a year to the day for the first time since my last flight (and I got my first landing in a year too, feeling somewhat smug as a 46 pilot who hadn't had a year-long hiatus waved off from landing on a nice big runway). Over the next couple of days the Navy disgorged the mountains of equipment we'd onloaded three months before, and with one last long bus drive back to Camp Hanson, our patrol was over. We were still technically on tap to respond to anything that might happen in our AO for the next month, until our relief arrived at the end of December (and, after the North Koreans decided to use a civilian village for artillery practice, we were afraid we'd spend Christmas invading Pyongyang); but, for all intents and purposes, our deployment was over except for the plane ride home. I spent my time getting a few simulators and flights with my 53 buddies down in Futenma, and dragging my liberty partner to various battlefield sites on the island itself (he got me back by dragging me to the many feudal castles dotting the place as well).

The battalion's officers also took a guided tour as another chapter in our professional military education (PME), getting escorted around by a civilian guide whose tour has been featured on the Military Channel. We saw the beach 1/7 landed on and the hills and ridgelines they fought over. Combined with the Okinawa Prefecture's Peace Museum exhibit on the battle, I left the island with a sobering sense of the brutality that marked what local Okinawans called the "Typhoon of Steel". American Army and Marine leaders, determined to do whatever it took to reduce the staggering number of casualties typically taken when wrenching an island away from the Japanese, pounded enemy positions with an ungodly amount of artillery and naval gunfire before advancing, turning the lush green tropical island into a barren sea of dirt (and, in short order, mud). Japanese troops refused to surrender, forcing Americans to blast them out of each and every hole they lurked in (unless they committed suicide first). The American Navy was constantly pummeled by waves of kamikazes, which damaged or sunk dozens of ships. And the Okinawans suffered worst of all: the Japanese ejected them from what little shelter they had, forcing them into the open where American artillery and Japanese counter-fire slaughtered them. Or, alternately, the Japanese simply killed them or forced them to commit suicide, as they questioned their loyalties and didn't want them passing information to American troops. For the United States, it was the bloodiest island battle yet, with 62,000 casualties, including 12,000 killed or missing (close to half of those were Navy deaths from kamikazes). The Japanese military, fighting to the end, lost over 100,000 killed, with only 7400 captured. The civilian population, caught between the two armies, died in droves, with close to 150,000 dead from the "Typhoon". Combined with the viciousness of the other Pacific battles we'd studied, including civilian losses, one gets a strong sense of why American leaders feared military and civilian casualties in the millions from an invasion of the Home Island, and why the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki generated relief, rather than controversy, back in a United States that was afraid many of its sons in the Pacific would never come home.

Eventually, Christmas came, and New Year's, and we celebrated though in a somewhat muted fashion, since Okinawa offered all the accoutrements of home, except for the families. But not long after we finally boarded that big, glorious, welcome plane home. In the end, I didn't quite have the same feeling of satisfaction from our military actions (or lack thereof) during our patrol as I did after coming home from Iraq. In Iraq, you could quantify your accomplishments in numbers of passengers and tons of cargo flown, in combat flight hours logged in your logbook, and Air Medals won. This time around, we didn't "do" much that could be quantified; but then that's the nature of the MEU. You float around, waiting for something to happen. And while it might seem like simply 'floating around', you are, in fact, flying the nation's flag, patrolling the world's sea lanes, and letting both friend and enemy alike know that whatever happens, the United States Navy and Marine Corps - the best friend, the worst enemy - is only a day's hard sailing away.

Run away, run away!

2010-12-05T00:19:00.001-05:00

Good Lord, we're well into December but my blog's only just starting October. I am ashamed. I'll haze myself later.

To pick up this tale where we left off: our joint mechanized raid complete, we returned to the USS Denver and prepared to join the rest of the ARG in pulling into port at Subic Bay the next day. This port call would signal the kick-off of PHIBLEX, with all three ships disgorging their contents onto the pier at Subic and then trucking, busing, flying, and otherwise burning fossil fuels to get all the MEU elements to their various sites around the island for about ten days of training with the PHILMARs. The process of pulling into the bay and tying up at the pier provided an educational look into Navy ops, something which we on the ground side alternatively viewed as transparent when it didn't affect us, and annoying - see previous comments on whistles, chains, announcements, etc - when it did. I stood on the weather deck at the bow to watch the ship's "sea and anchor" detail prepare the various and sundry ropes and chains required to park a ship where one wanted it. Above me, next to the bridge, were the ship's captain, other officers and senior enlisted, and the "pilot" who'd been picked up first thing that morning. One could feel centuries of old naval traditions permeating the whole evolution; apart from the presence of modern gadgets like defensive machine guns, radios, and turbine engines, I was sure an old tar from the wooden deck of the HMS Victory or USS Bonhomme Richard would have felt right at home.

Orders were relayed from the captain and pilot - a Filipino civilian with intimate knowledge of the harbor - either to the steering detail or sea and anchor detail. The senior chief with sea and anchor yelled out the commands to his worker bees, who scurried around tying, untying, releasing, and securing as required. As we closed in with the pier, a pair of tugboats approached and received lines thrown from our bow. The tugs alternately pushed and towed us to the pier, where finally docking this beast became a game of inches. Ever so slowly, with refinements given to the pilot and relayed to the tugs who were on the starboard side of the Denver and couldn't see the pier, we were pushed forward, then back, and always closer to the dock until the captain was satisfied and again lines were thrown from the ship to dockworkers who secured them. 'Parking a ship' might seem fairly bland and mundane to you landlubbers; but I'd like to see you stop a 10,000 ton warship exactly where you want it. Myself and many other Marines hanging off the rails had front-rows seats to see the Navy do what it does, and I'm forced to admit: they do it well.

Now that we were in port, I had to grab all my junk and walk my happy ass back to the Essex for a night, as I was still administratively attached to H&S company and would be part of their bus movement the next morning. Leaving the Denver was a little depressing, since I'd enjoyed my few days there more than the average week on the Essex. Being on the Essex, and hence right next to the 'flagpole' where the powers that be make all the big decisions, inevitably sucks you in to all the friction, scrambling, and planning and re-planning that goes in to those decisions. There are many meetings at many command levels, and then sometimes more meetings to tell you that what was discussed and 'decided' at the last meeting has been undecided or 'overcome by events', and now there will be more meetings, scrambling, and planning in order to develop a new course of action. To put it mildly, this generates more than little frustration in those who are whip-sawed back and forth by change 10 to plan W. On top of this, the Essex isn't the greatest place to get to know your fellow Marines and sailors. The ship's company - i.e. only the Navy or 'blue' side of the house - contains over 1200 sailors. Throw the Marines on board, and that's another 1800 sets of elbows. It's going to take more than a few weeks to get to know everyone on our floating town of 3000. The Denver's total complement, with Marines embarked, is less than half that of the Essex. It was a pleasure going into the wardroom and actually seeing and eating with the same small group of people each time. I think I touched on this in an earlier post, and you'll hear it again about later in the patrol, but: life's good on the Denver.

Anyway, the day after pulling into port, me and my roommates hauled all our gear down the pier and awaited the buses that would take us to Crow Valley, where H&S would be setting up its camp and we FACs would be doing some CAS training in a few days (or so we thought . . . remember the portents and omens . . .). The buses arrived and took us on a three-hour ride from Filipino civilization to the Filipino wild. I'd fallen asleep during the ride right after we pulled out of Subic, a major port town; I woke up as we bounced up and down on poorly paved roads, passing homes thatched with palm fronds, surrounded by goat and chicken enclosures, and populated by hoards of children in various stages of undress. We were not in Kansas anymore. We stopped at the camp where we'd be staying for the next week and disembarked to pitch our tents. The camp had been under construction for the last few days courtesy of the Combat Logistics Battalion (CLB) attached to the MEU, and the Combat Engineer Platoon (CEP) attached directly to our battalion. Not to be uncharitable, but from what we heard when we got there, it sounded like CLB's contribution had been limited to simply getting all their vehicles and personnel to the site and then rapidly turning to on chow and PT. The hard work required to scrape a sanitary, well-protected expeditionary encampment from the sand of Crow Valley fell almost exclusively on our engineer platoon, who worked many long hours, in the dark, to build a FOB that could house over a thousand Marines in the field. They did so, uncomplainingly, and in an incredibly short amount of time.

I pitched my tent, dug some drainage ditches around it to keep from getting swept away by rain in the night (like my ditches would've mattered; Crow Valley is not just some lower land sandwiched between higher ground, but a river valley that's only a few degrees less wet than the Great Flood when it rains during monsoon season), and turned in. The next day, we were to inspect the various ranges we planned to use with the PHILMARs during our joint training, and then myself and several other officers were to catch a helicopter ride to Clark airfield to meet with our career monitors and find out just what we'd be doing after this deployment. I rode along to inspect the CAS range, which we'd already heard about from some of the pilots who'd flown in Crow Valley during previous 31st MEU deployment. Seen up close, however, this range was truly special. I'd been told about the "bomb circle" which helped the Filipino Air Force find their target from the air. It was, truly, a circle; several concentric rings of brightly painted orange tires, in fact, with a nice orange VW Bug sitting in the center, ready to be blown into little tiny pieces. If only our enemies had the courtesy to mark important structures and vehicles with large orange circles, thought I, a FAC's job would be so much easier.

Range reconnaissance complete, we returned to camp, and I grabbed an overnight bag and was trucked out to the LZ for my trip to Clark. Clark was only about a fifteen minute flight by CH-46 from Crow Valley, and I eagerly disembarked after touching down, ready to solidify my post-1/7 plans with my monitor and enjoy a night under a roof instead of the stars (yeah, I'd only spent one night thus far in the field, but Crow Valley and the Philippines in October were like every other island I'd slept outside on during the MEU thus far: hot, humid and without a breath of wind to make things moderately more comfortable. Hey, at least I had a tent this time). Immediately after landing, however, things took a turn. Remember those portents, omens, and Fates I talked about, that signaled PHIBLEX might be a little star-crossed from the get-go? As soon as we landed at Clark, they showed up. No sooner had we hauled our luggage away from the aircraft and asked the ACE's OpsO where to meet the vans that were supposed to take us to the hotel - and our monitors - the OpsO got a phone call telling him that the monitor visit had been cancelled in its entirety. Why? Because a large typhoon had set its sights on northern Luzon and the monitors didn't want to get stranded in the Philippines when they had several other stops to make around the Pacific. But this was chump change compared to the bigger news: thanks to this typhoon, PHIBLEX - the major scheduled event of our patrol with the 31st MEU - was now cancelled too. A typical monsoon rainfall would make life challenging in Crow Valley; a typhoon, even if it hit the northern part of the island, would wash everything away. The ACE's aircraft, sitting in the open at Clark with no hardened shelters available to them, would be at the mercy of hurricane-force winds and all the crap they toss through the air. The order came down: we were getting out, re-embarking the entire MEU as quickly as possible, and sailing south before the storm came. This news caused no small amount of consternation, because it meant that everything we'd assembled at Crow Valley would have to be broken down, repacked on vehicles, and hauled back over a week early. Given that the MEU had contracted many local vehicles to move all our trash, this meant re-arranging all the contracts we'd made on the back end. That's kind of a big deal. But there was little choice. This typhoon, dubbed "Megi", was brewing up into a powerful storm, and we had to get out of its way.

Monitor visit or no monitor visit, we weren't scheduled to go back to Crow Valley until the next day, so we had no choice but to try and enjoy ourselves on Clark for a night. We did. The next day, a couple of Phrogs flew us back to Crow, where the camp breakdown was well underway. The battalion spent one more night under the stars, and then began the long process of convoying everything and everybody back to Subic to re-embark on our ships. The buses and trucks moved back and forth long into the night, but in a testament to the flexibility and professionalism of the MEU's Marines, the onload was finished in record time without losing or damaging a single piece of rolling stock. First thing the next morning, our ships pulled out and steamed south. PHIBLEX had come to an ignominious end, but the storm gave us something new to focus on: disaster relief. Megi hadn't changed course during the last 48 hours and was poised to give northern Luzon a direct hit. Since the order first came down to pull out, the storm had strengthened into a true monster: winds were well over 150 knots and waves were 30 feet and higher. It was bigger than a Category 5 storm in the Gulf, and predicted to weaken only slightly before making landfall. The potential for catastrophic damage was high, and though the Philippine government had not yet asked for any outside assistance, it was obvious that it was only a matter of when, not if.

The next two days were spent transiting the southern islands of the Philippine archipelago in order to get ourselves into a position to help on the eastern side of Luzon as soon as the storm had passed. Incidentally, we passed through some of the same straits that Japanese and American forces had maneuvered in some sixty years earlier, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (one of the last and largest naval battles of World War II; I won't go into all the details but a good rundown can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf ). Though subsequent fighting on the islands themselves would be long and bloody, the Battle of Leyte Gulf broke the power of the Japanese navy, which would never again sail in force. Once we'd positioned ourselves off the coast of the Cagayan district (hardest hit by the typhoon), we waited for the call to come. Unsurprisingly, the call came, but it wasn't quite what we expected: the Filipino government only asked for a few aircraft to help survey and assess the damage. Our visions of heroic assistance by all hands were dashed, but it was still a real mission, so we started to plan our small part.

In the end, only a handful of personnel from the MEU went ashore to assess damage and distribute aid, and this is less an indication of the storm's destructiveness than a testament to the readiness of the Philippine government. Oh, there was damage - the affected area was heavily agricultural, and many fields and rice paddies were destroyed - but the loss of life was surprisingly minimal. Given that its island are in a 'typhoon alley', the Philippine government has had a great deal of experience in preparing for major disasters, and that showed in the aftermath of Megi. The regional authorities in the north knew that it would be some time before government aid could get to them, and so they'd evacuated civilians and identified aid distribution points well before the storm hit. They were ready, and it saved lives. Many of us noted that the municipal and regional leaders of this relatively poor nation were far more adept at recovering from a major disaster than were their counterparts in the Gulf when Katrina hit.

We spent about two days providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and then we were off again to Subic, to pick up a small amount of gear that hadn't been re-embarked. After another couple of days steaming, we pulled back into port and got a few hours' liberty. We were restricted to the immediate area around the port, so there wasn't much to see, but it was good to get off the ship and grab some real food (and souvenirs) before getting underway again. Next morning we were off again, this time heading southwest to Singapore for our first real port visit. To put it mildly, Singapore was a hell of a good time; but more on that later :).

Hitting the beach

2010-11-12T20:43:00.001-05:00

The ship’s at general quarters; perfect time to update the old blog.

Rather than hitting the bottom, we hit the beach after the longest twenty-minute ride of my life. After gently bobbing through the water and watching said water slowly leak through the door into the track, there was a sudden grinding noise as the tracks caught on coral and crunched through it, and then the front of the vehicle was pointing at the sky, and we were on the beach. It pulled onto a level span, and we quickly (and gratefully) popped open the top hatches to start setting up our gear and figure out where we were in relation to the objective. Most of the guys on my vehicle had a sneaking suspicion we weren’t in the right place, because we’d been told that our transit from the ship to the shore would take about an hour, and here we were ‘feet dry’ less than thirty minutes after launching. Once our GPS booted up, it confirmed our situation: we were a good two klicks south of our expected landing site (as the vehicle commander loudly and colorfully told me, this was not the first time they’d been dropped off on the wrong beach). Well, Marines don’t just take their ball and go home when things don’t go their way. The objective still needed attacking, so we had to get there one way or another.

Fortunately, as our raid packages are always part of a MAGTF (Marine Air-Ground Task Force), we could phone a friend for help; so I got on my radio and called up the section of Cobras that were attached to us for close air support. “We’re in the wrong place; help us get to the right one”, I asked, and the skids proceeded to scout up and down the shoreline to find us a way off the beach. They called back saying that there appeared to be a fordable crossing about half a klick north near a small waterway. Our tracks coughed out black clouds of exhaust and ground their way north. As we got closer, the Cobras cued us in to the crossing by flying low profiles right over it, and we soon saw a waterway paralleling the beachline with a dirt road on the other side that seemed to head off in the right direction (in this waterway, incidentally, was a randomly placed three-level harbor cruise ship which clearly had no way of getting out of the stagnant strip of water in which it found itself. None of us could figure out how this thing got there in the first place, short of being picked up by a rogue wave and deposited to rust away its remaining days in ignominy. This was not the last strange sight we’d see in the Philippines). The lead track gamely plunged into the water and waded to the other side. However, turns out the road was just a little too steep for a track to climb, so the rest of us watched with some amusement as the track got oh so close to the top, only to slide back down into the water and soak the passengers in the back who’d not had the foresight to seal the top hatches. After four tries it was clear we needed another way inland; calling the skids again, I told them we needed a plan B.

Cruising another kilometer up the beach, our escorts came back and said that they’d found a stream that ran inland and apparently led directly to the hard-surface road that would take us to our objective. Hoping the stream proved more fordable than the cruise ship graveyard, our mechanized column plodded on until we found it. Our flight-suited brethren were proving to be invaluable to this mission, as they told us just how far up the stream we had to go, what turns we needed to take, and close it would get us to the objective. All we could see was a trickle of water heading into the jungle, but the pilots’ confidence that this would get us where we needed to go was reassuring. Two hundred meters off the beach, the jungle quickly closed in around the creek to the point where we could only see the track in front and behind us. We maneuvered our way through foliage, under randomly-strung power lines, and around the occasional water buffalo, becoming less and less happy about the situation as we couldn’t see anything around us and the increasing number of large, ugly insects being deposited on us by the jungle was rapidly consuming more of our attention than the minor fact of being lost. Don’t worry, called the skids above us, you’re almost there. And, suddenly, we were; we came around another turn, the track lurched out of the stream bed up the embankment, and we found ourselves in the front yard of some confused but friendly-looking locals. And beyond their front yard was the road. We waved and smiled at the family whose beach hut we’d narrowly avoided squishing and raced down the asphalt.

We were an hour behind schedule, but finally in a position to execute the assault plan, which was blessedly uneventful. The Cobras had to check off station, as we’d used all their gas just finding our way off the beach, but I thanked our aerial Tom-Tom for helping us unscrew ourselves and sent them on their way. Our AAVs set themselves up in their assault and support-by-fire positions, and we dismounted and went to work. After about twenty minutes of running around, throwing smoke grenades, and surprising the Filipino naval garrison on the objective who had no idea we were coming, the mission was over and we were ready to call it a day. Getting back to the beach was much easier than leaving it; the mech company commander lined up his tracks, pointed them toward the water, and plowed over every rut, bush, and rusted fenceline for five hundred meters until we were there. We couldn’t head back to the ship until the helo raid being conducted to our south was finished as well, so we spread ourselves out along the water and watched the helicopters coming and going from the Essex until the battalion commander gave the call for everyone to come home. After another twenty minutes of bobbing through the ocean (with less water leaking in this time, thankfully), we climbed back into the welldeck of the Denver and called it a day.

If the army and the navy ever looks on heaven's scenes...

2010-11-10T21:08:00.001-05:00

They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.

Happy 235 years to the Corps!

PHIBLEX

2010-11-08T07:43:00.001-05:00

It has been awhile, hasn’t it.

Let’s see, I think I left off with our mighty mini-fleet steaming its way toward the Philippines for a couple of weeks of bilateral training. That was the plan, at least. With CERTEX complete, PHIBLEX – Philippines Bilateral Exercise – was our next major MEU event. We were going to spend almost two weeks at several locations around the island, training with our counterparts in the Filipino Marine Corps and, as always, sweating our balls off in the jungle while doing so. The Fates, however, had a different plan. It began, as these things do, with portents and omens; in this case, with the complete and utter cancellation of one of our major training sites at Fort Magsaysay. This was due to some sort of contract dispute, though the actual causes were quickly overshadowed by other events, but it was not a promising start. Our attached artillery battery was going to use that site for some much needed training (and time off the boat; through all of CERTEX they were the only guys who hadn’t set foot on shore and they were getting very, very antsy); indeed, it was the one major training evolution they would get during the course of the float. Alas, it was not to be. There was much weeping, gnashing of teeth, and schedule refining in our Ops department during the last few days before PHIBLEX thanks to this development.

Once we reached the Philippines, things seemed to get back on track. The first big event of PHIBLEX was a serious of joint raids in which each company in the battalion would take a contingent of PHILMARs (Filipino Marines, in case you couldn’t guess) along and demonstrate their particular raid specialty – boat, mechanized, helo, etc. I wound up flying over to the USS Denver, where our mechanized company was embarked, to support their raid. After six weeks on the Essex, the Denver was a breath of fresh air. One of the other FACs had regaled us with stories from his first MEU float about the glories of the “small deck”, that class of amphibious ship to which the Denver belongs. According to him, the accommodations were better, the food was great, the sun shone brighter and birds sang louder and more melodiously. I didn’t see any birds, but I think everything else turned out to be true. On the Essex, I shared a closet-sized room with three other people; on the Denver, I had a room to myself and it was twice as big as the one on the Essex. On the Denver, you write down your own custom meal order and hand it to the cooks, who then bring out to your table; on the Essex, you’re rammed through the chow line with the hundred other officers on the ship and unless you get there within three minutes of the wardroom opening, you’ll be standing in line for a long time. And I don’t know if it was because we were closer to the equator or some unusual solar activity, but I would swear under oath that the sun was brighter and more glorious on the deck of the Denver. Life away from the flag pole has much to recommend it. Fewer meetings, less stress and higher morale were among the perks (as were nightly Risk tournaments in the company commander’s stateroom).

The PHILMARs embarked the same day I did, and that night the mech company commander briefed the mission. It would be pretty benign so that we could focus on training the Filipinos rather than concern ourselves with varsity-level tactics: get to the beach, drive to the objective, run around the objective for a little while, drive back to the beach, wade back to the ship. I was less concerned with my responsibilities as the FAC (though the air piece was actually pretty intensive, since our mech raid would be landing simultaneous with a helo raid on an objective just a few klicks to the south which meant lots of aircraft buzzing around) and more with the transit to the beach via Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV). The next day’s raid would be my first time actually ‘splashing’ and swimming to shore in one of these things. For those unfamiliar with the AAV, it’s a piece of 1980s technology which still bears more than a passing resemblance to its 1940s forerunners. Picture a steel box with tank tracks on the side and some holes on the top for the vehicle commander to look around and shoot things. It weighs tens of thousands of pounds and supposedly floated, most of the time anyway. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but tomorrow I would find out.

D-Day dawned, and I grabbed my gear, my weapon and my radios and headed down to the well deck for what I hoped would be the first of many non-sinking AAV rides to come. The well deck was a hub of activity, with diesel engines cranking and roaring, sticks of Marines lining up and climbing into their vehicles, and sailors prowling around the catwalks giving the impression of being very busy. I joined my stick and mounted up inside the company commander’s vehicle. Once our stick was onboard, the rear hatch was shut and (I silently prayed) watertight. But it wasn’t quite time to go yet; the ship was still maneuvering, so we sat there in semi-darkness, engine running, and after a few minutes I started getting a strange tearing-up sensation in my eyes. No, I wasn’t overwhelmed by the immensity of the mission we were about to undertake (this wasn’t the charge of the Rohirrim, after all); it was the engine exhaust from over a dozen AAVs idling right next to each other, getting blown by the interior fan right into my face. I now understood why the other Marines in the cabin all had their eyes closed. They weren’t napping, they were waiting out this unique misery until we finally plowed into the ocean. Fortunately our wait wasn’t long, but we only exchanged one misery for another. Outside, we began hearing the countdown for the AAV launch; then, suddenly, our engine roared louder, our amtrac lurched ahead, and I hoped the next sensation would not be fountains of water rushing into the cabin. There was a brief sinking feeling as we left the launch ramp and plowed into the water, and then there we were gently bobbing along with only a few trickles of water from the cabin roof to indicate that we’d hit the ocean. Well, thought I, these things DO float. How nice. I’ll live to see my wife, son and embryonic daughter again. I did have a few moments of concern when I looked back to crew doors we’d climbed through to get on the track and saw that they weren’t 100% watertight. A small but steady stream of water was bubbling through the bottom of the hatch, and as a diligent passenger I pointed this out to the crew chief. He just smiled and said that the leak was nothing; every track leaked a little and he’d seen much worse than that. I nodded and sat back, confident that either nothing was wrong or the crew chief was feeding me a pile of BS so that I’d die happy.

(clearly I did not die as I’m now writing what will end up being a very long series of posts. That said, it is now late at night and I’m a tired old man. So, more in the next post)

I heart Singapore

2010-11-05T02:00:00.002-04:00

Getting off the boat for an extended period of time anywhere is good; getting off the boat and spending a week in Singapore is awesomeness, sweetness, and gloriness that defies description. Unfortunately I have limited Internet access while I'm here; just wanted to stop by and say I'm still alive, and I will update you all on our adventures in the Philippines and Singapore shortly. In the meantime, a day I'm not on the boat = a great day.

Guam jungle fever

2010-10-02T23:57:00.001-04:00

Let's see, I believe I left off in the aftermath of torrential rains and much weeping and gnashing of teeth by those whom it soaked. The next morning was sunny and beautiful, and hot and humid and wretched, all at the same time. It was hot enough, at least, to dry out everything after the deluge the night prior, but still so humid that whatever we were wearing on our bodies retained a fine sheen of sweat throughout the day. Today's agenda was planning for the night's MRF assault on a local abandoned power plant to evaluate our urban combat capabilities. It sounded pretty challenging; unlike the various artificial "combat towns" built specifically for military use on Okinawa, this was a no-kidding civilian power plant that hadn't been altered in any way, so it would have twists and turns absent from our generally simple training complexes. But that afternoon, word came down that, as part of the larger scenario, our battalion would launch a combined mech/helo raid on a separate location just a few hours after the hit on the power plant. The mechanized portion would come from the Light Armored Reconnaissance platoon that was hanging out with us, and because they were supposed to secure the objective early, prior the helos coming in, they needed someone to coordinate with the close air support aircraft on station to make sure they didn't light us up by accident as they rolled in. So, I was attached to LAR, which meant I wouldn't be going on the power plant raid. This was a little disappointing, since the MRF's hit on the power plant was the first time in several years the Marine Corps had gotten permission to train out in town in Guam. But rolling with LAR is a pretty good consolation prize. I've often said that if I can't fly into battle at the controls of a 53, then I'd rather ride into battle in the back of an LAV. It's the closest you can get to charging into the fray in a Cadillac. I'd gone on several training missions with LAR already, so we were used to each other; plus, we were going to ride through town to get to our objective, and after three straight weeks on the boat I was ready to see a little American civilization.

We awoke before dawn and rolled out in darkness. Civilian Guam is like pretty much any mid-sized American city, and I tossed out the notion that maybe we should take our column of LAVs and hit the drive-through at Mickey D's before we got to the target. If we weren't on a timeline I think the LAR platoon commander would have given it serious consideration. There was one amusing incident where the real world came crashing through our notional scenario: a Guam police car pulled over one of the LAVs because it's headlights weren't working, so for about five minutes the whole column pulled over as the platoon commander hashed out with the cop whether we'd have to leave one vehicle behind until daylight. Fortunately the cop was sympathetic and let us continue under the assurance that the bad vehicle would stay in between vehicles with good headlights. Kudos to that police officer for having the cajones to pull over a 30,000 pound armored vehicle in the first place. As it turned out, he and most Guamians (Guamites?) are quite supportive of the military's presence there; we got lots of waves and honks going to and from our mission. The mission itself was actually less interesting than the transit to and from, since daylight revealed a city that could've been in southern California if not for the fact that one could see virtually the whole island from one place. It made me a little homesick imagining driving those vehicles right up to my house and hopping off to see my family.

The raid itself did have some interesting moments though, starting when we discovered that the road we'd planned to take into the objective town was blocked. Knowing the training group that evaluated these raids, we figured this meant trouble, and we were right, since the alternate route into the town turned into a run-and-gun ambush that we blasted our way through. I was having my own kind of fun in the back of the LAV because I could hear aircraft overhead but couldn't talk to them as my line of sight was blocked by thick jungle. So, the incoming heliborne assault force had no idea that we were late and would not be able to isolate the objective before they arrived. When we finally got to our blocking positions, though, we discovered that something in the plan had changed, because suddenly aircraft started coming straight for the field we were in and dropping troops off; not part of the plan that had been emailed to us the night before. We had to move one of the LAVs out of the way since it was not immediately clear that the incoming aircraft saw us in the pre-dawn light, landing, as they were, at that tricky time in the morning when it's too bright to use NVGs effectively but not bright enough to pick up significant details - like a platoon of armored vehicles - on the ground. But nobody got squished, so having finally established some communication with the aircraft, we hooked around one of the flanks of the combat town and started getting into the fight. After about three hours the town was cleared out and we rolled back to our CP to get ready for extract back to our ships. Luck was with me that afternoon; I was originally slated to go back to the Essex on one of its LCUs late in the afternoon, but the battalion XO decided to push me back with the CO and some of our small vehicles by air. So I got a ride back to the boat on a 53 piloted by some of my old squadron-mates, and avoided what turned out to be a goat-rope with the LCUs at the beach, who wasted hours figuring out precisely how to load everything back up and then did circles in the ocean waiting to offload onto the Essex, making most of their passengers seasick in the process.

About thirty seconds after our wheels touched the deck I went back to my room, stripped off my nasty clothes and took one of the greatest showers ever. Two days of jungle sweat and grime came off of me, though the head cold I'd picked up somewhere between the rain storm, humidity, and overall lack of sleep did not go away. Yet the MRF's work was not done; we still had our evaluated VBSS to do before we could close the book on our part of CERTEX. We had a rehearsal scheduled the day immediately after getting back on the Essex, but it was canked at the last minute due to the Navy driving our ship into a 150-mile wide storm their forecasters hadn't quite foreseen. The day after was our final chance to execute the mission before the target ship left for other parts, and it seemed questionable as to whether it would happen since the swells and winds were still pretty strong. But they were just within limits, so we loaded up the birds, hit the ship, and - apart from my radio antenna literally disintegrating in my hands - successfully boarded and captured the same target ship (for the third time). With that, the MRF was considered officially certified, and we were put into our little glass box labeled "Break in case of emergency" until needed. (There's obviously a lot more that goes into taking down a ship than I've described here but you'll understand if I don't blurt out all our tactics, techniques and procedures [TTPs] for any scurvy pirate to study).

With VBSS in the bag, the ARG steamed back to Oki for CERTEX Part II: The Return of the Son of CERTEX. The focus of part was humanitarian assistance, disaster relief (HA/DR), noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO), and the certification of our AAV assault company and contingency units (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft/Personnel platoon [TRAP], platoon-sized emergency reinforcement, and mass casualty response team). I didn't get any play during the humanitarian assistance portion, but I did get off the ship - for a few hours anyway - with the TRAP platoon, launched in response to a simulated downed aircraft (this was fairly realistic, actually: a CH-46 actually shut down in the landing zone and the crew members had stage make-up applied to simulate their wounds, so the TRAP platoon had to dress the wounds and sanitize all the sensitive documents and gear on the bird). After we were inserted the word came down that, rather than stay in place only a couple hours as TRAP is supposed to, higher wanted us to stay overnight to guard the aircraft. This was definitely news to us, and rather unwelcome, since TRAP only launches with enough supplies to sustain them for what is supposed to be a very brief stay on land i.e. we had no shelters, overnight gear, or MREs. After a little while higher changed its mind, and the last aircraft of the day came to grab us as the sun was going down (once again, 53s to the rescue).

And, that's where things stand right now. We still have the mechanized amphibious raid ahead of us, but I don't have any play in that either. Once that's done, we start steaming our merry way to the Philippines for a ten-day stay in a flood plain during monsoon season. Should be fun. I'll try and get some pictures; hopefully my POS cheap water-proof camera will hold up. Until then, stay classy real world, and thanks for stopping by.

Avast, there be pirates!

2010-09-28T05:58:00.002-04:00

I believe in my last post I promised some details about just what we've been up to for the last couple of weeks, and like the Post Office, I deliver (except on Sundays, Christmas, and federal holidays). Our first week underway was generally the Navy's week, as they conducted drills ranging from simulated engineering fires to repelling missiles during general quarters. As we maneuvered our way toward Guam, the Essex and her sister ships were - so we were told - participating in the naval portion of Operation Valiant Shield, a joint exercise that involved the USS George Washington and her carrier strike group. This was transparent to us, apart from constant changes in heading and speed that made us wonder if the ship's captain had fallen asleep at the wheel.

But two days out from Guam, the MEU's certification exercise - CERTEX - kicked off for real, with the MRF leading the way. CERTEX began with two back-to-back VBSS rehearsals for the MRF, where we practiced our
ship-boarding skills on the USNS Alan Shepard (I don't recall if I've mentioned VBSS before, so in case I haven't, it stands for Visit Board Search and Seizure, which is a fancy way of saying boarding a ship and
making it go where we want it to. For reference look up the 15th MEU's recent VBSS on the Magellan Star off Somalia). Things went okay the first time, but those damn pirates came back overnight and we had to go
aboard again the next day. By then, the ARG was established off the coast of Guam, and the MEU started launching out its various raid packages.

I didn't go ashore with the first wave of raids; as the MRF we got special treatment and didn't go ashore until our foothold was established and the airfield we were to operate out of secured. So bright and early the next morning we assembled in the hangar bay and loaded up on a section of mighty CH-53s for our turn on dry land. It was good to feel solid ground under my feet for the first time in almost three weeks, though that elation was quickly sobered by the realization that Guam was virtually identical to Okinawa, except smaller. And it was identical in all the less desirable qualities: hot, humid, no wind, jungle terrain, and sudden, soaking monsoons throughout the day. But, I was outside, breathing fresh air, and could see the sun all day long,
which almost - almost - made up for it. We set up our CP in an abandoned MOUT structure, but in an effort to prove that I was as hard as the grunts I was operating with, I decided to set up my lodgings in the tree line with the rest of them. I'd packed the gear that the security platoon commander had authorized for all his boys, which meant that my only defense from the elements was my poncho and whatever creative hooch-building skills I could dredge up from my time back at TBS and the Boy Scouts. Building a make-shift tent seemed to me to be largely a matter of common sense, so, breaking out my poncho and some 550 cord, I went to work and ended up with a somewhat asymmetrical but apparently sturdy shelter under which I stashed all my gear. We
wouldn't get the order for our mission until the next morning, so after an MRE and a few more improvements to my tent, I rolled out my poncho liner and tried to sleep. And that night, my hooch-making skills were
put to the test.

Never mind the heinous humidity, stagnant air, and mosquitoes; the biggest challenge that night was trying not to get washed away by the massive thunder-shitstorm that exploded around 2400. We could all see
the squall building to our south during evening chow, complete with flashes of lightning, and anticipated that a downpour was not far away. However, a few hours went by and the storm showed no desire to come closer, so I went to bed confident that I'd wake up dry the next morning. The storm had other plans. Around midnight, I awoke to the sound of gusting winds whipping through our encampment, and before I was fully awake, the heavens opened and unleashed their fury on us. For the next two hours we were pounded by wind, lightning, and rain, and as the winds grew stronger the small patch of dry ground I'd managed to preserve grew smaller and smaller. I spent most of those two hours holding down the one crucial corner of my poncho that was the only thing separating me from complete inundation. Finally the rain slackened and the winds died down, and I surveyed the damage. Remarkably, my hooch had stayed where it was, the drainage ditches I'd dug on either side had generally done their job, and the only rain that got in was blown in my winds beyond my control. Determined to defend my remaining dry square of ground, I then spent the next hour in the dark improving my defensive position, re-arranging drainage angles on the poncho, tying down extra corners, and reinforcing my tie-downs with sandbags. By 0300 I was done and certain that, should the storm return, its rage would be wasted on my sturdy fortress. The next morning I walked around the bivouac area to see how the rest of the platoon had fared, believing that, since a mere pilot had managed to pass the night with only mild discomfort,
these hardy, field-tested grunts would barely have batted an eye during the maelstrom. I soon learned that being a 29 Palms Marine has its drawbacks; namely, that in a place where it never rains, no one is forced to learn how to protect himself from rain. These guys were experts at desert and hot-weather survival, but had met their match against the rainy season. The collection of lean-tos they'd constructed, while certainly creative and vaguely reminiscent of post-modern abstract art, were no match for the wrath of heaven. I
don't think one of them woke up dry the next morning. I'll admit, I felt a little smug as the platoon commander asked his platoon why a pilot who hadn't been to the field for seven years could build a better tent than an infantryman.

To be continued ...

If this boat it rockin', don't come a-knockin'

2010-09-25T21:51:00.002-04:00

It's Sunday morning here on the USS Essex, and we spent the bulk of Saturday night/Sunday morning wondering just what we'd done to annoy Neptune. Throughout the night we got tossed around like the Andrea Gail during the perfect storm, or Russell Crowe rounding the horn of South America in Master and Commander. Guys were flung from one side of the bunk to the other, gear crashed down from the storage racks above our beds, and anything set on a table or sink above the floor quickly found itself on the floor. I'd planned on running on the flight deck in the morning, but the way the boat was being hurled to and fro, it felt like the 150-mile wide storm the Navy failed to forecast two days ago and which we promptly plowed into had turned around and come back for seconds. So, cautiously, I opened up the hatch to the catwalk leading
to the flight deck, expecting a blast of rain and gale force winds, and . . . it's gorgeous outside. Barely a wisp of cloud in the sky, relatively calm winds, and glorious sunshine. Yet the ocean is convulsed with swells that are knocking us around like a toy in a bath-tub. I'm sure there's some salty dog on board who understands this phenomenon; in the meantime, I'm waiting for a rogue wave to come out of the clear blue sky and turn us into a submarine. Anyway, I got on with my flight deck PT, which was like performing in my own episode of American Gladiator: today's challenge, run back and forth along a narrow steel strip that's pitching and rolling hither and yon without getting taken out by the dozens of aircraft chains, tugs, fuel drums, and other runners around you. The penalty for losing this event: falling off the flight deck and getting eaten by sharks. Go!

I have been quite delinquent in keeping everyone abreast of things out here on the pointy (rusty, salty, wet) tip of the spear, for which I apologize. But, no kidding, I've been busy, so BACK OFF! As I can't actually access my blog page I'm not sure where I left off, but I think it was before we embarked aboard the Essex. So that's where the story will pick up. Our embark date was a couple of days after my birthday, by which time I'd recovered from my birthday festivities down at Kadena, had caught up on sleep, and finally packed. The big day had been rolled back a couple of times due to back-to-back tropical storms coming through, but, finally, the Essex Amphibious Readiness Group steamed into port down at White Beach and it was time to get on our buses and go. Several of us had taken the Mars Rover down the day before to drop off the bulk of our gear and make the whole embark process less painful, so today all we had to do was get our weapons on board and then figure out where everything was on our new floating home.

The scene that day was like something out of a World War II movie, with thousands of troops climbing ladders, driving forklifts, operating cranes, and rushing through passageways as our mini-fleet got ready for its cruise. We climbed the gangway up to one of the aircraft elevators, and in fine naval tradition, stopped at the top to salute the ship's ensign before asking permission to come on board from the officer of the day. I was curious as to what we were supposed to do if he said no, but he let us on board and dreams of a shortened deployment quickly vanished from my mind. We were led to our staterooms by one of the other FACs who'd done a MEU deployment before and generally knew how the ship was arranged (a skill we came to rely on during our first few days underway). Unpacking didn't take long since you're not afforded the baggage train one could get away with in Iraq, and we then turned to finding the important spaces on ship, like the gym and, more important, the wardroom for chow. Fortunately pretty much every place we need to go to is located on the same deck as our berthing spaces, it's just a matter of remembering how many hatches and twists and turns you need to take to get there. The gym is at the bow, followed by our rooms, and then the wardroom is just a little further toward the stern. Everything beyond the wardroom is the business area of the ship, where ourselves, the composite squadron, the combat logistics battalion, and the Navy all fight over which noisy, overcrowded little janitor closet is ours. Most things below this deck are still a mystery to me; the enlisted Marines' berthing spaces are directly below us, and the hangar deck is one more flight down. Then below THAT are still more decks where we store all our rolling stocks, a flotilla of LCUs (Landing Craft Utility), and other random things like the engines. There's no need for me to go below the hangar deck for which I'm thankful, since I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find my way back up.

Life on the ship has not turned into the nightmarish existence I'd been led to believe from others who have done the MEU things before. There's not always a set schedule, for us at least, since we've spent most of the last few weeks afloat doing some training exercise or another. But there are a few noteworthy things that are part of a typical day:

-it's entirely possible to spend a whole day on the ship without seeing the sun. This is how I spent my first few days and it slowly drove me crazy. I'd get the same way on the night shift in Iraq; eventually your brain rejects its nocturnal programming and demands daylight. Fortunately, that same FAC pointed out a catwalk that runs the length of the ship on the starboard side, takes you directly to our workspaces without having to go through twenty different hatches (all of which you need to lock behind you), and has the added bonus of allowing you to see the sky for a few minutes each time you transit it. This makes all the difference in the world. You also get a good look at the ocean, which out here looks absolutely gorgeous. It's hard to resist the temptation to leap over the railing and go swimming. The water is a deep, vibrant blue and relatively warm even out in the middle of nowhere. I'm hoping at some point the ship's captain decides to drop the anchor and let everyone go splash off the well-deck.

-the Navy likes to announce everything that's going on over the loudspeaker. These announcements are always preceded by a piercing whistle blast of varying duration and intensity. After a few weeks underway, I've come to the conclusion that the less important the announcement, the longer and more annoying the whistle blast that precedes it. For example, when the ship commences flight operations, you get a five-second whistle, which hardly seems commensurate to the danger of a small airfield going active above your head. Ordering the sweepers to man their brooms, however, gets a three-note whistle that lasts about a minute and will probably have the cumulative effect of further degrading my hearing. I have sworn that someday I'm going to find the guy who blows that whistle and throw him and his infernal instrument overboard.

-doing one's morning run on the flight deck of a warship, surrounded by warplanes, with the ocean stretching from horizon to horizon and occasionally dotted by the sister ships of the ARG, is a new degree of awesomeness.

-living under the flight deck during flight operations, however, I think is akin to living on the fifth or sixth circle of hell. It's not the worst torment one could endure, but that doesn't make it fun. The Essex is home to the equivalent of several squadrons of aircraft, all of whom take off and land for ten hours a day right above our heads. The helicopters aren't so bad; usually they're just a dull vibration in the background unless they're taking off or landing right over you. The Harriers, however . . . you know the fly-bys jets do at air shows, where they come in a couple hundred feet above the bleachers and deafen the crowd? Imagine that same fly-by taking place about ten feet above your head with only a little steel plating between you and the aircraft, and you'll have some notion of what a Harrier taking off sounds like. The most trying noise, though, is the incessant dragging of chains back and forth across the flight deck. All aircraft are chained down until immediately prior to take-off and then immediately after landing, to avoid minor incidents like aircraft sliding over the side. With ten straight hours of flight ops, these chains come on and off hundreds of times, and usually become loudest and most frequent just when you're trying to go to sleep.

-general quarters' drills are also awesome. General quarters, to you landlubbers, means battle stations. Sailors start running to their appointed battle station, covers come off the ship's defensive weapons, anti-ship missile launchers are warmed up, and for the next three hours the Navy rehearses defending the ship. Throughout all this, the Marines' appointed battle station is: our rooms. That's three hours of guaranteed down time. I am of the opinion that, for the sake of the ship's combat readiness, general quarters should be practiced more often.

Well the hour is getting late (late morning, anyway), and it's about time for brunch, so I'll halt here and regale you all with my war stories from CERTEX in the next post.

Underway!

2010-09-07T00:05:00.001-04:00

Posts will probably be infrequent until I figure out just what I can and
can't do on the ship's network. However, we're now underway on our
patrol and I'll have updates and pictures when I can. Anchors away!

I don't have time for paperwork, I'm operating here / Fear my flight suit!

2010-08-20T03:14:00.002-04:00

It's entirely possible that I'm starting to take the MRF too seriously, because the phrase "I don't have time for (blank), I'm operating here" has become a disturbing staple of my daily vocabulary. Disturbing, because I'm only half-kidding when I say it. Am I really "operating"? No. I sit somewhere with a radio, talking to aircraft that aren't always real. But I'm in close proximity to operators, where operating is going on under my very nose. Plus, I wrote a brilliant piece of administrative gobbledygook to justify to my command why the security platoon that protects the perimeter while the Force Recon guys do their thing needs to wear the same flight suits that the FRP (Force Recon Platoon) does. And maybe I ordered one for myself while I was at it. So now, with the exception of my flak jacket - the configuration of which displays my half-understanding of what it means to be tactical - and my baby fat, I look like the operators. And for just $1,000 (or 10000 yen) you can too!! I take cash or traveler's checks. Anyway, I can't tell you how gratifying it was when I discovered there was a way that I could wear a flight suit during my ground tour. I am an evil genius, second only to my son who's probably built a volcano lair in his sandbox in the backyard when I wasn't looking.

Things have improved since my last post. The bruising from my experiment in self-powered flight has pretty much gone, and there's only a little soreness left in my ankle. And the MRF finished its second major training hurdle prior to getting on the boat, leaving me with the promise of actually enjoying something called a "weekend" tomorrow. Starting last Friday and going through Tuesday, we planned and executed phase 2 of our specific work-up training, which involved doing raids on objectives in an urban environment. Technically speaking, this was supposed to be more of the "walk" phase of "crawl-walk-run", but since we're doing another similar event prior to the MEU's certification, it was more of a "let's play mad scientist and see what crazy different attachments we can slap onto the MRF" than a true intermediate step. As I'm discovering, there's no concrete template for what the MRF has to look like. Oh, the basics stay the same, with the FRP and its attached security element always part of the mission, but outside of that, we've played mix-and-match with a lot of different agencies.

Our first exercise, a couple of weeks ago, was a basic ground convoy; this time, we did a pure helicopter assault, and then a ground assault with the firepower of our Light Armored Reconnaissance platoon. I've got to admit, if I can't ride to battle at the controls of my helicopter, the Light Armored Vehicles of LAR is the way to go. This is the third time I've worked with them, and it's like going to war in a Cadillac. It's fast, it can navigate a great variety of terrain, it's got good protection, I can pop my body out the back hatch to see what's going on and control aircraft, and if things get hot, it has the 25mm Bushmaster cannon that quickly makes anyone shooting at the vehicle regret it.

Those two raids took a lot out of me, as Bree can attest to from my last phone call to her. I'm not entirely sure my conversation with her had anything resembling a coherent thought, but I do remember that I was able to mumble out the words "we're going to have another baby" to my parents. And if I didn't say that, then my parents got strangely excited at me telling them Gollum was smothered in rabies. But I've been able to recover the last few days, just time to blast into the weekend full speed ahead. For anyone wanting to get a taste of what the exercises were like, you can find a video of the helo raid on Facebook by searching for 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.

Oh good, it's raining again. But it's sunny outside. God, this place is weird.

It's raining, on prom night . . .

2010-08-08T21:22:00.002-04:00

Technically it's work day, not prom night, but still, it's raining. There's a tropical storm rolling through, or so I'm told. Hard to tell; I mean I SUPPOSE it's raining more than normal but since each day here typically features at least one torrential downpour the only difference is in duration. That, and the wind is blowing the rain a little more sideways than usual. Though it just occurred to me that I might have left the windows on the Air Shop van cracked wider than was prudent. Oops. Whatever, it was a free car anyway.

So how did you spend your weekend? Most of mine was spent lying in bed or sitting with my right foot propped up and swaddled with ice bags after a small mishap last week. By now, most of you know the story, but for the few who don't, here's how I wound up a gimp. Last week our Maritime Raid Force went through its first exercise as a group, the sole objective being learning how to plan and execute a mission without getting in each other's way. Simple enough, and the raid at the end was as good as could be for our first time out. Part of the training, though, was a refresher on certain combat skills, one of which was fast-roping. Ever seen Black Hawk Down? That pretty much covers the concept of fast-roping. Did the pilots in that movie climb out of the cockpit and go down the ropes themselves? Nope, and I think I demonstrated good reason for it.

On the first day of this 'refresher' we were only going down a rope hooked to a rappel tower, to be followed by day and night roping from a helicopter over the next couple of days. I had never fast-roped before and was excited but somewhat ambivalent, since I didn't want to pay for any mistakes I might make on my first try by falling 60 feet to my doom. And it was clear by the 'demonstration' - one guy going down the rope the 'wrong' way and one going down the 'right', the two of which were indistinguishable to my untrained eye - that this was not training for newbies. But the premise is pretty sound: hold on like hell with your hands and use them and your feet to control your speed.

Well, I can hold onto a rope, and we learned foot-braking techniques way back in TBS when we climbed ropes rather than go down them, and the instructors didn't exhibit any particular concern about this being my first attempt. So down I went, once, twice, with no problems except sprawling on my ass upon landing. I was feeling pretty good about it as I headed up the stairs on the tower for my third try, only to have my hopes - and ankle - dashed upon landing. On my third try, I failed to hook the rope with my feet on the first attempt as I jumped off the platform. However, the laws of gravity stop for no man, so down I went regardless, holding on with my hands and trying to snag the rope with my feet before I ran out of altitude. My feet didn't hook the rope until I was almost at the bottom, at which point you're supposed to spread them out to absorb the landing, which I did, rolling my right ankle hard to the outside as the rest of my body fell ass over tea-kettle in the sand. I crawled clear of the rope knowing damn sure that I'd jacked it up and just hoping that nothing was broken. I was fairly sure I hadn't; I've never broken a bone but from what I know about ankle breaks, if I had one I should have been screaming in a child-like fashion immediately upon impact. But it still hurt like hell, and the corpsman on site sent me down to the naval hospital on Camp Lester to get X-rays to ensure I didn't have hair-line fractures or bone fragments swimming around.

You know the end story: no fractures, just a lot of swelling and unattractive bruising. Since I could still put my body weight on it I was returned to full duty, and spent the rest of the week hobbling around with an ace bandage cutting off my circulation. One interesting side effect has been a slew of suggested nicknames popping up on the white board outside my barracks room door: suggestions include "Hopalong", "Half-leg", "Gimpy", "Clubfoot", "Strut", and "Grimsey, no fear!" (from Black Hawk Down as Ewan MacGregor leaps out the door). That's what passes for sympathy in the Marine Corps: if it doesn't kill you, we'll make fun of you about it for the rest of your life. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, the rain has taken a break from blowing sideways. I should probably hobble along to lunch before it changes its mind. Please feel free to suggest other nicknames while I'm gone.

Welcome to PACOM

2010-07-27T21:00:00.001-04:00

Boy, that hiatus was way longer than planned.

Well, it's long overdue, but allow me to welcome you to my new deployment blog series, "Live from PACOM". Unfortunately I have limited access to Blogger itself and so probably won't be able to label my posts with anything approaching regularity. Indeed, once we're on the boat I won't be able to post with regularity, let alone label. Oh the sacrifices we make for the Corps.

Anyway, I'm now esconced here on lovely Camp Hansen in Okinawa, Japan. Instead of flying halfway around the world to the east, we flew halfway around the world to the west. It was first class all the way, too, though I really wish I could fly first-class on trips other than those requiring me to leave my family for six months and go to the crappy corners of the planet. In all fairness, however, Okinawa is just a bit nicer than the Anbar province. For one thing, there's water. And trees. And beaches. Flying into Kadena Air Force Base was like flying over the Florida Keys - little coral islands as far as the eye could see, shimmering blue water, and happy puffy clouds. One thing they share is heat, but of different stripes. Iraq-hot and 29 Palms-hot are identical: scorching temperatures but very dry air. Being in Oki, on the other hand, feels like deploying to Houston. You get the heat AND tropical humidity so thick you wonder if you'll have to breast-stroke your way to work. Then there's always the chance of a typhoon whirling your way (that's what they call a hurricane out here for the uninitiated). Indeed, just like the Gulf we're starting typhoon season out here, so the odds are pretty good that at some point we'll have to land on the shores of a Pacific country that's just had half its towns wiped off the face of the earth.

So we're here and we've been at work the last couple of weeks preparing to get on our boats in September and piddle our way around the Pacific. Training has been the focus, in spite of the strong urge to get off base and enjoy a vibrant locale with many attractions and a population not actively trying to kill us. I've been settling into my latest in a string of non-FAC related billets, this one being the assistant mission commander for the MEU's Maritime Raid Force (MRF). If you've never heard of something called a Maritime Raid Force, you're not alone; when I was told back in CONUS that I'd be doing this job once we got out here, I went "Huh?" and did what every responsible officer does when he doesn't know something. I Googled it. The MRF has been known by other names on older MEUs, but whatever you call it, its mission is pretty simple. It's the precision strike force of the MEU when something needs to be done quickly and neatly. All the line companies of the battalion have a specialized raid job they've been trained to do - mechanized raid with AAVs, boat raid with little Zodiacs, or raid by helicopter - but these raid forces are generally used when a certain level of destruction is either necessary or permissable. The MRF, on the other hand, is called on for tasks where sheer firepower is not the best means to the end. It's delicate tasks include VBSS (Visit, Board, Search and Seizure) of ships, taking down oil platforms, and hostage/prisoner situations. The idea is to get in, snatch Person X from room 3 of house 2, and leave.

It's not like I get to kick down the door though. I doubt they'd ever let a pilot do that. What I'm mostly concerned with is the logistics/support aspect: requesting ammunition, vehicles, collecting rosters, getting air support, and mission planning. I'll get to do a few unusual things as well - next week, I'll be fast-roping out of a helicopter to the ground 60 feet below - but I leave the sexier stuff to the professionals. There's always the small chance that, should there be problems with command and control or if certain assets don't make it to the objective, I may have to assume command of the force and continue the mission, in which case I may default to my FAC training and solve the whole problem with a 500lb JDAM. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Apart from training and planning, there have been one or two opportunities to get off base and explore the area. I went down to Camp Foster last week to get my special Oki driver's license, so I'm now free to show off my ignorance of local driving rules by inadvertently straying to the right-hand side of the road (Okinawans drive on the left) and terrifying oncoming traffic. To get ourselves around the island, myself and the other FACs in the battalion went in on a 15-year old minivan. It's the only minivan I've ever seen that has off-road suspension and 4-wheel drive. If only the A/C worked. Oh, and its leg room seems to have been designed for Oompah-Loompahs. But it has 4 wheels and a (mostly) working engine, which is enough to give us a modicum of freedom while we're here.

Last weekend a few of us decided to explore some of the local sights as well. Just around the corner from Camp Hansen is an old Buddhist shrine, which has also doubled as a sake distillery for hundreds of years. It's hidden in a residential neighborhood off the beaten path, so I doubt we would have stumbled across it had we not known where we were going. The temple itself was small and pretty humble, but what was truly curious was the sake distillery. See, the sake, after being bottled, is stored in a fairly extensive underground cave system next to the temple, where it remains for anywhere from a few years to decades or even centuries. Before World War II, there were jars of sake down there over three hundred years old. The battle for Okinawa unfortunately destroyed all of them, so the oldest brew only goes back about sixty years. Still, the cave distillery was fascinating (and also the coolest place yet we've found on the island; I think I might go back there on a hot day just to relax), and the caves themselves are still quite active. Enough water drips and trickles through it that in another few hundred years, the owners might be able to open a new brewing wing.

That's about all I've been up to so far. Nothing too exciting, I know, but we just got here, and there are plenty of hot spots around this AO to make things very exciting on very short notice. Time for chow. Until next time . . .

Hiatus

2010-07-03T13:23:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I've been pretty lousy about posting, but there's a reason, really. The seconds are rapidly ticking down before I launch out on deployment number three, and family time's been more important than blogdom. That will remain the case until I'm overseas. Until then, happy Independence Day to all, and I'll catch you in the Pacific.

One year later

2010-06-13T11:22:00.004-04:00

Lest we forget, it was a year ago this weekend that the Iranian people, after watching its government ignore the results of the ballot box, took to the streets to demand at least some modicum of the freedom the 1979 revolution was supposed to guarantee. Protestors Twittered, Facebooked, Youtubed and blogged their resistance, and Western elites and punditry waxed eloquent about how oppressors couldn't fight back against social networking and other tools of the Information Age. They thought simply watching was sufficient support. They were wrong. Within a few days, the ruling theocracy and their paramilitary forces proved that Twitter by itself does not a revolution make. They ruthlessly beat, shot, arrested, raped and executed their way back to 'order' as those nations that enjoy democracy, free speech, and the right to assembly continued to merely watch in silence. The actions of the Iranian regime were despicable but entirely in keeping with its character; the inaction of the West, humiliating enough as it was, was compounded because it's NOT supposed to act like that. America, especially, is supposed to 'pay any cost, bear any burden, oppose any foe, support any friend' in the cause of liberty. Instead, our leaders couldn't even muster a few harsh words for the mullahs. The whole sorry affair was captured by the death of one young woman:

She was young, modern, no doubt attuned to the intricacies of social networking, and desirous of the freedom promised by those technologies. Her government murdered her in the streets. It murdered enough of her fellow protestors that the 'Green Movement' is too terrified to take to the streets again. Their despondence and Neda's death stand as proof that genuine evil still exists in the world, and as a condemnation of the weakness and fecklessness that allows evil, Twitter and YouTube not withstanding, to prosper.

Dear Jews: go back home, you know, to those happy places like Poland and Germany

2010-06-04T16:07:00.000-04:00

I've always considered Helen Thomas to be a particularly loathsome specimen of the generally slimy Washington press corps, but this takes the cake:

Dear Helen:

There's a reason we left "home". It's because our neighbors killed us and lit us on fire. A lot. Especially in Poland and Germany.

Love,
The Jews

Why I hate celebrities dabbling in politics, part 4,593

2010-06-04T13:29:00.001-04:00

I think there's an old saying that goes something like: you don't come to my house and kick my dog, piss on my carpet, do the nasty with my wife, and leave the toilet unflushed. It's not polite. Apparently Sir Paul McCartney is unfamiliar with that saying, because after receiving an award from his host country, he proceeded to get a smirking little shot in at the former occupant of the White House he was playing at (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37350). You don't like Bush, I got that. Shitting on the last guy in office because you don't like him is graceless, petty, and markedly immature. Shitting on the last guy in office from another country, while you're a guest in that country, is damned insulting. A few years back, when Hugo Chavez hauled his commie ass up on the podium at the U.N. and shat on the sitting president, we saw a rare display of bipartisanship telling him to go pound sand. Dare we hope to hear a similar message delivered to Sir Paul?

Then there's James Cameron. By his own admission, he's an eco-terrorist. Got it. However, he also seems to think that he's an underwater-oil-spewing pipe fixer too. His credentials? He's filmed a lot of movies underwater. He kindly offered to help BP out in plugging the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, if the problem was that BP couldn't see what was going on underwater, he might have something to contribute. But BP can see the leaking pipe just fine. In fact, we can all see the leaking pipe. I can go on the Internet and watch live streaming footage of the pipe leaking. Give me five seconds and I'll find it . . . . Yup, there it is. The problem, James, is getting the pipe to stop leaking, not making sure you have the appropriate HD wide-angle lens to film it with. BP "graciously" declined his offer, which now makes them "morons" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100603/en_nm/us_oil_spill_cameron). Say what you want about the intelligence of BP (their plan A for an oil rig blowing up, causing crude to spew up from 5,000 feet below: um, we don't plan on the rig blowing up. Plan B: see plan A); they're trying every scheme they can concoct to plug the leak, and they know a fleet of submersible robot cameras won't do squat. Chill, James; it's oil, not unobtanium, it's well beyond your pay grade.

Peace and security for me, but not for thee; or, the Israeli double-standard

2010-06-01T12:42:00.000-04:00

Two days ago, Israeli commandos and naval forces intercepted an "aid flotilla" bound for the Gaza Strip, currently under blockade by Israel and Egypt because its government insists on wiping one of its neighbors from the face of the earth, its propensity for launching rockets into Jewish towns and cities, and general overall suckiness. In the course of this interception mission, the IDF fired on some of the "peace activists", killing 9. Barely had the last bullet casing hit the deck than the usual round of furious condemnations issued forth from Arab and European halls of power about proportionality, Israeli aggression, inhumane occupation, drinking the blood of Arab children, etc. It would seem that Israel has, indeed, made at least a big public relations blunder in having to explain why nine people died on what should have been an exercise in non-lethal force.

The court of international opinion having already condemned Israel, an "impartial" U.N. investigation seems impossible, though I'm idlely curious as to its findings about the peace activists and the contents of the aid flotilla's cargo holds. Perhaps it will publicize the IDF's ROE, which evidentally treated the interception as the non-lethal exercise they were expecting; the commandos were armed with paintball-type weapons for crowd control, and only had pistols for self-defense should they be needed. Perhaps it will note that as soon as the commandos set foot on the ship, they were attacked by a peace-loving mob wielding knives, iron bars, and possibly firearms of their own. Perhaps it will note that the IDF soldiers were beaten, trampled, stabbed, and thrown down several decks by the aid workers; one or two even jumped over the side to save their lives. Perhaps it will note that it was only after the mob had grabbed several of the commandos' pistols and opened fire that the order was given to shoot back, which resulted in the deaths so loudly lamented by the international community. Perhaps it will also note that the "aid flotilla" was bankrolled by a group with connections to multiple terrorist organizations (http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/terror-finance-flotilla), which means that perhaps not everyone on board was a simple humanitarian.

The investigation's sure to be a wash, I know. I'd say one can hope, but when it comes to Israel, the U.N., and the international community at large, I'm past hoping for anything resembling rational and just decision-making. One can argue that Israel might have chosen alternative means of intercepting the convoy - I'm not an expert in naval tactics, so better ways might exist - but given that virtually any and every action Israel ever takes in its own self-defense is excoriated, I doubt anything short of letting the ships dock and helping Hamas unload and set up the rocket launchers would satisfy Israel's foes. Calls for "proportionality" will echo from the General Assembly, but they generally demonstrate less a true understanding of proportionality in combat (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/proportionality-in-warfare) than the not-so-subtle desire that Israel simply stop defending herself.

Oh, and it's interesting to note that while Israeli soldiers are crucified for defending themselves after getting attacked with re-bars, North Korea gets a pass for killing 47 sailors and sinking a ship in what is, traditionally, an act of war. Cricket, cricket....

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T18:34:00.001-04:00

A few thoughts, some old, some new:

It is the soldier, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protestor to burn the flag.

Google, the colossus that started as a humble search engine and now has its own smartphones, satellite imagery database, and customized banners for every occasion from Groundhog Day to Lenin's birthday/Earth Day, apparently forgot about Memorial Day on its homepage. Today, it's just plain old "Google"; no patriotic banner, no red, white and blue colors, nothing. If you refresh their page about ten times, you MIGHT get a cheesy .gif image of a flag and yellow ribbon tacked on as an afterthought. For all the effort you put in to censoring the search queries of a billion Chinese, Google, you could have at least hired a part-time graphic design student to Microsoft Paint some stars and stripes onto your logo. Google, you suck.

At some point today, dear readers, spare a thought and a prayer for the souls of 1stLt Jared Landaker and Capt Kyle Van De Giesen and their families. Jared was killed in action in Anbar province in Feb., 2007, shot down by terrorist assholes as he tried to fly wounded Marines to safety. He was less than two weeks from going home. Kyle died in over the skies of Afghanistan last fall, a week from returning to the States to see the birth of his second child. It's men like these, who most deserve a future, that don't come back home. Semper fidelis and requiescat in pace.

And for all the fair-weather patriots who loudly "support the troops" while less loudly castigating them as victims, poor ill-educated suckers, and occasionally cold-blooded killers, a little Kipling for ya:

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Oh, Tommy sees, and Tommy understands. Pray that Tommy, despite seeing and understanding, continues to man his post on freedom's ramparts and keeps all the wolves from your door.

"The End"

2010-05-24T21:03:00.000-04:00

Of "Lost", that is. In a mad frenzy of late nights this past week, I've stayed up to get up-to-date in preparation for last night's series finale. Knowing I'd only get about 4 hours of sleep before having to drive back up to the Stumps, I hoped and prayed that Lost's last two and a half hours would be worth the deprivation (FYI, please take that into account should you discover any spelling mistakes, poor grammar, or general incoherence in this post).

At the end of the day, it was.

If you're looking for a metaphysical play-by-play of what every millisecond of the series finale means, go find Doc Jensen's blog on EW. If you're looking for a detailed exegesis of the episode and its relation to the series as a whole, go read my wife's blog (which I am assured will be updated with a level of respect appropriate to the occasion). I only a few thoughts on whether or not the ending satisfied six years of commitment.

I think it did.

We already knew that, an extra 30 minutes of Lostage notwithstanding, the creaters weren't going to answer every single lingering question (though an extra 20 minutes of DVD footage promises to remedy that, for a small fee...). I still don't know the significance of the Numbers. As a history major I'm tantalized by the few scraps of information left behind about the Others, their Temple, and their origins (at some point, the Others worshipped/feared Smokey to the point where they constructed an underground catacomb in homage to him. Strangely enough, the catacomb was directly underneath the Temple walls they built to keep him out. Poor design flaw a la the exhaust port on the first Death Star? Discuss). The whole time travel/Island 'skipping' concept still gives me a nosebleed if I think about it too hard. On the whole, though, I have to admit that "Lost", at the end, tied things up more satisfactorily than my other favorite show that ended recently (BSG). Both were still more character-driven than anything else, and I still found "Daybreak" a very moving finale to the space opera (even if I wanted to punch Lee Adama for flying all their technology into the sun so they could romp with the natives. And Kara Thrace = least harbinging "harbinger of death" ever). "Lost" did a little better. I turned off the television last night relatively confident in my understanding of the Island, Jacob/MIB, the Sideways world, and how things turned out for the few remaining survivors. I'll wait for the DVD to address the Numbers.

Any nagging questions, however, were more than overshadowed by the power of the characters' stories and THEIR conclusions. Like BSG, "Lost" was at its best when it dealt with character, not whiz-bang battles and sci-fi gobbledeegook (also like BSG, "Lost" did the latter very well, and had a surprisingly high level of sci-fi weirdness for a mainstream drama). And "The End" was an incredible tour-de-force of sheer character-driven drama. (not sure exactly what I'm going to say but might as well throw this out there: POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT AHEAD)

I was still reeling from Sun and Jin's death by drowning in the submarine. Seriously, of all the people who'd suffered and been kept apart on the Island, they deserved a future with their daughter. Nope; having been kept apart long enough in life, when it became clear Sun was irreversibly trapped, Jin joined her in death. Screw you Smokey Locke. "The End" then continued with a steady stream of one-two punches, as each character in the Sideways world was awakenend to the lives they'd lived - and people they'd loved - on the Island. Honestly, the 'present day' action over the fate of the Island was almost a sideshow compared to Sideways Sun and Jin discovering just how deeply they loved each other and their child, or Sawyer and Juliet sharing a final embrace after the bitter losses at the beginning of the season. Sayid and Shannon were sort of bleh, since we all know Sayid's true love was Nadia and Shannon was just kind of, well, there. Kate and Claire, though, were re-united in the joy they both felt over Aaron's birth as they recreated that scene from their Island days. The only Island scene even as remotely charged as the Sideways revelations - aside from Jack's final moments - was Kate's solemn "I love you" as Jack headed back to the cave to save the Island from oblivion (having just celebrated the 30th anniversary of "The Empire Strikes Back"'s release the day prior, I was struck by the Han Solo-Princess Leiaesque similarities to Han's ordeal in the carbonite chamber).

And then - Smokey dead, Island saved, survivors on their last plane ride home - there was the big 'reveal' about the Sideways world. It wasn't a parallel dimension created by the hydrogen bomb blast at the beginning of the season, or a dead-end exercise in "what if"; it was, truly, the End for souls of the castaways, for whom the Sideways world was a waystation on the way to the afterlife. The script did its best to be friendly to all religions by having a (implausible) stained glass window in the church with a Star of David, crucifix, crescent moon, and Hindu and Buddhist symbols, but there was no mistaking the overtly Christian tone of the finale as a whole. Jack's Last Supper "drink this" command to Hurley, the stab wound in Jack's side, Jack's 'doubting Thomas' moment as his father explains that he's dead, the castaways all gathering in a church before their final journey to wherever, even the name of Jack's father (Christian Shepherd; I enjoyed the moment when Desmond told Kate that name outside the church and Kate smirked, clearly thinking, "Christian Shepherd? Oh, you mean, like, JESUS? No kidding Paddy-in-the-Hatch, tell me something I don't know") were all pulled straight out of the Gospels. Not that the show as a whole went banging a theological drum (the actors surely didn't think so as one listened to their bland observations about how the show expressed love, togetherness, community, diversity, yawn); but they didn't exactly shy away from it, either. I thought BSG was some bold television because the protagonists and antagonists were each driven by a powerful theology. "Lost" handled it in a much more subdued manner, but the theological overtones were consistent. Each character was flawed and sinful in one way or another, each was tested and challenged, most suffered greatly, and in the end, a few were redeemed and their redemption stuck because one savior gave his own life to save the world in which their redemption took place. And - copyright infringement of "5 People You Meet In Heaven" aside - at the end, those chosen few moved on from their pain, loss, and sacrifice to a higher plane.

The final ten minutes were incredibly moving as each castaway embraced and honored the fellows who held pull them along in their journey of redemption. Especially powerful was the final Sideways confrontation between Locke and Ben, each fully aware of the suffering inflicted by one upon the other. Ben physically and emotionally tortured Locke season after season, finally murdering him to fulfill his own selfish desires; and he looked Locke in the eye and was truly humble in his repentence. Locke, cognizant of everything Ben took from him, looked him in the eye and forgave him. Knowing he still has much to atone for before 'moving on', Ben stayed outside the church, but at least we got the sense that, once Hurley had taken over as guardian of the Island, Ben honestly changed his ways and served, as Hurley said, as "a great number two."

And then, in the final seconds, Jack came full circle. Once the Island's greatest detractor, he gave his life to ensure that its power remained intact; once hell-bent on leaving, he stayed and died so that his friends could return to their normal lives. Stumbling through the same bamboo grove he was deposited in in the crash, he collapsed, gazed up at the sky to watch the last survivors fly away from the Island, and we end up focusing on his eye as we did in the pilot six years ago; it finally, peacefully, closes.

"Lost", I will miss you.

Reaping (and sleeping in) the whirlwind

2010-05-14T19:13:00.001-04:00

Today, for the first time in about two weeks, I sit comfortably in my office, sipping on a blue Monster and listening to the "Power of Madonna" soundtrack from a recent Glee episode. I have a new appreciation for the comforts of my office, my Monster, and Madonna, as the last two weeks have been spent in the field with the battalion on our last major pre-deployment training exercise, and I experienced physical trials that made the worst Iraqi sandstorm a mere inconvenience by comparison.

The first three days were fairly benign, spent up in the northern-most training area of the base and practicing our air-ground fires integration skills with the battalion's noisy friends, mortars and artillery. Up to this point, myself and the other FACs have had several opportunities to hone our techniques of putting 'warheads on foreheads', but always in a vacuum. In Yuma, we blasted the hell out of the desert for a week, and on our raid packages in Pendleton, air support was usually the only fire support available due to the limited scope of amphibious raids; however, in general battalion maneuver elements will always be supported by every firing agency available, and air power is only a piece of the grander plan. So, the next step was integrating our close air support assets with the guys who launch large pieces of steel into the sky and making sure each got on target without running into each other. It took some work, since this was the first time we'd all gotten together to blow things up and it took a few extra minutes to ensure the thing blowing up wasn't the aircraft flying through the gun target line. The first day was very slow as a result (extra friction was added by one of our road guard vehicles breaking down smack in the middle of the impact area for all our explosives, meaning no ordnance could be delivered for several hours until they could get themselves out of there. We could still bring aircraft in on dry runs which we did, although the Marines by the broken Humvee thought we'd forgotten they were there and dived for cover the first time we brought an F-18 in on a simulated gun run). But we progressed with each day, and by the end our fire support team leaders were conducting well-coordinated symphonies of destruction, lifting suppressive artillery and mortar fire just in time for our notional enemy to poke his head out of his trenchline and see two Cobras rolling in to deliver a hail of rocket and gun fire.

On the second night, however, once our air support had gone home for the day, we experienced the first of what would become the theme of the rest of the exercise: cold, howling windstorms. 29 Palms is located in one of several valleys in a mountain chain which act as natural wind tunnels, so windy days are nothing new. But this night was the prelude to what would become almost a solid week of sandless shamals which made sleep damn near impossible. The wind had already picked up in the late afternoon, which again was typical as winds gust back and forth around sunrise and sunset. But as the sun went down, the winds picked up and eventually peaked between 40-50 mph. When we came down from our hill to settle in for the night, we discovered that the cammie netting covering our bivouac area had been blown down and scattered around the area. We had to sleep on top of it to keep it from vanishing over the mountains altogether. On top of that, there's no fine sand in 29 Palms, so the winds don't pick up clouds of dirt that obscure everything; but there's plenty of larger-grain dirt and pebbles, and the wind was more than powerful enough to fling these at us and scour our exposed faces as we tried to sleep. It was also gusty enough to fill our sleeping bags with grit the second we unrolled and opened them to get in; unless you stripped down to your shorts and t-shirt, exposing yourself to the bone-chilling wind, and opened your sleeping bag while climbing into it at the same time, you'd wind up sleeping in a little desert of your own. After several days (and nights) of this, I couldn't decide which place was worse: Iraq, where you literally breathed dirt but could find refuge in your comfy little can, or here, with no sand but a constant pounding by cold wind, grit, and the occasional rock and nothing but a sleeping bag to escape into. Jury's still out, but it's leaning heavily toward the verdict that 29 Palms may well be the most godforsaken place the Marine Corps has sent me.

At zero-dark-thirty on the morning of day four, we moved down from the firing range to the FOB that would be our home for the majority of the exercise. I finally linked back up with my company, which spent the first three days in the field under the command of my newly arrived executive officer. He got quite the hook-up, checking into the battalion a week before going to the field, and learning upon check-in that he would spend the first three days actually orchestrating convoy movements, FOB set-up, and company training because I had to be up north. But hey, that's how we do things here: throw you in the deep end to see if you sink or swim. Since sinking isn't really a choice, you'll swim, even if it's just the doggy-paddle.

(more to follow)

More proof

2010-04-30T15:48:00.001-04:00

. . . Like we needed it, that the U.N.'s only purpose in life seems to be taking perfectly good real estate and squandering its membership dues (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/30/stayed-mum-iran-vote-womens-commission/). Libya on the Human Rights Commission, Iran on the Women's Rights Commission, what's next?

(seriously, what's next? I'm drawing a blank on how standards could get any lower.)

Cognitive dissonance

2010-04-19T21:27:00.001-04:00

Because I'm too nice to call it hypocrisy.

But not nice enough to not try and piss people off while I'm wallowing in my own pity.

I thoroughly enjoyed my recent give-and-take with an old high school classmate on Facebook on the recent health care package shot-gunned through Congress. Honestly, I haven't heard from this guy in ten years until some recent remarks of his directed toward his "American Republican friends" (I'm assuming he's referring to some Platonic archetype, since we had no American Republicans in our high school [unless you count me and I couldn't even vote in America yet], he's spent the last ten years in a local Torontonian rock band [not a haven for ex-pat GOPers], and to my knowledge hasn't left the mother country during that time to visit any SarahPAC conventions. But I could be wrong). His overall take was that, since knuckle-dragging conservatives were no longer in power, America was now catching up to the rest of the world in building its own all-encompassing entitlement state (Bree, take a shot). All editorializing aside, it was enjoyable since I rarely have the time anymore to write anything on my blog or Facebook worth arguing about. Sorry I dropped out at the end, guys, but I had to spend a week on a wind-blasted hill in Yuma with no cell phone reception. Very unsporting of me, I know.

Anyway, while I don't have much time to write, there's always time to take a few seconds here and there to follow the news, and lately I've been amusing myself in observing ever-increasing levels of cognitive dissonance take hold among the left's guiding lights. It's funny listening quotes from finger-wagging pols and talking heads who apparently think the rules of Google don't apply to anything they said during the last eight years.

For instance, opposing any part of the president's agenda makes a critic racist, unpatriotic, and possibly secretly hoping that grandma and/or poor people die. No, we never said that dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

There's a lot of right-wing anger out there, most of it from white racist homophobes clinging to their sky-god and boomsticks. Those people should really watch what they say, lest they instigate violence against the powers that be. Sounds like the days leading up to Oklahoma City all over again. No, we never wrote any plays or made any movies actually showing the sitting president of the United States getting assassinated. We never asked, in our despair, where today's Lee Harvey Oswald or John Wilkes Booth was. No, our protests never once said that we supported our troops only when they shot their officers.

Lots of crazy conspiracy theories out there too these days, claiming that the president might be Muslim or not even be eligible to hold office. Can't believe how many wackos there are on the right. No, we never said that Bush invaded Iraq to steal its oil. Or that 9/11 was an inside job. And we sure never saw sitting members of Congress attend a documentary that argued all of the above.

You also need to stop calling the current administration a "regime". That's a dirty word and makes it sound like the president and his Congress are tyrants, flaunting the will of the people. This is a republic where all leaders are duly elected by an intelligent voting public. No, there are not 1.5 million hits when you Google "Bush regime." No, no one on MSNBC ever once used that phrase during the last eight years. Not one.

And seriously, you need to stop all this name-calling. Stop calling the president a socialist, communist, and typical Big Government leftie. No, we never called Bush a Nazi, or Bushitler, or a fascist, or a tyrant, or a genocidal dictator, or a crook, or the anti-Christ.

This exercise in cognitive dissonance has been brought to you by Google, YouTube, and Al Gore's greatest contribution to humanity, the Internet.

Again, not hypocrisy. I'm too nice.

I shouldn't blog when I'm bitter.

The year that never was: halfway gone

2010-04-19T19:05:00.002-04:00

Greetings and salutations, dear readers (reader...). I come to bury myself, not praise, um, myself. That is, I'm really only surfacing to say hi and then disappear again for days, probably weeks, and possibly months at a time. In the interim, please feel free to read all the insightful comments from Japanese-language dating services that are now the only traffic on this site.

I'm trying to recall all the things I've been up to of late, but the last couple of months are blurred into one long half-remembered dream; unfortunately, most of what I do remember has been less than pleasant. I've spent most of this spring in the field, taking a week to go down to Camp Pendleton to attend the Combined Anti-Armor Team/Light Armored Reconnaissance raid course and another week to shoot out to the wasteland around Yuma for a Tactical Air Control Party exercise (translation: we blew stuff up for five days). Nothing wrong with all that training, it's what we do and it was certainly interesting, though with some long days thrown in. The unpleasant part was that it coincided, in what can only be described as cosmically bad timing, with the very difficult decision on the part of my wife to quit her job and pull our son out of day care so that the family could have more time together in the short window before deployment. No sooner had she cleaned out her desk than our Forward Air Controllers were suddenly in high demand and launched out to the four corners of California. So we've ended up right where we started, with weekend visitations, only now my wife doesn't have the job she enjoyed for the last year and my son no longer sees the twenty friends he's known by name since we moved.

I'd have been in the field for a third straight week except for a late night phone call that pulled me back into the Headquarters and Service Company, which had been turned over to another in mid-March. My replacement, who by all accounts was doing a fantastic job in H&S and had truly embraced the "Beast" that it is, made the unfortunate decision to imbibe a little too heavily at a local watering hole one Saturday night, and then climb into his vehicle and plow into a tree. He was relieved of command on the spot, and I got that late-night call telling me I was back in. On the one hand, it's not really a bad thing for me, since it means more time as a commander on my resume which is something no one else in my peer group will have when promotion time rolls around. I'm also pretty flattered that an infantry battalion commander would immediately tap a pilot to resume command of one of his companies after such an incident. On the flip side, however, it's never a good thing when a Marine gets himself a DUI, especially an officer. His career is over; and this was truly a lost opportunity for H&S, because I'm certain he would have had a great deployment with them. This also means that I'm now dual-hatting my duties again, playing the FAC on certain days and the CO on others, and whenever one picks up, the other suffers. I now also have to scramble to get up to speed on a two-week long field exercise that's just around the corner, the planning for which pressed on without me during the three weeks I wasn't in command.

Those are only the highlights of the last two months; like I said, everything else is a blur. The only other thing that really stands out is the constant burning in my gut which is the simmering knowledge that, all professional opportunities on my part aside, this year is time with my family that I will never get back. My wife went out on a limb and tried to buy us some more time together; the Corps had other plans. I'd already wandered off on this train of thought toward the end of my last deployment, but that was well before I knew I was heading out on a FAC tour, and certainly I never imagined just how difficult this 'geographic bachelor' life would be. I've known three other pilots who did the same thing, and they all said yeah, it sucked but you just pressed through it. Right now, I'm amazed they all did it and came through okay with their families. This posting is, essentially, a year-long deployment, six months of which you get the weekends off. I'm not entirely convinced that's much better than not seeing one's family at all. I'm only home long enough to do my laundry, go to the park and do a couple of puzzles with my son, and then I'm back on the road 48 hours later. It's not long enough to do any meaningful work on the house, or give my wife a break, or get into any kind of routine with my son. Indeed, my whirlwind tours sometimes feel like they do more harm than good; Aaron will go to bed fine all week, then I show up and he turns into a screaming banshee. And this is all before I vanish for six straight months where even that little time together is gone. Not gonna lie: this f'ing blows and I'm rapidly losing my conviction to stick around for much more of it. Come 2011, when we get back, I will have missed exactly one half of my son's life, and only a little less of my marriage. Someone please tell me what's worth that, because I'm running out of answers. I'm hoping to get back to a squadron, fly some more, actually enjoy my house in SoCal, and maybe knock out one more deployment (well after this one); by then, my time should be up, and something earth-shattering will need to happen between now and then to make me stick around. If not, it's peace out and back to the East Coast.

Well, that's all I have for now. Not terribly uplifting, I know. But life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Occasionally the flying unicorns get sucked into jet intakes.

Great moments in American foreign policy

2010-03-25T14:15:00.001-04:00

If you're Israel, a long-time American ally and the only true democracy in the neighborhood, we will publicly take you to the woodshed and instigate the worst diplomatic crisis between us in recent history because . . . you built a few apartments.

If you're Iran, long-time American enemy, thugocracy that recently stole an election, beat and murdered those who objected, financier of terrorism and directly responsible for the deaths of American troops, and currently in pursuit of nuclear weapons, we will . . . http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/03/25/softens-sanction-plan-iran/ . . . take it easy.

It's okay though. We might have lost Israel, but, thanks to this weekend, we've gained Cuba (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-cb-health-care-fidel-castro,0,470625.story). Even steven.

Speaking of which, while I'm sure no one really cares, my opinion and that of an old high school acquaintence on health care 'reform' can be found on my Facebook page. It's riveting stuff, even longer and more glorious than my usual offerings, and probably so far outside the bounds of what I'm permitted to comment on that you will never hear me talk about it again. If you've ever wanted to be lectured on the evils of America by a Canadian who's far smarter than you yokels who actually live here, now's your chance.

Answer: yes, but the raw material ain't that smart to start with

2010-03-15T20:02:00.001-04:00

Powerline has an interesting article on Hollywood and its love/hate (mostly hate, it seems) relationship with military subject matter of late (http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/03/025795.php); it's titled - rhetorically, IMHO - "Does Hollywood Make You Stupid?" In selling his latest collaboration with Steven Spielberg and HBO, Tom Hanks has some fairly thick-headed comments on America's involvement in World War II and the striking - to the Hollywood mind, anyway - parallels to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hanks' hand has helped create some of the most profoundly moving and historically accurate big- and small-screen entertainment in recent years. "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" stand as two works of art that bring the Greatest Generation's suffering and triumph on the field of battle to unvarnished life. Yet apparently the reading of history done to produce those gems wasn't deep enough to supercede the Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky theory of life. To reduce the causes of World War II to some cultural misunderstanding based on racism is both insulting to the Allied men who fought and displays a disappointing intellectual laziness on the Hanks' part (not that I've ever thought Hanks untouched by intellectual laziness - he did, after all, star in the screen adaptations of Dan Brown's slanders of the Catholic Church/art travelogue for dummies; but when it came to the Second World War, he seemed to 'get it'). So: we fought the Japanese Empire because they were slant-eyed yellow devils who were "different" and not because they bombed the crap out of us first, raped and pillaged China and most of the rest of the Pacific rim, and were poised to establish their own version of the Reich based on a similar notion of racial superiority? Shame on us, I guess. Now, I have no doubt that HBO's "The Pacific" series will equal the quality of "Band of Brothers", and I also have no doubt that someday I'll own the DVD boxed set because it's HBO, it's based on the some of the best military memoirs written about that war, and it's Marines kicking ass everywhere they go. I'm just tired of our entertainers continually displaying their own ignorance of and antipathy toward those many occasions when American greatness changed the world.

At the bottom, the article also briefly touches on Hollywood's latest anti-Iraq box office bomb, Matt Damon's "Green Zone" (so loosely based on the book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" that Damon's character isn't even in the original). I haven't read the book but I believe it examines the well-documented disconnect between the CPA and military (and CPA and rest of the country it was supposed to be re-constructing). Damon and director Paul Greengrass evidently decided to distill that to the popular "Bush lied/people died" mantra (popular in Hollywood; not so much in the real world, as evidenced by its weak opening weekend) and then throw in a splash of Jason Bourne to make it more interesting. Not interesting enough, as it turns out; "Green Zone" is well on its way to joining a long series of anti-Iraq duds which, in the wake of "The Hurt Locker"'s success, certainly does beg the question: is Hollywood stupid? Time and time again, the movie-going public has pointedly avoided Tinseltown's take on the War on Terror, yet Hollywood's lefties insist on churning them out at enormous financial loss. I suppose the directors and producers think this is about principle, not money; and so long as they're not wasting my money, I suppose I don't care. But at some point, shouldn't movie financiers take these principled idiots into a room, lock the door, and beat the snot out of them until they agree to make movies that TURN A PROFIT? As my darling wife would say, "whatever"; I won't lose sleep over it, and there's some comfort in the knowledge that Big Hollywood's version of Iraq is doomed to the dollar bin at Wal-mart.

I am . . .

2010-03-07T18:10:00.003-05:00

. . . extremely impressed by the continued tenacity of the Iraqi people, whose rough but steady entry into the world of democracy has confounded critics and terrorists alike. There have been many a day recently when I've been prouder of their political discourse than our own.

. . . surprised and gratified that we're catching even more terrorist assholes in Pakistan these days. This time, CIA and Pakistani intelligence captured Adam Gadahn, a.k.a. the "American Taliban". Whatever else happens to him, he'll be charged with treason and, hopefully, hung by the neck until dead, dead, dead.

. . . disturbed and disgusted by the tragic drama that's unfolded over the last week in our neighborhood. The body of one girl was found in Lake Hodges, which I can see from my house; police are searching for the body of another in Kit Carson Park, where we've taken our son to play countless times. On the one hand, it's hard to protect the young and vulnerable from the unpredictable predations of anonymous perverts and sociopaths; on the other, it's disgraceful that the suspect was caught and charged once before and, rather than be sentenced to a psychiatrist-recommended 30 years, received only 5 and was released to hunt again. I'll be keeping a much closer eye on Aaron, whether we're going to the park or just going on a bike ride around the block; I'll be loosening the locks on my firearms as well, since evidently even our 'good' neighborhood isn't good enough.

. . . pulling for The Hurt Locker to put the hurt on James "I'm an Eco-Terrorist" Cameron.

Reality and "The Hurt Locker"

2010-03-02T11:48:00.002-05:00

As Oscar season bears down on us, one of the leading - and surprising - contenders is being accused of not getting certain things, well, right. "The Hurt Locker" got some nasty headlines on Drudge and the Washington Post yesterday for portraying certain things from uniforms to tactics unrealistically. A good summary of those complaints - and a few rebuttals - can be found here (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzlhMjg4OGEzN2M2YjA5NjhjNmQyNDRhYTg3YmI2MDM=). I can't speak to most of this because I saw Iraq from the air, not the ground, so I'll defer to the criticisms of those who were down in the dirt. That said, some critics might be overreacting on a couple of counts. One, booze: yes, it's extremely difficult to find, and in my time I certainly never saw anyone drunk (maybe a little happy from our two holiday beers on Veteran's Day, but that was mostly due to the low tolerance of guys well into their deployments). However . . . acquiring it is not impossible. Civilian contractors were generally not under the same constraints as the military when it came to booze and, while care packages are usually screened, some people still found ways to send their loved ones a little something extra. So difficult, yes; impossible, no.

Second - and while this might apply more to "Generation Kill" - officer-less worlds or worlds with incompetent officers do exist. Again, I can't speak to EOD, so the lack of any commander may well be completely wrong. But as to the prevalence of dumb officers in the Recon Battalion of "GK"; well, sometimes that's just how the stars align. Occasionally you get a "peer group" of guys who barely passed Leadership 101 at the Basic School all showing up in your unit at the same time. In the air wing, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that the numbers of officers are disproportionately higher than on the ground side, so a weak peer group might not cause the same damage. But to argue that it's impossible to have a group of incompetents all calling the shots at the same time is flat-out wrong. And while I haven't read the book version of GK yet, if that was the state of that particular Recon Battalion at the time, then it sucked to be them but it's entirely plausible.

The pirate DVD kiosks are 100 percent dead-on.

And while running through the streets of Baghdad with only a sweatshirt and a pistol stretches credulity, he might have known just where to go even if he didn't know the neighborhood. As anyone who's been on a major base or FOB can tell you: just follow the lights. I'm pretty sure you can see them with the naked eye from space.

Getting some: Generation Kill

2010-02-25T12:32:00.002-05:00

The house I'm currently renting has no cable or internet access, so when I come home from my long Marine Corps days, I'm limited in my entertainment choices to whatever DVDs my host left behind and those selections I brought from home. Since I always seem to forget to bring selections from home, that leaves my landlord's library as my sole source of relaxation. He's got some pretty good choices (though he also has an inexplicable love of "Frasier"; I don't know anyone else who loved the show so much that they were compelled to buy the entire series); and while, lately, I've been in the mood for some light comedy at the end of the day, I can't seem to find either copy of "Office Space" for which he has two empty cases (well, empty now that I've removed the Frasier disks inside and placed them back where they belong). So, partly because I can't bring myself to watch 8 hours of Frasier, and partly because it got a good review from the Accidental Blogger over at COIN-Yank, I've delved into the HBO series "Generation Kill", based off a book by the same name (which sits, unread, like so many other books, on my bookcase back at home).

Thus far, the series is of the high quality most of us have come to expect from HBO. The world that the characters live in - that of a Marine Force Reconnaissance battalion - is one that's somewhat alien even to Marines, with its own culture, language, and attitude. The show's creators haven't shied away from this; they've done their research and adopted the lexicon and worldview of Force Recon whole-heartedly, to the point where I can say that each character talks like I know Marines talk. They discuss their weapons, tactics, vehicles, and opinions the way real Marines do (profanity included). It's completely believable (though for those in the civilian world who need a little translation for all the jargon, the DVD package comes with a helpful mini-thesaurus to explain all the acronyms). Thus far, my only gripe is the occasional dramatic monologue which the writers insert to drive home some deeper point or issue. I haven't read the book yet, so I don't know if those appear in the text as well, but they always sound out of place wherever they appear. Perhaps the writers are condensing larger dialogues as best they can, or simply taking the opportunity to insert their own worldview; either way, they sound forced and out of sync with the way the characters usually think. That's not to say that things like "imagine the thousands of years of civilization we're standing on, the countless graves of the ancients" don't cross the minds of simple grunts; they do, and I've seen it. It's just not generally expressed the way the writers do. Pretty small gripe, I know, and otherwise I'm quite engrossed in the series.

And, Accidental Blogger, since you got me on to this subject, I went back and checked out that article which asks why there's been no "art" from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/blog/show/4275). I have a few thoughts on that. Mr. Grunstein's strongest point may be that there's already been a great deal of ink spilled on the subject in the realm of non-fiction. From the small unit to the theater level, many soldiers and Marines have written excellent books on their experiences and perspectives in both wars. The huge numbers of embedded journalists deployed to these units have also recounted their stories. Add that to the near real-time video feed from the front lines, and one could argue that there's little need for some sort of artistic work because virtually everything that can be said about each conflict has already been covered, and is updated almost instantaneously. Why invest millions of dollars in an Iraq version of "Platoon" when Americans are watching it for free every day on CNN?

I also found it rather telling that, when asking why no culturally significant books or movies have come out of the current conflicts, Mr. Grunstein cites only anti-war works as the 'standard'. That's not to say that some of his choices aren't relevant; "All Quiet on the Western Front" certainly captures the futility of what was arguably a completely pointless war. Odd, though, that he leaves out some greats from World War II like "Once an Eagle" or "Battle Cry", which feature some truly noble characters and address things like camaraderie and why, sometimes, the cruelty of war is sometimes necessary to vanquish a greater evil. I think he's right on the Korean War, though he might want to look into the works of James Brady whose "Marines of Autumn", a novel about the Chosin Reservoir campaign, matches anything from the Second World War. As for Vietnam, Grunstein seems to accept Hollywood's popular version of the war as the only one, ignoring books like James Webb's "Fields of Fire" and Hal Moore's "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young" (as well as the recent movie) that are more interested in examining how the soldiers actually fought, thought, and interacted with each other than reinforcing the drug-addled, baby-killing, quasi-psychopathic image that most of the movies he mentions foster. In that vein, Hollywood, at least, has attempted to re-do Vietnam in Iraq with a long string of movies of the "Platoon" genre ("Rendition, "In the Valley of Elah", and a half-dozen others), trying to keep the caricature of the American soldier as victim/butcher alive and well. In this, Hollywood has failed miserably; each offering was a bigger bomb than the last. I think this indicates that the American public is no longer interested in the victim/butcher story (if it ever truly was). It is no longer culturally significant because, thanks in large part to the 24-hour news cycle, independent outlets like blogs, and the volume of non-fiction written by a highly literate soldier class, that stereotype is demonstrably false. It's hard to paint soldiers as butchers when you see them take extra casualties because of restrictive ROEs, or when you read about their efforts to help and protect the civilian populace, or when their enemy uses mentally handicapped women to carry their bombs and cooks children alive in stoves to intimidate their parents. And you can't paint them as victims when the military is an all-volunteer force that's been at war for almost ten years, and you know that when you sign on the dotted line you have a pretty good chance of seeing some of that war yourself.

As for his argument that, because we're no longer conscripting poets and novelists to fight, we aren't getting the same creative minds in the military that we used to, I can only surmise that Mr. Grunstein has had little exposure to the men and women who actually wear the uniform or the quite vibrant creative culture that's grown out of our current wars. No, we don't have an Iraqi "All Quiet on the Western Front" (at least not yet); however, the volume of writing that's erupted from both conflicts shows a professional soldiery that's quite capable of telling a story. In addition to the wealth of books released by veterans of OIF and OEF, the digital world of milblogs has opened up an entirely new creative front for soldiers to express themselves. We may not yet have the culturally significant movies Grunstein desires, but that's probably because Hollywood no longer understands what the public finds culturally significant, if it ever did. "The Hurt Locker" and "Generation Kill" may be the first steps in this direction; there are also less well-known but very powerful films like "Taking Chance" that have demonstrated their appeal to a widespread audience because they resonate so much more realistically than "Lions for Lambs". Mr. Grunstein might also want to peruse shared media sites like YouTube, where troops have posted their various musical and cinematic creations. Granted, much of it is profane, not profound, but there's also a large pool of soldiers who've written their own songs, created their own music videos, and demonstrated genuine insight and biting humor in both. Finally, anyone who's spent some time in or about military types would be impressed by the graphic artistry found in the endless stream of unit logos, deployment plaques, and random decorations found on everything from squad bays to aircraft fuselages, all springing solely from the creative impulses and skills of the American soldier.

So one can find a whole new generation of combat "art" in our current conflicts; it just depends on where you're looking. Mr. Grunstein is missing out on most of it because it doesn't fit his own archetype of what meaningful wartime art is supposed to be, and he woefully underestimates the gifts of the American fighting man due to this blindness.

Oh, and Generation Kill is awesome.

Ohhhh Thomas....

2010-02-23T20:40:00.001-05:00

Inside joke.

Last week was a pretty good week for the SoCal Brown clan (at least as far as we measure good weeks during these times...). My parents came out for some quality time with their grandson, whom they ooooooed and awwwwwwed with Legoland and whale-watching trips, and who ooooed and awwwwed them in return with his puzzle assembly prowess and his Dr. Evil-like cunning ("here, Grandpa, I ask that you pick me up so that I might show my affection for you. Just kidding, it was to get me closer to my bag of Valentine candy. I can't believe you fell for that. Again"). Okay, he doesn't really talk like that; but he thinks like it. Between that and his stream-of-consciousness dialogue that resembles the dissertations of the Hybrids from BSG and drives Bree bonkers, he's turning into quite an intelligent, well-coordinated, energetic little Ernst Blofeld. The only thing that could've made the week better is if the Marine Corps had actually permitted me to see my parents and beautiful wife and darling child, which it didn't, first taking away my long weekend and then taking away part of my regular weekend too. That's what happens when you're forced to cram eighteen months of pre-deployment training into six. Perhaps we should adopt the calendar of the revolutionary French, and have ten-day work weeks. Hell, let's just cancel Christmas.

With this wonderful schedule it's been hard doing anything but going home to eat, sleep, and do it all again the next day. I've been able to snatch a little entertainment here and there, keeping up with Lost (good but answers need to come more quickly and copiously), watching what I hope will be this year's Best Picture (Hurt Locker), and diving back into some classic old war films like The Dirty Dozen (I'm sorry, but it doesn't age well) and A Bridge Too Far (a surprisingly well-written and directed ensemble epic which I may have to add to my collection). Also coming down the pipe, thanks to eBay, will be my copy of Windows 7, which I can't wait to use to erase the travesty that was Vista. Vista's pretty, but it made me sorely miss XP which wasn't so pretty, but at least stable and could run all my programs and games without difficulty. Now, Vista's at the point where I can't even listen to a song on iTunes without it 'skipping'. I didn't know MP3's could skip; Vista found a way. From what I've read Windows 7 remedies many performance issues, and hopefully I won't be disappointed. And, well, at least I found it at half-price if nothing else works out.

I really have nothing else that justifies breaking my hiatus, so I'll direct you to someone whose life is more interesting (in ways good and bad) than mine, at ambularecumhonore.blogspot.com . This is the milblog of my Navy cousin who went from being trapped in a big steel tube underwater to a completely landlocked country nowhere near water. He's currently attached to a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan, engaged in the unglamorous but vital task of bringing that country from the sixth century to - we can hope - the fifteenth century. I jest, but only partly; it's a country where an illiterate farmer can still build a bomb and trigger it with a cell phone. Anyway, he's out there trying to do the good things much of the world likes to pretend America doesn't do, and he'll no doubt have many fascinating stories along the way. Give it a look, and keep him in your thoughts.

Done with global warming

2010-02-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

This is not exactly how I wanted to end my hiatus (in all honesty the hiatus is still on, I just find myself with a few minutes while I wait for my printer to spit out a hundred-page document with all the speed and efficiency of a Gutenberg printing press), but I'm going to make my final, be-all end-all, comprehensive statement on the issue of anthropomorphic or anthropological or apatosaurus global warming and be done with it. Limited time and more pressing and relevant subjects that I take much greater pleasure in writing about mean that Al Gore and his manbearpig are no longer welcome here.

Bottom line up front: the subject line says it all. I'm done with global warming. The constant stream of revelations showing just how corrupted the science and the process behind it are lead me to the conclusion that until all these clowns who've made a pretty decent living off scaring the rest of the planet with ominous threats of rising oceans, shrinking forests and extinction are turned out into the streets and replaced with a new crew that starts from scratch, this country and the world as a whole should address the many more pressing problems we all face. In the last few months, we've gone from Gore and Co declaring the debate "settled" and warning that the planet had only a few years left to live, to the sudden and startling admission that the global temperature has actually cooled over the last ten years. Then we learned that the AGW powers-that-be wanted to sweep this cooling trend under the rug because it might convince those dumb rubes who make up the tax-paying public to stop subsidizing their lucrative grants. Any scientist who disagreed with this questionable but "settled" science was to be shunned by the rest of the community and barred from academic publications. As a few enterprising reporters dug a little deeper, we learned that not only was cooling data "tricked" into actually proving warming, but that all the original data that AGW claims were based on had been, um, lost. Oops. Then there were those pesky Himalayan glaciers that weren't melting nearly fast enough to disappear by 2035. And those Chinese climate monitoring stations that, like so many congressional districts receiving stimulus funds, don't actually exist. Exist or not apparently doesn't matter at this juncture, because the original data from them has been, um, lost as well. That damn global warming, it ate my homework!

These clowns aren't fit to run a paper route, let alone dictate to the world how big their carbon footprints get to be. And to think, the AGW crowd won countless accolades and awards, received millions and millions of dollars in funding (and royalties), and somehow got the right to equate anyone who disagreed with the lunatic fringe that denies the systematic extermination of European Jewry during the Holocaust. These people were going to tell us how much electricity we could use, how big our cars could be, how many sheets of toilet paper we should limit ourselves to. Their hypocrisy was always rank (one look at the electricity bill for Al Gore's estate or the number of SUVs lined up outside the Copenhagen conference was proof enough), but the flimsiness of the science it was based on is truly stunning. So I'm done hedging my bets and expressing my guarded skepticism that AGW maybe exists, maybe it doesn't: if this is the best climate changers have to offer, I'm no longer buying anything they're selling. Their product is shoddy, their packaging mediocre, and the whole thing looks like the delivery guy played football with it.

Now before I'm labeled as some polar bear-hating, climate change denying Luddite, I will add one caveat: I'm not a complete tool when it comes to things like pollution, new energy sources, etc. I'm quite aware of the effects that sewage, industrial waste, and carbon emissions can have locally and regionally. Lake Ontario, on the shores of which I grew up, has beaches that are unswimmable because of the pollution level in the water. As a helicopter pilot flying around the San Diego area, I've seen some pretty striking views of the smog cloud that hovers over the city (and anyone who doesn't think that's a big deal should look at pictures of Beijing's smog, which is thicker than the marine layer that rolls in on SoCal every night). These things are real and established ("settled" if you will). I'm all about trying to make the air cleaner and lakes swimmable. I'm also about not enriching terrorist states by buying their oil. I'm happy to find ways to reduce the size of landfills and reprocess whatever waste we can. I recycle (not as much as I could, but then I'm sure we're all guilty of that). What I'm not about is having unelected technocrats decide just how much civilization is good for me and then regulate everything from the number of children I can have to what light bulbs I use in order to make the non-tax paying, non-voting, and by all accounts non-sentient Mother Earth happy that she'll be one degree cooler a hundred years from now. I'm not about an ecological politburo enforcing global solutions to problems that are local and regional. I'm not about democratic and productive countries transferring huge amounts of their capital to political and economic basket-cases. And I'm most certainly not about getting lectured by the ChiComs, Hugo Chavez, or - of all people - Osama bin Laden about how my society, which is free, prosperous, and contributes disproportionately to the freedom and prosperity of others, needs to stop being free and prosperous because the side effects are melting glaciers (false), rising global temperatures (false), and every evil thing from poverty to political repression. Most of the above are simply excuses for otherwise inexcusable acts of violence, repression, and power-hoarding.

There are certain things we can do to reduce pollution, improve the quality of our environment, and safeguard our own national security. Some of these things only apply locally (wind power, for example, might be a great idea for the Twenty-nine Palms area because it has consistently strong mountain winds. Bree might not think so because she's terrified the windmills will attack her, but thus far their aggression has been contained. Regardless, wind won't work everywhere like, say, Minnesota, where it's so cold the windmills freeze. Oops. Wish a real scientist had looked into that before millions of dollars were spent. Hope you guys stocked up on firewood). Some apply regionally or nationally (nuclear power could cover the energy needs of our whole country cleanly and reliably and has no geographic restrictions). More energy-efficient cars have the double bonus of reducing smog levels and cutting down the revenue stream of adversaries (like Iran) and dubious friends (Saudi Arabia). But rarely is there a global, one-size-fits-all solution. Even if there is, chuckleheads like Al Gore and the IPCC have forfeited any claim to finding it. And I'm of the opinion that allowing dynamic and free societies to invest and research in their own ways will ultimately lead to breakthroughs - some of which will be unexpected and unpredicted, as many of the best breakthroughs are - that can accomplish many of the climate changers' goals without gutting civilization as we know it.

There. Global warming, I am done with you. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. We now return to our regularly scheduled hiatus.

Another hiatus

2010-01-18T18:36:00.003-05:00

I didn't think my new assignment would mean that I'd have to surrender blogging completely, and it doesn't; I only have to surrender it 95% of the time. I've been swamped with work the last couple of weeks, and last week (and the week to come) had me in a training exercise where I literally couldn't leave the room during daylight hours. Maybe February will bring some relief; until then, duty calls (and steals all my free time).

Gleek

2010-01-03T13:08:00.002-05:00

Bree's been very helpful in assigning me the proper term for a Glee fan. Apparently the votes are in and it's "Gleek". Thanks so much Bree.

With BSG over and done with, 24 and Lost still weeks away, V barely a blip on my radar, Caprica still in the pipeline, and Scrubs a pale shadow of itself, much of my Christmas break has been devoted to finding something to replace the gaping void left by my favorite shows (okay yes, I have family, books, and an xBox, but something's still missing . . .). Much to my own surprise, I have settled on Glee.

Why surprise, you might ask? Those of you who know me well are probably thinking that, given how much of my college years I gave to musical theater, a show about people singing and dancing isn't much of a stretch. Fair enough, but since the platform for all the singing and dancing is your 'typical' high school drama, I was more than ready to give it a big fat miss. I despise high school dramas in all their forms, with its teenagers who grapple with horribly life-shattering problems week after week after week, are universally wiser than their years (and their parents, teachers, etc), and are impossibly attractive. Degrassi, Dawson's Creek, The O.C.: proudly missed them all.

So I don't know exactly why the simple addition of singing and dancing has made the difference for Glee, but it has. And apart from the music - more on that in a sec - the show is also helped by the conscious decision on the part of the creators to make its William McKinley High a parody of high school life, rather than the self-centered melodrama depicted by every other series. The characters are almost universally cookie-cutter stereotypes of everyone's worst experiences in high school (though full disclosure: as my high school lacked most of the organizations a 'normal' high school has, I only know about these experiences from other people): the dumb and casually sadistic football players (didn't have a football team), cheerleaders so airheaded they don't know their left hand from their right (didn't have cheerleaders), the flaming diva gay guy, the conservative parents who spout family values while secretly wallowing in alchoholism (and of course, the father watches Glenn Beck), and their 'innocent' daughter who uses the chastity club as cover for her sexcapades. And the glee club is where all the socially bottom-feeding neurotic losers hang out (again, wouldn't know, didn't have one). Then there's the squeaky-clean Spanish teacher who reboots glee club and brings all these different stereotypes together. This shouldn't work, for many reasons, but it does, because a) the writing is sharp, crisp, and hysterical (cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester is probably one of the best-written characters in recent years), b) there's enough real pathos in the characters' various tribulations that you want to see what happens next, and c) all of it is enhanced by the music of the glee club.

The music turns silly teenage drama into enjoyable silly musical drama, and the producers have proven very adept at finding just the right song to dress up the storylines. The best thing is, the soundtrack hasn't been limited to one or two genres. Oh there's a good deal of modern hip-hop and pop to appeal to the target audience, but we also get 80's rock ballads, Broadway numbers, classic Motown, and many other styles; this helps keep the older folks interested, sure, but also re-introduces these small gems to a generation that might not otherwise find them. The new mixes of these songs are also outstanding, to the point where more than a few sound better than their originals. And through it all, you really get the sense that the cast is having fun with the whole experience; which, after all, is generally the reason most of us get into the world of musical theater to begin with. Good on Glee's creators for making a drama I can watch, not take seriously, and sing along with. I thank you (at least, until Lost comes back).

Now, to regain my manly credentials, I've also spent a few late nights playing my way through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, courtesy of brother number two. The first had a pretty thin storyline but amazing visuals and gameplay (though its single-player campaign was far too short); this formula is repeated in the sequel, for good and ill: the plot has holes you could fly my helicopter through, but the graphics are incredible and we once again get some of those "wow" moments the COD series is so good at (you get to launch, and then 'guide', missiles off a Predator drone to their targets, assault an oil platform from a submarine, and chase a bad guy through a sandstorm for a knife-fight to the death). Again, the single player takes almost no time to play through, but at least once it's done, you can play through a series of "Spec Ops" missions that focus on different mission types. I don't have xBox Live, but perhaps on deployment I'll get to experience the multiplayer game, which is supposed to be outstanding.

I've also done a little professional (and non-professional) reading the last couple of weeks: one is a book called, interestingly enough, Spec Ops, which focuses on unconventional operations from World War II to the Israeli raid on Entebbe, Uganda. This is required reading by our battalion CO, as the MEU, by its very nature, might require us to engage in a wide variety of unconventional missions in the face of superior forces. I'm also almost finished with American Rifle by Alexander Rose, a fascinating history of the connection between the rifle and American history. It's eye-opening stuff and you don't need to know much of anything about guns to enjoy it.

Finally, speaking of guns, I picked up and tested out my Christmas/anniversary/future significant events present yesterday: a 1950 Soviet SKS semiautomatic rifle, which was well-cared for by its previous owners and looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. If you all are ever in town, we'll take it and go play.

"The system worked"

2009-12-27T21:58:00.006-05:00

Lordie. Well, it's been a quiet Christmas for the SoCal branch of the family, spent, alternatively, getting Aaron to sit still in church, getting Aaron interested in opening his big presents rather than just eating the Goldfish from his stocking, and getting Aaron to choose just one toy to take in the car with him on our outings (and if this sounds suspiciously like Toy Story, you're right, since he can now choose between Buzz, Woody, and Rex). We had a couple of good Christmas feasts with some of my old squadron members, and with all my gift cards, I'm now booked out for at least the next few months. Thank you all for your gifts, and know that whenever I'm plugging through the pages of Xenophon's Hellenica, I'm thinking of you.

That said, back to Lordie: it hasn't been a quiet Christmas for other folks. In case you hadn't noticed (easy to do, since this country is again studiously ignoring it), Iranians have been protesting in record numbers against their regime during the Shiite holiday of Ashura; and boy, have they been paying for it. At least five have been killed in the last few days, and thousands more are going toe-to-toe with Iranian police and paramilitaries. The courage of these men and women is truly remarkable, given that the regime has no qualms about killing them outright and shutting down all possible avenues for getting their message out to the world. And yet they've continued, months after the mullahocracy rigged their presidential election. This may yet turn out to be one of those "hinges" of history, harbinging powerful and unforeseen change that resonates throughout the region. Since nothing else seems to be working, this protest movement may be our last, best chance of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons without some military action on our part. Sure hope it works (no thanks to us).

Also, some holiday travelers got quite the scare when a passenger on a flight bound for Detroit decided to be a grinch and, um, blow up the plane with his underwear. I jest, a little, but this was no joke: somehow, a man who'd been identified as radical enough to placed on a 'watch' list (though, for reasons that escape me, not on the 'no fly' list) and whose own father had warned American authorities months ago that Junior was itching to meet his virgins and take a few infidels with him managed to smuggle explosives sewn into his clothes onto a plane and would have successfully detonated them had the device not malfunctioned and passengers not noticed what he was up to and beat the crap out of him. This was a stark reminder of two things. One: all wishful thinking to the contrary, our conflict with radical Islam is not over, and the crazies don't seem to care about what magnanimous treatment we give prisoners or how many globe-trotting apologies we make. They are out there, they don't give a damn how many concessions we make, and they will keep trying to kill us until either we surrender or they run out of jihadists. Two: countering these murderers does not mean having enough firefighters and doctors to clean up the wreckage when they succeed, but using the many tools we've developed to keep them on the defensive and protect our citizens. Our current chief of homeland security seems to be of the former opinion, however, because even though a terrorist came within a hair's breadth of turning Christmas into a funeral, she thinks that "the system worked" since the news of the bombing was rapidly disseminated and the passengers reacted quickly. From the leader of the department founded on the ashes of a previous terrorist attack, this is fatuous and irresponsible in the extreme. Had the bomb been built a little better, right now we'd be talking about the body count rather than how the bomber won't be able to have kids any time soon. Whatever system we have, failed, from the moment this guy was able to check in to his flight. Oh, and Janet, unless every passenger is now a paid member of DHS or a deputized air marshal, the passengers aren't part of "the system": they're what the system is supposed to protect, and the fact that they had to take any action at all again shows that the system, your system, FAILED. Be grateful that the average American still has the gonads and initiative to take matters into his own hands when necessary; apparently you're more interested in scraping bodies off the tarmac quickly and efficiently than preventing a body count in the first place. You need to get serious, and fast, or get another job.

OK, enough of the heavy stuff. All you geeks out there, please enjoy this doctoral dissertation on the physics of interstellar space battles. This should be required reading for all of us who plan to someday conquer the galaxy.

Oh, and to any crazies out there who think that the SoCal household is counting on "the system" to ride to the rescue, here's fair warning: my first line of defense isn't Jibbering Janet, but my new Christmas/anniversary/several occasions in the future present:

That's 7.62mm of the finest Soviet engineering (which, incidentally, when it came to small arms was pretty good), and after 60 years she's still in great shape. Great shape.

Snow in the desert

2009-12-23T10:20:00.002-05:00

I promise, folks, this will be brief. I just found this little flashback to the Iraqi snowfall of '08 to be very appropriate, as we find ourselves struggling through difficulties at home that the people of Iraq would gladly trade for their own problems. I remember how that light dusting (by East Coast standards) caught all of us completely off guard the morning we woke up to it. It caught Iraqis off guard too; apart from the mountains to the north, this was the first recorded snowfall in Iraq in almost a century. Parents in Baghdad took their children outside to see it and remember it before it melted away. It's not as if all of us, American troops and Iraqis, looked at the whiteness around us and had deep cosmic thoughts (initial reactions on our part were a combination of "dude, did not think I would see this here" and quickly trying to gather enough to make snowballs); but it was something different, unprecedented, new. As the author says,

"At first, I thought of 2007 as the year I missed Christmas. But my wife helped me see things differently. After hearing my stories — what it was like for the people of Diyala province before our squadron arrived, and then the “awakening” that followed as we slowly and at great cost cleared and held the ground — she said, “You didn’t miss Christmas. For those Iraqis, you were Christmas.”

And in a real and meaningful way, she was right. Christmas is the ultimate story of birth and hope: How a light (the Light) came into the world to make all things new. Of course, we can’t make claims that grand. But in our Christmas, we brought our own kind of hope. We brought the most basic comforts of life — food to eat, fuel to heat their homes, and, most important, a chance at a new beginning. And as I look at Iraq now and see how far it has come since that cold, muddy — and snowy — time two years ago, it seems that perhaps, just perhaps, enough people have seized that chance to allow real rebirth."

A world made new; it will not be completed by our own meager efforts, but we can nudge it along, slowly, painfully, with a thousand small sacrifices like those made by Capt French and his men. So that perhaps, someday, we will finally see when "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

'Tis the season to...

2009-12-17T17:21:00.006-05:00

...actually get to go home and see my family? That would be nice.

I'll finally get to this weekend, though, and not have to leave again on Sunday since we're starting our Christmas leave block. Instead of 48 hours of visitation I get a whole two weeks! It's like Christmas! (ah right, it really IS Christmas. Since the only sign that it's even winter here has been a few days of rain rather than sunshine, I can be forgiven for my lack of situational awareness. I hope). This year the SoCal Browns will be spending the birth of our Lord at home, with our very first REAL Christmas tree, which evidently smells very good though I've only been home once to enjoy it since we got it. Aaron enjoys riding his toddler Razor scooter from the back of the house to the front and pointing to a small ornament with a picture of me and Bree and asking if that's mommy and daddy. It sure is, though five minutes later he'll ride back in and check again just to make sure nothing's changed. It hasn't. Wash, rinse and repeat, and there you have the day's entertainment (also entertaining is the fact that he feels obliged to wear his helmet while riding the scooter indoors. At least we're raising a safety-conscious child, though someone who doesn't know the family that well might wonder if he's prone to seizures).

Boy, it's been awhile since I've written anything. Not that there's a lack of subject matter, but I've been more productively occupied in sorting out how to run my company (still working out the details, BTW). Plus, since I left my laptop at home, the only internet access I have is through my phone and it's very hard to type long messages on a digital keyboard. So, this state of affairs will probably continue so long as I'm running the battalion's H&S company and doing air officer stuff on this side. It's just as well, I suppose, since it's not really kosher for an officer of my position to be writing material that could influence junior Marines, on the extremely small chance that someone outside my family and few friends stumbled across it. Some of you are no doubt choking on your Cheerios and thinking, "hey, he said that before and was back-sliding two months later. Lying liar." Indeed, I didn't resist the urge very long. But I think I will now, since I'm in a fishbowl like never before. Suddenly being in charge of over two hundred people gives you a new perspective. So take this one to the bank, folks (try to pick one that didn't need a bailout, though).

Indeed, the only thing I seem to have time for at the end of each day is plowing through Battlestar Galactica a second time. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I finished season 4 (again) last week, and came to a couple of conclusions. 1) My original gripes about the finale still stand, but somehow I find myself caring a little less. I watched some of the commentaries from the producers, which confirmed what was long obvious: come the last season, the only thing they knew for sure was that the Galactica had to find Earth and the details would come later. So they found Earth not once, but twice, and the Final Five were pulled out of a hat. They were also hamstrung, as many shows were, by the writers' strike, which came right when the survivors of the Twelve Colonies stumbled upon Earth One as a charred cinder. Had the show been ended at that point, it wouldn't have done quite as much damage as the strike did to other shows (I'm talking to you, HEROES). Depressing as hell, yes, but at least the story would've reached its stated goal. However, they finagled another half a season, and then had to figure out where to go from Earth. So they went to another earth, with various angels and demons and unfinished story threads and info dumps along the way. Not ideal, I know. But I still think that last half of the series was redeemed by two things: the mutiny and about 75% of the finale. The mutiny was BSG at its bloody story-telling best, and the producers DID close one major story-line, which was what the hell to do with Tom Zarek. They solved that one exactly according to his character. As for the finale, I already knew I'd be disappointed at Kara's 'revelation' and the contrived way the producers finally fleshed out the opera house vision (along with Hera's mighty destiny as a petri dish for a new strain of biped), not to mention Lee's decision to become a Luddite and the inexplicable enthusiasm with which the 30,000 other survivors joined him. Oddly, I think this knowledge let me enjoy it more, because there's still some great stuff within. The final battle at the Colony still got my blood pumping, especially when Adama took the Galactica to ramming speed. And when it was all over and the fleet rejoined around Earth Two, the writers gave us some of those poignant personal moments that helped make the series so strong. Kara's tender good-bye to Sam (and his whispered reply); Roslin's last flight over the promised land; Adama's wordless farewell to Roslin; and even Baltar's belated guilt over the treatment of his father (and, I like to tell myself, everything else he ever did): all were subtle, well-crafted, and deeply moving. Who gives a crap that Hera's only good for her DNA (and may be one of the most kidnapped children seen on television, with the exception of Kim Bauer, though at least Hera has the excuse of being only five and not fantastically stupid)? You were INVESTED in Adama, Roslin, and Starbuck, you watched them get beat up and run down for four years and never quit, and it HURT to finally have to watch them go. You know it did. No really, you know it, it's not just me. Stop lying to yourselves.

2) Yeah, remember five pages back I said there were two conclusions? The other is this: Bear McCreary, who composed the show's music, is a genius. There were a couple of scenes that reminded me of just how much a good soundtrack can make good drama great drama (one, I think, was when Apollo was 'farewelled' on the flight deck as he moved on to civilian life, the other, when Adama flew Roslin around for the last time). So I went to iTunes and downloaded some (ok, all) of the music for seasons 2-4, and I was right: McCreary's music was vital to making the show as good as it was. I will caveat this by saying that I do not recommend downloading every track for every season; I'm sure you expect it of me but I don't expect it of any normal person. Much of it consists of the same theme reworked for different scenes throughout the series, as one would expect of soundtrack music. However, there are plenty of 'core' themes and songs that highlight the power of his work. For the casual enthusiast, I'd recommend "Roslin and Adama" from season 2, "The Dance", "Battlestar Sonatica", "Heeding the Call" and "All Along the Watchtower" from season 3, "Gaeta's Lament" (truly moving and spooky), "Farewell Apollo", "Kara Remembers", and "So Much Life" from season 4. Season 1 wasn't available on iTunes, but don't worry, I'll review that for you too. The last show that I could think of which featured truly enhancing music was the X-Files, but even that I don't remember as being so well-composed as McCreary's.

And now here I am, settling back in my chair to consider the void that exists in my life now that BSG is well and truly over (again). Methinks I won't be revisiting it a third time for awhile, just to keep the morsels savory (if Bree will agree to watch another episode with me, however, all bets are off). Incidentally, I got myself "The Plan" immediately upon release; you remember, the two-hour special by EJO that was supposed to blow the lid off the Cylons' long-secret "plan"? Well . . . there's not much there. There's a sneak peek for it on one of the disks in Season 4.5, and the sneak peek pretty much sums it up: the plan was to destroy humanity down to the last man, woman and child. Once that plan failed, the Cylons wandered off the reservation trying to make a new one. The story revolves around a love-hate relationship between two Cavil models, the Final Five, and humanity at large, and mostly serves as an excuse to re-shoot various scenes from different angles. It ends where season 2 ended, with the Cylons trying a new plan to co-exist with the humans on New Caprica. There are a few interesting moments - you get to watch the obliteration of the Twelve Colonies from a Cylon point of view (possibly the best lines of the episode feature various Hybrids describing the destruction on different planets; you KNOW the Cylons weren't playing around when even "the oceans of Picon are burning") and we find out just how Cavil was able to control the sleeper Boomer on Galactica; but very little is new. "The Plan" is definitely for those fans who just can't let the show go (stop pointing at me). If they come out with a special that tells us about the gods on Kobol, I'm in; until then, I'm skipping everything until the first Cylon War starts in "Caprica".

OK, I think I've said all there is to say about BSG (for which you are no doubt eternally grateful). What else have I been up to? Oh, I read "The Accidental Guerrilla" by David Kilcullen for some officer education last week. Our battalion CO has a number of books about COIN on his reading list, and we'll be doing monthly discussions on them until, well, the Marine Corps stops doing COIN. Kilcullen's words carry a lot of weight, since he was part of the Petraeus team that crafted the surge strategy in Iraq; given the surge's success, he's obviously a man worth listening to. His career as a COIN strategist is rather inverted, by his own admission; he spent years in the Australian military, but codified his theory as a civilian and observer in the post-9/11 world. He's spent a lot of time in a lot of very nasty places, and has talked to many of the players whose cooperation in prosecuting a successful counterinsurgency is crucial. He comes to a whole gamut of conclusions about what makes COIN work, though final conclusion is, essentially, that we shouldn't get involved in COIN scenarios in the first place because it simply plays into an al-Qaeda strategy of "exhaust and bankrupt". This conclusion has some merit when one looks at just how much our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost in terms of treasure and resources. His alternative is using, instead, the lightest military footprint possible, combined with a larger effort involving many nonmilitary players (State Department, NGOs, private organizations, economists, educators, etc), to find local solutions to removing the cancer of radical ideology without alienating the population our presence and turning them into 'accidental guerrillas' who are only fighting because we showed up. I didn't find this conclusion completely convincing, though; he seems to be saying that rather than devoting hundreds of billions to a purely military solution, we should devote it to a multi-pronged, well-synchronized campaign by both the military and virtually every other agency that could conceivably be involved in foreign assistance. In the end, we're still spending hundreds of billions of dollars, except on everybody else instead of just the military. He also shows a disturbing sympathy for the 'policing' attitude of counterterrorism, arguing that a certain level of risk is acceptable in order to avoiding playing into the "exhaust and bankrupt" strategy. I'd agree that we will never reduce the risk of terrorism to zero, and that pursuing a 'zero-tolerance' policy to the ends of the earth is unsustainable. But I was a little surprised that he ignored the evidence of the years before 9/11, which proved just how ineffective the non-intervening, 'policing' attitude was. After pulling out of Somalia, we followed the non-intervention policing model, using tools of law enforcement and remaining aloof from many an internal dispute, and what we got were progressively more violent and bloody terrorist attacks until finally 9/11 laid bare the failure of our efforts. I'm not saying the tools of law enforcement aren't effective - indeed, we've upgraded them to meet the challenges of the digital age, so that we can follow things like electronic money tranfers, cell phone calls, emails and even the IP addresses of jihadist websites to their source - but that only takes you so far. Sometimes, you still need to take the offensive, kick down doors, and kill people; and sometimes, the only solution may truly be to engage in wide-ranging nation-building (using the many good COIN recommendations he makes) to prevent a greater national security threat. Still, a compelling book about what works and what doesn't in the toughest kind of war, and putting his theories into action in Iraq saved countless lives and brought that country back from the brink.

Well, I think I've said all I need to say. And more. Merry Christmas to all, and next time I won't be so boring (Bree: yeah right).

Who am I? "Derek!" God???

2009-12-04T13:14:00.004-05:00

"Where am I?" is technically more appropriate, since I HAVEN'T been on this page for some time, but a little Zoolander can explain a lot. So would "great Odin's raven!" but I respect Anchorman enough not to abuse it.

So where am? For those who don't yet know I'm now stationed up at MCAGCC Twentynine Palms (that's Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center; I think they would have added more C's if they possibly could), home of the 7th Marine Regiment and various and sundry supporting attachments. Discretion bids me withhold any further public information but my Facebook friends can find out more. I've been up here a little over a week, and two days ago had my official "change of command" to take charge of my battalion's headquarters and service (H&S) company. Now, "change of command" is not a phrase we in the air wing usually associate with a mid-grade captain; in the wing, they only take place at the squadron level when the outgoing CO - a lieutenant colonel - turns over to the new guy, or up through the higher levels of organization (group, wing, etc). This is due to the fact that in a squadron, a captain will, at best, be in charge of a couple dozen Marines in one of the maintenance shops; and frequently, they're in charge of no one but themselves (like yours truly). It's one of the unfortunate but normal consequences of the structure of Marine aviation; a brand-new second lieutenant in an infantry company can have as much - and frequently more - responsibility as a captain who's been in his squadron for years. In my time in the wing, I've only been in charge of one other Marine during my first deployment as the S-6 officer, and this kid was so smart and well-disciplined that he really needed no supervision from me. So it's been a bit of a culture shock to come from the wing, where I was just one of many knuckle-headed captains, to an infantry battalion and take over as a company commander in an environment where captains are few and far between and are regarded as a minor god. Don't worry, I'm not going to have a god complex any time soon, since the newest lieutenant out of TBS and Infantry Officer School knows more about the grunt world than I do. Fortunately all my officers and staff NCOs know what the hell they're doing, which means the company should stay on track while I stumble through my other battalion billet, that of Air Officer.

This is another full-time job, since it concerns getting air support for all of the battalion's endeavors. Since I'm the only FAC to have checked in here recently, I get this billet too. As the Air O, I need to coordinate various types of Marine air for training evolutions, and work as a member of the Fire Support Coordination Center, where myself and representatives from artillery, mortars, and naval gunfire (not so much a player any more) units hash out the big-picture fire support plan and make sure aircraft aren't flying into active gun target lines. On the down side, the last Air O for this battalion didn't leave me much in the way of turnover; on the other hand, my old squadron will be providing the 53 det for the MEU, so I should be able to pull favors from them and make myself look like a rock star.

So this is what I'll be doing for the next yearish: promoting Marines and calling in air support. Should be a good time (tempered, though, by the fact that I'll only get to see my family on the weekends and major holidays; thank you, Marine Corps, for giving me visitation rights). Week one as a company commander is over; now on to the weekend, where I will command about 20 kids as they run around a huge bouncy house for Aaron's birthday.

V: not the new BSG

2009-11-17T22:19:00.004-05:00

Time for something different, away from the three-ring circus that is the country right now. Haven't had too much free time lately, but hearing about the remake of V made me think it might be worthwhile to revisit broadcast television (something I rarely do, save for Lost and 24). V seemed intriguing; the original was from more or less the same time period as the first BSG, and the new BSG was good, so it stood to reason a new V could be good too, right?

Well, thus far, I'm less than impressed. Oh, I'm not complaining about seeing some of the old cast members from Firefly come back to play (especially Morena Baccarin; good to see Wash too, though it looks like he won't be the funny guy this time around), or the rearrangement of various characters and plot devices we've come to expect from any reimagined show. But the new edition feels, above everything else, rushed. In the first hour, the Visitors arrived, awed everyone, set up embassies and "universal health care"; and by the end of the hour, we knew they were up to no good, were reptiles in disguise, and a resistance had organized against them. I think it took the better part of six hours for the original miniseries to get to that point, at a pace that pulled you in and made you very interested in what the Visitors were up to. Instead, ABC evidently feels obliged to spill all their beans right away lest viewers yawn and change the channel. They should know better; Lost, after all, is now on season 5 (6?) and still has tons of questions to answer; and people watch, damn it! Now we're only two episodes in and I get the feeling that the new V is already running out of twists. Choppy special effects (and way-too-tight jeans on the male lead) aside, the original was a powerful tale on the allure of fascism and how ordinary people found the courage to challenge it. Apart from some mild references to the current political culture of hopeychanginess, the new V has plowed through the slow pervasiveness of soft totalitarianism straight to the battle scenes, as it were, leaving all the nuances of the old show in the dust. I'll give it a few more chances, but I'm already thinking about removing it from my DVR and replacing it with some DVDs of rubber lizards in orange jumpsuits. Perhaps the new Prisoner will fare better. Has anybody delved into that yet?

And while we're on the topic of sci-fi dramas, I hereby declare that I'm going to list my personal all-time favorites and challenge anyone to do better:
1) The X-Files - yes, Chris Carter broke his solemn vow that Mulder and Scully would never have a romantic relationship; the second he did, the show crumbled. But though I don't like to talk about the last two seasons with the T-1000 replacing Scully as the skeptic, Carter gave us many good years of the freaky, the funny, and things that go bump in the night. From angels to aliens and demons to deranged scientists, Sunday night regularly challenged our imaginations and occasionally made us want to sleep with the lights on. Much imitated (I'm talking about you, Fringe), never duplicated, the X-Files took the weird into the mainstream. Looking back on it, I'm still impressed by the strength of its story-telling and willingness to let Mulder and Scully engage in a deep and powerful friendship without sex (until the end, when Carter copped out). Its greatest flaw, as I look back, is merely that recent history has shown that Chris Carter vastly overestimated the government's ability to keep really big secrets. I'm fully confident that if aliens truly existed and were trying to take over the planet, some blogger would have spilled the goods by now.
2) Firefly - I bet some of you out there will argue that BSG was better. Well, BSG was lasted longer, but Firefly was its godfather, and proved that you could tell compelling stories in outer space without devolving into complete and utter geekdom. Firefly was a drama that happened to take place in space; it was intensely character-driven and featured some of the best writing I've seen on television. It had no aliens, no faster-than-light travel; just a group of misfits perpetually on the wrong side of authority who nevertheless tried to do the right thing (frequently to their detriment). It also featured fun little details that bigger shows rarely concerned themselves with, like a well-researched 'blended' future Sino-American culture, or acknowledging - as no other sci-fi show or movie has - that there's no sound in space. Cancelled after only one season, Firefly made for a great 'what if' debate about how bright its future would have been; but I'm still grateful for what little we had.
3) Battlestar Galactica - Firefly opened the door creatively precisely for something like BSG; and unlike Fox, SciFi actually let its show run its course. BSG adopted many of the elements of its predecessor, from the choppy, documentary-like camera angles to the character-driven storyline to the little details (like military folk actually saluting) that proved its creators cared about their creation through and through. Again, it was about people, not technobabble; and this time, it wasn't about people living on the fringes of civilization, but people striving to cobble together a future after their civilization was taken from them. And, where Firefly cracked the door of religion by having a preacher on board, BSG kicked the door wide open by featuring not one but two competing belief systems between the protagonists, openly discussing theology in a way never before attempted by big-name series like Star Trek. BSG gave us four seasons that alternated between current political issues, powerful personal relationships, and massive nuke-slinging space battles. As with many shows, its longer run gave it more chances to stumble, and much of the third and fourth season had a weakness and sense of 'mission creep' that Firefly never did. But then, the former may well have gone that way had it lasted; no way to know now. That said, much like the X-Files, even at its weakest BSG could still give us some great television, and it is to my everlasting regret that I waited so long to get into it. For years, I devoted my attention to Star Trek and its various offspring, not knowing that space-faring sci-fi was capable of things other than shiny clean spaceships and vacuous moralizing. I would trade those years and years of Trekking for another good hour of BSG in a heartbeat.

I'd go on, but it's late and I'm old and ready for bed. Let me know if this list needs additions or if you think I'm full of crap (which I'm not and you're already wrong and you just don't know it, but I enjoy comments just the same :) ).

Unserious Part IV, or V, or maybe XVI, it's hard to keep track

2009-11-15T10:04:00.005-05:00

I may have to create a new "unserious" label for my posts, as it seems to be a common theme in Washington these days and deserves continuous scrutiny, but I'd hate to be accused of copping out of creative blog entitling. This issue will receive the highest consideration by my cabinet, and I'm optimistic we can reach a decision by the end of this week. Or the end of the month. At the very latest by Christmas, or possibly New Year, but no later than Yom Kippur next year.

On the bright side, the facts that poured out about Maj. Hasan last week made it harder and harder for talking heads and Beltway denizens to be unserious about the major's motives and intent. It's been confirmed that he was in repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen, who also gave 'spiritual guidance' to some of the 9/11 hijackers. He made no bones about the extreme nature of his own faith, be it in PowerPoint slideshows to his classmates or on his business cards, which make no mention of his actual employment (i.e. the Army), but are quite clear about who he believed he was fighting for ("soldier of Allah"). Hasan received scrutiny from multiple federal terrorism task forces as well as his own superiors, who had several meetings on Hasan's piss-poor performance and openly debated whether the man was psychotic. The good major may also have been wiring money to terrorist groups in Pakistan, though we'll need more information to confirm it. All in all, it's increasingly clear that Hasan may not only have cultivated himself as a 'homegrown jihadist', but actively sought to sell himself as a free agent to the other team. I revise my first analysis of his rampage: this was not an act of terrorism, but an act of war and high treason.

That said, unseriousness still exists in this case, and it's unseriousness that enabled Hasan to be in the position he was at Fort Hood last week. Hasan's superiors at Walter Reed, despite their numerous conferences on the man's unsuitability as a doctor, could not find the strength within themselves to actually do something about it. Rather, they didn't want to endure the hassle of writing the paperwork required to fire him, so they did what we in the military call "shit canning": they shit-canned him to Fort Hood to make him someone else's problem. They were quite candid about what they were doing, too, consoling themselves with the knowledge that there were enough good doctors at Fort Hood to pick up Hasan's slack. Profiles in Courage, all of these men. I think a few of them should be on the stand beside Hasan for dereliction of duty.

It doesn't help, however, that the Army's chief, when presented with the bodies of 13 of his soldiers, lamented that as great a tragedy as these deaths were, the greater tragedy would be if the Army's "diversity" suffered as well. So, Gen. Casey, you'd be willing to accept a few more of these incidents so long as you can boast about the tapestry of diversity woven through the Army? That's cold comfort to 13 Army families and about as fundamentally unserious as a commander can be in time of war. Diversity be damned if it endangers American lives.

Oh, by the way, for the 1,394,758th time, "time is running out for Iran" on coming to a peaceful resolution of its little nuclear problem. Iran is "unable" to say yes to an alternative agreement to reprocessing its fuel; that sounds better, I suppose, than acknowledging that Iran is not unable, but completely unwilling, to come to any agreement short of being a nuclear power. In the parlance of our times, not only no, but F**K NO. That, and they may already have tested a nuclear warhead design (another nugget of info buried in a U.N. report by the hard-hitting investigators of the IAEA). What will it take for the civilized world to take Iran as seriously as they take themselves? An underground test? Nuclear blackmail? A radioactive Jewish city? Or, heaven forbid, a radioactive American city? What, exactly, will make us realize that Iran wants the bomb, is pursuing the bomb, and no amount of carrots will make them relinquish the bomb?

Fortunately, we're more serious, at least, about dealing with the perpetrators of previous terrorist acts. We're so serious that we're going to bring the mastermind behind 9/11 - Khalid Sheik Mohammed - and four of his friends back to New York City, the scene of their handiwork, and give them a civil trial with all the rights and privileges thereunto pertaining, regardless of the fact that they're not American citizens, deserve no rights as such, may well present a high security risk to the city, and could expose a large amount of the intelligence apparatus we're still actually using to find KSM's friends who still want to kill large numbers of people; and we're going to let the attorney-general tell you all this while we kiss the Japanese emperor's shoes. Now, there are some who don't think this is quite the disaster I make it out to be, and it will be great if they turn out to be right. I don't think the odds are in their favor, and I don't think the gamble is worth the test, but I hope they're right (even though 'hope' is hardly a national security strategy). All this aside, however, my biggest question is: why are we taking these risks when KSM and company are already safely put away in a high-security facility, far from jihadist eyes, and were on the verge of being convicted by military tribunals that the president himself supported? And by the AG's own admission, other prisoners at Gitmo will be prosecuted by these same tribunals; why not KSM? The president was fine with this arrangement a couple of years ago:

What changed?

Finally, addendum to two posts ago: I now appreciate that America was, in fact, too busy to celebrate the fall of Soviet communism:

One Marine's birthday thoughts

2009-11-10T17:39:00.003-05:00

From the CO of 2/3:

This is a bit of an odd update I'm afraid. It isn't my intention to talk about Afghanistan or our mission here, but instead to address just what incredible men your Marines and Sailors are. I doubt that I will ever be able to express the extent of the respect and admiration I have for your loved ones in this Battalion. I can use words like dedication, courage, honor but in the end words don't quite cut it. So let me tell you what I have seen.

I saw a LCpl bring in his buddy's gear following a horrible IED strike and practically beg to go back out so he could get back in the fight.

I saw a Marine leaning out over the edge of a roof in the middle of a firefight, leaving himself in the open purposefully in order to tempt an enemy RPG shooter to break cover in order to end him.

I've seen numerous Marines standing a lonely post in the pre-dawn hours, keeping watch carefully and correctly even though no one would know if they cut a corner, but doing it right because they were responsible for their buddies' lives.

I watched a Sailor calmly grab his gear and run out in the open to a casualty who needed him, he never asked "How bad is he hurt?" or "How much enemy fire is there?", the only thing he asked was "Where's the casualty?" then he went. Because Corpsmen always come when they are needed, always.

I watched 19 and 20 year old men, who a mere few years before were undoubtedly typical self centered teenagers, earnestly try to make a young child who has only known poverty and war smile. I even saw a very imposing Marine in this Battalion who, frankly, scares the heck out of me, see a little girl off to the side of a group of kids with nothing in her hands so he very seriously went around saying "Somebody give me a teddy-bear, who has a F-ing teddy bear?" until he found one and presented it to her. The only person there with a bigger smile than the little girl was the Marine. He then went right back to chewing on his squad to keep their dispersion and move faster.

I watched FST medical personnel try every desperate measure to keep a good Marine with us, to the point of opening his chest and massaging his heart for what seemed like an interminable time. At the same time I saw a line of Marines and Sailors and Soldiers forming outside to donate blood, we had enough donors to transfuse all of Hannibal's elephants but they all wanted to do something and at that time the only thing they could do was give some of their blood.

I watched an NCO very patiently sum up all the complex nuances of counter-insurgency warfare to a young Marine while both were being pummeled with stones and physically knocking intruders off our wall from a mob threatening to breach the walls of our police station; "They want us to shoot them, so then they can make us all look like bad guys." So we didn't shoot, even though we had more than sufficient justification, and in the end what could have been a horrible incident broadcast around the world actually became a positive as the locals started talking about the restraint of "their Marines" and became angry with the rioters for their "un-Islamic" behavior.

I watched a Marine, with excruciating slowness and superhuman patience, lead an Afghan Policeman through a patrol brief. And I saw the pride in the ANP officer's face when he lead his patrol out the entry control point, in his town and in front of his people, with the Marines trailing along behind in case he needed some help. I also saw an Afghan Policeman's face when I told him that the Marines thought highly of him and had told me that "Spider" (his nickname) was a good guy to have alongside you in a fight. He sputtered a little bit then said something short and stared at me very intensely, the linguist told me "He says he is just so very proud that the US Marines think that". Once Spider was sure that I understood that he meant it, he strutted away like he had just won the world's highest honor. And perhaps he had.

I know that for the rest of my life I will cherish this period in which I had the honor to spend my days among such incredible men. And I know that it has been your sacrifices that have made it possible. I thank you for allowing me this time with your loved ones.

We are coming home.

Postcard from Berlin

2009-11-09T17:29:00.008-05:00

Dear America,

We're having a blast today. Today, we celebrate 20 years since the downfall of the most oppressive system of governance the world has ever known. We celebrate the triumph of the free market over central control, of individual rights over collectivist suffering, of unbridled prosperity over the chains of poverty, of democracy over dictatorship, of free speech and thought over the gulag, of free will over diktats, of every truly Western, liberal, and enlightened value that thinkers, fighters, leaders, and citizens have treasured and defended for hundreds of years.

Wish you were here.

No "tragedy"

2009-11-08T10:08:00.003-05:00

I'm back from the first of what will be many week-long sojourns up at 29 Palms, having successfully completed TACP school and achieved a new MOS as a FAC. The firing exercise itself saw some good training with a wide variety of aircraft and weapons; I was a tad disappointed that we didn't get an AC-130 or A-10 to show up with their various calibers of hate and discontent, but we had a never-ending stream of F-18s, AV-8s, and AH-1s, and they brought plenty of fireworks with them (and I certainly enjoyed being the only student who got to control a live Hellfire shot).

It felt good to wrap things up on Thursday; as we say in military parlance, a lot of learning occurred for me in the last four weeks, as I struggled to understand the nuances of a side of aviation that was completely foreign to me (most people in the class were either TACAIR pilots i.e. they've dropped ordnance for ground units before, or ground-pounders who'd been in situations where CAS was required. As assault support, we're generally told to hang out somewhere else until all the bomb-dropping is done and it's relatively safe for us to bring our fat asses in). This course was no joke, but hey, at the end everything clicked and that's what's important. Our class' collective elation at finishing, however, was sobered when we came back from the range Thursday night to learn that a dozen more American soldiers were dead and several dozen wounded in a bloodbath that took place not in some remote outpost in Afghanistan, but in our own back yard.

The name of Major Nidal Malik Hasan will doubtless live in infamy in Army history well beyond the day he finds himself on the wrong end of a firing squad or is hung from the yard-arm until dead (I don't know if we still have yard-arms but I think it's a tradition worth reviving for him). Equally infamous will be the enduring knowledge that Hasan exhibited enough disturbing behavior over a long period of time that his actions may well have been prevented at any number of points had anyone in the Army's bureaucracy shown some stones. As it is, an attitude of political correctness and fear of repercussions for alleged 'discrimination' by people in Hasan's chain of command deserve at least some of the blame held by the trigger-puller himself.

That attitude, unfortunately, seems to pervade the current investigation into what drove Hasan to gun down the soldiers he was supposed to be helping. Various explanations are floating around, all apparently designed to support the head-in-the-sand notion exemplified by one army wife who lamented that she wished the gunman's last name had been Smith. There's the cure-all theory of post-traumatic stress syndrome, always a favorite to explain irrational violence by vets returning from Bush's unjust wars; yet Hasan had never deployed. There's the story that Hasan felt - evidently very deeply, judging by his actions - that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong and that he really, really, really didn't want to go, to the point where he hired lawyers to help him avoid deploying. Well, there are many legitimate courses of action for conscientious objectors to take (first and foremost: not joining the military to begin with), and in the past eight years military personnel have taken them (as well as not-so-legitimate choices, like fleeing to Canada). Yet within the ranks of objectors, no one else ever decided to express his opposition by murdering his comrades. Finally, of course, there's the argument that Hasan was on the receiving end of that always-just-over-the-horizon anti-Muslim 9/11 backlash that CAIR insists will arrive tomorrow. There are recourses for that too, from bringing such discrimination to the attention of the Equal Opportunity officer resident in each military unit (yes, I'm not making that up, we all have one) to using the rank of major he held to tell the offending party to STFU.

All of these straw men are currently employed in obfuscating the clearest explanation, which is that somewhere along the way, Major Hasan's Muslim beliefs became increasingly radicalized to the point where he turned into a free agent for the opposing team. This means that his actions Thursday afternoon were not a "tragedy" - as if this were an earthquake or wildfire - but a pre-meditated example of jihadist terrorism at its vilest. Everyone is going to great lengths to say that his religion had nothing to do with murdering a pregnant mother just returned from combat duty, a nurse who wanted to join the Army after 9/11 despite being over 50 years old, a PFC from a family of military service stretching back to Vietnam, a female sergeant who vowed to personally take on Osams bin Laden, and half a dozen other fine men and women. Yet all the evidence points to just such a motive. As early as 2001, Hasan attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, VA, at the same time two 9/11 hijackers were receiving 'spiritual guidance' from an imam who was an ardent al-Qaeda supporter. His fellow medical students frequently heard him erupt in 'anti-American' rants (though, notably, did not report them for fear of being considered discriminatory). Hasan's local imam in Texas reports that the gunman had reservations about fighting fellow Muslims (evidently lost on Hasan was the irony of seeking support for his radical views from an imam who was a retired first sergeant and Desert Storm vet); the imam did not report this to Hasan's superiors presumably because as a former first sergeant, he assumed that the Army would discipline Hasan if they knew about it (which they did, but did not act). Hasan allegedly posted rants on the Internet equating suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades. And, finally, as Hasan rose from his desk, looked his fellow soldiers in the eyes, and started shooting, he shouted "Allahu akbar" - "God is great", a cry I have heard on countless jihadist videos right before an IED shreds a convoy, a missile plucks an aircraft out of the sky, or a suicide bomber wipes out a marketplace. Claiming that Hasan's religion had nothing to do with his actions is like claiming that when it came to the Final Solution, Hitler's anti-Semitism was beside the point.

In the weeks and months to come, we'll get the full story. No doubt Hasan himself will have something to say; either he'll tell us that his fellow soldiers were a bunch of infidels about to make war on innocent Muslims and deserved to die, or if he decides to manipulate the legal system for all it's worth, we'll hear that he was suffering from 'pre-post traumatic stress syndrome' and was so terrified by a deployment he didn't want to go on that he just snapped and in a fit of despair killed and maimed those who happened to be around him, reloaded, and killed and maimed some more. My guess is he'll get a lawyer who will go with the latter (and though it makes me sick to my stomach, I'll also go out on a limb and guess that he'll have a long line of America-hating opportunists looking to represent him, as all our buddies in Gitmo do). And we will have to endure further obfuscation as attorneys claim that everything from redneck discrimination to the fundamental injustice of American foreign policy around the globe is responsible for thirteen people lying on slabs, while the perverse ideology that justifies the murder of the innocent and unarmed in the name of Allah goes unchallenged. Maybe I'll be wrong and prosecutors will get to the heart of the matter (not getting my hopes up, though, when our wishful cultural ignorance goes up to the top, with the head of Homeland Security warning against an anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of the shooting. Well, Janet, in your quest to assuage the world that Americans won't go all ig'nant and start getting pissy at 'towelheads', I'd point out that, based on Thursday, non-Muslims have more to fear from Muslims than vice versa. Surely even you can count: after Thursday, Muslims killed = 0; non-Muslims killed = 13. Who should fear who?). Either way, at least there's no chance that Hasan will ever walk the streets of this fair country again. Let's get down to finding that yard-arm . . .

Fallen angels

2009-11-01T22:13:00.002-05:00

This has been a rough week for naval aviation. We started with a mid-air in Afghanistan and ended with nine lives lost in a collision near San Diego and a training aircraft missing out of Corpus Christi. In a time of war and with a high op tempo, this is the cost of doing business. Keep all of them in your thoughts; they're your neighborhood guardian angels, braving friendly and unfriendly skies to bring you home when you're lost and keep the wolves from your door. They are sorely missed.

I'm spending the next week in the field at 29 Palms and so will be out of touch. Spare a thought for Bree and Aaron too; they're about to endure another phase of separation that came unlooked for when I assume my new post up here.

'One of the best'

2009-10-27T22:52:00.003-04:00

Apologies for the hiatus, I've been immersed in the arts of FACdom at TACP school pretty deeply, surfacing only to jaunt out east for 30 hours to run a marathon and then come back home for more FACdom. I was on the verge of shooting out some quick thoughts on Afghanistan when things there took a tragic turn yesterday.

"One of the best". That certainly describes Capt Kyle Van De Giesen, who was killed in action two days ago in a helicopter collision. He graduated a year ahead of me from St. A's, and was one of the first people I encountered on my own road to the Marine Corps. Since it's a small Corps and we were both helicopter pilots, we crossed paths occasionally after both of us graduated, and I remember that each time, he always exuded the utmost enthusiasm for his job. I think he was one of those Marines who completely loved what he was doing and wouldn't have traded it for anything else. Of all people, he surely deserved to finish his tour and go home to his wife and kids. It was gut-wrenching to learn that he was within a week of doing so, and doing so in time to see the birth of his second child, when his aircraft went down. I hope you'll all spare a moment and a prayer for his family who are now planning a funeral instead of a homecoming.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

A fine leader, Marine, and American, taken from us at 29. Requiescat in pace and semper fidelis.

Peace in our time

2009-10-11T10:54:00.005-04:00

We've all spent the last week basking in the shared glory of our president winning the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year into his first term (technically he was nominated after serving only 10 days, or 0.82%, of that term, but hey, this is the Information Age and things move more quickly). As both the president and the Nobel committee admit, this is less an acknowledgement of things accomplished than things anticipated and promised by amazing speech-writing. I personally enjoy Richard Cohen's take on this the most and agree that earning this award is "f---ing awesome." It certainly takes the sting out of seeing the Olympics handed out to Rio. I'm also wondering if perhaps the president knew he'd be getting the prize and oriented his foreign policy accordingly. It makes his recent decision to ignore the Dalai Lama more understandable; Obama didn't feel worthy meeting a fellow laureate without a prize of his own. Now they can talk on equal terms, and the Lama will no doubt be comforted knowing how concerned the United States is about Tibetan and Chinese dissidents and how we'll get to them right after we halt the rise of the oceans and start healing the sick. In fact, imprisoned activists in those two countries and around the world should be heartened by the path we've taken with dissidents sentenced to death in Iran: I'm not sure what to call the doctrine yet, and I'm torn between "everything W. did, we will not do" and "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil, and BTW pound sand", but in time I'm sure an appropriate tag will suggest itself and in the meantime, Iranian dissidents and the Human Rights Documentation Center that until now has advocated for them with State Department help will just have to chalk their misfortunes up to the poor economic climate. They simply have to understand that America isn't made of money; you spend billions on Cash for Clunkers and Cash for Refrigerators and Subsidies for Solar Panels and Funds for non-Flourescent Light Bulbs to curb a changing climate which has actually gotten colder in the last ten years, and you run out of the paltry $3 million required to document the state-orchestrated torture and murder of one of the globe's leading exporters of terror against its own citizens.

The prize hasn't impressed the Russians either, who don't feel too good about our new missile defense plan even though we sold our eastern European allies down the river to scrap the old one they didn't like either. I'm not sure how we're going to deal with this new problem; we're running out of friends to throw under the bus. Oh wait, I just saw the the Ukraine could be used to host early warning sites; maybe we can tell them "just kidding" on the next anniversary of the Holodomor.

OK, enough doom and gloom already. How about we all enjoy the latest installment in Saturday Night Live's long tradition of political satire:

I'm not sure what's funnier: the skit (which, to be fair to SNL, isn't the first time they've knocked Obama; I enjoyed their primary skits when interviewers asked Hillary how'd she handle a resurgent Taliban and Obama whether his chair was comfortable enough), or Wolf Blitzer 'fact-checking' the skit on CNN. Wolf, after watching you crater on Celebrity Jeopardy, I don't think you're allowed to fact-check anyone ever again.

The twilight zone

2009-10-05T15:32:00.003-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, we're living in it.

That's the only way to square the circle on the latest from Mohamed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Agency's own Inspector Clouseau. He announced today that it's actually Israel, not Iran, which poses the greatest threat to Middle Eastern stability. "Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," pronounced ElBaradei ominously from Tehran, where he's currently enforcing the IAEA's official policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." That's right: a Western-style free market democracy is a greater threat than the various and sundry dictatorships that surround (and have repeatedly tried to destroy) it. It's not basket-case Syria, which recently had its own nuclear reactor deactivated (by the Israelis, who are far more effective at controlling Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation than the IAEA; just ask Saddam. Well you can't, but there's a big hole in the ground where his nuclear reactor used to be). It's not Saudi Arabia, whose princes promulgate Wahhabi terrorism around the globe with their prolific oil revenues. And it's certainly not Iran, whose leaders recently rigged an election, jailed and killed those who refused to go along with the theft quietly, have pursued an illegal nuclear program for many years now, and who have engaged in global terrorism from the first day of their regime's founding. Nope, it's those damn Jews.

Meanwhile, according to the IAEA's own report, Iran may now have the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon and place it on one of its medium-range missiles. Maybe ElBaradei didn't have time to read that appendix on the way to Tehran. I know, I like to sleep on my flights too. And I'm sure the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Brigades will be more responsible with nuclear warheads than they've been, say, with all those EFPs that wound up in Iraq or the rockets that have rained down on Israel for years on end.

This is the system that's supposed to safeguard us from the most terrible weapons of mass destruction. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd sleep with one eye open.

To steal J. Nordingler's words: a sickening light

2009-09-30T12:19:00.003-04:00

Not to flog a dead horse, but this (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hUZamhqvPGVrYZpGq_clUpC7
dAUgties) - tangentally, I'll admit - to something I touched a little on yesterday; namely, that our current attitude toward various countries has been subject to a perverse inversion recently. Now comes this tidbit of news, that the Empire State Building, one of the most distinctive structures in America and a symbol of our free market and free society, will be bathed in red and yellow lights tonight to honor the 60th anniversary of communist China. Here are some highlights from the last sixty years which we'll be commemorating:

-the Great Leap Forward, China's version of Russia's Five Year Plans. 36 million people died.
-invasion of Tibet in 1950. Tens of thousands are killed in the invasion and ensuing revolt.
-1989 Tienanmen Square massacre of democracy protestors; hundreds are killed by Chinese tanks.
-material and military support of communist movements in Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cambodia, resulting in the deaths of millions and the repression of the surviving population.
-class system which treats Chinese peasants little better than serfs, overtaxing them while reserving development and infrastructure for urban areas.
-widespread censorship, restricted freedom of speech, and virtually no freedom of religion.
-gulag prison system similar to that of Soviet Russia.

Happy 60th birthday, People's Republic. And to all those protestors, dissidents, political prisoners, and ordinary men and women who've suffered and died under 60 years of communism and authoritarianism, you're right: those lights on the Empire State Building are telling you to pound sand.

Still not serious

2009-09-29T14:43:00.003-04:00

Sorry about the hiatus folks, I've spent much of the last couple of weeks muddling my way through the details of my upcoming FAC tour (actually, most of the time was spent trying to find the right Transformers video...); but as I resurface from those tempestuous waters, I find myself thinking that two posts ago, when I sounded (and was taken to task for sounding) pretty negative about our current foreign policy trends, I may not have been nearly negative enough. A lot has happened since then, none of it encouraging about this administration's ability to handle the subject, and much of it positively frightening.

Honduras: it wasn't enough to denounce the removal of former president Manuel Zelaya from power by the nation's supreme court unconstitutional (it wasn't, as determined here
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YTk0NWNhNmVjOGM5ZDg4MDIzN2E4ZjRkZTU
4OWNkODk= by the Law Library of Congress). It wasn't enough to cut non-humanitarian foreign aid. Now, the State Department has revoked the visas of interim president Roberto Micheletti and the justices of the Honduran Supreme Court. One can see how Micheletti could be an easy target for this action, but the justices? The justices were duly appointed well before this fracas broke out and there is no more question about their legitimacy in ruling on their own constitution than there is about our own justices doing the same here. By revoking their visas, all we are doing is bullying the legally appointed judiciary of another country for issuing a ruling with which we disagree. This is a gross violation of the workings of a sovereign state's judicial system and something unprecedented between democracies. And it still defies credulity how this administration chooses to deal with its friends and enemies. Navigate a true constitutional crisis peacefully and in accordance with your own laws, and you're banned from visiting the world's greatest 'defender of freedom'. On the other hand, deny the Holocaust, rig an election and then murder those citizens who protest your abuses, violate international law and pursue an illegal nuclear program, and sponsor terrorism around the world, and you get to come to the U.N. and spew your poison for all the world to hear (more on that in a second). And tell me again why we're backing a corrupt socialist weasel who's buddy-buddy with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, tried to violate his own nation's constitution and get himself elected dictator-for-life, and thinks "Israeli mercenaries" are trying to assassinate him with a ray gun (http://www.miamiherald.com/1506/story/1248828.html)? This is our man in Honduras? I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Eastern Europe: it's okay though, we're still standing up to thugocracies that threaten our democratic allies in the former Eastern Bloc. Oops, nope, this just in: we sold them down the river too. Poland and the Czech Republic will no longer be hosting components of a missile defense system designed to defend Europe - and our own Eastern seaboard, one might add - from a ballistic missile attack by rogue nations. Russia has railed against the installation of this system for years, claiming that it would undercut its own nuclear deterrent (a laughable claim, since Russia's hundreds of missiles would easily overwhelm a system designed to shoot down only a few). The Kremlin's real beef is that providing such a system to countries like Poland is an intrusion into a region it believes is its to influence as it pleases. And Putin's Russia has shown no compunction about throwing its weight around to exert its influence. Having a trade dispute with Moscow? You'll suddenly find yourself with no natural gas to heat your home in the middle of winter. Have disputed borders and an overly cozy relationship with the United States? You'll wake up one day on the wrong side of a Russian ground assault. Most of Western Europe has caved in the face of Putin's bullying, unwilling to risk their gas supplies for mere principle. Bush's decision to base interceptors and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic was an implicit American guarantee that the United States would stick to its principles and stand up to Russia's bullying of nascent democracies. That, and it would protect the eastern States and all of Europe from Iranian missiles. No longer. Poland and the Czech Republic have learned the same hard lesson that Honduras, Columbia, and Iranian dissidents already know: America's under new management, and guess what, her 'friends' are on their own. That we chose to throw Poland under the bus on the sixtieth anniversary of its invasion by the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland) is particularly disgraceful (though hardly surprising from an administration that misspelled the 'reset' button it gave to Russia, or gave the prime minister of our oldest ally, Britain, a bunch of Wal-mart discount DVDs that can't be played in British DVD players). And what did we gain from our faithlessness? The chance that Russia might actually sanction Iran for its nuclear activities (activities aided and abetted almost exclusively by Russia). I'll believe that when I see it. And the argument behind abandoning our allies and surrendering an effective missile shield was that Iran hadn't developed her nuclear and missile capabilities as much as we thought. That was, until . . .

Iran: . . . It did. The scent of hope had barely faded from the podium in the U.N. General Assembly when the world learned that d'oh, not only is Iran still telling the West to pound sand over its illegal nuclear program, but its program has secretly expanded to include a new facility near the holy city of Qom; and the design of this new facility is evidently not consistent with a 'peaceful program' (Obama probably threw up a little in HIS mouth when he was forced to acknowledge that). Perhaps his speech on nonproliferation hadn't had enough time to sink in; if only he'd delivered it a few hours earlier, Ahmadinejad could have taken a minute for personal reflection and meditation and seen the error of his ways. Instead, he again told the West to pound sand while claiming that the IAEA would have full access to the new facility (and again, I'll believe it when I see it). America's response to this latest challenge was, to put it mildly, muted. On the other hand, the vast right-wing conspiracy took the administration to task for its wishful thinking:

"We are right to talk about the future," [he] said, referring to the U.S. resolution on strengthening arms control treaties. "But the present comes before the future, and the present includes two major nuclear crises," i.e., Iran and North Korea. "We live in the real world, not in a virtual one." "We say that we must reduce," he went on.

"President Obama himself has said that he dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Before our very eyes, two countries are doing exactly the opposite at this very moment. Since 2005, Iran has violated five
Security Council Resolutions . . .

"I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges. And last but not least, it has resulted in a statement by Iranian leaders calling for wiping off the map a Member of the United Nations. What are we to do? What conclusions are we to draw? At a certain moment hard facts will force us to make
decisions."

Hmmm, wait, that wasn't Rush Limbaugh, that was raging neocon Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France, who was evidently peeved enough at America's wishy-washy response that he publicly took the president of the United States to the woodshed. France was instructed not to rain on Obama's parade at his U.N. debut by bringing up inconvenient truths about Iran's nukes; this was the best Sarkozy could do, but it was damning nonetheless (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574441402775482322.h
tml). And, after all this, Iran decided to test a few missiles just to tell the West how much sand it could pound; models included long-range, two-stage ballistic missiles that can reach parts of Europe and against which, as the Poles and Czechs can tell you, we currently have no defense in that part of the world and are not pursuing one. So where does this leave us? Negotiations with Iran are set for October 1; just going off past negotiations with the likes of Iran and North Korea on things nuclear, I'll hazard a guess and say these won't go anywhere. As Eliot Cohen points out (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574441402775482322.html), this leaves us with two options: an American or Israeli pre-emptive strike in the immediate future (probably leading to a wider war, substantial shock to the global oil market, and widespread international terrorism), or a nuclear Iran in the near future (which will probably lead to all of the above anyway, with the added bonus of nuclear weapons in the hands of suicidal religious fanatics). We are rapidly approaching the point where truly hard, dangerous, and unpopular choices will have to be made about Iran. We can't punt this down the road or make it someone else's problem. Richard Cohen has a cutting piece (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR200909280
2484.html) about the kind of leader we need in a crisis like this, and the kind of leader we have. The disparity is frightening. Afghanistan: this country needs some hard and unpopular decisions too. The combatant commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says we need more troops and need them fast, or we could reach the point where our 'war of necessity' becomes unwinnable. This is the same general who was hand-picked by the administration to revamp our efforts to turn around the conflict there; he's an expert in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, he took over as part of a new strategy to focus on those two pillars (http://www.newsweek.com/id/216237/page/1), and was given an initial ante of 10,000 more troops with which to kick things off. Now, six months later, with the situation deteriorating and the man on the ground asking for the tools he needs, we're waiting on . . . a new strategy? But I thought we had one, which is why we sent McChrystal and 10,000 more Americans overseas last spring in the first place. So for the last six months we didn't know what we were doing? I'm not sure that's it. I think it has more to do with a spike in American casualties, coupled with dropping support for the war, both in the general public and Obama's leftward base. This would be a problem for any wartime president; indeed, Bush the Evil faced it only a few years ago as Iraq went on its downward spiral. Bush made a choice: he believed our success there was vital, and so he presented the arguments as to why this was so to the public, replaced his theater commander, gave his new general the tools he needed, and let him get to work. This was a huge gamble: he was doubling down on an unpopular and seemingly intractable war. It could easily have gone the other way. But he believed the risk of withdrawal and failure was a greater threat to America and put his money where his mouth was to prevent that. The problem now is that Obama is not a gambler. He has never, in his career, made the difficult or unpopular choice. Faced with one now, in a realm with which he has no familiarity, he just can't. At least, that's the best explanation for his sudden waffling on what was, a short time ago, an underresourced war of necessity that has to be won. It would explain why he's only talked to his hand-picked commander once (http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/back-story/2009/sep/28/us-commander-of-afghanistan-only-talked-to-obama-o/). It would explain why we're suddenly reevaluating our strategy there, which was supposed to have been reevaluated six months ago and then given to McChrystal to carry out. It would explain why he's refused to receive McChrystal's troop request and told Defense Secretary Gates to sit on it. This is so far outside his comfort zone, so far above any of his previous pay grades, that he doesn't know what to do. However, he's at the top pay grade right now, and THIS is what he's getting paid to do. He needs to make a decision. We either go all in, or we should go home right now. He had it right when he called this a war of necessity, that it had been underresourced for too long, that we need to deny the Taliban and Al Qaeda a safe haven, that a stable Afghanistan only helps us in Pakistan, that these are the killers who attacked us eight years ago, used planes as weapons of mass destruction and murdered thousands of Americans. They need to be destroyed. The public is waffling now because it sees the White House waffling; if the White House shows resolve, explains that we need to stay in Afghanistan and do it right, listens to his commanders and publicly vows to give them what they need and turn them loose, the public will finds its resolve too. I hope this is the choice the commander-in-chief makes. The way the wind's blowing, however, I fear this won't be the case. I fear the choice to succeed will be punted indefinitely, pending endless reviews and consultations with innumerable advisors, until we're past the point where success is possible. Coupled with the likely emergence of a nuclear Iran (another difficult choice I suspect will be punted), this will be a devastating defeat for American interests and national security.

Iraq: quieter now, but Tom Ricks reports some disturbing news from inside the Green Zone
(http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/28/iraq_the_unraveling_xxiv_us
_embassy_vs_us_military_again). It seems that the administration's pick to replace Ambassador Crocker - civilian half of Petraeus' dream team that pulled the country from the brink of civil war - isn't getting along too well with Petraeus' successor, Gen. Odierno. Ambassador Hill is an old Balkan hand; Odierno has been breathing Iraqi dust for most of this decade. That the former won't listen to the latter is a bad sign. We saw this movie before, in Ballistic: Sanchez v. Bremer. The result was two years of unrestricted terror. We don't need a sequel.

Elsewhere: as if we needed more proof that foreign policy (like democracy in a U.N. speech) is an afterthought, here are some words of wisdom from our current envoy to Sudan, home to yet another genocidal dictator. How should we deal with problems like wholesale slaughter in Darfur? "We've got to think about giving out cookies," . . . Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR200909280
2336.html?hpid=topnews) Cookies and gold stars: watch out, evildoers.

And where, in the midst of all this, is our leader? Last I heard, in Copenhagen, where "the gloves are off" when in comes to bringing the Olympics to Chicago (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/29/michelle.obama.olympics/index.html?i
ref=topnews). This is the first time an American president has personally pressed to get the Olympics in his country. But then, it's not like he has anything else to do.

News

2009-09-20T23:44:00.008-04:00

Well, apologies for not getting to the comments on the last post, or doing much of anything else since then, but I've spent the last week and a half scrambling to deal with a new assignment of mine that popped up a little unexpectedly. My next deployment will not be as a helicopter pilot, but as a forward air controller (FAC), responsible for putting steel on target in direct support of the grunts. I'll be heading to Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) school in October, and then shortly after that reporting to the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines up in lovely 29 Palms (what's 29 Palms like, you may ask? Let's see: it's a place so desolate that back in the day, the Army decided to close it because it wasn't fit for human occupation. So the Marines bought it at a discount, and it's now about as close a facsimile to a Middle Eastern desert as you can get. The only thing missing is sandstorms. It's the only part of California not susceptible to wildfires because nothing grows there to burn).

How did this all come to pass, you might ask? Well, that story is best left unpublished, lest the public lose faith and confidence in its Marine Corps. The short version is my name was selected for this tour while we were still in Iraq, but no one got around to actually telling me, so I got to find out last Monday from my wife, who heard it from another wife, who heard it from another wife of a pilot who was already on a FAC tour and hadn't been in the squadron for over a year. Not the preferred method. You think I was pissed over this chain of events, you should've seen Bree. I've hidden all my guns, knives, forks, barbeque tools and garden hose to keep her from doing something extreme. It's perfectly understandable though; to say that this whole thing was mishandled would be a gross understatement.

Anyway, no use in crying over now, it's happening, so here's what it entails. I'm sure all of you have seen footage of smart bombs getting dropped on houses and the bad guys therein; what's not shown on the video is the guy who calls the aircraft in on the radio and feeds the pilots the correct information to make sure the right house is hit and in a timely fashion. That's the job of the forward air controller, to be the link between Marine air and Marine ground-pounders. And all FACs are Marine pilots, since aviation has a completely separate vocabulary from the ground side and making sure the fighter or Cobra pilot who's about to unleash hate and discontent from the air knows where to put it and how to put it there is vital. To give you some idea of how this ground-to-air liaison unfolds, see below (try not to laugh too hard, the instructions being passed by the guy on the radio are actually fairly realistic):

So, in sum, apart from the fact that I'd be calling in F-18s and Cobras, not A-10s and AC-130s,

that I'd be dressed in a flak jacket and Kevlar helmet instead of a sleeveless muscle shirt, and

that my targets would be enemy soldiers and positions and not a robotic scorpion from

Cybertron, this is pretty much what I'll do. And I probably won't end up doing it for real at all,

since the current deployment order is for 1/7 to putter around the Pacific on the 31st MEU, so

unless Guam starts getting uppity I'll be fairly bored. More updates on all of this as I get them,

since matters are still unfolding day by day. And possibly more Transformers videos too :).

A policy off the rails

2009-09-12T10:56:00.002-04:00

You may think I'm going to talk about health care again. You'd be wrong. That's not to say I've stopped reading about it. I've read. I listened to the president's speech in my truck on the way home from work. And it's pretty clear that, despite the many other difficult challenges we face at home and abroad, President Obama has decided to fight a "war of choice" on health care rather than the many wars of necessity - on illegal immigration, the pending collapse of Social Security, and above all, on what most people actually care about, the economy - and stake his presidency on overhauling a sixth of our (shrinking, unemployed) economy, when most Americans would prefer only a targeted renovation. We'll see how that works out. Maybe it'll turn out like that last "must-pass-or-the-world-will-end" initiative, the stimulus bill (if we didn't pass it, unemployment might go as high as 8%; we did, and now it's past 9%, and the economy is still in a recession and hemorrhaging jobs) or Cash for Clunkers (great for consumers who got their savings immediately; horrible for the car dealerships, who are waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the government to reimburse them, which could take awhile since FAA bureaucrats have been called in to work on the problem. But car dealers are Big Business, so it's okay to screw them over. Oh wait, the Clunkers program was supposed to help stimulate them too. And since the government now owns car manufacturers, it stimulated itself to boot. But it's still screwing the dealers. Who are Big Business. And what we have is the government simultaneously screwing and stimulating itself with the same program. Alright, I just heard one of you say, "That's what she said." And with that, I'm stopping this line of inquiry).

Anyway, I come here not to bury health care, but get back into foreign policy, which I've missed. Evidently, the Obama administration has been missing it too, since in the last month that policy train has jumped off the track (good analogy, or have I just been watching too much Thomas?). It was never something the president cared too much about anyway; he's far more passionate about domestic policy, so up to now his foreign policy has boiled down to: I'm not Bush, America's screwed all you at some point over the last fifty years, I will talk with everyone, and Muslims are cool.

He did promise to double down in Afghanistan, which was always the good war to Bush's bad war in Iraq. And initial signs were promising. He kept the team of Petraeus and Gates which oversaw the successful surge in Iraq. He appointed a new commander who specialized in special forces and counterinsurgency. He sent in a requested first wave of reinforcements to increase our presence in the country. And he's continued Predator drone strikes which continue to be a nasty surprise to the al Qaeda and Taliban leaders on the receiving end. But then a thousand pages of health care reform came up in Congress, and the president turned his attention elsewhere. Consideration for Afghanistan has suffered in the interim. We've heard almost nothing from him on the significance of an American offensive launched in the Helmand province, on how casualties will inevitably rise as we press into areas that have seen little coalition presence in eight years, on how we will need to keep our resolve in the face of tough fighting ahead, on what our goals in this country are, how it will take a long time to achieve them, and what we'll suffer if we lose our will and pull out. Obama has made a hundred speeches on health care, even to the point of addressing a joint session of Congress. No equivalent effort has been made on Afghanistan. The stakes, even by his own admission, are high; the Wall Street Journal has had an excellent series of articles recently on just what those stakes are and what needs to be done to reverse the current decline of fortune (two are here and here). Support is flagging among Congressmen, Americans, and our allies; now, more than ever, requires a strong public commitment to Afghanistan, to our military, to the Afghans who've joined us and have no love for the Taliban, and to the destruction of al Qaeda and all Islamists who use death and fear to advance their caliphate. America, and the world, still await that commitment.

I wish I could stop there, but Afghanistan is only the tip of the iceberg. From east to west, our current policies range from dangerous disinterest to picking the wrong team.

Iran: first America watched, and stayed silent, as Iranian dissidents took to the streets to protest flagrantly fraudulent elections. We watched, and stayed silent, as Iran's state security apparatus beat, abused, and shot their own citizens. We watched, and stayed silent, during the show trials of those protestors who were paraded in public. We stayed silent even as we learned that those protestors who were not paraded in public were beaten and murdered in prison; female prisoners endured the added violence and humiliation of being 'married' to prison guards and raped before their executions. And all the while, Iran's nuclear program has marched on, unmolested. Iran claims its ready for direct talks with America, but that discussion on its nuclear program is over. Even better, the window for the theocracy to have enough uranium for a nuclear weapon is now one year. We have done absolutely nothing about Iran's war on its own citizens or its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We have also ignored Iran's increasingly warm relations with a thugocracy within our own hemisphere: Venezuela. The Obama State Department and administration has sat on the sidelines and watched as the unholy alliance between these two regional destabilizers has grown stronger and stronger. Iran has taken its money-laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist training to our own backyard; and we've done nothing (apart from shaking old Hugo's hand with a big shit-eating grin on our face).
Venezuela: speaking of which, Hugo Chavez continues to shut down outlets of free speech, crush those who oppose him, and fund his own terrorist operations in Columbia. Again, nary a peep is heard from Foggy Bottom or the White House. Indeed, when it comes to South America, all we've done is pick on burgeoning dictatorships like . . .
Honduras: Honduras? What have they done to desire our diplomatic ire, our severing of foreign aid? Well, they followed their own constitution and removed a president who was violating it (short version here). But all the State Department saw was MILITARY COUP, MILITARY COUP, MILITARY COUP! Yet another banana republic MILITARY COUP! Never mind that the military was acting on the orders of the Honduras supreme court, or that the interim president isn't a general but another politician. Other countries have seen similar situations turn into bloody messes or true dictatorship; Honduras remains a democracy and navigated a true constitutional crisis in peace. In return, our great democracy has turned them into an international pariah. It's okay, though, we still have that great handshake with Chavez and I'm sure he'll turn out alright in the end.
Iraq: I know, Obama never cared about Iraq and wants it all to go away as soon as possible. Well, the troops will be out soon enough, but they'll leave behind a country we've invested a great deal of blood and treasure in, and which it's in our interest to support. They're still dealing with Baathists and AQI, as evidenced in a particularly brutal recent suicide bombing against Iraqi government institutions. Evidence strongly suggests that the bombing was orchestrated by former Iraqi Baathists living safely in Syria. That's on top of the trouble Syria has fomented in Iraq since the fall of Saddam; it's a well-documented fact that many AQI jihadists came to Iraq through Syria, and that Syrian intelligence provided funding, training, and sanctuary for many more. Anyway, as a result of this bombing, Iraq recalled its ambassador from Syria. Syria did the same. And the best the State Department could say was it hoped this didn't "hinder dialogue" between the two countries. Good God, are we now so desperate to "not be Bush" that we can't even condemn terrorist acts, support the allies we've worked so hard to build up over the last six years, and call out regimes that orchestrate these acts? Sure, it'd be nice to open up a dialogue with Syria and make them constructive members of the region; that includes taking them to task for their faults, including the mass murder of citizens of another country.
North Korea: has finally gotten what they wanted, direct talks with the United States. And to earn this distinct honor, they have made the following accomodations:

Finally, this isn't so much a foreign policy matter as a sad case of finally realizing you may no longer be able to respect a man you've respected for some time. I've read Thomas Friedman for several years now, and found much of his earlier work, including books like From Beiruit to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, very insightful and intelligent. In recent years he's moved from a globalization guru to a green disciple, and become a lesser thinker in the transition. I think he may finally have reached the point of being unreadable with his latest piece, the worst of which is this:

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

I don't know what Friedman paid for his blinders, but he got his money's worth. One party autocracy has "drawbacks", eh? Sure does, like the curtailing of individual freedoms like free speech, freedom to assemble, and quite frequently the freedom to live. "Reasonably enlightened"? Tell that to the corpses of Tianamenn Square. China understands exploding populations? China has so damaged its own demographics that there is now a huge disparity between the number of men and women, it faces the same problems as many European countries (too many old people, not enough kids to support them), and if you think that a large population of young men with no available women and only the propect of paying for the benefits of their elders to look forward to is a formula for future social stability, you need to put your head on the desk and take a few quiet moments to collect your thoughts before speaking again. China as a model of clean power and energy efficiency? China's told all the proponents of capping carbon emissions to pound sand. Maybe Friedman's forgotten the Beijing Olympics, but China's notion of 'clean energy' then wasn't building wind turbines, but simply ordering cars not drive and factories not to manufacture so that Beijing's notorious smog would dissipate in time for the Games. And what they couldn't shut down, they painted over; instead of growing green grass, the ChiComs simply painted it on for the benefit of the cameras. As for policies that move a society forward into the 21st century, I wonder if Friedman's vision of the future includes heavy censorship of the Internet and the imprisonment of religious and political dissidents, or brokering trade deals with some of Africa's most brutal regimes. I think Tom's finally bought in to the seductive idea that lies at the root of the 20th century's bloodiest regimes: if only everyone would shut up and let those of us who know what needs doing do it. Democracy is messy, slow, and frequently less than efficient, true; it is also the only proven vehicle for protecting individual rights and fostering an economic environment that results in the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people. Shame on you, Tom, for buying into the lie.

Eight years on

2009-09-11T08:28:00.001-04:00

It's been four years since I woke up one Tuesday morning, looking forward to a relaxing start to an easy day with only one class late in the afternoon, to find my roommates glued to the television, newscasters almost unable to comprehend what they were reporting on, and, apparently, the whole world on fire. By the time I finally tuned in, both towers of the World Trade Center were burning and the Pentagon had a hole in it; reports were just beginning to come in about a plane crash of some kind in Pennsylvania; and rumors were flying wild, including one of a bomb set off on the Washington Mall. We sat there, watching reruns of the planes striking each building, watching smoke pour out of the gaping wounds in the Twin Towers, watching people hanging their heads out the windows for air and, in some cases, flinging themselves down into the streets below, choosing death by falling rather than death by incineration.

I remember the first person I called that morning was my Marine selection officer: I wanted to know if there was anything I had to do, if we might get called up to do something or other (a silly question, of course, since I had all of 12 weeks of extremely basic training and I'd be lucky if all I did was shoot one of my fingers off without hurting anyone else). The second person was my mother. I wanted to know what she made of all of this, whether they were even reporting it in Canada, if perhaps Canadian news had some outside tidbits of information we lacked. She was the original American in my life; I thought maybe she'd have some insight from all her years here about who, what, why this was happening. But few people knew anything that morning, other than the fact that we were under attack. So all we could do was watch.

The first Tower fell. Clouds of smoke, dust, and ash billowed through the streets of downtown New York as people tried to outrun it. At the Pentagon, flames roiled up out of the gash that had been cut to the very center of the building. Rumors of a fourth plane wreck were confirmed, and we got our first look at the gaping scar of earth where Flight 93 had come to grief. The second Tower fell. Manhattan was now obscured by sheets of haze and smoke as the debris spread and fires burned. I don't remember what we said to each other, if anything. It was all so unexpected, so unbelievable. It was supposed to be a Tuesday like any other. What was it now?

My one class for the day was cancelled, but I still had to go to cross-country practice. I was a co-captain of nine or ten guys who also thought that today was going to be just like any other day. I tried to think of something to say to them; I think what I came up with was something about our country getting hit hard, but that we still had to press forward and not let this interrupt our lives. Whatever I said, it wasn't memorable. Someone else on the team said something far better in far fewer words as we practiced. We were running laps around the track, and our workout was almost done when Chris Ambrose, crossing the start line, yelled out, "Let's do it for New York and DC!" The guys jumped across the line, and I thought I would break down completely right there.

The rest of the week was turned upside down. Classes were cancelled the next day, as I recall, and we had a memorial service instead. I remember Father Jonathan trying to hold back tears as he told us that he'd learned of an alumnus who'd died in the World Trade Center. I heard from my parents that the father of several kids who attended my old high school had also died there. That morning of rapid destruction was starting to ripple across the country and across borders.

At some point that week we learned that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were taking credit for the attacks. I think my first reaction was, "What the heck is al Qaeda?" I'd heard of bin Laden a few times, in connection with the USS Cole bombing and the attacks on American embassies in Africa; but he certainly wasn't a topic of daily conversation in the news. Now, his face was everywhere, and eventually a video tape emerged of him gloating as he learned how successful his plans had been.

By then I really didn't care who was behind it. All I knew was that these attacks had given my rather general decision to join the Marine Corps a focus that it previously lacked. Before 9/11, I'd wanted to join up out of a fascination with the American military tradition, a general desire to serve my country, and go with the Marines because they had a bad-ass reputation and the coolest uniforms. Now there was a specific purpose: I would make it my personal responsibility to make sure that no one I loved would ever have to see what we saw that morning ever again, or be threatened by the kind of men who perpetrated it.

9/11 gave focus to something else too. It made me realize that my fun little fling with this big ole sea-to-shining-sea country had, over the last couple of years, developed into a full-fledged love affair. I could no longer joke around that I had one foot North of the 49th parallel and one foot South: when the Towers fell, I knew that both feet would be forever here. Because what I saw that morning hurt me more than anything I could remember in the twenty-odd years of my life. This wonderful country where I'd found an incredible school, even more incredible friends (and ultimately, in the months to come, the love of my life), a way of life that was energetic, freewheeling, and boisterous, neighbors and acquaintances who challenged me and made me think about who I was and what I believed - this place that had given me so much was now reeling under a blow from petty, angry little men who couldn't even begin to understand what they were attacking. I hadn't felt so stung by any single event before or since. Hurricane Katrina has come pretty close, but Katrina was a natural event, one beyond our power to control. It was a force without guidance or malice. 9/11 was committed malice aforethought. It was the purposeful decision by a group of men to kill as many of their fellow human beings as possible.

The rage and pain that this barbaric act generated were indescribable, and though the years have dulled these feelings, they've never subsided. They come flooding back to me now as I write this, and I'm actually a little surprised that they're still this strong. That's a good thing, though: it means that I still haven't forgotten what it felt like that Tuesday morning, on what was supposed to be an easy, relaxing day. I hope I never forget, and that the rest of America never does either.

Viva Las Vegas (or why I'm now broke)

2009-09-10T22:59:00.003-04:00

Birthdays don't get much better than this: a (sort-of) surprise weekend in Vegas, with dinner at Emeril's steakhouse, a relaxing couple's massage in the morning, and a Nickelback concert at night, all while enjoying the luxury of the Bellagio (sans Ocean's 11 cast). I say "sort-of" surprise since I kind of blew that part for myself, insisting on knowing what mysterious things my lovely wife wanted to spend money on without telling me instead of exercising a little imagination and keeping my mouth shut. I'll know better next time, if she decides I'm worth surprising next time. Anyway, for our first time out to Sin City I think we did pretty well for ourselves, and learned a lot of rookie lessons that should help us out once we can afford to go there again in a year or ten. There's a lot to do there apart from gambling, and much of it is within walking distance, which is great because traffic there is so horrible that a 1-mile cab ride downtown costs the same as a 15-mile ride to the airport. There are restaurants and malls aplenty that cater to every desire or whim; say, if you're suddenly seized by the urge to pierce your ears (the wife, not me). The hotels themselves are like mini-cities, and we discovered you can walk almost a mile from one to the other and still be in the same building, since each has its own set of restaurants, shops, and theaters apart from the rest of the city. We avoided the casinos and did other things (the avoiding was easy since we hit our gambling limit within 30 minutes). Emeril's steakhouse - Delmonico inside the Venetian - was a very classy joint, with some of the biggest slabs of meat I've ever laid eyes on. I finished mine and wasn't hungry again until 4 o'clock the next afternoon. The spa inside the Bellagio was quite relaxing too, and I was reminded that I don't pamper myself nearly enough when the masseuse asked me when my last massage had been; I realized that it was almost two years ago, before my first deployment. I accumulated a good amount of stress and tension between then and now.

After that, we killed some time at the blackjack table - not very much time, see above - and then headed down to the MGM Grand for the Nickelback concert. We didn't know who'd be opening until that day, and were impressed with the opening acts: Papa Roach and Hinder, and then some band called Saving Abel we'd never heard of. Turned out that Saving Abel was probably the best of the three: we missed most of their songs, but came in as they announced that the next one was "for the troops". They proceeded with "18 Days", which, having just come back from deployment, I found quite moving in its description of the first few days of separation between a soldier and the ones he leaves behind:

Cause its been 18 days
Since I first held you
But to me it feels just like
It feels like a lifetime
I'm trying hard to re-arrange
Some say its the hardest thing to do
But that's another 18 days
Without you

Those who've never endured prolonged separation from their loved ones can't really appreciate how each day apart feels like an eternity, especially when you know there are so many hard days still to follow. I found that song a pleasant surprise and am always happy to get a shout-out. Papa Roach and Hinder came next; I know a fair bit of the former and they cranked the place up, but Hinder almost brought it back down again because they screamed so loud I could barely recognize the songs of theirs I did know, which aren't many. Then, as the minutes dragged on between their set and Nickelback's, creeping toward the hour mark, I feared Hinder would leave a drab stain on the rest of the evening. I should have known better: Nickelback finally opened with a cacophany of exploding fireworks and didn't let up for the next two hours.

Now, I've heard some pundits say that Nickelback is SOOOOOOO 2001, to which I reply: they aren't old, we were just into them before they got big. We were avant garde, baby. Besides, odd as it may seem, Nickelback has been part of Bree's and my relationship since the beginning. Their first big single, "How You Remind Me", had just come out on the airwaves when I met her, and I was humming it one day as we built sets for "Diary of Anne Frank". She remarked that she really liked that song, and I thought to myself: I really like you. I'm going to keep singing. From there, a Nickelback concert way up in Portland was our first big date, memorable not only for the music but fun things like me being so broke I couldn't afford dinner when we got there, and had to pay the tolls in Canadian money on they way back since I didn't have enough greenbacks to my name. Right about now, I hear some of you thinking: what low standards you have, most of their music is crap. And I'll admit, a good 50-75% of their tracks are some combination of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. And yet . . . and yet on each album, they have a few songs that are truly powerful, that perfectly capture feelings of nostalgia, love, and heartbreak. That's why we chose "Far Away" as the song for our wedding dance; Bree and I had already spent most of our official engagement halfway across the country from each other, and we both knew that the future held more time apart for us.

Cause you know,
you know, you know
That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I miss you
Been far away for far too long
I keep dreaming you'll be with me
and you'll never go
Stop breathing if
I don't see you anymore

It's not every woman who signs up for a life of repeated and involuntary separation, with the added knowledge that, if things go wrong, there may not be a reunion at the end. There's not enough penance in the world to make up for that, and that's why I like the closing verse, since I think it applies to me and every husband (and wife) in uniform who bids their family good-bye:

I wanted
I wanted you to stay
'Cause I needed
I need to hear you say
That I love you
I have loved you all along
And I forgive you
For being away for far too long
So keep breathing
'Cause I'm not leaving you anymore
Believe it
Hold on to me and, never let me go

We can never make up for the time apart, but only ask forgiveness, and do our best to honor the strength and sacrifice they've given us.

Anyway, good concert. And you can laugh at Nickelback, but whether or not they've stumbled onto these sentiments by accident, they're true, and they say them well.

With honor

2009-09-01T19:17:00.002-04:00

I think it's been a week now since I started working on a draft posting about "The Generals' War", my latest history read, and since I can't seem to finish and no one will read it anyway, I give up. It was a good book about Desert Storm that revealed many things about the war I didn't remember or intuit when I was a kid. I'm now working on the last Assassin novel, Heart of the Assassin (Robert Ferrigno), volume one of Tolkien's collected writings on Middle Earth, and debating whether to stay modern for my next history book or jump back and crack open some Livy. Recommendations are welcome.

So instead of boring you with strategery, I'd point you instead to this brief obituary
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR200908290
2014.html) about Marine Captain Matthew Freeman, who was buried the same day Ted Kennedy died and the week America learned Wacko Jacko might have been 'murdered' with painkillers. He was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan, six weeks after marrying his high school sweetheart. With the headlines dominated by men of part-time integrity, Freeman died whole, his honor clean. Would that Americans like him got the same headlines as pop stars and politicians.

60,000 and proud of it

2009-08-28T16:22:00.002-04:00

I have various other postings in the works but they're pretty ponderous. This (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/27/nebraska.abortion.protests/index.html), on the other hand, I can scarcely find words for. I know some people who glance at this page occasionally are pro-choice, but honestly, is there not something fundamentally grotesque about a man who can speak about personally ending 60,000 young lives with pride? I cannot imagine what darkness lies in that man's soul to make the term "abortionist" a badge of honor for him. Words fail me.

Death warrants: part II

2009-08-26T13:11:00.002-04:00

I'm honestly not feeling as morbid as the title suggests, but there's a segue (kind of), I promise.

Just got back from a great vacation with the various bits and pieces of the family. It wasn't exactly restful, with many late nights and early risings (thank you Aaron), but it's always good to assemble the troops and enjoy each other's company. My middle brother's wedding was the event that occasioned this, and we gladly welcomed another member into our ever-expanding family tree. MaryAnne is a fun, charming, and intelligent woman, and I know the two of them will be very happy in the years to come. I look forward to seeing them both again in October for the Marine Corps Marathon, where I will vainly try to beat her standing marathon finish time. The g-rents got to spend lots of quality time with their grandson, who likewise enjoyed the attention and spoiling spree. In the space of a week, Aaron was the beneficiary of enough Brio railway to create a wooden transcontinental railroad for the new battery-powered Thomas engines he received in the bargain. And, creative child that he is, he managed to incorporate a PlayMobil medieval castle and dinosaurs into the rail design as well. He also picked up many new words and phrases, including "get up Daddy", which he practiced on me every morning at the toll of six.

Indeed, it was delightful to escape the doleful news of the outside world for awhile while celebrating family triumphs. And, apart from the wedding, there was much to celebrate. My dear cousin Sarah, one month my senior, can now add "doctor" to her emails, as she successfully defended her dissertation on patriotism in modern America this past weekend. As I've said elsewhere, there'll be no living with her now. Furthermore, my newly wedded brother is now also my newly published op-ed brother, with this piece on nuclear energy in the Toronto Star. Thanks to his line of work he's very knowledgeable on energy issues on both sides of the border; and should I dare to enter the fray on energy policy again, I might just eliminate the middle man and direct T.A.B. straight to him.

Yet the doleful news is still there. Oh, my friends, we have dark days ahead:

Senator Edward Kennedy passed away earlier today. I'm not specifically including this in my dark days litany, but it's certainly the end of an era in D.C. Others will write more intelligently than I about his legacy, his accomplishments, and his failures, both personal and professional. But I will say that he knew how to push for causes he wanted, and was quite capable of reaching across the aisle to accomplish his goals. I disagreed with most of those goals, but appreciated his ability to stretch out his hand. It's a lesson others in his party have yet to learn. R.I.P.
So, about signing our own death warrants: turns out the office of the attorney general will, in fact, re-investigate a 2004 CIA investigation on alleged abuses on the part of some its interrogators. Curious, as past special prosecutors had already examined the cases and declined to pursue them for lack of strong evidence, and the 2004 investigation undertaken by the CIA, on its own initiative, resulted in the dismissal and/or disciplining of many of the accused. The 2004 report also reveals a CIA that, far from being a rogue agency, was quite reluctant to assume the alien role of interrogator, only did it because we were at war with a shadowy enemy and no other department would take the job, constantly sought guidance from the Bush administration on what they could and couldn't do and punished those who crossed the boundaries. Now, we'll get to experience more rancor and venom in the pursuit of people who were caught and punished years ago. I sure hope Eric Holder is as single-minded in bringing to justice the men who cut off heads and blow up buildings as he is those who tried to stop them.
In an interesting and related story, the White House has taken the responsibility for interrogations away from the CIA and given it to the FBI, under the auspices of an inter-agency panel that is responsible directly to the president. I anxiously await the outcry of civil libertarians everywhere, who would surely have stormed Washington with torches and pitchforks had the Bush administration taken the same authority unto itself. Waiting, waiting . . .
More economic numbers were released yesterday, and they're not good. Our deficit will grow by trillions in the years to come, our economy is still shrinking, we're measuring recovery not in jobs created but in how many fewer jobs were lost this month than last month, and rumors of hyperinflation and the destruction of the dollar abound. I can't think of a better time to enact massive government outlays in health care and cap-and-trade legislation. We can only hope that Stimulus: Part II makes up for all of it, and that the Chinese are beneficent and magnanimous rulers.

I was going to end with a book review of The Generals' War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, but I think that's enough for now. Time to enjoy some beautiful California weather before I'm taxed on the air I breathe.

Signing our own death warrants

2009-08-22T08:20:00.005-04:00

Right, so I said I was on hiatus, but this is beyond unspeakable. The Scottish government yesterday decided to release Abdel Baset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the man convicted of planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie and killed all 270 on board, as well as 11 people on the ground. He was released on 'humanitarian' grounds, as he has terminal prostate cancer and, with about three months to live, appealed to spend those last days with his family. I don't understand what the Scottish government hoped to gain by this exercise in spinelessness (though rumors have circulated about lucrative trade deals; I won't buy that until I see solid evidence, since I'm perfectly capable of believing in a Western government acting with unilateral stupidity). Somehow, this is supposed to demonstrate Scottish values. If those values include contempt for justice and craven appeasement in the face of growing Muslim populations within their borders, they've succeeded. I hope there's a little reorganization in Edinburgh after this. If someone in Washington had decided to release Timothy McVeigh on 'humanitarian' grounds, you know his head, and a few others, would roll. The civilized world's war against the perpetrators of terrorism and atrocity just got harder, now that future bombers know they can plead to go home to their families after murdering the families of others. But the worst part about this is that it's not the first time the West has caved in the face of barbarism: we've already released Revolutionary Guard operatives in Iraq who've killed Americans, and everyone from the print media to legions of lawyers are lobbying to dismantle the intelligence apparatus that's kept us on the offensive. The only message Scotland is sending to murderers-in-waiting is this: you can do what you want to us and we'll bend over backward to make your punishment as painless as possible. You killed almost three hundred innocent people? No problem, you can die in bed surrounded by your family, and we'll just forget that your victims were incinerated in mid-air or plummeted thousands of feet, alone and terrified, to their deaths. It is this attitude, not any battlefield setback, that will bring us defeat in the Long War; and it is growing stronger.

Hiatus

2009-08-21T11:10:00.001-04:00

I know, I know, I'm sure you're all waiting for my next dissertation on health care. Well, it will have to wait. I'm on post-deployment leave up in Canada and will be for about another week. On that note, Aaron requires my attention. Back to Thomas!

Same planet (Trantor), different worlds

2009-08-10T19:29:00.004-04:00

I started worrying that I'd need to change my reading habits when I ran across this piece on The Corner (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Upfront-t.html?_r=1). It's brief but notes that Paul Krugman originally got into economics thanks to the Foundation Trilogy by Issac Asimov. In it, "social scientists save galactic civilization, and that's what I wanted to be." Well, I agree with Krugman that wanting to "save civilization" is a noble pursuit, though I generally disagree with him about everything else (and in my study of history I've noted a common trend in which self-appointed 'saviors' usually make life worse for those around them). To be fair, I have no idea whether he lays out his thoughts on the book in more detail elsewhere, but - having read the Trilogy myself just a couple of months ago - I'm wondering whether we read the same series, if that's what he got from it. A little background: Asimov's inspiration was Edward Gibbons' "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", and he wanted to explore how a highly advanced space-faring civilization might endure similar trauma (parts of it also warn against charismatic demagogues like Hitler, who was at the height of his power when Asimov began writing the story). Through the science of 'psychohistory' -which is able to predict the course of the future by analyzing the 'mass action' of large groups of people - a mathematician named Hari Seldon determines that the current galaxy-wide Empire is on the verge of collapse and will experience 30,000 years of barbarism before a new empire rises from the ashes. In response, Seldon establishes two Foundations of knowledge at the far ends of the galaxy, which serve as repositories of knowledge to help reduce the length of the Dark Age from 30,000 years to a mere millenium.

I won't give away (or bore you with) further details from the books, but the point is that, well, Krugman missed the point. For one thing, it's not 'social' scientists who collect and hold the galactic knowledge in trust: rather, the Foundation is a group of physical scientists whose task is to preserve the discoveries of physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, and other 'concrete' fields in order to accelerate the galaxy's climb back out of barbarism. As such, they don't truly save civilization; the Empire falls, and it's only by slowly re-introducing lost knowledge to the worlds around them that the Foundation is able to plants the seeds of resurrection. And, frequently, the Foundation succeeds only in spite of itself: some of its leaders try and 'game the game' by thinking they understand Seldon's plan and viewing themselves as the saviors of empire, whereas it's actually the individual decisions by audacious and independent actors (who more often than not do not occupy the seat of power) that move the plan along. For these actors, the grand plan of galactic salvation is secondary to finding practical solutions to current crises, and in the end it's their decisions that do far more to advance the plan than those of the plan's self-appointed handmaidens.

I'm also wary of those 'social scientists' throughout history who've seen it as their vocation to 'save' civilization. The twentieth century saw the development and result of various conscious experiments in social salvation, and those experiments, without exception, caused the greatest amount of suffering and bloodshed in recorded history. Eugenicists around the world were determined to save civilization from 'inferior' breeds, which included the poor, immigrants, the disabled, and anyone else who wasn't 'useful' to society. This resulted in everything from forced sterilization in the United States to the widespread extermination of Jews, gypsies, 'non-Aryans', homosexuals, Christians, and the mentally and physically handicapped in Nazi Germany. Communists wanted to save the world from the evils of capitalism: the world is still absorbing the swath of suffering and oppression that spread from the gulags of Russia to China's 'Great Leap Forward' to the killing fields of Cambodia, and still exists in backwaters from North Korea to Cuba. The last hundred years have witnessed many variations on the theme of social salvation, and while the 'science' used to justify each method differed, the result was the same: destruction and death on an unimaginable scale. Social engineering, without fail, has become the province of tyrants and butchers, no small number of whom started with the best of intentions.

Far more often, we find civilization's saints hidden in obscurity, working on their own toward humble goals with no thought of re-creating the world in their own image. It was the monk, not the king, who preserved the ancient world's treasures in humble monastaries during the Dark Ages; the renaissance tinkerer, not the tyrant, whose curiosity laid the groundwork for everything from modern industry to medicine; the modern enterpreneur, not the president, who gave us the technological breakthroughs of the Information Age. That's not to say that the king or tyrant didn't have their place, but they best served civilization's interests by providing things like resources or patronage and then staying out of the way while allowing the human mind to explore the multitude of pathways a single leader can't imagine on his own. Those individuals who've seen themselves as saviors tend, rather, to stifle the many small acts of salvation and improvement that individuals, acting on their own with less grandious ambitions, generate.

I do not doubt Krugman's good intentions, or question his intelligence; but I think his burning desire to be civilization's savior should automatically disqualify him for the job. That, and he needs to re-read his Asimov.

I scream, you scream, we all scream about health care

2009-08-07T14:37:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I've rarely worried myself overmuch about health care because for the first 18 years of my life, I lived under a single-payer system which I fortunately didn't have to use as I was generally healthy, and for the last ten years I've either been covered by the military or by college health insurance (which again, I never used since I was generally healthy, hangovers aside). So long as I'm in the military, the cost of health care for me and my family won't be an immediate issue. But 1) I won't always be in the military, and 2) with the 'reform' plans currently under discussion, I may not be paying for my own health care but I'll sure as hell be paying for other peoples'; and so will my son, and his son, and his son after that if the Chinese haven't cashed in their chips by then and brought America to her knees. And boy, has this issue become a many-splendor'd thing:

-THE PLANS: evidently there are several, and apart from some small differences they all run over 1,000 pages. The plan is supposed to extend coverage to all Americans, provide a 'public option' for those unsatisfied with or unable to afford private insurance, lower health care costs across the board, improve treatment, have a price tag that is 'deficit neutral', and halt the rise of the oceans (oh wait, that's a different plan). Well, the Cylons had a plan too, and unfortunately for them, it didn't predict the Battlestar Galactica going to ramming speed. The plan's flaws have been percolating to the surface for the last month: it's not deficit neutral, but will substantially add to the deficit well beyond its initial ten-year window; it will actually cause millions of people to lose their current insurance plans; its costs will inevitably result in direct or indirect tax hikes well beyond those who make $250,000 and above (in addition to any tax increases mandated by cap-and-trade, continued bailout programs); and, based on the experiences of the many other countries that've already gone this route, Americans will see their care rationed and the quality of the care they get decline. All this isn't to say that the American health care system is beyond reproach; it's not (as last week's kidney stone saga can attest to), but the fact remains that the United States is blessed with one of the best health care systems on the planet and a complete overhall risks throwing out the baby with the bath-water. Comparing our system with the systems of other countries who've either partially or completely socialized them, we find that turning health care over to the government grants no improvement in life span, mortality rates, or the survival rates of major diseases. Thus, any necessary reform should be targeted to avoid sweeping away the benefits of modern American medicine.

-THE PUBLIC: given these flaws, the public is increasingly reluctant to grant the government more authority in this sphere. There are a few 'bottom lines' behind this: one, 68% of Americans already consider their health insurance good or excellent; two, 74% think the quality of their care is good/excellent; and three, almost 80% believe the current proposals will result in higher taxes. So, a significant majority of Americans like what they have, are afraid government meddling will make what they have more expensive in already tight financial times, and a solid 50% believe 'reform' means what they have will drop in quality. There's also a strong perception that Congress' plan has not been thoroughly analyzed, a perception that only increases when the president himself admits he doesn't know all the details and the Congressional Budget Office's most conservative estimates on cost belie the rosy promises of the president and his congressional leaders. Yet the public is being told that, regardless of all this - the lack of vetting, the cost, the potential drop in the quality and quantity of care - this plan must be passed right here, right now. In the wake of massive Wall Street bailout, a flaccid stimulus, and a runaway deficit thanks to all of the above, many Americans - and a number of their congressmen - are skeptical of the scope and speed of the plan Congress is pushing through.

-THE "DEBATE": so, in the face of the questions raised about the current plans and mounting public criticism, how have the reformers responded? Have they delved into the weeds to explain the plan in detail, showing exactly where costs are saved, insurance is improved, how the predictions of the CBO are wrong? Have Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid remained cool and collected, taking the time to alleviate specific concerns? Not so much. Instead, they've attacked in another direction. They've aired ads against conservative members of their own party to bludgeon them into line. They've accused Republicans of holding up the legislation, laughable considering they own both Houses and the GOP couldn't mount a filibuster if it wanted to. A special White House email account has been set up in order to track emails full of "disinformation" and where they come from (imagine the outcry had the Bush White House set up a similar account). Americans who've protested against the current legislation have been labeled everything from corporate shills to mobs to neo-Nazis. Insurance companies, who are understandably concerned about being potentially run out of business, are "immoral". The White House has run its own attack ads against protestors using the Michael Moore method of reporting: they show unrelated footage of crazed 'birthers' questioning Obama's citizenship while lumping health care critics into the same category. Critics' sincerity is even attacked because "they're too well-dressed" to possibly be genuinely concerned citizens. And protestors can't possibly represent a grassroots movement because they're organized, when only a few months ago community organizing was touted as the highest calling. The above is not debate, it's an attempt to destroy critics and deflect attention from serious questions to which reformers cannot provide good answers. Oh, I'll grant that it's possible some of the rowdies at recent town hall meetings are merely corporate sleeper cells; I'm pretty sure they're still entitled to express their opinions, and the sleeper cell theory doesn't hold up against poll numbers showing wide swaths of the general public opposed to reform as proposed and rapidly losing confidence in the president's ability to handle the issue. With this type of response, it's become clear that the Democratic leadership doesn't want debate, only meek compliance.

On the whole, I think it's a net good that this issue is now at the forefront and being debated in detail (among the general public, even if not in the halls of power). It's also encouraging to see that one-on-one meetings between representatives and their constituents are generating such interest, and the consituents are holding their elected leaders accountable. But it's troubling when reform's supporters won't deign to debate their legislation on its merits, and believe that only an unthinking "mob" would dare question their diktats. Americans are right to be wary, right to question and demand solid answers as to why they should change a system that's by and large satisfactory, and above all should be extremely reluctant to give the government any kind of hold over the most private part of the private sector: their own bodies.