"Magnificent! Compared to war all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.
God help me, I do love it so!"
- General George Patton Jr
25% of the anemic 2nd quarter growth of 1.4% was caused by defense procurement or consumption (i.e. war):
Alas, even the GWOT has to end sometime. Or does it? Will we have a permanent military-war-on-terror complex, like we have left over from the Cold War? That seems likely.
Read it here.
My take…. Nothing to be fired over. I like him more at the end of it than before. But in it committed the unpardonable sin of praising Hillary Clinton and I suspect he will be gone by lunch.
And… (a bit later). He’s gone.
But… given a choice between him and Petreus, I’ll take Petreus.
He really is a patriot to take this on. He has done plenty and sacrificed much more than is called for. But if this works, he is our Eisenhower and can write his ticket, so maybe he plays for a larger game.
Edith Shain, pictured above, has died at the age of 92.
I like the picture as a great picture, but it sort of bugged me at the same time. What’s with these pushy sailors going around kissing woman they didn’t know?? I didn’t like the idea of VJ day being like Halloween or a Lakers win – just an excuse to misbehave. I was pleased to read that she slapped the guy after.
If an officer cannot figure out Rolling Stone, how can he understand the Taliban?
Victor Davis Hanson
in this post at the Corner
I’d add that if a President is not competent enough to appoint competent officers to execute our wars, how can we win them?
McChrystal screwed up, but I’m sure having to deal with ninnies like Obama and his crew would drive any patriot insane. Why he had to blow hard to the Rolling Stone is what mystifies me.
Update: Don’t blame the general…
We buried my Uncle Ray yesterday in a short, but moving, ceremony at the Riverside National Cemetery.
Given that not many people play the bugle any more, and also given that the cemetery does 40 to 50 burials a day, normally Taps is played by recording.
Our excellent funeral director, Bob Hansen of Crippen Mortuary, arranged to have a live bugler be part of the honor guard with an organization called “Bugles Across America”.
Craig Bryant, of Bugles Across America, drove from Anaheim to Riverside to play Ray’s funeral. He did a lovely job and we thank him.
You can donate to and learn more about Bugles Across America here.
Uncle Ray at US Army Jump School, Ft. Benning, GA
His memorial is today.
Speer TBBC bullet which SOST design models
The Army wants a lead free bullet. Which is silly, but okay, would you settle for a lead free and BETTER bullet?
While this non-lead policy burnishes the army’s image and environmental cred, it also provides troops with an inferior bullet; the M855A1 copper alloy slug. But inferior to what? Well to a another new bullet. SOCOM (Special Operations Command) has developed a new 5.56mm bullet, the SOST (Special Operations Science and Technology) round.
So the Army won’t supply its troops (except for Special Forces) with a better, non-lead bullet, and get this kicker:
The army is now working on an environmentally correct 7.62mm round, and ignoring troop requests for the SOST round
Why doesn’t General Petraeus just wave his magic wand and fix this?
P.S. I wonder how many truck bombs weren’t stopped before blowing up because of the Army’s “green” bullet.
P.P.S. Hey Army… the lead you want to avoid putting in the ground, came out of the ground!
Via Strategy Page’s update on what wars are going on right now:
For example, fighting back is considered, by Moslems, as culturally insensitive ("war on Islam"), and some of the Western media have picked up on this bizarre interpretation of reality. It gets worse. Historians point out, for example, that the medieval Crusades were a series of wars fought in response to Islamic violence against Christians, not the opening act of aggression against Islam that continues to the present. Thus, the current war on terror is, indeed, in the tradition of the Crusades. And there are many other "Crusades" brewing around the world, in the many places where aggressive Islamic militants are making unprovoked war on their Christian neighbors.
I missed posting this back on the 6th…. Boston.Com has a large collection of images from D-Day at:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/remembering_d-day_66_years_ago.html
All the press can speculate on is “will he run for President”. Maybe he will, maybe not. They even speculate his speech was about “big ideas for the nation”:
Still, some attendees of the dinner, upon listening to Petraeus, said they couldn’t help but hear a candidate laying out his vision for governing the nation as the general developed his theme of how "big ideas" turned around a lost cause in Iraq.
http://www.aei.org/speech/100142 has the entire speech, which wasn’t about transforming a nation, but about how they quickly transformed the Army of 2005 into the surge Army of 2007:
So tonight, I want to talk about the effort that developed and institutionalized those ideas–ideas that ushered in a generational transformation that touched all aspects of our Army, from the doctrinal manuals that describe our operational concepts to the education of our leaders, from the training of our forces and the conduct of actual operations to the ways we sought to capture and share lessons identified in training and on the battlefield.
Would he be a good President? Yes. Probably better than we’ve had since Eisenhower. The RISK however is that he may be competent, but in support of what ideology? The next 3 or 4 Presidents will be choosers – of who wins and who loses, I need to know he will choose productive people as winners, because lacking that our nation will spiral out of control into chaos and disintegration.
This Saturday Dixie High school hosts a Celebration of the Triple Deuce at 6:30pm.
This will be an exciting night held in the honor of the 222nd. All five batteries are invited to attend: St. George, Beaver, Cedar City and Richfield. The purpose of the event is to express gratitude and appreciation for their service and sacrifice. The celebration will include our local politicians: Speaker David Clark, Senator Steve Urquhart, Congressman Don Ipson and Mayor Ken Neilson. In addition, the posting of the colors will be by the Dixie High School JROTC and drill performance, patriotic medley by the Dixie High Honor Choir, Ronald Reagan Youth Presentation "9/11: Never Forget", and a pictorial slideshow of life in Iraq of the 222nd while they were deployed.
To conclude, one of the Leadership Academy committee members will receive recognition for his Eagle Scout Award for successfully completing his project. The Eagle Scout project included two monument plaques in Veterans Memorial Park dedicated to the 222nd, with their names and ranks engraved. See: http://222eaglescout.webs.com/
This celebration is free of charge and open to the public. Even if you are not a member of the 222nd, but are a veteran and you wish to wear your uniform, the school would be honored. In addition to the 222nd, this celebration is to honor all of those that have given so much. "No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks." — James Allen.
Here is a timeline for the Triple Deuce
Back in 1945 concern about malnutrition in incoming recruits helped create the national school lunch program. In typical big government fashion, that program moved well beyond its initial scope and now poses… a threat to the nutrition of incoming recruits.
Readiness urged Congress to pass a new childhood nutrition law to remove school junk food, improve nutritional standards and quality of school meals, and to open access to anti-obesity programs for children.
One of the extra duties I had as an Army officer was “Weight Control Officer”. This involved me supervising the body fat measurement and PT tests of soldiers exceeding Army body weight and fat standards. I thought the program was a joke. People hardly ever improved, yet I could rarely separate them from the Army.
My view… fail a PT test, get another, fail – see ya!
Enforcing higher, stricter, standards would actually cause people who can’t stay fit to not join. And avoid many of the 12,000 separated from service due to obesity.
Hey military… do something that works, that you control, not something that feels good and grows government. Don’t create tomorrow’s problem.
He apparently, intends to ruin us financially, emotionally, and militarily.
Here is one view of the US defense budget:
but here is another, perhaps more useful one:
The entire article is interesting. Read it here.
From a series of photos in the Denver Post by an AP correspondent in Afghanistan.