z

Trask, You are right. Bush has about totally fucked this up. Let's just go home now because all popular support is eroding quickly and that's no way to kick this thing off. What a tool Bush is.

Erik, Your ability to spell, formulate sentences, and comb your hair makes you look like a moron. Having spent time in your presence degrading myself I would have to say, yes, you are a total backstabbing self absorbed tool. I'm sure Captain Caveman would love to wrench your neck. So anyway, you wanted to get up on your soapbox and preach with your misinformed 15 words a minute typing style and this is what you get. Erik why don't you come over and make me do anything? I doubt it.

I remind myself as I remind many of you that many of the people who are acting positively with regards to this issue are too actively engaged in living life to participate in trite internet chat dialogs like this one. I also remind myself that Seattle, the internet community, and the climbing community in general are traditionally liberal bastions. Even at the height of the Vietnam conflict there was oftentimes mention of the silent majority that supported the initial stated aims and more importantly supported soldiers, airmen and marines sent to defend the freedoms of this nation. Imagine if this time someone, like myself, takes the time and energy to organize the silent majority in counter protests and rallies. Imagine if the several hundred thousand combat soldiers were to march in defiance of your petty aims that do nothing excpet detract from their abilities to do their jobs with peace of mind knowing that they were supported by the folks back home. Imagine that? I imagine you would see exactly HOW SMALL AND INSIGNIFICANT YOU REALLY ARE. So pound your chests about your rallies, but be aware they mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. So it makes you feel important to post pictures of liberal flag wavers then go for it. Don't tread on me!

Erik, Like many of your compatriots you've done little with your life except live in Tacoma and spout off from your soapbox of dazed, confused, and inebriated rhetoric. At least I know HOW to put on a gas mask tool, and at least I know a thing or two about what I'm talking about having spent a great deal of time in study and observing FIRSTHAND exactly how much GOOD the UNITED STATES has done for many many many countries overseas. You and all your loser buddies oil conspiracy theories are weak and simple minded. Why did we not take it after the first war? HUH? Why has the United States despite it's prominence as the preeminent world power for many years not acted with manifest destiny towards the nations of the world? Face it. There are complex reasons for this war, but everything I see leads me to believe that we as a nation are threatened by foreign powers who care little about the good we have done and thwarted by allies who talk out both sides of their mouths. perhaps it's time overdue for a little shake up in the way the world runs. Get out of the UN for one. What a fucking joke. Like I want some of those tools running my life. Get out of the oil trap. Hydrogen is cheap and readily available. Dispose of some allies and some enemies at the same time. Sometimes kicking some fucker in the face when he needs it is the right thing to do. Saddam Hussein is going down and then that little fuck Korean Xenophobe is next.

The liberals continue to sell America's freedom all the while claiming that it is the right who intrudes on rights and liberties. Most of the causes the liberal lefts supports have suspicious motives and reek of selling out the USA. While liberals debate and slink around in the form of protesters and Bush haters the enemy grows stronger and bolder. You weaken this country with your rhetoric and your cowardly insistense on peace where peace has been bankrupted by violence committed against your fellow citizens. Will you sell their souls for your peace of mind (and weed puffing) because you personally abhor violence (lean toward mediocrity) for cowardly reasons? Will you claim this when your soldiers are locked in battle? Will you and the generation of peaceniks preceding you never understand that we hold priviledge in the world through strength? Will you sell this out because it's cool and you want to be a voice of (T)reason? Of the past 20 supreme court decisions about 19 of those have supported liberal causes. Look at where all this is taking us. Down a drain we can't escape from. Fuck you Erik. I know you're a pansy little liberal.

Most of you are a bunch of tools sitting behind a computer being good at being ineffectual. The world swirls around you and your virulent reaction is to post on Cascadeclimbers. Way to be losers.

Colin is sort of right. You have a greater chance of being incarcerated in the US that any other country in the world. Longer prison sentences and more criminal statutes. Good. I'll have a job busting dirtbags heads for years to come.

Wastoids. Sober up...cut your hair, and get in line for reorientation training. Courtesy of Uncle Sam. No more liberal whining will be tolerated in post 9/11 USA.

Post deleted by iceguy

DFA, When you quit clipping bolts then you can talk to me. Otherwise shut the fuck up asshole.

Some people on this site climb pretty well, but the fact remains that you are all still a bunch of whining pussies who get on my nerves. Bitches.

The elitist attitudes of the low wage losers that work at F.F. made me never buy a thing from them EVER. I'd rather spend my dimes at corporate REI than support FF's.

Gapers, Z yo-yo skied Granite Mountain (2 South/SW aspects in high to considerable conditions). Key is to ski fast and don't stop. Z P.S. Shoot guns

No one needs a gun to kick your ass. Bitch.

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Snyder/cowards.html Excerpt: The Tyranny of the Elite Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only by the ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the guilty, but also by the execration that gun control proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral and social "re-education" is the object of liberal social policies. Typical of such bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of gun-owners as "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend." Similar vituperation is rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy as the "pusher's best friend," lampooned in political cartoons as standing for the right of children to carry firearms to school and, in general, portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow people away at will. The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist and constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "tudies consistently show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs than non-owners.... Later studies show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc." Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism. This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in The Republic. There, Plato argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business in the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians unquestioning in their loyalty to the state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided and abetted by myths that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation. AND Polite Society In addition to being enamored of the power of words, our conservative elite shares with liberals the notion that an armed society is just not civilized or progressive, that massive gun ownership is a blot on our civilization. This association of personal disarmament with civilized behavior is one of the great unexamined beliefs of our time. Should you read English literature from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, you will discover numerous references to the fact that a gentleman, especially when out at night or traveling, armed himself with a sword or a pistol against the chance of encountering a highwayman or other such predator. This does not appear to have shocked the ladies accompanying him. True, for the most part there were no police in those days, but we have already addressed the notion that the presence of the police absolves people of the responsibility to look after their safety, and in any event the existence of the police cannot be said to have reduced crime to negligible levels. It is by no means obvious why it is "civilized" to permit oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry a weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes the carrying of weapons by the law-abiding -- because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers -- certainly cannot claim this distinction. Perhaps the notion that defending oneself with lethal force is not "civilized" arises from the view that violence is always wrong, or the view that each human being is of such intrinsic worth that it is wrong to kill anyone under any circumstances. The necessary implication of these propositions, however, is that life is not worth defending. Far from being "civilized," the beliefs that counterviolence and killing are always wrong are an invitation to the spread of barbarism. Such beliefs announce loudly and clearly that those who do not respect the lives and property of others will rule over those who do. In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal violence shows contempt of God's gift of life (or, in modern parlance, does not properly value himself), does not live up to his responsibilities to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally deficient, because he does not trust himself to behave responsibly. In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly. While gun control proponents and other advocates of a kinder, gentler society incessantly decry our "armed society," in truth we do not live in an armed society. We live in a society in which violent criminals and agents of the state habitually carry weapons, and in which many law-abiding citizens own firearms but do not go about armed. Department of Justice statistics indicate that 87 percent of all violent crimes occur outside the home. Essentially, although tens of millions own firearms, we are an unarmed society.

Uncle Tricky, I'll check those out. The only books Z is reading these days are FM 90-10 and FM 7-8. Military Operations in Urban Terrain and the Infantry Rifle Platoon. For light reading, Delta Force by Charlie Beckwith.

Uncle Tricky, Had you been there at the time you might be qualified to make a statement regarding the incident in which US air assets were attacked by multi barrelled AA gun which was using a wedding party as a shield. The Afghans have long used this tactic to generate unfavorable media coverage.The Soviets documented many incidents of this type. Read Artyom Borovik. However, you aren't qualified because you were sitting on your ass at Microsoft being overpaid and overfed.

POW report. Z skied the wide eastern couloir on Mt Kent with H the dog and Benelli the avalanche shotgun today. The triple XXX's took some core shots, but hey-they make Ptex for shit like that. Shooting and skiing mix well. H the dog would like to know if they make earplugs for furballs? DFA = BITCH BOY. You can also alternate SPUM DUMPSTER or BONE GOBBLER when referring to DFA.

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE JANUARY 2003 Flak Online Gee-Whiz, Theyre Shooting At Each Other? You could as well have titled your article:Canadian Media Discover War. It is essentially a new subject for them and so they fumble about in embarrassing ways, treating everything with a gee whiz. I recently worked on a project requiring that I read a lot of old wire stories about the Canadian effort in the Second World War. I much preferred its matter-of-fact treatment of everyday soldiery to todays ultra-hype. Added to the Canadian medias lack of expertise is the problem clearly exposed in your article: the naive pacificism of so many Canadians, coupled with their anti-Americanism. The anti-Americanism is an innate thing, going back to attempts by the U.S. to invade Canada during your revolutionary war and our mutual War of 1812, though I doubt many Canadians could identify these sources. It doesnt dominate most peoples thinking. It is more of a subtext. The pacificism is more recent. I suspect it has something to do with the Vietnam War, which had a pretty major impact on the thinking of the generation now in power in Ottawa. And something to do with the fact that Canadians havent had to fight a war for two generations, thanks, doubtless, to the protection of the U.S. So you see, we can blame the U.S. for just about everything another key concept for understanding our whiney, narcissistic, holier-than-thou nation. Steve Weatherbe Victoria, BC

It uses big words and stuff. Must be hard for you tree boy.

Interview of SSgt Kevin Vance 25 March 2002 - Bagram, Afghanistan Posted on Thursday, May 16 @ 23:15:16 PDT by davidc MadOgre writes "My name is Kevin Donell Vance. In June, I will have been in the United States Air Force for eight years. I hold the rank of Staff Sergeant. I am currently married with two children, ages four and two. I was born on 3 September 1976 and am currently 25 years old. I entered into the USAF eleven days after graduating from high school. I went to open general basic training. I was not sure which career path to take until I was asked to try out to be a tactical air control party [TACP] from a TACP recruiter. I was one of the few who tried out and was chosen. I went to technical school in Florida for fourteen weeks. My first assignment was at Ft. Polk in Louisiana supporting the 2nd Armored Calvary Regiment [ACR] for three years. I then transferred to support the Joint Readiness Training Center [JRTC] for a year. Next, I was assigned to Camp Casey in Korea for one year. Afterwards, I tried out for and was selected for my present job. I have been with my current unit for two and a half years. I have had basic training, TACP training, Ranger School, Basic Airborne School, Air Assault School, HALO School, and Pathfinder School. At around 0115z on 4 March 2002, I was told that a military member was on the ground in a hostile area in Afghanistan after falling out of a helicopter. My team was told that another team was attempting to go in and get him, but if they were not successful, my team would go in. We were waiting to find out if we would go in to try to get to our lost military member. My team was in a helicopter in route and our estimated time of arrival was 0150z. My team consisted of ten people plus three special tactics squadron members [sTS] and we were with eight crewmembers, a total of twenty-one personnel. At 0140z I had noticed we were flying in circles around the mountaintop because I had noticed the same terrain twice. As we were circling about the third time, we were hit with a rocket-propelled grenade [RPG] around 0145z.There were sparks on the right side of the aircraft and we started to shake violently. Then our helicopter just fell out of the sky about 15 feet to the ground. After the first RPG hit us to when the helicopter hit the ground, I do not remember specifics of what happened, it was a blur. No one, to my knowledge, was injured from the initial crash. Before I could get off the aircraft, another RPG hit the aircraft where the right door gunner was. There was only one military member between the right door gunner and myself. I am not positive how many times our helicopter was shot but I think altogether, four RPGs were shot at us. I was snap linked into the helicopter, a precaution so we do not fall out of the helicopter. First I was trying to get my snap link/safety line off but the pararescueman [PJ] behind me was pushing me so it pulled tight. I had a little bit of trouble getting it off; it slowed me down about 15 seconds. I then ran off the back of the aircraft. By the time I was able to get off of the aircraft, three of our team members were already dead. One team member was on the ramp with a hole in his head. There was no mistaking that he was dead. The second team member was at the end of the ramp face down in the snow. His position was such that if there had been life left in him, he would have moved his head out of the snow. I later found out that he had been shot under the arm though his chest and out his above right nipple. The last deceased team member was lying on his back at the end of the ramp not moving. These three deceased members survived the initial crash without injury, but had died from enemy fire. Their names were Marc Anderson, Brad Crose, and Matt Commons. I knew we had three killed in action [KIA], which left seven of our team, three of which were injured. I had shrapnel in the arm, but did not notice it until later. My platoon leader had shrapnel in his leg, it was a pretty good chunk, and another team member had shrapnel in his lower left calf and was moving slow. Our team knew how to fight and how to operate on the ground. The aircrew did not have the same training. I exited the aircraft and threw my rucksack off but kept it within 20 meters from me. I figured out which way we were being engaged from and I sought cover behind a cut out in the rock face. It was just big enough for four team members to kneel behind it. We set up a perimeter. Two other members were back to my right and three members to my left. I was closest to the enemy. There were two enemies about 50 meters north of us near a tree. There was one enemy behind me and to the right already dead. There were some more enemies to the south coming out. Then we started to engage the enemy. I was shooting an M4. At first, my priority was to keep engaging the enemy to hold them back and then to seek assistance for close air support [CAS] on the radio. My radio, a PRC 117F, was still in my rucksack. There was a combat controller [CCT] with us named Gabe Brown who was behind me a bit. I turned around and yelled at him to work on getting communications running, he already was working on it. I decided that I needed to be on the line fighting, if I had been on the radio, then the combat controller would have been sitting there doing nothing because he doesn't have the assault training. I decided that he should call in the CAS as I directed him. I told him my rucksack had a radio in it. A member of the crew dragged my rucksack to the CCT so he had my radio. First, we shot M203 rounds at bunker. A M203 is a grenade launcher that fits on a M4/16. As the squad leader and team leader shot M203s, I stood up and provided covering fire. When he would stand up to fire a grenade at the bunker, I would standup and shoot at the bunker to cover him. I did the same when the crewmembers would run for more ammo. We tried throwing fragment grenades at the enemy but it they were too far away and the bunker was on the backside of the hill. The enemy threw fragment grenades at us but they landed 5-10 feet in front of me, buried in the snow and blew up. I believe one of the helicopter pilots was dead and the other was injured severely. The other pilot opened the door to the aircraft and fell out of the aircraft face first. He lay there in the snow securing his area. There was no power to the aircraft without which we could not operate the mini-guns. One of the team members yelled at a member of the crew to get the power working so we could use those guns. The mini-guns shoot 7.62 ammo and so does our M240. The crew was taking ammo and giving it to our M240 gunner. When the crewmembers would run back to the aircraft for more ammo, I would standup and shoot at the bunker to cover them. They were also taking M203 rounds and magazines off of the KIA and bringing it to us. The crew pulled off insulation from the aircraft to wrap the casualties in to keep them warm. Then four of us (myself, the platoon leader, squad leader, and team leader) started to assault the tree area where the enemy was coming from while the M240 gunner suppressed it. The CPT Self, the platoon leader [PL], was in charge. Once we realized that it was a bunker, a couple of enemy came out from behind a tree and took shots at us. We were moving slow because the snow was up to our knees and we were going uphill. The platoon leader finally said let's back up and rethink this. We backed up because we could not afford to lose any more guys. The combat controller yelled that we have F-15s on station. The Platoon Leader was next to me and we discussed it. Then F-15s were overhead and the combat controller was directing them to the enemy according to my instructions. I told the combat controller to have the F-15s to strafe the bunker and have them come in from our right to our left. The CCT repeated what I said. He was smart enough that I did not have to tell him too much detail of what to say on the radio. We used the position of the helicopter to give clock directions. He had basic knowledge of CAS so I could tell him to have the fighters do gun runs on an area from which direction and he would get on the radio and make it happen. The first F-15 pass was really close and I was uncomfortable because I could not tell if the guns were pointing at my team or the enemy bunker so I told the CCT to abort it. I told him to have them come in more from behind us, so I could tell they were not pointing at us. I told him to clear them and the rounds hit right by the bunker. I told him to have them do that over and over again. I think the gun runs were made by both F-15s and F-16s. For the first 10-15 minutes, the CCT thought I was the team leader. He yelled to me 'team leader' when the team leader was sitting next to him. At this point, the team member who was injured in the leg and could not move easily was facing one way. Sgt Walker and I were pulling security on the bunker. CPT Self and I tried to determine where would be a good landing zone. The fighters did some more gun runs and the enemy was still jumping up shooting at us. The enemy was moving on us from behind us (we didn't know this at the time) but the majority of enemy were firing at us were on the hill near the bunker area. We killed seven of them. The last time I saw anyone move in the bunker, I was scanning the hilltop and I saw the upper half of an enemy behind some bushes. I shot three times, got down and stood back up. This was the last I had seen him. I never went over towards that bunker so I cannot confirm if I had killed him. Then we shot some more bombs in the bunker area. I told CCT to direct them to shoot down the backside of the hill north of us. I thought it was better to have them shoot downhill with the first one so we could walk him in to the target. The first bomb hit the backside of the hill and then I told him to bring it up and hit the tree over the bunker. The second one hit the tree dead on and split it in half. The fire from the bunker area ceased. We could not see over the hill and did not know what was over there. CCT said we have some 500-pound bombs to use. After discussing with the PL, I said let's drop them on the backside of the hill and walk them up. They were dropping them about 75 to 100 meters away from us. Some of the pilots did not want to drop them without the commander's initials because they were afraid they would kill us. At that point we were not taking any more fire from the top of the hill so the platoon leader wanted to wait until our reinforcements linked up with us before we tried moving on the top of the hill. By this time, the second helicopter landed at the bottom of the hill to our northeast and reinforcements were moving towards us. The second aircraft had ten team members on it. They moved uphill to us. This was about two and a half hours after we had crashed. On the way, they were taking some mortar fire. At one point they had bracketed us with the mortars but then they started shooting mortars down the hill to try and hit the second team members as they were coming up the hill to reinforce us. I do not know where the enemies were shooting the mortars from. Later, I learned they were being shot from a position about 300 meters from us on the backside of the hill. Finally, our reinforcements linked up with us. Sgt Walker took a couple of rounds in his helmet. When the reinforcements arrived, Sgt Walker came forward and told SSG Wilmoth which direction the enemy was located. Sgt Walker's helmet had holes in the top of the head and the side of the head. A 500-pound bomb hit just over the backside of the hilltop. It hit at an angle where it blew everything back over the top of us so it was raining debris and metal pieces down around us. That was the only point where we were really concerned with our safety from the friendly bombs. This was the last time we used the 500-pound bombs. Together we started to take the top of the hill. Once we took the top of the hill we found two more friendly bodies. They included the member who fell out of the helicopter that we were there to find and a member from the team before us that tried to go in to get him. We were sent in because they were not successful. Both members had been shot and killed. We had thirty-three members on the hill (including two deceased we found), sixteen were fighting, and three of those sixteen were wounded. The other half was working on casualties or were casualties themselves. As we took the top of the hill, we started taking fire from behind us. We had to turn around and fight the other way. Meanwhile, all of our casualties were lying out in the open down the hill. Once taking fire from the other direction, we had to go downhill to get our casualties. The casualties were the first three team members out of the aircraft and the pilot. A PJ, SrA Jason D. Cunningham, and another team member were killed from gunfire as they were going down to get the casualties. Jason Cunningham was injured seriously but did not die immediately. At this point, I was still on the top of the hill sitting next to the CCT and the PL while talking on the radio. I was reporting back to higher and CCT was talking to the aircraft. We were the command and control [C2] section. I could have taken the radio back from CCT and said that it is my job to call in CAS, but he had been working with them already and understood the landmarks he was talking about. If I had to do it, then it would have been a relearning process so I continued to monitor him and let him call in CAS. The medics kept the PJ alive for about 10 hours (about an hour and half before we got exfiltrated). I reported it to the Controller when he died. They also dropped 1000 pounders that landed 150 meters away from us. That was a little close and I made sure the CCT had them push those out a bit. It hit the nearside of the hill instead of the far side and shook the team members up. No one was injured. When the bomb hit, some debris on fire flew up into the air about 75 feet over our heads and continued on into the valley where it caught something on fire in the valley. After being on the ground for about three hours, we had to move the bodies up the mountain before we could be exfiltrated. This would have taken about one half hour. Controller asked me if the pick-up zone [PZ] was cold and how many guys we were going to lose if we waited to be exfiltrated. I asked the medic 'if we hang out here, how many guys are going to die?" The medic said at least two, maybe three. I reported to Controller 'it is a cold PZ and we are going to lose three if we wait. Just as I said it was a cold PZ, we were shot at. However, we could have made it cold by the time they got the helicopters in there. It was just every once and while the enemy would take pop shots at us. If we had CAS on station dropping bombs, we could have gotten out of there at that time. I told CCT to drop bombs down in the valley and on the small hill every now and again. Every time the plane showed up and you could hear them, we weren't being shot at. Just having the planes nearby kept the enemy away. Continuously dropping bombs discouraged them from coming after us. So every now and again, we would drop bombs on them with B52s, B-1s, those were the last aircraft we had. I cannot remember which one. I was watching our medic, he was a part of the second team, as he was working on the PJ. I saw him doing CPR on the PJ and I knew it was bad. I then saw the medic stand up, look over at me, and start walking to me. That is when I got on the radio to Controller and told him that we now have seven KIA. The whole fifteen and one half hours we were on the ground I was fighting, talking on the radio, or telling CCT what to call in. I shot a total of 420 rounds during the fifteen and one half hours. I was on the C2 line the whole time while watching over CCT's shoulder to make sure everything was all right. As the hostile fire started slowing down, I barely had to tell CCT what to do, just drop bombs over here or over there. I kept telling Controller that 'we lost another one, cold PZ, when are we getting exfiltrated?' Controller said to hold on. After asking him three times, PL expressed urgency at getting the team out of there. I continued to tell Controller but he just kept telling me to hold on. After the third time, I handed the hand mike to the PL and asked him to tell Controller the same thing. For the next thirteen hours, there were sporadic firefights from about 300 meters away. All of the close fighting was done because we had neutralized all close enemies. The mountaintop had three different peaks. We held the two highest ones. About 300 meters to our south, southeast was the third hilltop where the enemy was coming up. At one point Controller told me that the enemy was trying to reinforce with seventy guys. I was not clear if he was talking about seventy friendly or enemy. I then asked if the seventy guys coming up this way were not my friends. He said 'Roger.' I said I wanted to make sure that was clear. I tried to keep that between the PL and myself because it would have destroyed the other guys' morale. I think the PL let the team know so they could be ready. We never did see the seventy enemies. I put the PL on the radio and he was being told the exfiltration sequence of events. I was sitting next to him taking notes. Once the exfiltration plan was sorted out, we sat around and waited until the AC-130 checked in. We had them fly around and occasionally shooting. Controller said we had eight enemies moving in to our south. I never did run into them. CCT was talking to the AC-130 and I was talking to Controller. I gave Controller the approach heading, the land heading and the departure heading. There was a 090 approach heading, 235 land heading, and 270 departure heading. The first aircraft came in on a 090 and then came to a hover. I tried to get him on the radio to tell him to turn around and do a 180. I could not reach him so I called Controller and asked him to get in contact with the second and third helicopters to have them land at 180 degrees from what the first one did. It was important to have the second one land that way in order to upload the KIAs quickly. He was able to reach them and the second and third helicopters landed according to direction. Because the first one landed heading the wrong direction, the exfiltration was slowed down immensely. We had to drag the casualties all the way around the back of the helicopter and load them up. It was important that the second one landed the way it did. My entire unit got on the second helicopter while another unit got off to pull security. They then got on the helicopter and left. If they had landed the way the first one did, it would have taken a lot longer than it did. The entire exfiltration process took too long, about 15 minutes for the first two helicopters. It was all quiet when we were being exfiltrated. It felt really good when I got back and my buddies said they were sitting around the radio listening. They were impressed that I never got emotional and was calm and professional the whole time. I tried to keep a monotone voice. There were times that I tried to throw some words in there to make Controller realize that we have to get out. It became a personal conversation and we kept saying we have to get out of here. I received a minor wound to my left shoulder. It is a shrapnel puncture wound. I didn't notice it until a day later when I woke up and my shoulder felt like someone punched me. I then looked at the T-shirt I was wearing that night and noticed it was blood stained. I went through so many different emotions, excited, mad, frustrated, sad, any other emotion you could possibly feel, you feel going through this whole thing. And I felt guilty if I felt anything was funny like Sgt Walker's helmet with the holes in it because we had lost members of our team. Everyone out there just did his job. I just did my job, everything came natural and my training kicked in. There is nothing I could have changed about that day. Nothing we could have done different or better. I could not ask for a better group of guys to work with. I have trained for eight years to do this and now I had the chance to get to do my job -- that is reward enough. Everybody working together and the good Lord is what got us home. I swear that I have read this statement and it is true and correct to the best of my knowledge. This statement has been subscribed and sworn to before Capt Erin Bree Wirtanen, an officer authorized to administer oaths this 29th day of March 2002 and witnessed by Lt Col Kenneth M. Rozelsky, II. KEVIN DONELL VANCE, SSgt, USAF --------------------------- At Bagram, Afghanistan, I, Erin Bree Wirtanen, the undersigned do hereby certify that on this 29th day of March 2002, before me personally appeared SSgt Kevin Donell Vance, who signed and executed the foregoing document. I do further certify that I am a person in the service of the United States Armed Forces authorized the general powers of a notary public under 10 U.S.C. 1044a of the grade, branch of service and organization stated below and that this certificate is executed in my capacity as a person authorized notary authority under Title 10 U.S.C. 1044a. ERIN BREE WIRTANEN, Capt, USAF 332 AEG/JA Al Jaber AB, Kuwait ------------------------------- I certify I was witness to SSgt Kevin Donell Vance's oath of truthfulness and signature on the aforesaid document on the 29th of March 2002. KENNETH M. ROZELSKY, II,

A Truly Great Article From England Written by Tony Parsons Wednesday October 30, 2002 ONE year ago, the world witnessed a unique kind of broadcasting - the mass murder of thousands, live on television. As a lesson in the pitiless cruelty of the human race, September 11 was up there with Pol Pot's mountain of skulls in Cambodia, or the skeletal bodies stacked like garbage in the Nazi concentration camps. An unspeakable act so cruel, so calculated and so utterly merciless that surely the world could agree on one thing - nobody deserves this fate. Surely there could be consensus: the victims were truly innocent, the perpetrators truly evil. But to the world's eternal shame, 9/11 is increasingly seen as America's comeuppance. Incredibly, anti-Americanism has increased over the last year. There has always been a simmering resentment to the USA in this country - too loud, too rich, too full of themselves and so much happier than Europeans - but it has become an epidemic. And it seems incredible to me. More than that, it turns my stomach. America is this country's greatest friend and our staunchest ally. We are bonded to the US by culture, language and blood. A little over half a century ago, around half a million Americans died for our freedoms, as well as their own. Have we forgotten so soon? And exactly a year ago, thousands of ordinary men, women and children - not just Americans, but from dozens of countries - were butchered by a small group of religious fanatics. Are we so quick to betray them? What touched the heart about those who died in the twin towers and on the planes was that we recognised them. Young fathers and mothers, somebody's son and somebody's daughter, husbands and wives. And children. Some unborn. And these people brought it on themselves? And their nation is to blame for their meticulously planned slaughter? These days you don't have to be some dust-encrusted nut job in Kabul or Karachi or Finsbury Park to see America as the Great Satan. The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world's only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission. The truth is that America has behaved with enormous restraint since September 11. Remember, remember. Remember the gut-wrenching tapes of weeping men phoning their wives to say, "I love you," before they were burned alive. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from the top of burning skyscrapers. Remember the hundreds of firemen buried alive. Remember the smiling face of that beautiful little girl who was on one of the planes with her mum. Remember, remember - and realise that America has never retaliated for 9/11 in anything like the way it could have. So a few al-Qaeda tourists got locked without a trial in Camp X-ray? Pass the Kleenex. So some Afghan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their semi-automatics in a sky full of American planes? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti. AMERICA could have turned a large chunk of the world into a parking lot. That it didn't is a sign of strength. American voices are already being raised against attacking Iraq - that's what a democracy is for. How many in the Islamic world will have a minute's silence for the slaughtered innocents of 9/11? How many Islamic leaders will have the guts to say that the mass murder of 9/11 was an abomination? When the news of 9/11 broke on the West Bank, those freedom-loving Palestinians were dancing in the street. America watched all of that - and didn't push the button. We should thank the stars that America is the most powerful nation in the world. I still find it incredible that 9/11 did not provoke all-out war. Not a "war on terrorism". A real war. The fundamentalist dudes are talking about "opening the gates of hell", if America attacks Iraq. Well, America could have opened the gates of hell like you wouldn't believe. The US is the most militarily powerful nation that ever strode the face of the earth. The campaign in Afghanistan may have been less than perfect and the planned war on Iraq may be misconceived. But don't blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand - assuming you haven't had any chopped off for minor shoplifting. I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush's poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be - rich, free, strong, open, optimistic. Not ground down by the past, or religion, or some caste system. America is the best friend this country ever had and we should start remembering that. Or do you really think the USA is the root of all evil? Tell it to the loved ones of the men and women who leaped to their death from the burning towers. Tell it to the nursing mothers whose husbands died on one of the hijacked planes, or were ripped apart in a collapsing skyscraper. And tell it to the hundreds of young widows whose husbands worked for the New York Fire Department. To our shame, George Bush gets a worse press than Saddam Hussein. Once we were told that Saddam gassed the Kurds, tortured his own people and set up rape-camps in Kuwait. Now we are told he likes Quality Street. Save me the orange centre, oh mighty one! Remember, remember, September 11. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against America. No, do more than remember. Never forget.

After weeks of assurances that the sniper was an "angry white male," it turns out the only angry white males connected to this story are the ones in America's newsrooms. On Thursday, after being informed that the two suspects were a black Muslim called Muhammad and his illegal-immigrant Jamaican sidekick, The New York Times nevertheless reported in its early editions that the pair were being sought for "possible ties to 'skinhead militia' groups." The Feds had already released a photo of Mr. Muhammad looking like one of the less goofy members of the Jackson Five and, though one should never rush to stereotype, it seems unlikely that a black Muslim with big hair would have many "ties" to skinhead militias. But in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Times wasn't ready to give in: C'mon, there's gotta be some angry white male National Rifle Association right-wing redneck Second Amendment gun-nut neo-Nazi militia types in here somewhere, preferably living in a compound Janet Reno can come out of retirement to surround and torch. Sadly not. Instead, we have a Muslim convert. A Muslim convert who last year discarded the name "Williams" and adopted a new identity as "Muhammad." A Muslim convert called Muhammad who publicly expressed his approval of al-Qaeda's September 11th attacks. A pro-al-Qaeda Muslim convert called Muhammad who marked the first anniversary of 9/11, to the exact minute, by visiting the Department of Motor Vehicles in Camden, New Jersey. Two minutes after he left the building, the cops arrived to deal with a mysterious bomb scare What are we expert profilers to make of such confusing and contradictory characteristics? Well, obviously, those of us in the media should not to be too hasty in connecting the dots. Instead, we should rush to disconnect them. Thus, CNN finds it easier to call Mr. Muhammad "Mr. Williams," a formulation likely to be encouraged by the guy's lawyers, once they're in place, just as, in the hands of the ever sensitive media, Abdul Hamid and Abdullah al-Muhajir were tactfully restored to their maiden names of John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla. (By the way, was that a picture of Cassius Clay on the front of the National Post last week?) My local radio news described Mr. Muhammad as "an ex-soldier" and "an African-American male." Anyone spot the missing category? You can discern the preferred narrative: an African-American male from a deprived background driven psycho by military culture. But he left the army years ago and his transformation into a killer seems to be more or less coincidental with his transformation into Mr. Muhammad. But pay no attention to that. Even though the crime (the random murder of Americans of all types, ages, genders and races) and the accused (an anti-American Islamist) are a perfect match, the network criminologists continue to profess themselves perplexed by the apparent lack of motive, as if we'll shortly discover that Mr. Muhammad had been denied a promotion at Burger King or he'd been abused as a child. It doesn't really matter whether Muhammad al-Sniper was acting on orders or simply improvising. The jihad-inciters in the Middle East are happy with either. If anything, the freelance approach suits them better: you don't need complicated and traceable communications and wire transfers; the punks on the ground will act independently just to impress you. The media lapsed into the same denial mode the last time a forty-year-old radical Muslim called Mohamed opened fire on U.S. soil. July the Fourth, LAX, the El Al counter, two dead. CNN and The Associated Press all but stampeded to report a "witness" who described the shooter as a fat white guy in a ponytail who kept yelling "Artie took my job." But, alas, it was -- surprise! -- a Muslim called Hesham Mohamed Modayet. Broadly speaking, in these interesting times, when something unusual and unprecedented happens, there are those who think on balance it's more likely to be a fellow called Mohammed than, say, Bud, and there are those who climb into the metaphorical burqa, close up the grille and insist, despite all the evidence, that we should be looking for some angry white male. I'm in the former camp and, apropos the sniper, said as much in The Chicago Sun-Times. I had a bet with both my wife and my assistant that the perp would be an Islamic terrorist. The gals, unfortunately, had made the mistake of reading The New York Times, whose experts concluded it would be a "macho hunter" or an "icy loner." Speaking as a macho hunter and an icy loner myself, I'm beginning to think the media would be better off turning their psychological profilers loose on America's newsrooms. Take, for example, the Times' star columnist Frank Rich. Within a few weeks of September 11th, he was berating John Ashcroft, the Attorney-General, for not rounding up America's "home-grown Talibans" -- the religious right, members of "the Second Amendment cult" and "the anti-abortion terrorist movement." In a column entitled "How To Lose A War" last October - i.e., during the Afghan campaign -- he mocked the Administration for not consulting with abortion clinics, who had a lot of experience dealing with "terrorists." You get the picture: Sure, Muslim fundamentalists can be pretty extreme, but what about all our Christian fundamentalists? Unfortunately, for the old moral equivalence to hold up, the Christians really need to get off their fundamentalist butts and start killing more people. At the moment, the brilliantly versatile Muslim fundamentalists are gunning down Maryland schoolkids and bus drivers, hijacking Moscow musicals, self-detonating in Israeli pizza parlours, blowing up French oil tankers in Yemen, and slaughtering nightclubbers in Bali, while Christian fundamentalists are, er, sounding extremely strident in their calls for the return of prayer in school. Oh, well. It's not just the media who bend over backwards to look the other way. It turns out Muhammad al-Sniper was twice reported to the FBI for suspected terrorist links. Though living in a homeless shelter, he had the wherewithal to travel extensively round the country by plane, as the shelter's director discovered when a ticket agent called up to confirm Mr. Muhammad's booking. "At the mission, not many airline agents call and ask for residents," says the Rev. Al Archer. I'll bet. But, even after September 11th, a guy in a homeless shelter stacking up the frequent-flier miles wasn't enough to attract the Bureau's attention. As for his teen "ward" (please, no giggling), he's an illegal immigrant -- or, in the loopily PC designation of the networks, "an African-American from Jamaica," which seems a nicely inclusive way of describing a subject of the Crown. He was briefly in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but they let him go in breach of their own procedures. So 10 more Americans have been killed by a guy the FBI never bothered checking out and a guy the INS released into the community to add to the 3,000 killed by Saudis the State Department should never have approved the visas of. Perhaps it's time for at least one white male to get a little angry: the President. A Magnificant Article Written by Mark Steyn

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/12/11/pakistan.women/index.html