gotterdamerung

Britney, I love you.

If you are encouraged by the opinions of HS girls then you need to spend some time dating an 18 year old for a couple of weeks. I don't know how old you are, but if you do that your mind will be cleared and you'll be over it. Did you get any pictures of these Norwegian girls?

Well it does seem like the media has picked it up now. There is lag between what we know and what you know. Get my drift there? Well I'm stating my opinion. Like it or not, it's mine and I'm standing by it. Media is at best a 2nd hand reference. Unless you are Al Jazeera of course. Then you somehow manage to be at every atrocity committed against Americans. It is not unknown for journalists to fabricate informatin or use unreliable sources. It is not uncommon for journalists to be misled by their sources. Misinformation campaign exist out there to debunk truths and create doubt where there shouldn't be any.

They did. Those types of munitions were developed by the Soviets and some had managed to make their way over here. That round scrambled the M1 crew like a blender.

Well, we'll see I guess. It's small consolation for the guys riding the roads everyday or sitting at a checkpoint waiting for the next dirty deed to be done by some asshole with a death wish.

Good find Olyclimber. I had to change my original post after Cracked said he hadn't heard about the mustard gas. it is common knowledge over here. Obscure newspapers sometimes say alot without the major media players wanting to get involved. It's a trickle effect right now, but there is potential for it to widen. The fact that they are starting to surface lends alot of credibility to allegations that these types of weapons existed here. Even in small amounts these are very dangerous in the wrong hands. Things like this make me wonder if we don't need to open this place up to a much broader military effort, such as house to house searching and wide sweeps of the countryside. Way overdue if you ask me. Of all the things that can get you killed in wartime I fear gas the most. Anyone that has spent time in the military can tell you how painful it is to be gassed even by a relatively harmless agent such as CS. It is like being hit over and over with a sledge hammer. Nerve gas would be horrible. I can't stand even thinking about it.

What a ridiculous assertion. How feeble minded are some people and how completely brainwashed to even insult Americans with that kind of bullshit. Makes me want to join some clandestine organization that tracks reporters and arrests them for sedition. How about indignation at his death? How about resolve to finish this shit once and for all? You better grab your little minerals and make a gut check. Oh, and how about that nerve agent being downplayed in the media? There are allegations of other agents being deployed, but I haven't seen any media reports regarding that yet.

I've looked at some of the features on the various palaces for some buildering problems, but I'm afraid I would get shot by some unitiated marine guard for attempting to breach the perimeter or for just doing something wierd and out of place. Care packages come in all shapes and sizes. FHM magazine, Maxim, Victorias Secret catalogs, Playboy, skiing, climbing. The sort of thing that can transport a soldiers mind away from this place are pretty popular. Good books are worth their weight. Large packets of beef jerky, Oreo cookies, Nutter Butters, mouth wash bottles filled with JD, toiletries such as tooth paste, soap, hand wash, maybe some socks such as smart wool light hikers, under armour T-shirts in Army brown or USMC green are very popular as they are lighweight, supple, dry fast and don't stink after a few days. A well rounded care package is a huge morale boost. Some guys have families that send enough for a squad to chow down for days. Sean Halling used to send me like 12 cans of Rock Star at a time. They would be all mangled but still intact. I should have gotten some publicity photos for Rock Star, but I was too busy to think about it.

The KTK still lives...

"In German heraldry, it is said to be a lark"

Forget I asked.

Mark Twight is one of us, I had been told this by friends of mine who have hung out with him previously. Welcome aboard the short bus Mark. Interesting story. The last time I was home one of his more famous cohorts walked into Starbucks as I was educating a coffee pal of mine about how the guys were killed in Canada ice climbing earlier this year. I noticed the tall lanky fella listening intently, but not offering to join in. As he turned to leave I saw the guide service emblem on his jacket indicating to me exactly who he was. He nodded at me and I at him and he walked out. Who was he?

Are there secret kickbacks associated with these positions?

The best way out is to get the oil production flowing. This is Iraq's meat and potatoes. This single industry has the potential to employ hundreds of thousands and bring prosperity to the whole nation. I sense that we have stayed out of the oil for the time being to avoid the much warranted suspicion that this was our underlying motivation from the beginning. That, and the fact the infrastructure to get the production up was damaged. The security issues are of course a concern, but there are top notch security firms ramped up to aid the effort. They are in the process now of recruiting literally thousands to provide the protection needed. Once prosperity is in sight or the tangible benefits it will bring are realized the Iraqi people will begin to police themselves and restore order. I just now came from meeting several old Iraqi friends of mine who had much good to tell me about the Iraqi people and their perceptions of such major issues as Sadr, and the Abu Gharaib situation. They loudly and vehemently denounced Sadr as an usurper and a lunatic who has no business creating the tensions he is. Furthermore, they felt sickened by the Al Qaeda video where Nick Berg was brutally murdered, offering condolences and vowing to assist in any way possible to remove these terrorists from their soil. They hate them as much as we do. We touched on the Abu Gharaib situation and they were largely indifferent to what the media has portrayed in such a negative light. Their overall response was that it was the acts of a few depraved individuals and that it no way reflected on the experiences they have had with Coalition troops or civilians. Here, 10,000 miles from home are people that honestly appreciate the efforts being undertaken on their behalf and have only praise for the United States of America. It is good to hear. It is good to be valued when so many of our own people have either indifference or disdain for something they really can't grasp.

Exactly!

I'll tell you what. I'll come to pub club when I get back and you can try and make me stfu. How does that grab ya? Fuck off.

I think Josh is doing the right thing here. The world is changing, seeking out other opinions, and trying to make sense of everything is important. Josh seems to get out as much as anyone I know and I'm sure he enjoys the time away from the world as much as anyone possibly could hope to.

Hackworth was at one time the most highly decorated military veteran on active duty. He was a fairly high level whistle blower ( 06 Colonel ) who went public condeming the US Military effort in Vietnam as becoming mired down and fruitless. For that I applaud him. For his efforts he was forced into retirement by General Westmoreland. Since then Hackworth has made a living off of opinionated military speculation. Most of his bitches focus harshly on military command and most of them are pretty right on. He is a warrior in the truest sense of the word. However, he has little access to sources of viable interest who will speak to him. As far as I know he is the highest decorated military veteran still alive today. He expatriated to Australia a few years ago. I do agree that we went into Iraq with far fewer troops then we initially needed to get the job done. We should have come in with about 300,000 in order to not only complete the military mission at hand, but more importantly, to have a solid footprint to prevent the looting that occurred here, and disarm the population. I have flown over several Iraqi airbases that are still littered with bunkers containing munitions of the type that can be easily be converted to make I.E.D.'s and were unguarded. It took a long time to find Saddam and other high level Baath party leaders because we did not have enough troops to flood the countryside, and we certainly did not have nearly enough to prevent infiltrators from entering the country illegally via the largely unguarded borders. We still don't, and the increasingly suspect Iraqi police and military forces are certainly not meeting the challenge in front of them. At this point however, it does not seem prudent to bring more troops into the country in large numbers because we are supposed to be returning this country to sovereign rule and bringing more troops in gives the perception that we are doing exactly the opposite. And also because we probably don't have them to give. We still have other missions abroad that remain a priority for our security. The plan that the previous chairman of the joint chiefs proposed was more realistic, but was discarded by arrogant politicians who have never been in combat, and never had to spend time on the ground getting shelled. From the perspective that the conventional war is over it would be tactically unsound to continue to bring conventional troops into theatre. Rather we should be looking at more Special Ops troops replete with capable security elements (armored infantry ) and plenty of close air support in the form of helicopter gunships, medevac, and fast movers to do the job. The insurgency is relatively small and they are not very capable fighters. They are taking casualties at the rate of about 60 to 1 in Fallujah and Najaf against Big Army type units and Marine infantry. They suck to be honest, and one for one the average marine grunt is head and shoulders above these ass clowns. Most of the casualties are occurring during routine military police patrols ( a job the Iraqis should be doing ) or during convoy operations moving supplies into country. Move some of the infantry units into a convoy protection aspect and more night patrols to comb the highways for ass clowns setting I.E.D.'s and the tables will turn. But hey, what do I know? I've only been doing this thing my whole life.

Here are the moonbats:

I'm with martlet. So that would be about 2300 versus Martlet, one knuckle dragger, and one giant beast.

R.I.P. Nicholas Berg