FINALLY.

You Tube

As some of you know, in 2006 NPR asked me to do a piece for This I Believe. When the compilation book came out my essay was selected for the book. Last night I did my first public reading and got to give out my first autograph. This is the video of my reading.

Iraq Photo Archive

www.iraqphotoarchive.blogspot.com

If you served in Iraq and have pictures or video to share go to the link and help out. I want to show America what we see and not what the media shows.

We have seen things the media wont or can't show. Soldiers being soldiers, serving with honor and fighting with valor.

E-mail the site from there and I'll send out submission requirements.

Thanks Brothers.

What the World Thinks of Me or What I Think of the World.

OBSERVERS FRANCE CHANNEL 24

Just some work I've been doing for the Europeans.

Another Year of Rememberance, Another Year at War.

I want all Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsman; active, reserve, and National Guard; past and present to begin a new tradition. On all military days of remembrance wear your dog tags on the outside. Let the people of America see who you are and that you are proud. Proud of your service if not the policies that led to that service.

Our actions are not their actions. Let America see the mark we carry to let those know who we were when we passed and show them that we are still here and remember those who aren't.

DOG TAGS OUT ON MEMORIAL DAY AND ALL MILITARY HOLIDAYS.

REMEMBER US BUT MORE SO REMEMBER THEM.


SSG Steven H. Bridges, 33, of Tracy, Calif.

SPC Joseph M. Blickenstaff, 23, of Corvallis, Ore.

SPC Christopher J. Rivera Wesley, 26, of Portland, Ore.

SPC Michael M. Merila, 23, of Sierra Vista, Ariz.

PVT Bradli N. Coleman, 19, of Ford City, Pa.

SGT Jacob H. Demand, 29, of Palouse, Wash.

SPC Kenneth M. Cross, 21, of Superior, Wisconsin

PFC Daniel G. Dolan, 19, of Roy, Utah

SGT Lucas T. White, 28, of Moses Lake, Wash.

SPC Justin R. Garcia, 26, of Elmhurst, N.Y.

SSG Hector Leija, 27, of Houston, Texas

SGT Chadrick Domino, 23, of Ennis, Texas

SPC Romel Catalan, 21, of Los Angeles, California

SSG JAKE THOMPSON 26, of North Mankato, Minn

SGT NICK GUMMERSALL 23, of Chubbuck, ID

SPC JUAN ALCANTARA 22, of New York

SPC KAREEM R. KAHN 20, of Manahawkin, N.J.

4,081 and counting...and remembering.

What Children Have Known or (Insert Whitney Houston Song Lyrics Here)

Every war has had children lose parents either on the battlefield or as an accident of battle. I, as a soldier, have lost 17 friends. We knew each others names, faces, even bad jokes that we'd repeat over and over.

Every few months my son will come home from school hearing about how another one of his friends lost a parent. Just this past Friday was the latest.

Soldiers know the price they personally have to pay. What we have always regretted about our job is not the act but the people we leave behind, alone. I have seen children of friends at memorial services stoically sitting as the tears choke them. Many times have the flags at schools flown at half-staff for a fallen Mom or Dad. Many times have friends of my children moved on as they emptied their house on post to return to a hometown that will always miss something and always carry a reminder of someone lost.

War and children are nothing new nor will their perverse marriage ever end as long as Daddies are needed to fight an enemy legitimate or not. To think that we will ever end what children know of war is to dream. They know and accept the reality better than most adults; maybe, just maybe they will be the ones whose children have fewer friends that have to move because of an irrevocable loss.

Remember that we were once the children and now the men who fight. Teach the children strength to fight the cruelty of this world we manifest from within as to ensure that it never evolve into the next war.

Finally Starting to Fix What is Broken.

I have, for years, told soldiers that if you know how something works you'll know how to fix it. The Army Center for Enhanced Performance came to the Warrior Transition Unit to give a class for the Cadre. ACEP, to anyone inclined to think so, would find it to be some touchy feely California fluff. When the hard numbers came out though, even accupuncture was, for lack of a better word, bunked.

For years soldiers and their psychology have been removed to the "stop being a pussy" shelf while families and children suffered for it. The culture of Alpha males is being reworked as we come to accept that we are all wired differently. Training is easy, believe it or not killing is easy, killing with purpose is even easier. Dealing with the residue is hard.

I and every member of the Armed Services live 9/11 and Iraq every day. Every appointment, class, manual, briefing, and range is not for readiness its preparedness. You will go, have gone, or are preparing to go again.

A man can take so much. Camels backs seem to be the number one injured body part in todays army.

ACEP using imaging, goal setting, relaxation techniques, and attention control backed by hard research numbers and used in conjunction with more traditional therapies have given soldiers like me avenues we would have poo poo'd in the past.

Books like On Combat and On Killing have brought the reality of psychological combat trauma to the eyes of the brass up top. This non new age approach to psychology and its reality is akin to the acceptance of chiropractic therapy without that lifeforce nonsense tacked on.

We are a different war, more importantly we are a different world. We accept certain Truths as real while filtering out fluff. Just as Galileo demystified the night sky so today is modern medicine finding fact in what before was only a Platonic TRUTH.

How Long Will It Last or This Is/Is This the End.

After 9/11 the American flag industry went into a golden age of profits. Homes, cars, T-shirts, and beer bottles were covered in red white and blue. If you didn't have a flag somewhere in your possession you may as well be a card-carrying member of the bin-Laden Fan Club.

Six years and seven months later the car flags have torn and been discarded, you moved and just haven't gotten around to putting up the flag again, and everyone is sick of the war. Even the fervent right and their attempt to demonize Obama for not wearing a flag pin had that exorcised quickly.

This is not a pro-flag/anti-flag rant. It is about our short memory.

Remember when the Vietnam vets were finally getting some respect in the 80s. By 1990 they were being seen as a throwback to the Cold War. By 1995 Somalia and Desert Storm vets were being forced out of an ever-shrinking military that was finding any way to get rid of them.

My question to you now is how long will it last. Right now every company gives boo-boo band-aid gifts of sneakers and boxes of Lunchables while soldiers still have serious medical and financial issues from deploying. Ten years from now what will we be giving. Will the USO have the money to have something as simple as a sandwich for the soldier returning from Korea. Will the free goodies be all they are given so the givers can walk away (3:10 to Yuma reference) or will the schooling, VA benefits, retirement monies, and public sympathy be gone followed by a "What more do you want" attitude.

Remember this in 2012 when this war is, hopefully, over and the PTSD, injuries, and need for benefits catch up to us in spades.

Why Are These Guys Still Around or Liars and Tyrants, and Bears.

Now that Castro has "quit" I want to ask a question.

WHAT MADE SADDAM WORSE.

Wal Mart whores us out to Chinese Communists while Blackhawk makes tactical gear for guys who fought in the country where their gear is made now...Vietnam.

Africa bleeds and Africans lose arms and lives while we "go to Jared."

Pakistan helped make Bin Laden while hoping to make India glow in the dark. India has made an entire class of "untouchables" to touch sewage and corpses while they outsource the outsourced.

We trade with theocrats and fanatics, war with same, make them richer, and wave off the attacks because Mexicans are a danger to security.

We buy from companies that sent our father's and grandfather's jobs away while we still buy their crap products made by untrained and uncaring workers.

We are better than this. Theodore Roosevelt once said he would drive every colonial power out of this hemisphere by bayonet point. That's who we are. The people who would starve before whoring ourselves out to be comfortable. The people who would die rather than give in to a nicety from our captor.

Let's be the America, again, that makes those poor and oppressed in those countries listed above look at us as an example. We're still that America, we have it in our blood and we must let it out.

Vet's, let's be the ones to start it. Let's show the rest of America why we did it. Not for Bush, not for Iraq, but for America.

A Real G.I. Bill or Me Want To Learn To Be More Smarter.

I have never been a lover of the 50s. The music was vapid, the clothes showed the repression of the age, we shipped off our pregnant daughters to far off relatives, and we actually believed that Ozzie and Harriet was realistic. I will say that the 50s had one great thing...

A NATION OF EDUCATED VETERANS.

The WWII G.I. Bill gave you 100% tuition. No paying for books, lab fees. boarding. nothing. We produced thousands upon thousands of educated men who also had a wartime experience to temper their thoughts and give them experience. In 1047 over 49% of college students were vets.

The 50s were filled with prosperity and innovation due, in large part, to the education of those who gave a part of their lives so we could have all of ours.

Today I work with veterans, like myself, who talk of leaving our home states because they have little to no education benefits. We pay for books on minimum wage jobs. We try to go to school on active duty while our units go to the field and war because it is free while you're in. Many fail and give up trying. We give a huge piece of ourselves to this country and its people while the fanatics on both sides look at us with the "what more do you want" face. Our jobs, founded by WWII vets, are finding their way to India and China as we vote our economic interests away because we think "he kicks ass."

America wake up. Give us a least a piece of what we gave you. We will build jobs, factories, homes, and lives. We will do what vets in the past did and build us up to what we fought for. Vote for the half million of us who lost something in this war and you will gain from us. We did it so you wouldn't have to. That would be the best way to thank us.

Forced Patriotism, American Flags, Cuba, Texas, and The Confederacy or Alright, We Get it "Go America."

Driving through parts of Texas is like a Ford and flag plant next to each other exploded. I see a guy with Ford F-350 Super Duty Lariat with duelies and a Triton V-10 on a six-inch lift driving with a six by eight foot American flag jammed into the tow hitch on back. As I pass him in my obviously non-masculine Jeep he has the standard issue Jesus fish, NRA badge, yellow ribbon magnets, and huge bass sticker on the back window and I wonder. What has he done to make himself so proud of America.

America is a great country, we evolve and change as needed. Sometimes we don't. I couldn't give him the benefit of the doubt so I figured he, as most over-patriots, wasn't a combat vet. Did he want some form of health care, did he do the Christian thing and help the homeless and the coloreds of his town. Did he hate Mexicans and brown immigrants. When was the last time he actually did something for his state, community, or people. I figured the Toby Keith CD he bought last week helped stimulate the economy.

Was he the kind who said that the Founding Fathers would be appalled at the America they would see today. Did he teach evolution or Invisible Manism to his kids. Did his donations to charity equal what he spent in the gas tank of his truck. Did he even realize his truck was one of the reasons we pay what we pay for gas. Did he hate the queers and the liberals. How many times did he rejoice in the death of someone who he didn't agree with. He may not be in the Minutemen but he likes that "They're keeping them out."

As his truck thundered onto the highway and he passed me with a douchbag frat boy smirk about him I remembered that I have to accept him too. Even if he is a drain and not a benefit.

As for the combat vet part, if you have given nothing directly back to your country by either serving the Government, community, charity, schools, cops, firemen, or anything else civil service related you haven't learned what it is to appreciate what it means to earn the right to be able to fly that flag.

Educating the world...again.

Tell me what you think.

Ya Got Me!

My last post gave my reasons for quitting. Finger in the dike. Since then I have had dozens of e-mails and comments asking why why why. I said to myself about a week after posting it that if I reached 6500 profile views by the New Year I would write again. I'm at 6,597. I have had several media outlets write as well to get my reasons why.

Many of you wrote, some madder than hell about it. Some of you seemed to be glad. Either way I had a response I would have never expected. I want to thank you all for taking the time to show me you actually read and have an interest in what one soldier has to say.

So lock up your daughters and come back in a few days for more.

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long but better than not burning at all.

I QUIT!

Band of Bloggers did it. This is the last time I get overlooked as one of the bloggers that came to fame because of Iraq. The documentaries and news bits in minor newspapers are not enough to make the effort for the 2 people a month who now e-mail me.

If anyone cares to hear more go to the media whores and glory-hounds of the new bloggers. The ones e-mailing me about book deals and movie rights.

If you can all give me a reason to continue to be abused by the wanna-bes and the Johnny-Come-Lately's, I will.

Goodbye.

HOME FOR AN EMERGENCY. BE BACK NEXT WEEK.

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let The Head Bugs Bite.

Sometimes it's a clonapin, sometimes it's Nyquil, and sometimes it's a 12 ounce sleeping pill, but for the last 15 months I have had trouble sleeping. Tired and worn I get into bed and roll around like a log in a flume. I have had dreams of my friends bored and terrified in Iraq. I've had dreams of the bodies of friends who died while I stayed here. I have screamed in my sleep and kicked my poor wife in countless battles far removed from my bedroom.

In the back half of last month First Battalion Twenty-Third Infantry Regiment of the Third Brigade Second Infantry Division, the Army's First Stryker Brigade, came home from their second tour in Iraq. As the first time weary from mission, raids, salvation of other units at the behest of higher command, and innumerable survived attacks, they came home.

Three and a half months longer than the last and at least twice as stressful, they came home to their families, friends, and for some their empty rooms and full bottles.

I have heard from some, I wish to hear from more, but knowing they're home makes my bed warmer, and makes the chemicals that lull me less necessary. I'll need them again soon. But for now they are content with just being here and I'll share it with them 2,000 miles away.

When they need to close the gate to the flume that jostles them in their sleep the same names will come to their minds. Let's hope that we all never NEED any of them.

Terror, Treason, and Dates or Not All Freedom Fighters are Terrorists.

We have this wonderful analogy from the leftist ultra-lunatics that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers were terrorists just like the criminals we're fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. First let me give you the battlefield hierarchy.

1. Soldiers - Members of an organized military belonging to a recognized government that are authorized to wage war on their behalf.

2. Militias - Members of an organized force that has warrant from the government to wage war on its behalf.

3. Guerillas - Members of an organized force with a clear chain-of-command that generally behaves with military discipline and answers to a higher rank and higher leadership.

4. Terrorists - Members of an organization that commit acts against an organized force that results in the death of both those targeted and innocents.

GW and TJ were part of the first three. El Che lovers and the rest of the left who like to support all things non-American were the same ones who used the term "revolutionary" to describe the 18th Century white land-owning males who founded this country. The term was used to describe them as psuedo-communist sympathizers for those guilty white liberals in the campuses of America during a time when the gulags and genocide were something the general public knew nothing about.

The phrase is "Treason is merely a matter of dates." The only thing treason and terrorism have in common is five letters. Being treasonous against Britain and targeting and killing civilians are not the same. To call an Islamo-Fascist a freedom fighter is like calling Che Guevarra a model of righteous revolution. (Remember he was Castro's chief executioner)

Justification of ones beliefs has always driven the wagon of historical inaccuracy forward. I knew a couple of guys who would suck on a bong while talking about how Jesus smoked. The university professor comparing victims to war criminals so he looks learned. The pundit comparing his view to that of Martin Luther King.

I don't speak for men who died 200 years ago and I most certainly don't speak for today's "revolutionaries", but the idea that terrorists and George Washington are the same thing is like saying that Saddam Hussein and 9/11 go together.

What You See, What They See, and What No One Sees or Everyone Who Did Something Feels They Did Nothing.

I was watching Ken Burns The War and the footage of the Naval battle in the Pacific was playing and I thought "What the hell ship is this guy on that he can film this thing." Then I realized that while I was in battle if there was a break of more than 2 seconds I was watching the battle around me.

Most vets say they didn't do much. Most guys will say that others saw worse, until he remembers what he did and where he was. I had dozens of men in my sights and some fell during the firestorm around me. Not sure if they fell from mine or others but it was more than once, maybe twice, I had men only one ounce of pull away from death. Still I feel like I didn't do enough or as much as others.

The documentary also took me away on one scene where the Kamikaze was flying through the lead wall of flak and it changed color to green filtered and blurred taking me back to the five day siege we laid on Tel Afar. I remembered seeing the AC-130 sending precision death down on terrorist positions while the occasional Delta sniper popped a round here and there surely dropping a stray Hajj' that could run faster than his buddy.

Then I thought of the humility that comes with being part of history, knowing that the 17 years of military service prior to this was never going to be found in any delineation of world events. I had forced myself into a place where, truly, few men go and survive.

We are Jolly Green Giants walking the Earth, with guns.

Seems like we put ourselves where we wanted only to find we never wanted to go back save to be with our friends.

War is an addiction and the only way to get off the wagon is to volunteer to get back on. But, can we really ever go cold turkey. Maybe war is just a way to prove ourselves so we can feel we are the man we thought we could be. Maybe, just maybe soldiers on both sides want another Christmas Truce so we can see that the man on the far side of the trench is a soldier and not a monster. But then again if we didn't fight "monsters" we wouldn't want to kill them.

Oh, So This is What They're Talking About..."P" TSD. Now It Makes Sense.

I have days when I just laugh out loud at some of the near misses I survived in Iraq. RPGs, IEDs, small arms fire pinging off the ground at my feet. I remember the shrapnel that hit my chest when I was running to the tower after the RPG near-missed a Kiowa helicopter. I remember walking through pitch black fields during no moon nights in Fallujah using only the green-filtered nightmare of what Vietnam vets called a Starlite scope to open the darkness the Hajj' used to hide right beside us. I remember the raids when we'd bust through the smoke and fragments left by the water-impulse charge after blowing the door and entering the room that was usually empty; sometimes it wasn't.

But none of that keeps me up at night.

Jake's face followed by Alcantara, Gummersal, and Khan. Then the blast. John outside crying into the arms of a Platoon Sergeant doing the same. Knowing I wasn't there. Knowing that I had no hope of saving or even seeing his last smile before he called me a fag and went in. Not being there when Hector was shot because of a lazy Iraqi cop mistake and bad commo. Not being there when Strong's legs were blown out from under him as he stood in the hatch pulling security in a place where that phrase is an oxymoron.

Why do those of us who stayed behind, those of us with responsibilities outside the Army, those others who chose lives after Iraq, those of us who still wish to feel the need to be there when it happens yet knowing it could have been us. Why does THIS and not the near-death punctuated blur of combat affect us.

Worse, why do they understand. Why does no one pass judgment. Why does no one say, " You shitbag, you abandoned us."

Both sides have reasons and valid points but what America doesn't understand when they choose a side is that we hold both opinions.

They don't pass judgment, they don't complain, they don't hate because they feel the same as I do, and they would feel the same as me if they were here with me.

So they know I'm feeling without asking...and they'll never ask.

Message/Messenger or Ball of Confusion

The military and America have had an issue since the Vietnam war. You can't separate the war and its politics from the soldier who enforces those policies. Every soldier you talk to who supports the war tooth and nail believes that the policy of this war and his purpose in it are one in one.

How do we equate one with the other.

Vietnam was a fiasco that killed almost 60,000 Americans for a failed policy. The soldier though was honorable. He won the battles, killed his enemy, and helped civilians in need when able. Iraq sees the same and better from today's Army since we all volunteered. Taking nothing from the Vietnam vet there is a difference in this Army of 2007.

My friends died for US, the Brothers, soldiers. One of them had his family come out on TV after his death and say that he died for our freedom. Iraq and our freedom are like shit and chocolate. Looks the same but, not so much.

WE ran to Iraq to fight against Saddam but the Sudan, Cuba, and China still die in tyranny. For some reason though we follow because America said IRAQ.

YEAH, FUCK THE HAJJ', SAND NIGGER MOTHER FUCKERS.

But what about Cuba, Sudan, China, even Russia.

FUCK THEM THEY CAN FIGHT IF THEY WANT TO BE FREE.

My Brothers in arms, just because the policy is fucked doesn't mean we are. We do our job well. We save our friends and we execute mission as best we can. We save the children from the fire of the enemy and hand them clothing to see them smile. We deliver school supplies to newly educated girls and kill the monsters who would oppress them.

Just admit that we are better than the policies that get our friend killed. We are better than the enemy we fight and that WE are not the policy of the animals making millions off our blood. We have been conned into believing that their policy helps us but none of their children stand next to us as we bleed.

America wake up and see that the con of the elite has taken the poor and taught them to accept the bullshit that they deserve our deaths to line their pockets.

FOOTNOTE:
Muslim extremists still need to die by the way and I still hate Communists.

Another Close One or Lightning Does Strike The Same Place Twice.

Since the start of this war I have lost 13 men I know personally. Two I knew closely, one actually wrote and wished I was there with him to help carry the conversation. He said it wasn't the same without me.

Those of you out there who have been know the guilt at not going back. Those of us who have been know we could have done nothing regardless of where we were at the time it happened. The cowards weapon used was faceless and nameless. The euphemism HBIED for House Borne Improvised Explosive Device doesn't change the fact that a coward killed four men with a weapon that has no name and no face to fire back upon. Those of us who were there, especially with them, know what this feeling is, what this guilt of survival is.

This is no rant about politics, Bush, or withdrawal, this is about soldiers. We who lost a part of us, left it behind because we chose to. We are stoic on our facade and anguished inside. We feel the loss of one some liked, some loved, some despised, but all remember.

"We set out to save the Shire Sam, but not for me."

Those of you who have been should know what this means. Especially after something like this you are reminded. We never left and we feel every death as if it was our own. Those who were close only make the tears stream down longer.

SSG JAKE THOMPSON

SGT NICK GUMMERSALL

SPC JUAN ALCANTARA

SPC KAREEM R. KAHN

Blackhawk Company 1-23 Infantry Battalion.

Killed by a House Borne Improvised Explosive Device in Iraq on 6 August 2007

I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU.