4 Stars At The Wall

"These are yours not mine" was the inscription left at the wall under the names of three soldiers who died in the Vietnam War. Along with those words were the four stars of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace.

Left for the boys that earned them for him.

House To House: A Must Read

Probably the best book I have ever read, hands down. House to House will take you inside the fear, rage, heroics and courage of The Fight for Fallujah. The title of the book says it all. Battling the enemy from one house to the next. I have read many books on war in general and on Iraq specifically, but nothing comes as close to actually being there as this book does.

SSG David Bellavia and his men are moving from house to house. His men get pinned down in a room with several barricaded insurgents fighting from the next room over. Everything is tried and nothing works to kill the insurgents, the only option that is left is to go in there and face ‘em down. SSG Bellavia enters the hallway and begins suppressive fire toward the insurgents allowing all of his men to escape.

It does not end there, the insurgents are still an imminent threat. Bellavia decides to do the dirty work himself. He enters the house again, but what he doesn’t know is that the insurgents are doped up on adrenaline. In a face to face battle, Bellavia kills several insurgents in the first room. Bellavia hears something in the closet and thinks it’s the Boogieman. Before he can react, another insurgent jumps from the closet and is cut down by Bellavia.

Bellavia moves upstairs and takes machine gun fire from only feet away. He cuts down another insurgent. Another one fires from the first room. Bellavia tosses a grenade in and stuns the insurgents. He enters the room. A hand to hand battle ensues, Bellavia punches and smashes the insurgents face with his helmet, the enemy will not give up. The insurgent produces a hand gun and a round goes off. Bellavia is finally able to get to a knife on his belt and plunges into the enemy.

In the end of what seemed like an eternity long battle between Bellavia and the insurgents, Bellavia walked out of the house and six insurgents lay inside dead. Realistically, he killed several of them more than once. If they were not doped up they would have dies much sooner. Bellavia continued fighting for days after this incident. He was nominated for the Medal of Honor and received the Silver Star.

American Hero, Navy SEAL Mike Murphy

As a follow up to my post regarding Operation Redwing, where a four man SEAL sniper team battled two hundred Taliban fighters to lose three of its four members, Lt. Mike Murphy will be posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions that lonely day in Afghanistan. His family will accept the medal at the White House next week.

US Attack On Our Ally Turkey?

Has anyone stopped to think of the Democrats’ motivations regarding the resolution convicting Turkey of Genocide against the Armenians back in World War I? I understand they want to make everything right even if it was something that happened before any of them were born, but their motivations are not to document genocide and list Turkey as the committer of it. No, just like raising taxes to help support the war as they claim, but rather gaining dissent against the war, this is just another tactic used to help defeat the American soldiers on the ground in Iraq.

Turkey is one of strongest allies not only in the region but in the War in Iraq as well. By passing this resolution against the Turks for something that happened so long ago, we risk Turkey pulling its support from us. Not only will we lose their support, we may lose their cooperation regarding US bases in Turkey. Turkey borders Iraq and acts as our main land based supply line into Iraq. If we lose this route into Iraq, it will become inherently difficult to get supplies to our troops in a timely manner. It will also affect our response capabilities with strike aircraft based in Turkey.

This is just another way for the Democrats to try and lose this war. They will continue to try plots such as these to try and affect the outcome of the war. Instead of just battling on the grounds that they do not believe we should be in Iraq, they have to resort to sulky activities such as these.

Attempted Attack on US Embassy In Vienna

On Monday, officials arrested an Islamic Bosnian after he entered the US Embassy in Vienna wearing a backpack filled with grenades, plastic explosives, shrapnel and a Muslim prayer manual. A second suspect was arrested Tuesday.

Not much information on this yet but it adds to the running tally of attacks, attempted for fulfilled, that we find ourselves the victim of.

San Jose Man Held For Aiding Terrorists

A judge ruled in favor of federal prosecutors, stating that a San Jose man charged with aiding terrorist must remain in jail pending his trial. Rahmat Abdhir was arrested on August 2nd after a federal grand jury indicted him for aiding terrorists. Abdhir, a computer engineer, was caught sending weapons, camouflage clothing and thirty radios to his brother, Zulkifli Abdhir, 41, a high ranking members of an Al-Qaeda off shoot group. Zulkifli Abdhir is designated as a “specially designated global terrorist” by the US government. Parts of the radios that were sent were used as a detonator in a terrorist bomb blast that killed five people in the Philippines last year.

The American Standard

So I have been accused of being over the top, on the radical right just as far off center as the left wing nut jobs that seek to destroy our country. Let me ask you this, do you know what is happening within and to our country? Considering yourself a moderate or just right there of will not win the war against the enemy or those who seek to destroy our country within. Let’s review some of the current events that occurred recently.

General Petraeus goes before Congress and issues the much anticipated report on Iraq. He stated that although we have a long way to go to complete our mission, we have been successful. MoveOn.org responds by taking out a full page ad in the New York Times stating, General Petraeus or “General Betray Us” just because they did not like what he said. The New York Times also gave MoveOn.org a significant discount to run this add, showing their alliance with the organization and the left.

A “soldier” claims to have come back from Iraq and stated that he has committed many atrocities, including gunning down women and children leaving a Mosque. It is determined that this person never really served in the military after being kicked out of boot camp. His entire story was fictitious in an effort to undermine support for the war and he was sentenced to 5 months in jail for falsifying his military record. Rush Limbaugh, referring to this individual and others who have done the same, called them “phony soldiers”. The left wing propaganda machine spun his comment to mean that all veterans who are against the war are “phony soldiers”, not just the ones who are actually making war crimes up.

When MoveOn.org ran the ad, there was disgust and up-roar about not supporting our troops and attempting to disgrace a decorated war veteran. When people asked politicians to go on the record and condemn the ad, left wing extremists like Harry Reid refused to do so. Now, with Limbaugh’s comment taken out of context, Harry Reid was the first person to stand on the floor of Congress and condemn his remarks.

A store in Reno, Nevada flies the Mexican flag above the American flag. Federal law codifies the display of the American flag and that no other flag should fly above it, however it is not an enforceable law. A veteran goes to the store and without violent incident or interference from the store owner cuts both flags off the pole. The veteran stated that the American flag would not be desecrated on his watch. Instead of the incident being a mute issue or the owner of the store facing legal troubles, it is now being discussed that charges be brought against the veteran for protecting the American flag.

School Districts in Illinois have added Ramadan to the list of official holidays to be observed by the schools. Illinois schools have also banned Halloween and resorted to calling Christmas a winter festival. All this to avoid offending Muslims at the risk of offending others.

Soldiers coming home from Iraq land in Oakland for a layover while en route to their base in Hawaii. Oakland airport states that the troops are not welcome in the main terminal and instead are directed to sit in a warehouse hundreds of yards away out of the view of other passengers.

The United States Marine Corps silent drill team is traveling the country performing demonstrations for enthusiastic crowds. They prepare to perform in San Francisco and want to film the event for publicity purposes. San Francisco refuses to let them perform stating nothing as their justification. San Francisco is the same city that tried to ban the US Navy Blue Angels jet team from flying at the annual fleet week last year.

Congressional “leaders” of our country have resorted to referring to members of the US military as being things less than heroic. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) compared members of the US military to Nazi guards, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) accused military personnel of being “cold blooded killers” and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) stated “Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management”.

Democrats have come up with a new tactic in their war on war. In a revived effort to cut and run from the War, democrats think they can scare Americans by raising taxes. They claim they can better manage the war with more money created from raising taxes. Hello! This is the same group that battle President Bush when he asks for more money to fund the war. The Democrats believe that by raising taxes, Americans will be un-willing to pay and thus be more susceptible to the idea of pulling out of Iraq.

I am sure there are many more examples I could lists but you get the idea. Put aside the War in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places, this is directed towards what we are doing to ourselves. United we stand, divided we fall. Ever heard that one? Uniting as a country under one goal is the only way to win. I understand that is idealistic and we will always be split down the middle, but do we have to be split on things such as Flag desecration and bowing down to Muslim demands at the sacrifice of long standing American traditions. Do we have to play political games and bicker back and forth, while we name call our troops and refuse to stand on their behalf?

We should all be ashamed of ourselves. Those of you who commit these acts and defile our nation’s moral foundations and destiny and those of us who fail to stand for what is right. If you refuse to stand on behalf of what is right then you are just as wrong as those who stand on the other side.

It’s common sense. Even if you are against the War, that does not mean you have to act with callous disregard to our men and women in uniform or for what America stands for. America stands for all that is just and right in this world. You can argue about how we go about accomplishing things but you cannot argue that the goal of America is freedom and peace.

This is a defining moment in time. Inaction accomplishes nothing. Take a stand for what is righteous. We are Americans…let’s start acting like it.

Lone Survivor: Operation Redwing

Operation Redwing was designed to kill or capture a high ranking Taliban leader in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan. The mission was assigned to a four man sniper unit of Seal Team 10. They were to infill behind enemy lines and lay eyes on a village suspected to hide the Taliban leader. The enemy opposition was estimated to be 80-200 hardened Taliban fighters. The mission was to get in undetected, kill or capture the leader and exfill without confronting the Taliban fighters. The mission would end with the label of being the largest loss of Special Operations life in history.

In his book, “Lone Survivor”, author and only surviving members of the four man sniper team, Marcus Latrell relays the following chain of events that tested his SEAL training and mental toughness.

The four members of SEAL Team 10 fated for this mission were commanding officer Mike Murphy, Matthew Axelson, Danny Dietz and Marcus Latrell. They infilled into the mountain range and hiked through the night with 65 pounds of gear a piece on very technical terrain. The made into their hide or observation point early the next morning and laid eyes on the village.

After a while, three Afghans came upon them. Fearing they were Taliban, the SEALs took the upper hand and engaged the Afghans. They claimed they were goat herders and not Taliban, a statement made more plausible due to the sheep surrounding them. The team knew that if they released them they would most likely alert the Taliban. They had to decide whether to release them or kill them. Due to fear of reprisal for their actions back home they elected to let them live.

Shortly after, the team noticed approximately 100 Taliban fighters standing on the ridge preparing their attack. The “goat herders” had alerted the Taliban. Now the four SEALs were faced with battling 100 Taliban. The Taliban began to close on their general position not knowing exactly where they were. The fire fight started when one Taliban got to close and was dropped by Latrell.

The battle raged for hours. The Americans were falling back as the Taliban pressed their attacks. Several times the Americans were almost overrun when the Taliban had their flanks covered. During the relentless combat there after, Dietz took six AK 47 rounds at different times. After each shot, he returned to the fight and continued dropping the enemy. At one point Dietz was being dragged away after taking an AK 47 round. He held his M4 rifle up with one hand and was continuing to kill Taliban fighters.

As the enemy continued pressing their attack, the four SEALs continued killing them. It was approximately 45 Taliban against each SEAL. As the SEALs continued gunning down and killing them enemy more and more appeared on the ridge. They were constantly re-enforcing their ranks and pressing the attack.

The SEALs were still battling hard. Axelson, who had already been shot in the stomach, took another round to the head which blew off the right side of his head. After staggering up the hill, he regained his sense and continued engaging the enemy.
Commanding Officer Mike Murphy attempted to get comms with a QRF but was unable. As a last resort, he moved into the clear risking being shot by the Taliban to make a last desperate cell phone call. He made contact and asked for help and stated his men were dying. Back at base, other SEALs immediately mounted up and moved into the mountains by helicopter. While trying to get to their buddies, the helicopter took an RPG round and crashed. All SEALs on board and the 160th SOAR Nightstalker crew perished.

By this time, Mike Murphy, Matthew Axelson and Danny Dietz were dead. Latrell was blown down the mountain and was able to avoid capture. Over the next day, Latrell watched as the enemy searched for him and was able to kill several more of them.

Members of the local village came upon Latrell and discussed whether to help him or turn him over to the Taliban. The villagers are not Taliban but do help them in the mountains. An old tradition says that if they take someone in to the village they must protect him with their lives. They elected to help him and hide him from the Taliban.

Over the next six days, the village elder helped Latrell survive, dressed his gunshot and shrapnel wounds and evade the Taliban. Later, the village elder would walk 65 miles to an American base to inform them of Latrell’s position. During the six days they had many close calls involving the Taliban looking for Latrell but with the help of the villagers, he was able to stay alive.

In the end, Latrell and several members of the village left the village to move to an American friendly base several miles away. As they left, they became encircled by the Taliban. Just then, an American Ranger came out of the bushes and greeted Latrell. Latrell informed them of the enemy’s positions and air strikes began pounding the enemy.

The loss of special operations life on this mission is unfathomable, but much must be said about the character of these men. To sustain so much tragedy as a team, all suffering from gunshot and shrapnel wounds, seeing their friends and brothers die and they did not quite. They continued to fight, killing over 100 hardened Taliban fighters. These men are true heroes, the sacrificed everything for each other, so that the other guy would live. This is what our American military is all about. These are the greatest men of our generation.