On The Third Hand

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.
Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.
You can’t tell a vet just by looking.
What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.
He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn’t come back at all.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.
He is the parade-riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say “Thank You.” That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
- Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

Thank you to all those who have served. We owe you more than we can ever repay.

Local Gold Star Families Take Secret Trip to Iraq

“In a stunning and historic trip under the utmost secrecy, a delegation of families of fallen U.S. troops have traveled to Iraq to counter critics of the war effort, just days before the Nov. 7 midterm elections.”

The anti-war bunch aren’t going to like this.

(Thanks to everyone who emailed me this one.)

Please go read this post at Rantings of a Sandmonkey: In praise of the human spirit. (In fact, just bookmark that blog, if you haven’t already.)

Gallants attend, and hear a friend, Trill forth harmonious ditty,
Strange things I’ll tell, which late befell In Philadelphia city.

“Twas early day, as poets say, Just when the sun was rising,
A soldier stood, on a log of wood, And saw a thing surprising.

As in amaze he stood to gaze, The truth can’t be denied, sir,
He spied a score of kegs or more, Come floating down the tide, sir.

A sailor, too, in jerkin blue, This strange appearance viewing,
First damn’d his eyes, in great surprise, Then said, “Some mischief’s brewing.”

From morn till night, these men of might Display’d amazing courage;
And when the sun was fairly down, Retir’d to sup their porridge.

An hundred men, with each a pen, Or more, upon my word, sir,
It is most true would be too few, Their valor to record, sir.

Such feats did they perform that day, Against those wicked kegs, sir,
That years to come, if they get home, They’ll make their boasts and brags, sir.

Francis Hopkinson (1731-1791)

More on the Battle of the Kegs here.

Wishing all Americans a very happy Independence Day! (The rest of you can have a happy 4th of July. )

This Memorial Day, buy a poppy, and wear it to remind yourself, and others, that freedom has a price; Memorial Day is the day we honor those who paid that price. And we can enjoy this holiday because they paid for our freedom.

I certainly hope not. Dafydd ab Hugh points out what we would have to do to win such a war. In (verbally) graphic detail. Note that he thinks the proponents of the “at war with all Islam” side do want a military war - like WWII (I agree, from what I’ve been hearing) and that is the scenario he paints.

Mightier Than the Pen - Why I gave up journalism to join the Marines.

A year ago, I was at my sister’s house using her husband’s laptop when I came across a video of an American in Iraq being beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The details are beyond description here; let’s just say it was obscene. At first I admit I felt a touch of the terror they wanted me to feel, but then I felt the anger they didn’t. We often talk about how our policies are radicalizing young men in the Middle East to become our enemies, but rarely do we talk about how their actions are radicalizing us. In a brief moment of revulsion, sitting there in that living room, I became their blowback.

Of course, a single emotional moment does not justify a career change, and that’s not what happened to me.

Well worth reading. Via the Instapundit, who thinks so too.

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.
Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg — or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.
Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.
You can’t tell a vet just by looking.
What is a vet?
He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.
He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.
She — or he — is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.
He is the POW who went away one person and came back another — or didn’t come back AT ALL.
He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat — but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other’s backs.
He is the parade — riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.
He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.
He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.
He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket — palsied now and aggravatingly slow — who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.
He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being — a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.
He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.
So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say “Thank You". That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.
— Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

I really can’t say it any better than he did. Thank you to all who served and do serve. We owe you more than we can ever repay.

Gates of Fire

Michael Yon, reporting from Iraq.

If don’t have him on your read-list yet, put him there. He’s probably the best war reporter out there - the Ernie Pyle of the war in Iraq - and he’s doing it all on his own dime (and donations). Which may be why he is the best war reporter out there.

Project Valour-IT

Voice-laptops for injured soldiers who have trouble typing. See The Middle Ground for a good overview and history.

Helmets to Hardhats
By Master Sgt. Bob Haskell

“We need to make sure that we reach out to the new group of veterans and to the new group of service members who are out there in this all-volunteer force, willing to put their lives, their educations, their families, their jobs, their careers and their fortunes on the line to defend America,” LTG H. Steven Blum told some of America´s most influential labor leaders during a recent meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Blum addressed the leaders of “Helmets to Hardhats,” a national, federally funded program that provides access to the best jobs in the construction industry for Soldiers leaving active military service, and for Reservists and National Guard members.

Blum also pledged the Guard Bureau´s support for the national program, as well as for such similar state programs as Florida’s “Hire a Hero.”

Just added the Helmets to Hardhats site to the “We support” section - and, being a Floridian, I looked up “Hire a Hero” and added that site too.

Damien Cave asks, “Where Are the War Heroes?” in this NYT piece:

One soldier fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops in a fierce defense of his outnumbered Army unit, saving dozens of American lives before he himself was killed. Another soldier helped lead a team that killed 27 insurgents who had ambushed her convoy. And then there was the marine who, after being shot, managed to tuck an enemy grenade under his stomach to save the men in his unit, dying in the process. Their names are Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta. If you have never heard of them, even in a week when more than 20 marines were killed in Iraq by insurgents, that might be because the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II.

Many in the military are disheartened by the absence of an instantly recognizable war hero today, a deficiency with a complex cause: public opinion on the Iraq war is split, and drawing attention to it risks fueling opposition; the military is more reluctant than it was in the last century to promote the individual over the group; and the war itself is different, with fewer big battles and more and messier engagements involving smaller units of Americans. Then, too, there is a celebrity culture that seems skewed more to the victim than to the hero.

Collectively, say military historians, war correspondents and retired senior officers, the country seems to have concluded that war heroes pack a political punch that requires caution. They have become not just symbols of bravery but also reminders of the war’s thorniest questions. “No one wants to call the attention of the public to bloodletting and heroism and the horrifying character of combat,” said Richard Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina. “What situation can be imagined that would promote the war and not remind people of its ambivalence?”

(Emphasis mine.) “No one” seems to be the media. Bloggers seem to disagree. You want to know where the war heroes are?

Well… here are some from Blackfive, who is also commenting on the article: Leigh Ann Hester, Brad Kasal, Paul Smith, Rafael Peralta, Jason Dunham…

And some from Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette: Sgt. First Class Paul R. (Ray, by the way) Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta And yet more from the Mudville Gazette: Marine Sgt. Leandro Baptista and Marine Sgt Willie Copeland and Lance Cpl. Joseph J. Tellez and Marine Pfc. Bryan J. Nagel… there are still more where those came from.

Chuck Simmins has a whole area dedicated to American Heroes.

And here’s a couple from me: Staff Sgt. Serena Maren Di Virgilio, Bronze Star with ‘V’ and Cpl. Victor Alfonso Rojas.

The heroes are covered - just not by the mainstream media.

Oh… and - again from Greyhawk - one of the heroes of the battle that made us realize we were at war: Rick Rescorla