Back in the Day....James Garner has a thing for fast cars....especially Corvettes

Must be the nature of the day that I am interested in historical items...there's a reason for that but for now it will remain under wraps....Take a look at this - James Garner is famous for his acting but is also a Korean War veteran and enjoyed racing fast cars, including Corvettes. He drove the pace cars at the 59th Indianapolis 500 (May 25, 1975), the 61st Indianapolis 500 (May 29, 1977), and at the 69th Indianapolis 500 (May 26, 1985). Here are some pictures I found online that show James Garner tearing it up, back in the day. He owned a Chevy Dealership and that must have made it easy for him to get access to the Muscle cars of the Day, especially the 1968 Corvette...wow. Must have been fun.

Hi-Tech Stuff - Back in the day......

We are a society driven by technology...Cell Phones, GPS, Ipads, etc., etc. but we owe a great deal to the people who developed the items that lead others to create better and better technology....The first digital watches were very expensive ($300) and they did little more than tell the time.....now, they are throw-away cheap. Same with computers....not that I am old but in high school, we used a tele[type that was hitched up to a mainframe computer miles away....and it all ran on the computer language called BASIC....yeah, we actually had to learn the language of computers....let's see your average teenager do that these days... So here are a few pictures of " Old School" guys doing the techie thing back in the day....pretty interesting in light of what we have now.

This isn't some ridiculous "city of the FUTURE!" concept art; this photo of an "elevator garage" was taken in 1936 Chicago by photographer John Gutmann, and here it is from another angle. I can picture dropping in a nickel to get our car back and then seeing it get stuck at the top like a bag of chips in a vending machine. It's easy for us to laugh, but in 1899 this must have looked like a terrifying vision of the future. Even if the guy was wearing a tie, bowler hat and dress shoes. Back in those days, if you were not the more finely dressed army, you were considered to have lost the war regardless of how much land you seized. That's inventor F.R. Simms, by the way, demonstrating his Simms Motor Scout armored quadricycle.

This last picture is not as "old school" as the others but I thought this looks funky....the Airplane looks like it is eating the car...it was how they did it "back in the day"

Afghan men, hungry for work, learn how to respond to Americans

I have spent time working with Afghan Nationals while overseas and they are good people who want to provide for their families, just like the rest of us. Family means a lot in their culture.

While there are differences, I found the people I met to be warm and curious of the difference between America and Afghanistan. Here is a good insight into how we are helping the people of Afghanistan learn to be more independent and gain the insights they will need to work with those who are there to help.


Afghan men, hungry for work, learn how to respond to Americans

5:27 AM, Mar 29, 2011 by Tony Leys Desmoins Register

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan – The bearded teacher stood in front of his 20 pupils, going through basic English questions and commands that they should understand if they’re working for the Americans here.

“What does ‘Do not enter’ mean?” the teacher, whose name is Ahmadullah, asked one of the local men seated before him. Teacher Ahmadullah, standing at left, leads a basic English class for workers at Bagram Airfield Tuesday. (

“You cannot go inside,” the man replied in heavily accented English.

“If you are stopped at a roadblock and told to get out immediately, what do you do?” Ahmadullah asked another man. “I turn back,” the man replied.

The teacher corrected him. “You get out immediately,” he said.

Ahmadullah asked a third man to stand. Then he said, “Put your hands on your head.” The man put his hands on his head. “Turn around.” The man turned around. “Get on the ground.” The man got on the ground, face down. Staff Sgt. Paul Brisbois, an Iowa National Guardsman from Des Moines, watched from off to the side. “That’s a really important one to know,” he said of the set of commands American soldiers give when they want to search an Afghan man.

Brisbois helps oversee the vetting of local workers for Bagram Airfield. About 5,000 Afghan men work on the giant base, which houses about 30,000 military members and civilians from the United States and allied countries. Most of the Afghan employees make $5 per day performing menial tasks, such as cleaning bathrooms, serving food or collecting trash.

Ahmadullah, who uses just one name, gives his hour-long daily lessons in a classroom just inside the gate where local men come into the base. The men in his class already hold entry-level jobs on the base, but they want to become certified as “escorts.” Locals with that designation can make $15 per day for overseeing up to five other Afghan workers. Brisbois is impressed by how quickly many of the Afghan men pick up basic English.

Many of them can’t read or write in any language, but they speak proficiently in two: Pashto and Dari. That’s one more than most Americans can speak, the staff sergeant noted. The men walk or bike to the base, sometimes from 10 or more miles away. Most of them are employed by private contractors. “They’re definitely willing to work,” Brisbois said. “Most people in the area want the same things Americans want. They want to have a good job, they want to make some money, and they want their families to be safe.”

Brisbois, 45, said each potential worker faces several levels of vetting, including extensive interviews by U.S. officials, such as former FBI or CIA agents. Because of security concerns, Afghan workers may not use cell phones or take pictures on base, and they are only allowed into areas where they work. Their work permits can be suspended if they break the rules.

After Ahmadullah’s class, his students said the military base offers much better opportunities than they’d find anywhere else in the area. The men said they worry that insurgents will harm them or their families for helping the Americans, though they said such retribution rarely happens. They also worry that the Americans will leave, and the jobs will disappear. “Right now, there is freedom,” Aqa Gul, 38, said through an interpreter. “If the Americans leave, it will be very bad.”

A Year at War - Take a ride with the US Army 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division

A Year at War Some good stuff on what our troops experience....take a look...well worth the time invested

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/battalion.html#/NYT

Panoramas: New Views From Forward Operating Base Kunduz following the men and women of US Army First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division This is will give you a good panoramic view of being there.....

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/28/world/asia/20110128-battalion-panos.html#/0

The President issues a Presidential level "whatever" on the mission in Libya

For a President who's most famous quote is " Let me be perfectly clear...", he only muddied the waters further than he has to date....The lack of Leadership on display here is not only appalling but makes us look incompetent to the rest of the world...If you feel his speech helped our nation or provided any kind of clarity, I question your grasp on reality.....

This amounted to a Presidential level " Whatever"....

Facebook will offer " Cloud Girlfriend " - They oughta rename it to "FAKEBOOK"

People are acting more delusional and Facebook is leading the way in assisting them.



It used to be that if you made something up to deceive others, it was seen as dishonest and wrong...now, we have a start-up company that will provide you with an online " Cloud Girlfriend " who will provide you with "the illusion" of a real person who is your girlfriend....and chats with you online so other Facebook users can see this....

WTF?? I think by the nature of what it represents, and how people use the product (by design), we should rename Facebook to FAKEBOOK as the stuff it shows people is more fake than real....

One more sign that people should ditch Facebook and focus on having real realtionships with friends & family....Facebook and the "Cloud Girlfriend" start-up offer a "fake" sense of connection to real relationships...and the narcissistic nature of this type of behavior is just repugnant.

Fake Facebook Girlfriends From "Cloud Girlfriend" Will Be Run By Real People Dylan Love Mar. 28, 2011, businessinsider.com

Get A Fake Facebook Girlfriend With New Startup "Cloud Girlfriend"
"Cloud Girlfriend," is a startup that creates the "perfect girlfriend" out of thin air for users. The "perfect girlfriend" then sends you public messages on your Facebook wall, so you can deceive your friends into thinking you have a girlfriend as well as make you feel like you have a companion.

After we covered the company, co-founder David Fuhriman reached out to fill us in on some more details about Cloud Girlfriend: Cloud Girlfriend will consist of a network of real human beings, not automated bots, that users will interact with over Facebook. Fuhriman thinks it can help guys get a girlfriend.

If visitors to your Facebook profile to see wall posts from your imaginary sweetheart, they might think, "Someone else thinks highly enough of this person to date him, so maybe I should too." Cloud Girlfriend is not a porn site or adult chat service. (Although it does remind us of a hotline where you can talk to someone of the opposite sex if you're lonely.)

Fuhriman said the site has a therapeutic value and can fulfill psychological needs like intimacy and friendship even though the interaction is virtual. He also maintains that these interactions can even build self confidence and help users navigate real-life situations. We asked Fuhriman for some details about how he plans to follow Facebook's terms of service and make money, but he said those were details he couldn't go into.

If he's going to be toying with Facebook profiles to create fake girlfriends, we assume Facebook will hammer him. Facebook doesn't want spammy accounts filling up the social network. Fuhriman thinks his company will enhance someone's experience on a social network, not dilute it. He also notes it's already filled with fake accounts: "There will always be more profiles of dogs and cats on social networks than there will ever be of Cloud Girlfriends."

In Memoriam - Lt. Colonel Donald Harwood Lee, Jr.(Ret), 90....An American Hero

Thanks Colonel.....we deeply appreciate all that you did for us...too bad more weren't able to say so while you were here...Our WW2 Heroes are slowly leaving this world and we owe them a great debt of gratitude....Here's the info on one who gave more to his country than he ever asked from us....too bad there aren't more like him in Washington, DC as we need LEADERS like him.

"Lt. Colonel Donald Harwood Lee, Jr.(Ret), 90, of Eufaula, Okalhoma succumbed to cancer on February 20, 2011 in Edmond and is home with the Lord. Donald was born on June 27, 1920 in Ypsilanti, Michigan to Donald and Hazel Estelle Lee. He attended and graduated from Ypsilanti High School in 1938. Following college at the University of Michigan, Donald entered the United States Army Air Corps. He served in World War II and in the Korean War as a fighter pilot. For his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Medal, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Purple Heart, among others.

Don was my father in law, he flew, P-40, P-51, his favorite the P-38, in WW2, and the F-86 in Korea. The fact that he never bragged, never asked for credit, he simply did what needed to be done. Among the awards he was given, he recieved the bronze star with clusters, meaning he basically recieved three bronze stars, the Distinguished Flying Cross was the medal he was most proud of. He was a humble man that asked nothing of anyone he wasn't willing to give of himself."

Monday was a little rough....

Looks like Monday was a little rough....I wonder what the deductible is for a Battle Tank?

What the President " should " say tonight.....

Found this online and I couldn't agree more....too bad we will never see a President make a "mea Culpa" like this as it would demonstrate LEADERSHIP.....something we are sorely lacking in the " Onlooker-In Chief "..... Advance Text of Obama's Speech on Libya Robert Dreyfuss - Thenation.com

March 28, 2011

The following is an advance text of what President Obama should say in his speech to the nation, to be delivered at 7:30 pm tonight.

My fellow Americans, my predecessor in the White House never admitted that he made any mistakes, but I have come before you tonight to admit that I have erred in intervening in Libya, and I ask your forgiveness. When I announced that I was planning to intervene, by imposing a no-fly zone and by attacking Muammar Qaddafi’s forces on the ground, my intention was to protect and defend civilians who were under attack. That was, and is, a laudable goal.

And perhaps we did prevent many deaths in Benghazi, the Libyan city held by rebels. But the cost is too high, and though it’s too late to undo what’s already been done, I want to speak to you tonight about how to make this right. I gave in, too soon, to those in my administration who argued that the United States has to enforce what’s called the “responsibility to protect.” That responsibility is a sacred one, indeed.

But in this case, there’s simply too much evidence that we overreached. By mobilizing our military against Libya, we unleashed the dogs of war in a way whose future is simply unpredictable. None of my advisers or our intelligence community can tell me what will happen next, so I’ve decided to end our involvement tonight. It’s one thing to say that we’ll bomb armored columns loyal to Qaddafi in defense of Benghazi, but what next? Do we expand the war? Do we provide air cover for the rebels’ offensive as it moves west toward Tripoli, the Libyan capital? Do we bomb Tripoli, if Qaddafi fails to surrender or flee? Do we arm the rebels? With tanks? Heavy weapons? Do we send advisers?

No one has been able to answer these key questions for me. Worse, in attacking Libya, we’ve killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of Libyan troops. You’ve seen photographs of long, armored columns reduced to burning hulks. We may never know how many people died under the coalition’s aerial bombardment, and I’ve asked for a full accounting. We don’t know whether civilians died, too, as the result of our bombing campaign. We took care to avoid hitting civilians.

Undoubtedly, however, some civilians have also perished. I know that some of you, especially among neoconservatives and liberal interventionists, wanted me to act because you feared a massacre in Benghazi. Perhaps we averted one. But so far, at least, there’s no evidence that Qaddafi’s forces are carrying out anything like genocide or mass killings on the scale of Rwanda or Srebrenica in the 1990s. It’s horrible that many Libyans have died. It pains us all. But they died in a civil war in which, as Secretary of Defense Gates has said, the United States has no vital interest.

Our nation simply cannot take on the responsibility of using its military to take sides in civil wars. We can speak out, we can engage in vigorous diplomacy, we can isolate and sanction rulers who abuse their power. But America is not the world’s policeman, and it is not the arbiter of what’s right and wrong around the world. If we wage war in Libya, then why not Bahrain? Yemen? What about the millions who’ve died in Congo and Sudan? What about the Ivory Coast? Already, the New York Times is suggesting that we think about a no-fly zone in Syria.

To enforce our will, I pressured friends and allies to go along, and I intimidated other nations to permit our action. I am sorry, now, for pressuring South Africa and Nigeria, the leaders of Africa, into putting aside their better judgment and voting to support the United States, Britain and France at the UN Security Council. We also worked hard to convince other friends and allies on the UNSC not to vote against us, including Germany, India and Brazil, who abstained. And we made it clear to Russia and China that their relationship with the United States would suffer severely if they blocked the UNSC resolution with a veto.

Because of its great power, the United States can often get what it wants at the UN. But that doesn’t make it right. Similarly, we pressured our NATO allies to go along. Some, such as Germany and Turkey, were opposed. But we used our influence to get them to submerge their objections and to support the NATO role. Too easily, I used the Arab League’s vote to support action against Libya. That, too, was a mistake.

The Arab League action was driven, especially, by Saudi Arabia, an anachronistic and reactionary monarchy which has a long history of animosity toward Qaddafi, going back forty years. Saudi Arabia pushed the Arab League to support a no-fly zone against Libya, over the objections of nations such as Algeria and Syria, even as Saudi Arabia’s army rolled into Bahrain to put down a rebellion there by force. It’s a sad irony that I endorsed Saudi goals in Libya, while chastising the Saudis for their heavy-handed action in Bahrain, and in Ye men, where the Saudis support another authoritarian ruler.

By doing so, I put the Arab League in a difficult position, because the bombing and strafing of Libyan army forces—which went far beyond the no-fly zone that the league wanted—makes it appear as if the Arab League is endorsing unlimited military action in an Arab nation. There’s no question that Qaddafi is a distasteful ruler. Compared to Saddam Hussein, however, he is far less brutal and bloody. I strongly opposed the war in Iraq, even though humanitarians and liberal interventionists applauded my predecessor’s action to invade Iraq and force a regime change. So why is it so important to topple Qaddafi? Is he the only bad ruler in the world?

Some argue that Libya is not Iraq. It’s not. But as in Iraq, a war that was thought to be short and simple became a long, torturous campaign in which many hundreds of thousands of people died and an entire nation was shattered, destroyed. That may not happen in Libya, but we can’t be sure. A prolonged civil war in Libya could lay waste to that nation. In Iraq, we didn’t have the support of the world community and the UN, while in Libya we succeeded in winning a UN vote in favor of the war. But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

As your president, I cannot stand on narrow legalities. The fact remains that in Libya, as in Iraq, we attacked a nation that did not threaten or attack us, that did not pose a danger to the United States. Worse, I attacked Libya without seeking the approval of Congress. President Bush, in preparing to attack Iraq, sought and won Congressional approval. I did not.

To make amends, I’ve ordered an immediate halt to US involvement, and I have asked our allies to do the same. I’m asking the African Union and the Arab League to convene a joint panel, under the auspices of the UN, to seek an accommodation between Qaddafi and the Libyan rebels. The first goal of that effort should be a mutual agreement on a ceasefire. After that, the two sides can discuss how to resolve the crisis. If Qaddafi, in the end, wishes to step down, we will offer our assistance to him to find a safe and secure place of residence in exile. In any case, the outcome of the civil war in Libya will be solved by the Libyans themselves.

Thank you, and good night

The Force of the Japanese Tsunami

If you have not witnessed how bad the devastation was in Japan, this video should provide insight....water is the most destructive force known to man, and demonstrates that on a regular basis. Prayers for the people of Japan as they struggle to rebuild their country.

Schools put themselves into a "financial vise" and expect us to pay for unreasonable pay increases when they can't deliver quality education

If you read the story in yesterday's Boston Globe, you would have come away with a sympathetic angle regarding that the schools need more support...who doesn't want to support better schools?

The issue here is not "better" schools but more $$$. If $$$ alone made better schools, we would have the best in the world as we spend more $$$ per student than anywhere in the world....and in the end, Johnny still places about 25th in education compared to his peers in other countries....wonderful. We pay top $$$ but get a poor return....it would be like paying for a Camaro and getting back a Yugo....

Let's delve into the story....The schools are losing " Stimulus Funds" they had last year....Funny money that was given out by POTUS and is not something you should count on as it doesn't exist in the real world....You can't expect that kind of money to appear year after year... Then if you read the whole article, you find the meat of the story at the end...

" In Everett, School Superintendent Frederick Foresteire said his district will get a $4.9 million state aid increase next year. But he said his budget will be tight in light of other factors, including the loss of $1.3 million in stimulus money; a nearly $1 million drop in city spending on schools; a $650,000 increase in charges for health insurance and other costs; and the $700,000 needed to cover step increases and other union contractual obligations."

Health insurance and Union obligations added $1.35 million in cost to their budget - WELL, no wonder why you can't pay the bills - The Unions helped themselves to a nice pay increase and the Health Insurance is increasing (without the employees paying a larger cut, like in the private sector ) The media wonders why there is outrage against the schools?? Easy - Poor performance by teachers and students, unreasonable $$$ and benefits expectations by school employees and a poor return on the investment made....Did I miss anything?

Schools caught in a vise Loss of stimulus funds worsens budget outlook Area school districts are worried the Legislature will reduce the amount of state aid for education proposed by Governor Deval Patrick

By John Laidler Globe Correspondent / March 27, 2011

In Danvers, the School Committee has approved a budget proposal that would cut 21 positions during the next fiscal year. In Revere, however, school officials are struggling to close a projected $5 million fiscal 2012 budget gap without layoffs. Across the region, school districts are facing difficult choices as they struggle to balance their fiscal 2012 books in the face of a bleak confluence of factors, including rising costs and the end of federal stimulus dollars.

“It is very challenging,’’ said Danvers School Superintendent Lisa Dana, whose district’s proposed cuts include the equivalent positions of 11 teachers and nine aides. The budget also calls for a 20 percent increase in fees. Officials said the district must absorb cost increases in areas such as special education and contractual obligations, and a loss in federal stimulus money, while keeping to an overall 2.07 percent spending increase. “There’s definitely an impact when you are cutting the equivalent of 21 positions,’’ Dana said.

But the budget keeps core services to students intact through such means as restructuring or doing without services that support that core, she said. Revere School Superintendent Paul Dakin called the fiscal 2012 budget “certainly the most difficult in recent years, because we are losing stimulus money that we had over the last couple of years.’’ Dakin said about half the district’s projected $5 million budget shortfall is the result of the loss of those federal dollars. The remainder is owed to rising costs in areas such as fuel, health insurance, contracted salary increases, and transportation.

He said state school aid is up $2.8 million, but that is not enough to make up for the other budget pressures. The district is pursuing potential ways to eliminate the shortfall, including saving money in this fiscal year to carry into the next one; and seeking through negotiations to have unions agree to health care concessions, one to two furlough days, and deferring part of a 2 percent salary increase owed to them next year, he said. Dakin cautioned that even if the district manages all those changes, “we’d be in real trouble’’ if the Legislature allots less for state aid than Governor Deval Patrick has proposed.


Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said districts have seen job and service cuts the last few years, but federal stimulus money has helped moderate those reductions. “We have now arrived at the perfect storm where we have lost all the federal money and we are probably at the bottom of where our resources are,’’ he said. “The costs of education continue to be significant. So this is going to be a tough year for most of the school districts.’’ Scott said most districts face the need to make cuts that “are going to increase class size or reduce direct programs and services for kids.’’ But he agreed with Dakin that the severity of those cuts will be determined in part by whether the Legislature adopts school aid figures below those proposed by the governor.


In Everett, School Superintendent Frederick Foresteire said his district will get a $4.9 million state aid increase next year. But he said his budget will be tight in light of other factors, including the loss of $1.3 million in stimulus money; a nearly $1 million drop in city spending on schools; a $650,000 increase in charges for health insurance and other costs; and the $700,000 needed to cover step increases and other union contractual obligations. Foresteire said balancing the budget will require job cuts, including layoffs, but the extent is still to be determined. “Everything is on the table,’’ he said.


Peabody School Superintendent C. Milton Burnett said his district will be able to replace some stimulus money with funds it received last year from the federal Education Jobs Fund program. But he said fiscal 2012 is still shaping up as difficult due to rising health costs and the need to carry out deferred maintenance to HVAC systems. He said it was premature to say if job cuts will be needed. In Salem, School Superintendent William J. Cameron Jr. predicts a “tough budget year’’ in which “the best I can plausibly expect is to maintain level services.’’ Cameron said that over the past several years, Mayor Kimberley L. Driscoll and the City Council have provided the schools with enough funds to weather the decline in state aid. It remains to be seen, he said, “whether that level of commitment to the schools will still be possible.’’ © Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment leaves Afghanistan - Unit suffered more KIA / WIA than any other USMC unit in Afghan War taking on Sangin

( I apologize for the formatting of this post - For some reason, the webpage has not been holding the normal paragraphing - This was an important story to share...)


SEMPER FI to the 3/5 and our condolences for the losses suffered, prayers for all who suffered the loss of family & friends along with hopes of speedy recovery for those wounded defending the citizens of Afghanistan from the Taliban.

Best Wishes to the 1/23 in taking on a tough mission. You have the thanks of a grateful nation and this Seabee who shared time at Camp Leatherneck with these brave men & women.

I do not consider myself as a Hero, but I have been in the company of Heroes in Afghanistan and Iraq....the 3/5 are American Heroes and I was grateful to have shared time with them in both locations.
Marine unit that suffered most casualties coming home Camp Pendleton Unit scaling back role in Afghanistan
By MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com
North County Times The Californian Thursday, March 24, 2011 The Camp Pendleton unit that has seen more troops killed and wounded in action than any other Marine Corps unit in the 10-year-old Afghan war is coming home. The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment will return in a couple of weeks ahead of a wave of other units from the base's I Marine Expeditionary Force.
The lead role in Afghanistan is being taken over by the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
A transfer of command ceremony is set for Saturday at Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine base in the southern Helmand province where most Marines are assigned. At that ceremony, Camp Pendleton Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, who has overseen the fighting by the 20,000 Marines in Afghanistan for the last year, will relinquish that command and return home.
The number of locally based troops at war in the south-central Asian nation will fall from slightly more than 10,000 to about 7,000 by the end of spring and down to about 2,000 by midsummer, said 2nd Lt. Joanna Cappeto, a Camp Pendleton spokeswoman.
Among the most anticipated homecomings is the return of the battered 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, whose nickname is the "Dark Horse Battalion." The approximately 950-member infantry unit was engaged in heavy fighting in the Sangin District of the Helmand province from the time it arrived there at the end of the summer until recent weeks.
The region was rife with Taliban insurgents, who used the district as a haven for illicit drug trafficking and manufacturing roadside bombs. In its aggressive pursuit of the insurgents, the battalion saw 25 of its members killed in action, most of them from the bombs that are the weapon responsible for most U.S. and NATO troop casualties.
More than 150 battalion troops were wounded, including more than a dozen who had single- or multiple-limb amputations. One of the men wounded in that fashion was Oceanside resident Lt. Cameron West, a platoon leader who lost a leg and suffered other injuries in an Oct. 15 blast while leading a patrol less than three weeks after arriving in Afghanistan. West, who continues to undergo therapy at Naval Medical Center San Diego, said Tuesday that he's eager to see the battalion get back to Camp Pendleton. "I've been waiting for the last six months," West said. "These are my guys and I can't wait to see them."

When the battalion gets back, commanders have ordered that it be kept as intact as possible for three months to allow its troops to decompress from the rigors of war and violence they experienced. "We won't transfer anybody until at least 90 days after they come," said Col. Willy Buhl, regimental commander. "We are keeping people together during that critical decompression time to enable getting them the education and the observation and natural decompression that occurs when you are with your buddies. They are the only ones who can truly understand what they've been through."
The battalion also will be closely monitored by mental health specialists under the direction of Rear Adm. C. Forrest Faison III, commander of Navy Medicine West and Naval Medical Center San Diego. The specialists will work with the troops and their families as a part of an effort to stave off post-traumatic stress disorder and destructive behaviors. "We're trying to see how we can take (post-combat care) to the next level of assistance after 10 years of war," was how Buhl termed the effort during a recent conversation at Camp Pendleton.
Bill Rider, president of the Oceanside-based American Combat Veterans of War that counsels troops in distress, said the post-deployment care is a wise move. "Maintaining unit cohesion after war is good for the troops because it will allow them to talk to their brother warriors and work things out," he said. "It's not a panacea that will fix everything, but it's a good start." Rider said the battalion will need to confront the carnage it suffered. "They are going to have to work out in their own minds all that happened and all the little hobgoblins that come along, such as 'Why did I survive when all the others didn't?'" he said.
The 25 battalion deaths are among 61 combat fatalities for Camp Pendleton troops since March 1, 2010, according to records kept by the North County Times based on Department of Defense casualty releases. As the 3/5 battalion comes home, troops from Camp Pendleton's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment have been deploying to Afghanistan, where a traditional lull in fighting during the winter months is ending. Other major Camp Pendleton units heading out include Combat Logistics Battalion 7 and the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment

This cannot be good...Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have links to Al Qaeda..and advanced weaponry they could use against the US Military

The adage of " My enemies' enemy is my friend" has been used many times when an alliance with other forces seems to be a marriage of convenience/necessity in answer to a threat rather than one that is well thought out....in the case of what is happening in Libya, this cannot be good.

The idea that we will be arming and supporting Libyan Rebel Forces, who are also alligned with Al Qeada, in the fight against Momar Ghaddafi, who a few years ago were fighting our troops in Iraq & Afghanistan is more than worrisome....it is wrong.

And the news only gets worse - " Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda has managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

That info, if true, constitutes a clear and present danger to our forces across the Middle East and Afghanistan....a grave danger.

Again, any sane person would start to question what we have waded into in Libya if one of the outcomes is arming sworn enemies of the United States with advanced weaponry that could cause the deaths of our troops...I feel that POTUS has a lot more explaining to do as this would constitute a failure of his position as Commander-in-Chief. I will be interested in seeing how he explains this revelation when he gets around to letting us know what we are doing in Libya....


Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

By Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham - UK Telegraph
03/26/11

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against 'the foreign invasion' in Afghanistan

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.

British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".

This will go on someone's permanent record...

My Daughter likes the movie " Cars " and there are some funny lines in the movie including a line where Sally the Porsche tells off Lightning McQueen after he dumps on the little town of Radiator Springs saying: " Even here in "Hillbilly Hell " we have our standards...."

Well it seems that a reporter from Iowa found out that there are rules even at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan...

Bringing order to a lawless land -one Parking Ticket at a time
Mar 25, 2011 by Tony Leys
Desmoins Register

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan - This place is just like a real city – in the most annoying of ways.

Our National Guard guide got smacked with a pink ticket for parking his clunker pickup truck inappropriately on “Warrior Loop” today. It looked like an OK spot to us at the time, but I guess not.

The base officer who filled out the ticket did a lovely, efficient job. The boxes are neatly checked, and the spelling is perfect. You have to appreciate a public servant who displays such craftsmanship.

But here’s the question: What’s the punishment?

As soldiers here like to say, “What are they gonna do, send me to Afghanistan?”

Tracking a customer’s whereabouts is part and parcel of what phone companies(and online programs) do....

Let me start by saying I am not afraid of technology....I embraced the use of computers as far back as the late 1970s when a computer was a huge teletype at the High School and the computer it communicated with was a bigger mainframe miles away...I bought an Apple Mac (Mac Plus) back in the mid 80s.. I find them to be useful tools and like any other tool, if misused, it can injure you.

I am no fan of Facebook and it's pervasive intrusion into all aspects of online life...updates available through your car's computerized systems are obnoxious...The ability for others to gain info is bad enough but people willingly sign up for this crappola...and pay for it too! My vehicle needs to start, run and get me from point " A" to " B " and back again....If I need to let people know where I am, I can call them or text them.....Having the car update them or getting updates from my car is plain stupid. Do yourself a favor and KILL your Facebook account while you can....really...you'll thank me later on.

So now we get to the cell phone....a necessity these days....I have a non-GPS phone that texts and calls but not much else....It works fine and I really don't need mobile games or e-mail....I have the IPAD for that stuff...as needed.

Well owners of the so called " Smartphones" might want to read this....they are tracking your every move and you are enabling them to do so....Like anything else, that info is fine as long as it isn't misused....just like the rest of the technology helpers we have....makes you think about it, eh?

One Politician in Germany decided to find out what they were tracking about himself...the picture he paints ain't pretty.....

It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know
By NOAM COHEN - NT TIMES
Published: March 26, 2011

A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game.

Malte Spitz was surprised by how much detail Deutsche Telekom had about his whereabouts.

But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out exactly what his cellphone company, Deutsche Telekom, knew about his whereabouts.

The results were astounding. In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times. It traced him from a train on the way to Erlangen at the start through to that last night, when he was home in Berlin.

Mr. Spitz has provided a rare glimpse — an unprecedented one, privacy experts say — of what is being collected as we walk around with our phones. Unlike many online services and Web sites that must send “cookies” to a user’s computer to try to link its traffic to a specific person, cellphone companies simply have to sit back and hit “record.”

“We are all walking around with little tags, and our tag has a phone number associated with it, who we called and what we do with the phone,” said Sarah E. Williams, an expert on graphic information at Columbia University’s architecture school. “We don’t even know we are giving up that data.”

Tracking a customer’s whereabouts is part and parcel of what phone companies do for a living. Every seven seconds or so, the phone company of someone with a working cellphone is determining the nearest tower, so as to most efficiently route calls. And for billing reasons, they track where the call is coming from and how long it has lasted.

“At any given instant, a cell company has to know where you are; it is constantly registering with the tower with the strongest signal,” said Matthew Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania who has testified before Congress on the issue.

Mr. Spitz’s information, Mr. Blaze pointed out, was not based on those frequent updates, but on how often Mr. Spitz checked his e-mail.

Mr. Spitz, a privacy advocate, decided to be extremely open with his personal information. Late last month, he released all the location information in a publicly accessible Google Document, and worked with a prominent German newspaper, Die Zeit, to map those coordinates over time.

“This is really the most compelling visualization in a public forum I have ever seen,” said Mr. Blaze, adding that it “shows how strong a picture even a fairly low-resolution location can give.”

In an interview from Berlin, Mr. Spitz explained his reasons: “It was an important point to show this is not some kind of a game. I thought about it, if it is a good idea to publish all the data — I also could say, O.K., I will only publish it for five, 10 days maybe. But then I said no, I really want to publish the whole six months.”

In the United States, telecommunication companies do not have to report precisely what material they collect, said Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who specializes in privacy. He added that based on court cases he could say that “they store more of it and it is becoming more precise.”

“Phones have become a necessary part of modern life,” he said, objecting to the idea that “you have to hand over your personal privacy to be part of the 21st century.”

In the United States, there are law enforcement and safety reasons for cellphone companies being encouraged to keep track of its customers. Both the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration have used cellphone records to identify suspects and make arrests.

If the information is valuable to law enforcement, it could be lucrative for marketers. The major American cellphone providers declined to explain what exactly they collect and what they use it for.

Verizon, for example, declined to elaborate other than to point to its privacy policy, which includes: “Information such as call records, service usage, traffic data,” the statement in part reads, may be used for “marketing to you based on your use of the products and services you already have, subject to any restrictions required by law.”

AT&T, for example, works with a company, Sense Networks, that uses anonymous location information “to better understand aggregate human activity.” One product, CitySense, makes recommendations about local nightlife to customers who choose to participate based on their cellphone usage. (Many smartphone apps already on the market are based on location but that’s with the consent of the user and through GPS, not the cellphone company’s records.)

Because of Germany’s history, courts place a greater emphasis on personal privacy. Mr. Spitz first went to court to get his entire file in 2009 but Deutsche Telekom objected.

For six months, he said, there was a “Ping Pong game” of lawyers’ letters back and forth until, separately, the Constitutional Court there decided that the existing rules governing data retention, beyond those required for billing and logistics, were illegal. Soon thereafter, the two sides reached a settlement: “I only get the information that is related to me, and I don’t get all the information like who am I calling, who sent me a SMS and so on,” Mr. Spitz said, referring to text messages.

Even so, 35,831 pieces of information were sent to him by Deutsche Telekom as an encrypted file, to protect his privacy during its transmission.

Deutsche Telekom, which owns T-Mobile, Mr. Spitz’s carrier, wrote in an e-mail that it stored six months’ of data, as required by the law, and that after the court ruling it “immediately ceased” storing data.

And a year after the court ruling outlawing this kind of data retention, there is a movement to try to get a new, more limited law passed. Mr. Spitz, at 26 a member of the Green Party’s executive board, says he released that material to influence that debate.

“I want to show the political message that this kind of data retention is really, really big and you can really look into the life of people for six months and see what they are doing where they are.”

While the potential for abuse is easy to imagine, in Mr. Spitz’s case, there was not much revealed.

“I really spend most of the time in my own neighborhood, which was quite funny for me,” he said. “I am not really walking that much around.”

Any embarrassing details? “The data shows that I am flying sometimes,” he said, rather than taking a more fuel-efficient train. “Something not that popular for a Green politician.”

The girl's got a point.....

The Speech Obama Hasn't Given - - - The American Public deserves to know what we hope to accomplish in Libya

The President is famous for repeatedly using the quote, " Let me be clear..." On many occasions when he is asked a question about something the US people need info on....well in this case, he could not be more opposite to that pledge.....Peggy Noonan hits the nail on the head.....

" What are we doing in Libya ?"

We need a plan of action as without a plan, we are not only heading down the road to disaster, we are betraying the pledge we make to our servicemen & women to not place them in harm's way without clear guidance as to what they need to do and what they will accomplish....The NATO allies can't state clearly what we are doing and we need some idea of what we are trying to accomplish.

I hate to use the metaphor but watching POTUS seems to be like something the Joker said in the movie DARK KNIGHT:

The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things.

I hate to say it, but when it comes to Obama, that line fits.


The Speech Obama Hasn't Given
What are we doing in Libya?
Americans deserve an explanation.

By PEGGY NOONAN.WSJ.com

It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this?

He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become.

What was he thinking? What is he thinking?

Which gets me to Mr. Obama's speech, the one he hasn't given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It's what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation.

Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen.

The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America's overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests?

From those questions flow many others. We know who we're against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who's done very wicked things. But do we know who we're for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we're attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation's tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance?

What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now?

On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he's deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place?

Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya's civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes.

Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered?

None of this sounds like limited and discrete action.

In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on.

Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don't want an occupation. One said the other day, "We're not looking for a protracted occupation."

.Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That's good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn't guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won't there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies?

How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West?

And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century's argument about declarations of war, doesn't Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not?

These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven't we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It's a rough old world out there, and there's a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war?

America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn't mad.

Copyright 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Aloha Friday Observations....

I have spent time in Hawaii and in the islands, every Friday is " Aloha Friday "...There they look to live the " Aloha Spirit " and embrace the idea that "Aloha" is a way of living life with care and concern for others, along with enjoying life as it is a gift....I did this while overseas and wore my Aloha Shirt around Afghanistan on Fridays.....it made me stand out that was for sure and I had one Marine ask me, " What the hell do you do here? " in a tone that was uncharacteristic of most Marines (they are very polite when addressing civilians)....when I told him I was part of the company that supplies his life-support services, he eased up...it was a funny encounter as I would have likely wondered what the guy in the Aloha shirt was doing in Helmand Province if I were in his shoes too.....

Fridays also spur retrospective observations....You try to sum up the week's efforts and prepare yourself for some well earned weekend activity....so I'll take a bash at sharing some observations from my AOR (area of responsibility - Military speak for your present location)

• We are entering Spring but the weather here seems to not want to move away from winter....we had snow here twice this week and thankfully, it didn't add up to much...gone within hours once the temps rose back to the low 40s
• .
• The Herring are "running", which means returning to the rivers here in Southeastern Massachusetts as they do each Spring....you can tell because there is a large flock of Seagulls squawking and following them as they make their way up the river....and of course, leaving behind the calling cards that only seagulls can.....ewww
• "March Madness" is in full swing.....whatever. Too much attention is paid to the NCAA and it has turned March into a month dominated by college Basketball.....sorry, not interested. Spring Training for the Red Sox....more please.....Roundball just isn't that exciting, in my humble opinion.
• Two Oldest came by last night and we shared dinner and some early birthday cake along with the Mrs., daughter and daughter-in-law.....it was a good evening of humor, sibling rivalry and a game of Wii Golf....I actually won the round despite predictions that Dad would peter out on the tougher holes....I enjoy these evenings as the Number 1 and Number 2 sons have grown to be honorable men....I am proud of their efforts and it is very enjoyable to spend time in their company. The company of family in these tough times is something everyone needs more and less have the ability to enjoy....
• The political posturing for the 2012 Elections is already rearing it's ugly head and the field could not be more full of empty-headed fools who look in the mirror and see themselves as the next Thomas Jefferson....."Let me be clear about this"....the country is in serious need of leadership and we got nobody.......zero, zilch, nada.....no one.....not a single person has appeared on the horizon who the country can get behind and feel confident on the outcome.....Romney, Gingrich, Palin, Bachman, Trump, Barbour, Pawlenty, etc, etc. - All are woefully over matched and none of them has anything we want or need....they are all a bunch of self-centered fools......the "Empty Suit" who occupies the office is an abject lesson in what we should NOT do...elect some feckless idjit promising " hope & change " - We need to " Hope" we can "Change" him outta there as he is a blight upon the world stage and an embarrassment .....feckless, incompetent and lacking the sense God gave a dog.....really....and who will be the replacement???
• Meanwhile, we have Japan (prayers for them), Libya, Middle East unrest, Oil spiking, Deficit issues, etc, etc......did I miss anything ??
• I think this may be why we all are eager for Spring to come along....to allow us to enjoy the great outdoors and for a moment, leave the issues behind......especially on an ALOHA FRIDAY.

The "why?" behind our conflict in Afghanistan....The real reason why we are there...

Like many who have been in Afghanistan, I have been asked by people back home, " WHY ?"

WHY are we spending all our blood & treasure there??? WHY are we still there after 10 years ? WHY ? WHY ? WHY ?

Here is the " WHY "....This is why the Marines of the 3/5 were glad to win the battles in Sangin. They were doing it for others, not themselves.

I was able to witness this same progress in person while I was there and I am glad to share the words of a female reporter from the Sandy Eggo Trib.....She brings the reason " why ?" into the clearest focus.....now, you know "why "

Afghanistan war diary: the girls of Sangin
By Gretel C. Kovach
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 5:27 p.m.

SANGIN, Afghanistan — Many Marines stationed in Sangin have a soft spot for the little girls who scamper after them on patrol. Knowing there is no chance that these bright-eyed little lasses will join the insurgency after they are grown and shoot at them is one reason, but the young Afghan girls are also simply adorable.

Despite the decline in power of the Taliban, female teenagers and women are still rarely seen in public in southern Afghanistan outside the provincial capital -- not even in the peacock blue burqas the Kabulis wear or the dark shroud more common to this area that lacks an eye-slit or grille. But young girls dressed in bright red or green shifts trimmed in sparkling thread play alongside their brothers in streets and fields, or tote babies with kohl-streaked eyes on their narrow hips. (The eyeliner is thought to improve the infants’ eyesight.) If the Marines don’t stop giving these girls so much candy, there will not be a woman left in Helmand province in 20 years who has any teeth.

Under the Taliban’s fanatical interpretation of Islam, girls were not allowed to attend school, or boys for that matter unless it was one of the militants’ cultish madrasas. Women couldn’t work outside the home, and their access to quality medical care was limited since there were no women doctors. Ten years into the U.S. war against al-Qaeda and their onetime hosts in Afghanistan, the Taliban fighters that had reemerged like a poisonous weed are being rooted out from the heartland of their movement once again. But some of the old ways based in patriarchal tribal culture remain. Social mores still force girls indoors at adolescence, where they have few opportunities in life other than to marry and raise their children hidden behind high mud walls. Knowing what sort of claustrophobic existence awaits her in a few years makes the sight of a little girl running freely in the open air all the more joyous.

The Marines say they are not trying to impose American culture on Afghanistan (which is why the U.S. military builds mosques here, since almost everyone is Muslim and quite pious.) But the expansion of women’s rights and opportunities seems to be a fortunate side-effect of the war, and one that is fully in-line with mainstream Islamic beliefs. The Prophet Mohammed was married to a businesswoman afterall. Now some fathers in this ultra-conservative Pashtun region are sending their young girls to school in the classrooms popping up in tents and new buildings throughout the region. Disparities are still pronounced, even when it comes to the education of very young female students. During our visit to a new school the Marines established in Marjah, we saw several hundred male students but only about 40 girls. But the FETs, the Female Engagement Team of women Marines, recruited each of those girls one by one, including the first they literally pulled off the street. So it was a good start, if a modest one.

During our last visit to Afghanistan in August and September, photographer Nelvin Cepeda and I spent some time in the Laki area of Garmser district, a hinterlands community of farmers and shepherds. We listened to infantry Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment stationed there at the time as they tried to convince local tribal elders to allow their daughters to attend school. The negotiations were delicate, and the education of all Laki children, girls and boys, hung in the balance as the Marines solicited the local power brokers for help organizing new schools. But the Marines succeeded in the end, because there is a girl’s school today in Laki.

It is easy for the Marines to push too far and too fast and alienate the Afghan people they are trying to win over, and they have on occasion. For instance, the FET Marines in Sangin have been quite successful in gaining access to the other half of the population in one of Afghanistan’s most violent areas. Some Afghan women have adopted them as second daughters of sorts or pointed out hidden bombs. But one of their biggest disappointments involved the only female doctor in Sangin, not counting the midwives. Hundreds of Afghans had started showing up to the FET’s health initiatives in Sangin, when they teach parents about basic hygiene and health care, such as the need to hydrate children suffering from diarrhea instead of the local custom of depriving them of liquids. But when they urged the sole female doctor practicing in Sangin to attend their next health outreach, the woman removed the sign outside her office and skipped town.

A recent women’s shura meeting was also something of a bust because of low attendance, Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, the senior Marine in command of NATO troops in southwestern Afghanistan, told me. In time, even the most remote and battle-scarred corners of Helmand province will nurture women leaders. For now, in an area of the country where roughly 10 percent of the men can read and write and perhaps one percent of the women, according to the Marines’ estimates, a sixth-grade education is a major accomplishment for a girl.

As a woman journalist who works with Marines in combat, I find a bit of delicious irony in the fact that infantry grunts -- that macho testosterone-fueled bunch of trained killers -- are on the front lines of this campaign to teach the daughters of Afghanistan to read. Many of these young riflemen are fathers as well as fighters. When their own daughters learn of what they’ve done, I think they will be proud.

gretel.kovach@uniontrib.com

The USS Arlington - why it was named USS Arlington / The ship will demonstrate “why we do the things we do ”

The fight continues and the US Navy shows that our determination to fight the foes of Freedom -

Our Resolve is as solid as the steel our ships are built with.....

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of all who threaten it.


Twisted chunks of steel torn from the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, will be displayed aboard a new Navy ship named after Arlington County, Va.

The rusted fragments will be displayed in a Lucite box on the quarterdeck of the USS Arlington, a symbolic reminder for those aboard of the terrorist attacks on Virginia and New York.

“This will be very tangible to the young people on the ship,” said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who yesterday attended a small ceremony at the Pentagon where the Secretary of the Navy presented the fragments to Arlington County officials.

“This will give them the history of why it was named” the USS Arlington “and why we do the things we do,” he added.


USS Arlington christening a time of joy and sadness
Published: Thursday, March 24, 2011, 5:39 AM
By Mississippi Press Editorial Board - The Mississippi Press


THE ESSENCE of what makes America great -- including its military, its workers and its patriotic spirit -- will be on display this weekend in Pascagoula, when the U.S. Navy christens its newest amphibious transport ship.

From the ceremonial champagne to the remembrance of those who died at the Pentagon on 9/11, Saturday promises to be a partly festive, partly somber day at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding's Pascagoula shipyard.

The ceremony's keynote remarks will be delivered by Arlington County, Va., Fire Chief James Schwartz, who was incident commander at the time of the terrorist attack.

The ship was named for Arlington County, home of the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 184 people.

It is a worthy tribute to those who died, and also to the military and civilian employees at the Pentagon and the emergency personnel of Arlington County who responded to the crash.

May Gulf Coast residents show them the respect and gratitude they deserve for their selfless acts in the face of terror.

Certainly, the construction of the Arlington was a labor of love for Gulf Coast shipyard workers, who have a reputation for being among the nation's best shipbuilders, dedicated to their craft and country. As first lady Michelle Obama said last year, when she helped christen a Coast Guard cutter in Pascagoula, "Your hands have given us some of the greatest ships in the United States Navy and Coast Guard."

We predict that after it is commissioned next year, the USS Arlington will serve the nation well as it transports sailors, Marines and equipment to hot spots around the world.

As it carries out its various missions, the Arlington will also remind the world of the tragedy as well as the heroics that occurred at the Pentagon on that terrible day 10 years ago.