Boyd and his pink Boxers

Stationed in Afghanistan's Kunar Province, Army Specialist Zachary Boyd, 19, was rushed out of bed, having no time to get dressed, when his platoon suddenly found themselves under fire.



This photo was printed on the cover of the NY Times, and Boyd feared the consequences when the President saw him out of uniform. Allaying his fears of being out of a job, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has commented on the incident;

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage.

"I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban. Just imagine seeing that: a guy in pink boxers and flip-flops has you in his cross-hairs. What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare."

I suppose they are pretty strict when it comes to dress code in the US military... I've only seen one American military guy out of his jeans and he didn't wear underwear at all, so it's good to finally have confirmation they're at least allowed to wear their own lucky boxers!

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Cheney to welcome home Ohio-based Marines

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. Vice President Dick Cheney is welcoming home an Ohio-based Marine Corps unit that took heavy casualties in Iraq.

Cheney is scheduled to address more than 4,500 Marines this morning, including members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. The battalion, based in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park, lost 48 Marines in Iraq and had more than 150 wounded. The deaths included 14 Marines killed in back-to-back attacks within one week this summer.

(...)

Marines who served in other units in Iraq and others who returned from helping recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina will also take part in the events.

Cheney will stay for a luncheon before leaving the area at about 1:30 p.m., Jackson said.

After his address, Cheney will be honored with a 19-gun cannon salute. Some of the weekend arrangements preparing for the vice president’s visit included checking that cars near the location of Cheney’s address were both swept for bombs and kept unlocked, Jackson said.

Cantonrep.com



Whoa wait a minute... Soldiers who have been on the other side of the world fighting for their lives are coming back, and it's the vice president who is being honoured? They are honouring him. He did what? Send them there?

Things that are in my head.

He's off to war and doesn't fear death
Bucks County Courier Times

Bob Dembowski, 18, soberly assessed his prospects this way. If he's killed fighting in Iraq, death probably will come quickly.

With luck, it'll be painless.

"Death doesn't bother me," he said. "It's better to go over there with that kind of mentality. If you are constantly worried about being killed, you're just going to get others hurt and probably get yourself killed for sure."

At peace with the idea of dying young, he sat in his house in Northampton and chatted amiably about the future.

He graduates tonight from Council Rock High School-North. He has signed up for a four-year stint with the Marines. He has chosen the infantry.

His friends don't want him to go.

"They're afraid I won't come back or I'll be injured," he said.

His parents are supportive but concerned.

"It's not what I would choose for him to do," said his mother, Fran. "I am very proud that one of my [four] children would serve his country. But the danger. It's the infantry."

All warriors know they risk death when they enter the battlefield. Bob Dembowski knows it, too.

"It's why I have such a great respect for everyone who has ever fought for this country," he said.

He feels a bond with them.

Military service is his destiny. He's wanted to be in the military service since he was a kid.

He has studied the history of America's wars and is confident Iraq will be free, not a quagmire.

"Guys like me want to be there. We failed for two reasons in Vietnam. The media and the draft. The draft was the biggest contributor to the failure in Vietnam because you had people there who didn't want to be there. Talk to any recruiter. They don't like drafts for that reason," he said.
Click Here!

Iraq, too, is a noble cause.

"I believe we're doing the right thing in Iraq," he said. "I understand our government may have not been entirely truthful with us about why we went there, and I don't like that. But I still think we did a good thing getting Saddam out."

Free people are obligated to help those living in nations enslaved by tyrants, even if it means risking death to do it, he said.

"On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, most people just see it as a day off. Nothing wrong with a day off. But I'm always thinking that someone else gave their life so I can have my car, live in this house, have all the freedoms I have," he said.

"And don't get me wrong. There are things I don't like about this country, but there's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest country in the world. And I want other people in other parts of the world to at least begin to taste the freedoms that we take for granted.

"Even myself, I take things for granted. Roads, for instance. We have paved roads, not dirt roads. We have streetlights. We have libraries and schools and supermarkets. Some countries don't have any of that. It doesn't seem right.

"Since I have these things, and I am able to help other people get it, that's what I feel I should do."

He enters boot camp on Monday.

He sets out on his first patrol in Iraq by fall.


by J.D Mullane June 14, 2005 4:59 AM

Military Instructions

A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what is left of your unit.
- Army's magazine of preventive maintenance.

Aim towards the Enemy.
- Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher

Cluster bombing from B-52s are very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground.
- USAF Ammo Troop

It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.
- U.S. Air Force Manual

You, you, and you ... Panic. The rest of you, come with me.
- U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.

Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.
- Unknown Marine Recruit


any my two favourites from this chain mail:

When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
- U.S. Marine Corps

Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammunition.
- Infantry Journal

Iwo Jima

Today it's been 60 years since the battle of Iwo Jima started, February 19th 1945.

Now, I just read this and realized I don't have a clue what the battle of Iwo Jima was, I've heard about it, of course, but I don't know what it was. So I decided to do what I do the best, and love the most, - a little research.

First I wondered why I don't know anything about it. Do most people know what it was about? Apparantly, most young adults in Scandinavia know nothing about Iwo Jima - but we have seen the picture by Joe Rosenthal, said to be the most reproduced photograph in history. So what is it all about?

You may or you may not know that Iwo Jima is a tiny Japanese island south of the biggest islands that form Japan. During WWII, the Americans wanted to bomb Japan. I didn't know about that, all I'd ever heard about were the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Americans didn't have anywhere for their planes to land since Japan is in the ocean and their nearest bomber base was in the Mariana Islands (see link above) . The idea was that if they could get to the island of Iwo Jima, it would have the perfect location as a "fighter-escort station".

The US sent 110,000 marines in 880 ships sailing from Hawaii.

The Japanese, around 21,000 of them, were preparing to fight a war from beneath the ground, each soldier was expected to kill 10 enemy soldiers before he died and the strategy was "no Japanese survivors" - they didn't expect to survive.

February 19th, 1945. Between 2am and 8:30am the island of Iwo Jima was under heavy fire from ships and bombers. At 8:30 the Americans got the order to get on the island. Mt. Suribachi, a 550-foot volcanic cone on the southern tip of the island overlooked both landing zones. Here the Japanese were hiding as the Americans came. Unfamiliar with the terrain and not knowing what awaited them, they were easy targets for the Japanese soldiers, always under ground, watching every move the enemies made.

4 days into the battle, February 23rd, a flag was raised on Mt. Suribachi. Later, that flag was replaced by a bigger one, the one we've all seen in the photos. But the battle was far from over. It lasted 36 days. There were no foxholes, no frontlines, and, for the Americans; no enemy soldiers to be seen. They used liquid gas, napalm and hand grenades on the underground Japanese.

Basically it was deadly and the numbers show it. Easy Company, the company that raised the famous flag, started out with 310 men. Only 50 boarded the ship after the battle.

In 36 days, 6,825 American marines were killed. Practically all 21,000 Japanese soldiers disappeared.

All this so that 2,400 bombers could land on the island. That's 11 deaths for every plane that landed. Was it worth it?


So that's Iwo Jima, and that was 60 years ago.
Such bravery. Such courage.
Such a waste.


Check out IwoJima.com for more, that's where I learnt most of this.

The last week

The net took a break on Friday and wasn't back up until Tuesday. I hate it when that happens during the weekend, they usually fix it on Monday but this time it took until Tuesday night. But I'm back (can't get rid of me) and I've listed a few things I wanted to comment on.

Helicopters
There's a military training thing going on in the ocean just off the coast. Soldiers from several countries are out there for a couple of weeks before moving further north where they will be joined by more soldiers from other countries. They'll pretend to be 'protecting the peace' in a country called Utopia.

And this weekend I saw a helicopter. Well, it looked more like a small airplane, but it was a helicopter. With four windows like in airplanes, biggest helicopter I've ever seen. People staring up into the sky everywhere. Today there were two more, normal sized though, strange green colour, flying over the city.

Dream 1
I dreamt I was wearing see-through underwear under see-through clothes. Not a good idea. Rather disturbing actually... :)

Dream 2
A dream about something I thought I'd remember but I've forgot.

Singing birds
The birds here are singing at night. We don't usually hear birds singing during the winter, they've all gone south months ago. But now they're singing at 3am. I know this because I'm awake at 3am, which I shouldn't be. But the birds are awake too... I wonder what's going on.

Dragon Mountain
After they've started tearing down the Student Centre where we used to have our lectures, we now go to the concert hall Grieghallen, and we've also had our first lecture at the law school, or the law department of the University. There are 850 of us and they have to split us between two auditoriums to fit us in. Most of us, anyway. The law school is affectionately, and officially, known as the Dragon Mountain. That's what it says in the papers we get from the University, that's what the professors say; "the next lecture is at the Dragon Mountain". Guess that says it all about our future lawyers.

Great professor
I love our Cognition professor! I do, I really do. We've had one lecture Monday afternoon. Entering the auditorium tired after lectures on Methods and Developmental Psychology, we all quickly woke up. The professor is from Switzerland and he's great. He takes a few seconds to get his Norwegian right every time, although we understand him perfectly (most of the time), but when he's the funniest guy you've met in ages, it's really really worth it. And it's not like some of the other professors who seem to struggle to put a joke in there, he just says something or does something and... I don't know, maybe he should be a comedian. He's a natural. Plus he really knows what he's talking about - I went straight home and started reading the book. Can't wait for the next lecture on Cognition.

Attachment
We talked about attachment in Development. Some kids don't get a strong attachment to their parents and can have problems getting attached to people later in life. They can grow up (and into) not needing intimacy or being close to others. As adults they are just like everybody else, they just have problems telling or showing people they care about them, or they just don't need other people. We learnt about a lot of different kinds of children and adults, but I noticed this one. I'm wondering if that's what happened to me. Not that my parents ever did anything wrong, it's not about that, but maybe I just... have that kind of personality.

What if I'll never be able to tell, or show, someone that I care about them? What if I'll never let myself need anyone? How would that work? That's the way it is now, maybe the critical and/or sensitive periods for attachment are long gone and I'm forever destined to... well it's not that I don't care about people, cuz I do. I guess it's just hard to see, and it must seem like I don't really care about anyone. But I do.

Dream 3
I dreamt I was drinking coke. Which is strange because I don't really like coke...

Dream 4
Started dreaming a lot lately... Dreamt a woman was paying for something at a shop and she had 20 øre (3.5 cents) less than what she had to pay (weird since our smallest coin is 50 øre). The person at the till said it didn't matter. Then the woman walked out and I found 20 øre. Suddenly I was that woman and I walked back into the shop and gave them the 20 øre coin I had found.

We Were Soldiers
This was the Sunday night movie last week and I decided to watch it. After having seen Full Metal Jacket a few days earlier, I guess I expected something like it. I liked the first part of FMJ but the second part was... well I can't really say, I've never been anywhere close to a situation like that, but it didn't seem real and the feeling just wasn't there. In We Were Soldiers, however, the feeling was there. Big time. I loved it. I sometimes hope the ending won't be a happy ending when I watch movies because happy endings... life isn't always like that. We want it to be, but it's not reality. That's a horrible thing to say isn't it? Not wanting happy endings? Anyway, I don't know if you've seen it or not, but in the last scene, when the taxi came, I was expecting a letter. And when it wasn't... I think everyone who has seen that movie must have felt the relief I felt. Even if it was just a movie. I hope real life has happy endings.

I don't like this man!

U.S. General Says It Is 'Fun to Shoot Some People'
By Will Dunham

Thu Feb 3, 2005 03:08 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Marine Corps general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who led troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the comments at a conference Tuesday in San Diego.

"Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," said Mattis.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

In a statement, Gen. Michael Hagee, commander of the Marine Corps, praised Mattis as "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders."

"While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war," Hagee said.

"I have counseled him concerning his remarks and he agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully," Hagee added.

Maj. Jason Johnston, a Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, said Hagee did not plan any disciplinary action against Mattis. Johnston declined to provide details of how Hagee had counseled Mattis, calling it a private matter.

At a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he could not comment on the remarks, but Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised the general as having set a stellar example for troops in his service abroad.

Mattis is commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico, Virginia, south of Washington.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.




Yeah alright, I get what he's saying. When you're out there it's probably a whole lot different than sitting at home thinking about it. But this was said at a conference. A "lets sit down and talk about stuff" place, not an enemy in sight.

"So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them"

Fun? FUN???

Now that is where the understanding me stops, blinks twice and goes "excuse me??"

"Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praised the general as having set a stellar example for troops in his service abroad."

He could have meant that Lt. Gen. Mattis had set a great example in general, how he's fought for his country and been a good soldier. But here we read that Rumsfeld couldn't comment on Mattis' statements, Pace did instead, and said Mattis had set 'a stellar example'. Now I'm just hoping Reuters took this out of context and Pace actually did mean what I wrote above. Otherwise... well, should people go around saying it should be fun to kill others?

Even if there's a war? Even if you're a general?

I'm just asking....

Thoughts

A guy on Skype just asked me if I wanted to see something weird on the net. He had called me and I told him I was just surfing. I asked him what he meant, and he asked me what I felt about the beheadings in Iraq. I said thought it was horrible, obviously. He proceeded to ask me if I would like to watch someone get beheaded.

Now, I'm not saying that it's normal or abnormal or anything (don't like those words) to want to watch someone get their head chopped off. When they talk about it on the news I always wonder why we never get to see it actually happen, although I understand, and appriciate, the fact that they cut the clip where they do. Wouldn't it be a little exciting to see? Isn't that usually how we react? I can't see it so I want to see. I can't do it so I want to do it.

My initial reaction to his question, did I want to watch it, was "why do you think I would want to?". I was actually surprised at myself how repulsive that thought was at that moment. I told the guy that seeing someone get killed really wasn't on the top of my list of things to see right now.

Who would want to see a person get killed? Some people are in positions that force them to witness such acts of violence, but why would someone choose to see it?

I can't blame anyone for wanting to watch. I just sit at home, all safe and comfy, and I hear about what's going on out there. I watch the news, I read the reports. It does shake me. Every time. But watching something 'real' might shake me a little more. And then there's always the attraction toward what is 'forbidden'. Whether it's a hurricane or a fire, it's exciting and it makes people sit on the edge of their chair for a couple of days. It makes us look up and out for a while. It's exciting.

But at the same time, at least for me, I just felt I have more respect for a human life, and death, than for it to become some sort of entertainment. Watching someone die. I have the choice. Why would I say yes?


It's snowing in Norway. It's pink outside, tiny snowflakes landing softly on the ground, covering the city in a white blanket. I love walking outside at home when the weather is like this. It's just one of those things you won't understand until you've experienced it. It's peace. It's beauty. At its very very best.