Are the liberals in this country nuts?
They are desparately trying to turn the present war in Iraq into another Vietnam failure, led by his highness Ted Kennedy. I suppose Senator Kennedy is the right man for the job since, who better than him knows all about difficult, precarious and entrapping positions? We, the once silent majority must not be silent any longer. If I hear Kennedy say the word "quagmire" one more time, I'm gonna spit. Somebody important out there needs to dub him "Chappaquagmire". Maybe that'll shut him up and stop his treasonous ways. Whatever happened to treason anyway? When is the last time someone in this country was charged with treason? I hereby nominate the gentleman from Massachusetts for the next trial.
Done!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Friday, June 24, 2005
A Real Real-Time War
Since becoming a military mom, I find myself drawn to all things military on the Internet. I'm that way any time something tweaks my interest. Whatever it happens to be at any given moment, I dive in full force until I am so ingrained into whatever "it" is and have learned so much about "it" that I feel full and move on to some new interest. The combination of the huge American military and the Internet makes for a great, long-lasting, mind-tweaking adventure.
Having said all that, I am lately fascinated by the blogs from soldiers who are currently fighting in Iraq. Some of these soldiers are even getting wounded and it's all being written about, step for step, in real-time right here on the Internet. In the past few days I've been reading about a blogging soldier who was wounded 3 days ago...3 days. His wife has taken over his blog and has been giving a blow by blow as he is moved from Iraq to Germany and today (as in TO-DAY) to the US. He has even already been visited by another blogger who read about him online. And his wife hasn't even made it to his side yet. As I type this, he is being admitted to Walter Reed Hospital, assigned to a room, having all the his vital signs checked, having IV's started, being helped into backless gowns, all while I sit here and type.
I know this might sound gory, but this is awesome reading. This man's public diary is the kind of thing novels are made of. I don't know this man and will never meet him, but because of the Internet, I feel like I know him. Because he choose to make his war public, it has now become personal for me. I have a name to pray for specifically. I can read, in real-time, about how he is doing, what he's going through, how he is healing. I can sit on the sidelines and cheer for him without his even knowing it. This really brings the war home and makes it real. That can't be a bad thing.
All of the war blogs I've read are so enlightning, just hearing what these brave men and women are going through day to day is something we couldn't have imagined in wars past. It used to be that if someone went to war, even the family didn't hear anything from them until they either came home to a joyous reunion or a sad, sad ceremony. And some of the blogs do end sadly, with a soldier dying and one grieving typist making a last lonely entry to the website, or worse, the writing just stops. May that one grieving typist never be me.
We owe these soldiers more than we can ever repay.
Having said all that, I am lately fascinated by the blogs from soldiers who are currently fighting in Iraq. Some of these soldiers are even getting wounded and it's all being written about, step for step, in real-time right here on the Internet. In the past few days I've been reading about a blogging soldier who was wounded 3 days ago...3 days. His wife has taken over his blog and has been giving a blow by blow as he is moved from Iraq to Germany and today (as in TO-DAY) to the US. He has even already been visited by another blogger who read about him online. And his wife hasn't even made it to his side yet. As I type this, he is being admitted to Walter Reed Hospital, assigned to a room, having all the his vital signs checked, having IV's started, being helped into backless gowns, all while I sit here and type.
I know this might sound gory, but this is awesome reading. This man's public diary is the kind of thing novels are made of. I don't know this man and will never meet him, but because of the Internet, I feel like I know him. Because he choose to make his war public, it has now become personal for me. I have a name to pray for specifically. I can read, in real-time, about how he is doing, what he's going through, how he is healing. I can sit on the sidelines and cheer for him without his even knowing it. This really brings the war home and makes it real. That can't be a bad thing.
All of the war blogs I've read are so enlightning, just hearing what these brave men and women are going through day to day is something we couldn't have imagined in wars past. It used to be that if someone went to war, even the family didn't hear anything from them until they either came home to a joyous reunion or a sad, sad ceremony. And some of the blogs do end sadly, with a soldier dying and one grieving typist making a last lonely entry to the website, or worse, the writing just stops. May that one grieving typist never be me.
We owe these soldiers more than we can ever repay.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Gotta Get in the Gitmo Groove
Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat, thinks the terrorists being held at Gitmo are being treated inhumanely. His actual words on the Senate floor in reference to an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures and having to listen to loud music (oh the horror) went something, no...wait, it went exactly like this:
"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."
POL POT? NAZIS? GULAGS? Is the senator insane? Those names refer to unspeakable atrocities committed on millions of innocent people. My son Sprout, a soldier in the US Army, recently went through basic training. He was subjected to physical, mental, and biological "torture"...just to learn how to deal with the evil likes of those prisoners at Gitmo. He spent 10 days and nights in the woods of North Carolina in December...in the cold...and the rain...eating MRE's...and lugging 60 pound ruck sacks for miles on end...all in the name of training to learn to fight the evil we are now pampering at Gitmo.
Well, Senator Durbin...cry me a river. I'm waiting for one, just one, Democrat leader to stand up and denounce this. Words have meanings. Ever hear the phrase "give me liberty or give me death"? Or "remember the Alamo"? People remember words long after they are spoken, because words come not from the stomach, but from the heart. And therein lies the truth of a man's thoughts.
Some other sites, like Blackfive, have some good comments on this too.
"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."
POL POT? NAZIS? GULAGS? Is the senator insane? Those names refer to unspeakable atrocities committed on millions of innocent people. My son Sprout, a soldier in the US Army, recently went through basic training. He was subjected to physical, mental, and biological "torture"...just to learn how to deal with the evil likes of those prisoners at Gitmo. He spent 10 days and nights in the woods of North Carolina in December...in the cold...and the rain...eating MRE's...and lugging 60 pound ruck sacks for miles on end...all in the name of training to learn to fight the evil we are now pampering at Gitmo.
Well, Senator Durbin...cry me a river. I'm waiting for one, just one, Democrat leader to stand up and denounce this. Words have meanings. Ever hear the phrase "give me liberty or give me death"? Or "remember the Alamo"? People remember words long after they are spoken, because words come not from the stomach, but from the heart. And therein lies the truth of a man's thoughts.
Some other sites, like Blackfive, have some good comments on this too.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Fifteen Digit Phone Number
Sprout has a new cell phone. And a fifteen digit phone number. Actually, it is sixteen digits, but after dialing it fifteen times with no success, I logged on to the trusty Internet and found out that I had to drop one digit in the area code. Wow! What a relief. Dialing fifteen numbers is bad but I reeeeeeealy have to put my foot down at dialing sixteen numbers. Sheeeeesh! Don't they know that I am getting old and have a very limited short term memory? Even speed-dial won't be too fast with this phone number. And I have no desire to get my next phone bill. Something tells me it should be...shall we say...interesting.
All that aside, Sprout is adjusting well. He sounds like he even likes it there. I don't think it is the awful place he was anticipating. He hasn't given us an address yet because he says he will probably move one more time before he settles down so I can't yet send him a care package. Darn! I'll probably send one to some soldiers from this neat website while I'm waiting.
All that aside, Sprout is adjusting well. He sounds like he even likes it there. I don't think it is the awful place he was anticipating. He hasn't given us an address yet because he says he will probably move one more time before he settles down so I can't yet send him a care package. Darn! I'll probably send one to some soldiers from this neat website while I'm waiting.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Freedom...Pure & Simple
The first line of my last post says something that I hate to admit. It's true, but I hate that it's true. If you don't feel like scrolling down and reading, here is what I wrote: "I used to not pay much attention to stories like this, but now that I have a son in the military, it's personal." I hate the fact that I really never paid much attention to our military until I had a vested interest in it. Those of us not living in a military town or surrounded by military people tend to take all this comfort for granted. Shoot...we even have the audacity to complain if things aren't just so. Having lived in a free society all my life, it's hard to imagine living any other way. It's hard to think of our freedoms being taken away . So many things we consider as just parts of our every day lives, like cell phones and the internet, the people of North Korea are having to learn to live without because their government doesn't trust them to be free. Just imagine our military allowing this to happen in MY country...(from the article)
"Starting in April, the sources said Pyongyang blocked 90 percent of its international phone lines to hinder leaks of information to the outside world. Before April, the North operated 970 international phone lines, but the sources said a direct order came from the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, to cut the lines. The North Korean Foreign Ministry is now said to operate with just two lines, while the North's military operates another two and the Ministry of Foreign Trade possesses one.
In another measure, the sources said Pyongyang has also impounded 20,000 cell phones since May of last year after the North Korean authorities came to believe cell phone calls leaked news of a massive explosion at the rail station in the town of Ryongchon. North Korean citizens who paid $1,200 as a deposit on the cell phones are said to have been angered because the deposits are not being returned. [...]
The regime, the sources said, has also tightened its grip by severely limiting access to the outside world through the Internet. Only two government departments are said to have Internet links. The internal intranet that was previously available to North Korean colleges such as the Kim Il Sung University has also been shut down, the sources said."
Nuff said. I won't take my freedom for granted any more. Thanks to Lost Nomad for pointing this out.
"Starting in April, the sources said Pyongyang blocked 90 percent of its international phone lines to hinder leaks of information to the outside world. Before April, the North operated 970 international phone lines, but the sources said a direct order came from the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, to cut the lines. The North Korean Foreign Ministry is now said to operate with just two lines, while the North's military operates another two and the Ministry of Foreign Trade possesses one.
In another measure, the sources said Pyongyang has also impounded 20,000 cell phones since May of last year after the North Korean authorities came to believe cell phone calls leaked news of a massive explosion at the rail station in the town of Ryongchon. North Korean citizens who paid $1,200 as a deposit on the cell phones are said to have been angered because the deposits are not being returned. [...]
The regime, the sources said, has also tightened its grip by severely limiting access to the outside world through the Internet. Only two government departments are said to have Internet links. The internal intranet that was previously available to North Korean colleges such as the Kim Il Sung University has also been shut down, the sources said."
Nuff said. I won't take my freedom for granted any more. Thanks to Lost Nomad for pointing this out.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Don't Get Me Riled
I used to not pay much attention to stories like this, but now that I have a son in the military, it's personal. When a Marine, just home from Iraq is not allowed to visit a class of sixth-graders who wrote to him while he was gone, something ain't right. If this story is as it appears, there's one middle-school Principal in Georgia who needs a good arse-whooping and a teacher who needs a medal. And a Marine who needs a major, MAJOR apology. Not only was this wrong, it was ugly. The thought that this Marine might be feeling the least bit unappreciated like those poor "red-headed step-children" soldiers returning from Vietnam so long ago to an ungrateful nation just burns me up. We can not let this war become another Vietnam. We are a nation of good people and this Marine represents the best of us. He should be sought after and fussed-over, not "escorted off the campus". I just have to wonder what this Principal was thinking? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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