"Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
~~Richard Bach
Since the MSM is not going to shout it out from the roof tops I think it’s important for bloggers to spread the news. Another Haditha Marine has been acquitted. Innocent until proven guilty? Not if you are a Marine in the path of the MSM and Murtha. I would love to see a formal apology, but you know it will never happen.
Read MORE about the acquittal of Lt. Andrew Grayson.
We have a returning theme this week. Last week many of the stories highlighted the accomplishments of the Iraqi Army, the SOI and the IP. Keep up the good work, guys!
Iraqi Troops capture mid-level AQI leader, six other suspects
BAGHDAD (May 4, 2008) –
Soldiers with the 5th Iraqi Army Division and a Muqdadiyah Special Weapons and Tactics team, advised by U.S. Special Forces, detained a mid-level al-Qaeda in Iraq leader and detained six other suspected terrorists in an operation in As Sa’diya, approximately 55 miles northeast of Baghdad, May 3. Read more…
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‘Sisters’ are doing it for themselves
by Lance Cpl. Robert Medina 1st Marine Logistics Group
http://www.centcom.mil/en/press-releases/285.html
FALLUJAH, Iraq (May 8, 2008) – Marines on a female search team and Iraqi women with the “Sisters of Fallujah” program have been working together at an entry control point here to help make the city of Fallujah a safer place.
The program was formed because females were needed to search other females. In Islamic tradition, a man touching a woman who is not his wife is considered offensive.
Just like Iraqi security forces that have been assuming more responsibilities, Iraqi women are striving to do the same with the help of Marine FSTs.
“(The Sisters of Fallujah) are our eyes and ears inside the booth, where we cannot go,” said Sgt. William A. Lamascus, sergeant of the guard of ECP-1. “It helps to have them here because when they find things, they bring it to our attention.” Read more
I have finally been able to get the art work that Mike sent home scanned and into electronic format. The pictures contained in the album are works of art that the Iraqi children drew as a “thank you” to all of those who contributed to the Operation School School Supply drive last year.
My first inclination as an MSW with a background in children’s mental health was to look at the pictures with an evaluative eye. It won’t take you long to see the positive images that I picked up on right away. I see smiling sun shines, lots of color, and even rainbow colored helicopters.
I thoroughly enjoyed looking through their artwork and appreciating their talent. I will have Mr. Hooah! write a “Cliff Notes” version for you of Art History and Islam. It will help you better understand some of the perspectives in the drawings. Also, look for the picture with an Army vehicle (maybe a Humvee?) and a Stryker — on the same road with a Donkey Cart. Of course the sun is smiling in that picture too.
These pictures will be ready to ship to their rightful recipients in the next few days. [Read more →]
I have decided to do a blessed blitz each week. Our troops are doing so much good work, and the majority of it is swept under the rug by the MSM. Well, who needs them when we have so many other avenues of information open to us now? If this post doesn’t put a smile on your face for the weekend, then I don’t know what will.
So, here’s a handful of my favorite finds this week:
Iraqi Police Regional Training Center Opens in Diyala Province
(Excerpt)
TIKRIT — The Iraqi Police Regional Training Center celebrated its grand opening in Diyala Province, commemorating the establishment of an Iraqi Police professional training academy May 1.
Coalition forces built the interim facility in order to make possible the immediate training of thousands of Iraqi Police and to help place additional police forces throughout communities in Diyala.
“We would like to thank Coalition forces for helping stand up this academy,” said Staff Maj. Gen. Ghanem abbas Ibrahim Hasan al Qarayshi, the Diyala Provincial Director of Police.
Sons of Iraq Help Secure Fuhail Village
PATROL BASE YATES — As part of their commitment to keeping insurgents away, members of the Sons of Iraq built a checkpoint on a narrow stretch of road through Fuhail Mujeer Village, 25 kilometers southwest of Baghdad, last week.
As recently as December, Rakkasan Soldiers of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), established a presence in the area, which was previously an insurgent safe haven.
I spotted this piece today and just can’t help myself … I have to link to it for you from Fox News:
Junk Science: Anatomy of a Chemical Murder
Thursday, April 24, 2008
By Steven Milloy
Wal-Mart announced last week that it would stop selling baby bottles made with the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA.In the past, I would have laid the blame for this junk science-fueled shame at the feet of anti-chemical environmental jihadists, their pseudo-scientist henchmen at universities and government regulatory agencies and Wal-Mart’s knuckleheaded executives, who seem to be more interested in appeasing eco-pressure groups than reassuring consumers the products the retailer has sold for decades are safe.
But the banning of baby bottles made with BPA is so mind-bogglingly baseless that I just have to lay the blame where it truly belongs — with the lame-o chemical industry, which utterly failed to defend its product against activist claims and a regulatory process so specious it would cause voodoo practitioners to shudder.
Oh my. Now you see why I had to read this one. I wasn’t dissappointed. I won’t give the ending away but it made me stop to think a little about the timing on this one.
Surely, surely, there are not those in corporate America that would willingly sacrifice polycarbonate and sound science on the alter of the left in order to steal that market and increase their own profits. Would they? Really!? I hate sounding like a lefty but I do think there is a money trail to be followed here.
Mr.Hooah!, out. (probably for the weekend)
A great article written by “ToySoldier” from False Motivation.
Take a look at what’s going on in Baqouba.
[Note: So I had a previous post that went by this title, but this once touches on it in more depth, enjoy. Also in case any of my unit higher-ups are reading, this article has been OpSec Approved by Battalion]
It is April, and Baqouba is reported as a major hot spot of terrorist activity and is named an Al-Qaeda in Iraq stronghold. AQI holds the residents of Baqouba in a strangle hold of fear and oppression. Coalition forces enact Operation Arrowhead Ripper, a major offensive through the Diyala River Valley to reclaim it. That was 2007, and at that time Coalition Forces not show their faces without expecting a shot being fired, or an explosion of some sort going off. It truly was an unclaimed portion of the Country.
I arrived in Baqouba in August of 2007, after Arrowhead Ripper to finish securing Baqouba and relieve the unit (3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division) so that they could redeploy home. It was an interesting task for me and my fellow soldiers as we had just arrived from Baghdad in the hot spot neighborhood of Doura.
The security situation in Baqouba has changed drastically since I arrived. My first time on the streets of Baqouba was met with fearful residents who refused to speak or be loosely associated with Americans, a Muqtar (a neighborhood leader) had been murdered for working with Americans to better the lives of his neighbors, and House Born IEDs (HBIEDS) were a normal thing. Within our first month in the new sector we encountered 6 IEDs, 2 unexploded ordnances (UXO), 5 HBIEDs, 8 ammunition and weapons caches, 6 murders, 2 firefights, and we had arrested 4 AQI operatives. It was quite the busy month, as we flew by the seat of our pants to familiarize ourselves with the streets, the people, and the leaders.
Our first issue was to purge the area of the existing weapons caches, HBIEDs, UXO, and IEDs. Once that was out of the way we could focus better on those who planted them, and it was a daunting task. In the following 3 months we found over 11 IEDs, 6 HBIEDs, 2 Suicide Vests, and 8 more weapons and ammunition caches. This doesn’t include the murders, and 3 brothers in arms we lost in that time period.
After 5 months of grueling work, and several major raiding operations we saw the fruits of our labors, finding fewer caches and explosives, seeing no murders, and we began to close in on the tighter circle of AQI operatives, who were now trying to lay low in the area. We have seen 4 months straight with no murders, no suicide vests, and no coalition forces wounded or killed. We’ve seen in the past 4 months, 12 AQI Cell Members arrested and turned into the Iraqi Judicial System, and prosecuted, and less than 3 IEDs, HBIEDs, and Caches. It truly is a radically different place than it was when we had inherited it.
Now if you walk the streets of my platoon’s area, people will wave and greet you in the street, children run and try and shake your hands, Muqtars greet us in the streets to discuss business, and we now have double the Muqtars than we started with. Electricity runs to almost all of the houses, trash gets picked up, water runs, and the markets are bustling. Even school is packed with eager young students, whom we surprised with 500 lbs of school supplies donated by Mead.
I can’t affirm to you that the surge has been a complete success all over Iraq, but I can assure you that where I work, and from what I have seen, it has changed the lives of these Iraqi Citizens here in Baqouba. I have seen this city move from an Al-Qaeda stronghold of fear and oppression, into a blossoming community.
Remember a while back when I wrote an entry called “finite familiarity?” I wrote about the incredible connections that have been made for us through this blog and through the process of Bryan’s joining the military when he did.
Today there are even more connections, and one that I did not mention in my first post.
This past week I found out that two of my friends (one I met through Bryan’s joining and the other through this blog) are now neighbors. It was unplanned, and amazing that they wound up in the same neighborhood and found each other. Serendipity abounds. It was a very incredible connection, and I was shocked when I got the call — shocked, surprised, but then not stumped.
The other connection I did not mention in the last entry is the fact that we are distant relatives with a certain, wonderful blogger and commenter. I’ll let her be the decision maker as to whether or not she wants to own us publicly as her own. We are not sure yet what the familial connection is, but we know it’s there. My mother in law does genealogy and was able to establish that there is a connection for sure. Technically this person is related to Mr. Hooah! through kinship and me through marriage. It’s not too shocking since the two of them think alike.
I do have to admit that more than once I would have swore that Piper is Mr. Hooah!’s long, lost sister. There have been times where I had to look twice at the name on her comments, because it echoes almost exactly what he has, or would have, said.
The pieces of this small puzzle, that seems so hugely beyond us, come together without the manipulation of our hands. It’s good that the hands that do the fitting can see the larger picture.
(h/t RN)
Two Maupin captors in custody
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
Cincinnati Enquirer
April 16, 2008Army officials have told the parents of Sgt. Matt Maupin that some of the Iraqis believed to be responsible for their son’s capture four years ago are in custody.
“I know that there are at least two who are supposed to be put on trial, if they haven’t been already,” said Keith Maupin, father of the Union Township soldier whose remains were found March 20 in Iraq by U.S. soldiers, nearly four years after he was captured in a convoy attack near the Baghdad airport.
Keith Maupin and the soldier’s mother, Carolyn Maupin, left Cincinnati Wednesday afternoon for Washington, D.C., where they will have a full day of briefings from Pentagon officials on their son’s disappearance.
The soldier’s father said he expects to learn more Thursday about the Iraqi insurgents believed to be responsible for the then-20-year-old Army reservist’s capture; and more about how and when their son died.
They also will have a video conference with soldiers from the 1st battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment who discovered Sgt. Maupin’s remains on March 20 northwest of Baghdad, working on a tip from an Iraqi civilian.
Keith Maupin said he was told by Army officials soon after the remains discovered that some of those believed responsible for their son’s capture and death had been detained. He doesn’t know their status, but believes that if they are found guilty, they will be executed under Iraqi law.
Waiting for the first liberal to whine about these two murdering scumbags’ Geneva Convention Rights… 5, 4, 3, 2…