Next up:

An item entitled “Watch ‘Charlie Rose – An hour with General David Petraeus’” I sent myself through Google Reader on 10 SEP 2007 at 8:18 AM. I think the title is self-explanatory. The reason I want to watch it — and still save it? Because I love me some Petraeus. Link still works. Delete.

Next is a really old e-mail (17 OCT 2007 at 3:25 PM) with a link to The Blakes’ (a band) Myspace page. I’m deleting without looking further. Can’t remember why I saved it. If anyone knows if they’re any good, let me know and I’ll look into ‘em this time around.

22 OCT 2007 at 11:12 AM: Another Google Reader e-mail with a link to the Mother Jones’ issue focusing on leaving Iraq. The e-mail itself contains an interview with T.X. Hammes that was posted on the Kings of War blog, written by various faculty and research students of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The link still works.

Okay, I’m going to stop here again for a while. Maybe I’ll aim for getting rid of three old e-mails per post.

Does anyone else find random stuff on the Web, e-mail it to themselves and then let it sit there lingering forever?

I keep telling myself I need to blog more — stretch my legs (or fingers) again after such a long hiatus from truly active blogging (a few times a week or month not counting). If we remember, I started blogging back in 1998 or earlier (this is before the term “blogging” was in use). But what’s the use in reminiscing? There’s too much to do now.

I need to start blogging again because I need to soon start blogging daily on the TFN blog (which is not open to the public yet).

Anyway, I’m doing my best, I guess. Just not forcing myself to pour out nonsense here every day of the week.

——-

So, as I was writing the last four paragraphs, the people I wanted to talk about first left Dolce Vita. They’d been sitting just next my friend Claire and me. They were discussing how Whole Foods gobbles up Mom ‘n Pop groceries (earlier they’d been talking about how we live under a fascist system and something about grammar). While I’m no great fan of Whole Paycheck, this seems to me to be a late-in-the-game argument: Mom and Pop were in serious trouble — if not already driven out of business — by larger grocery conglomerates far before Whole Foods became any sort of player. You’re about ten years too late, hippies. (Also, how can hippies afford to live in Hyde Park?)

—–

By the way, I’m apparently getting married.

—–

I’ve only been engaged since Saturday and I already hate wedding planning.

—–

Is it normal for one who becomes familiar with the intricacies of Texas politics to start voting against people just because they don’t like who works for them?

—–

Joaquin is eight to ten days away from graduating from Basic Combat Training for the Army. Then he heads to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for AIT for his MOS (88M, Motor Transport Operator).

—–

I suppose that is all for now. It’s starting to rain a little here at Dolce.

1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don’t look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn’t work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
7. Professionals are predictable; it’s the amateurs that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
9. When you’re ready for them.
10. When you’re not ready for them.
11. Teamwork is essential; it gives them someone else to shoot at.
12. If you can’t remember, then the claymore IS pointed at you.
13. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
14. A “sucking chest wound” is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.
15. If your attack is going well, then it’s an ambush.
16. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
17. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
18. If you build yourself a bunker that’s tough for the enemy to get into quickly, then you won’t be able to get out of it quickly either.
19. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
20. If you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in a combat zone.
21. When you’ve secured the area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.
22. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
23. Friendly fire isn’t.
24. If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
25. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
26. The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass.
27. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
28. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
29. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
30. If at first you don’t succeed, call in an air-strike.
31. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
32. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel’s HQ.
33. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
34. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
35. A clean (and dry) set of BDUs is a magnet for mud and rain.
36. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
37. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
38. Field experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
39. Interchangeable parts aren’t.
40. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
41. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove ANYTHING.
42. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism (in boot camp).
43. The one item you need is always in short supply.
44. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
45. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon’s operator.
46. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
47. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.
48. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
49. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don’t know what they want, but they know for certain what they DON’T want.
50. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
51. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
52. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.
53. When you have sufficient supplies and ammo, the enemy takes two weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies and ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
54. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
55. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
56. Murphy was a grunt

[The Sandbox]

In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a “young woman who lost her husband in Iraq, a lovely young woman who had a daughter.”

“Here’s what happened to her,” Clinton said. “She was given $6,000. She was told to leave the [military] base within 90 days. She was told her daughter was no longer eligible for Army medical care. She was basically on her own. So I said, ‘That’s not right.’ So we began to work to change what was really cruel — you lose your husband, you lose your wife, you lose your mom or your dad, and you’re out, and nobody seemed to care.”

Nice story. Too bad it’s false.

In a 22 March 2008 story in The New York Times, death benefits given to military families are outlined:

Three years ago, advocates for military families succeeded in winning a significant expansion in survivor benefits, which include life insurance, a death gratuity, medical care and housing and education assistance.

. . .

In 2005, the so-called death gratuity — the sum given to survivors for an active-duty death — jumped to $100,000 from $12,420, and the military’s group life insurance maximum rose to $400,000 from $250,000. Both are retroactive to October 2001, covering the nearly 4,500 service members who have been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since.

There are myriad other survivor benefits, too, many determined by specific circumstances. Joyce Wessel Raezer, chief operating officer of the National Military Family Association, said that a hypothetical widow of an Army corporal based at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, with three years of service and two young children would likely receive payments totaling $5,335 a month for the first year. In addition, a spouse would get free medical care for three years — the children into adulthood — and all would receive education assistance.

Through private companies, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides insurance beneficiaries the service of a professional financial planner for a year, but a spokesman said that only one in 10 families uses it.

So, let’s see, Clinton said that:

1. The wife was given $6,000. Huh? Any other time I would assume that was the basic death gratuity to cover funeral expenses, but that was over $12,000 before being increased to $100,000 three years ago. So, false.
2. The wife was given 90 days to move off-base. Probably correct — for obvious reasons.
3. She said the daughter was no longer eligible for military health care. Completely and utterly false. Not only is her daughter eligible for military health care until she’s an adult, but the wife continues to receive it for three more years.

So she’s either out-right lying or just doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about — which she should because I’m certain the increase in death benefits had to be approved by the Senate.

This is what we want in a president?

Duck and cover! It’s a sniper!

UPDATE: Hillary’s campaign site notes that:

She cosponsored the Military Death Benefit Improvement Act to raise the military survivor benefit from $12,000 to $100,000.

So that’s something.

By law, most skin mags can’t be sold in military stores. Playboy and Penthouse aren’t deemed scandalous enough to fall under those regulations, though.

When I was in Air Force technical school, you could have porn in your room as long as it didn’t involve penetration. The service wanted to save penetration for itself. “If anyone’s going to get fucked up the ass, it’s going to be you, airman, with this 24-foot Air Force cock.”

What kind of wacko group — okay, we know what kind, Donald Wildmon’s — would want to keep porn mags from highly armed, young, over-testosteroned soldiers faced with a dearth of real, live females (what’s the ratio of males to females in the military, anyone? Bueller?)?

You’re old enough to kill, son, but don’t touch yourself. You’ll go blind.

A commenter on the story over at Military.com summed it up nicely:

Pornography is one of the things that seperate us from the Islamofacists and Sharia law.

Porno is Patriotic

Damn unpatriotic, troop-hating Christian fanatics.

The Army, Navy and Air Force unwittingly advertised for recruits on a website for gays, who are barred from military service if they are open about their sexual orientation.

When informed Tuesday by USA TODAY that they were advertising on GLEE.com, a networking website for gay professionals, recruiters expressed surprise and said they would remove the job listings.

Okay, now that’s just funny. It’s this second part that pisses me off:

“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” said Maj. Michael Baptista, advertising branch chief for the Army National Guard, which will spend $6.5 million on Internet recruiting this year. “We didn’t knowingly advertise on that particular website,” which he said does not “meet the moral standards” of the military.

“Moral standards” of the military? Who is Baptista to define those standards? This isn’t an issue of “moral standards.” This is an issue of policy and politics and inequality. I think Baptista needs to keep his ass out of the political and “moral” aspect of gays serving in the military and just admit that he needs to keep a closer eye on where his people are placing advertisements.

Or maybe he just doesn’t meet the “intelligence standards” of the military.

Lest we forget . . .

Army Chief of Staff George Casey on Tuesday said his heavily deployed force is “out of balance” after six years of operations overseas.

The Army is “consumed” with meeting current demands, making it difficult to prepare forces as rapidly as service leaders would like for future contingencies, Casey said during a speech at the National Press Club. Casey, who served as the top military commander in Iraq before taking over as Army chief in April, also acknowledged that soldiers do not have “acceptable” time off between deployments.

. . .

Over time, these operations have stretched and, as a result, have stressed our all-volunteer force,” Casey said. “But we remain a resilient and committed professional force.”

Efforts to grow the size of the Army by 65,000 troops will require “considerable resources and sustained national commitment” but will ease deployment pressures, Casey added.

Casey also stressed that Army officials do not plan to reinstate a military draft, even as the weight of constant deployments bears down on the all-volunteer Army. “Right now, there is absolutely no consideration, at least within the Army, being given to reinstating the draft,” Casey said. “We are not to that point.”

Casey’s comments come just days after White House Deputy National Security Adviser Douglas Lute said in a National Public Radio interview that the draft has always been “an option on the table.”

Personally, I’m surprised anyone in the administration would leave even that much leeway for interpretation. Bet Cheney ripped him a new asshole when he got off the phone with NPR.

As I’ve always said, I’m happy to head over (my Air Force service notwithstanding) as long as everyone else has to as well — men and women, no deferments for rich kids or college students or any of the other avenues that allowed the current crop of cronies in the White House to get out of serving.

The diesel-electric hybrid hype has met its match: the U.S. Army. After focusing on hydrogen fuel cells in its original version of “The Aggressor,” a high-performance, off-road Alternative Mobility Vehicle (AMV) for military ground exploration and scouting missions, the Pentagon is now going the way of Detroit—with batteries.

The new, second-generation prototype will still utilize the same basic chassis and exterior design for light-duty capacity. But the Army’s auto research arm—part of the Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC)—has developed a battery-dominant, hybrid-electric drivetrain with a diesel engine-generator. That could make the new Aggressor the first hybrid to hit the streets of Baghdad en masse.

Pretty cool looking, too:

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