Again, stumbling over links:

GI Film Festival scheduled for 16-18 April, 2008.

Check out the people that will be there on the home page. Michael Yon is one of them!

Army Civil Affairs at work.

Army Sgt. Valetin DeLeon, a civil affairs specialist with 351st CACOM, opens up a soccer pump to inflate a soccer ball for a child at the Kapisa Orphanage in the Mahmud Raqi district of Afghanistan during a humanitarian aid drop on June 27. Photo by Melissa Escobar.Servicemembers supply aid to orphanage

3 July 07
By Pfc. Melissa M. Escobar
22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan— Backpacks jammed full with school supplies, soccer balls, teddy bears, toys, hygiene kits, sandals and shoes were delivered to an Afghan orphanage in Mahmud Raqi district by members of the Bagram Provincial Reconstruction Team June 27.

National Guard Soldiers with the 351st Civil Affairs Command from Mountain View, Calif., along with the 1175th Military Police Company, 205th MP Battalion from Mississippi geared up and armed themselves with humanitarian supplies.

Army Sgt. Valetin DeLeon, a civil affairs specialist with 351st CACOM, opens up a soccer pump to inflate a soccer ball for a child at the Kapisa Orphanage in the Mahmud Raqi district of Afghanistan during a humanitarian aid drop on June 27. Photo by Melissa Escobar. In the three months that the team has been in country, this was the first time they visited the orphanage.

“The governor of the province asked us to visit the orphanage,” explained Army Capt. Jordan J. Berry, team leader with 351st CACOM. “The mission was a good-will gesture to strengthen ties with the community.”
[…]

Read it all.

It seems the best bet to keep spares out of the wrong hands is to clip “them” into little bitty pieces.

After all, the only country besides the US to ever fly the F-14 TOMCAT happens to be the guys who like to spread mayhem via the back-channels, hoping they won’t get caught. So, make them into Bud cans and our valiant aviators and missileers won’t lose sleep over splashing an American icon, even if it wears a desert colored paint scheme.

Link: sevenload.com

Lex, I’m sure will be sneaking to his computer late at night, Guinness in hand, to watch this over, and over, and over in the dark…

Update: See, what did I tell you? But to be fair, he went one better…Maybe the F-14 challenges his fighter-pilotness or sumthin’ (not that there’s anything wrong with that…)

Bad? Lebanese Hez’b’allah special ops in Iraq, at the direction if the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, specifically to kill/capture American soldiers.

Good? A very direct link of Iranian involvement in combat operations against us (bad medicine to swallow for hose who just want to “talk” to Iran).

Better? Michael Ware of CNN is doing this report!

[liveleak a8e_1183346438]

I met this imposing figure, as some of my Black Shoe peers about the blogosphere may have. I worked for his son in the later part of my career, and now, there is a ship sailing the oceans named after this incredible man.

Admiral John Bulkeley, USN His nickname? The “Sea Wolf.” John D. Bulkeley didn’t get to Admiral the easy way. He had to go door knocking to get his appointment to the Naval Academy and was successful with a Congressman from Texas, as he couldn’t get a nod from his native state of New Jersey.It appears the salt water in his veins may have been genetic:

John Bulkeley’s destiny may have been cast long before he sought the salt spray of the open ocean. His ancestors, including Richard Bulkeley, brought aboard HMS VICTORY by Lord Nelson just prior to the Battle of Trafalgar in 1804; John Bulkeley of HMS WAGER under Captain Bligh, who sailed with Anson’s Squadron to raid Spanish silver ships of the new world; and Charles Bulkeley, raising the Union Jack for the first time on an American warship, the ALFRED, commanded by John Paul Jones, influenced his intense love of the sea.

USS INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35) in Pearl Harbor c. 1937He made it through the US Naval Academy, Class of 1933 and entered the Army Flying Corps, but…too many hard landings sent him to sea, being assigned as an Ensign to the USS INDIANAPOLIS (CA-35) (the much later stories cruiser that carried the atomic bomb to Tinian). While assigned as Ship’s Company, but traveling on a steamer, he displayed, possibly not the first of many feats, the hallmark of audacity and initiative that labeled him for many years:

As a new ensign in the mid-thirties, he took the initiative to remove the Japanese ambassador’s brief case from a stateroom aboard a Washington-bound steamer, delivering same to Naval Intelligence a short swim later.

Earned him a medal or promotion you ask? Not likely, but the resulting “reward” was not to sit him at the end of the long green table without a coffee cup and ashtray:

This bold feat, of which there were to be many more in his life, didn’t earn him any medals, but it did get him a swift one way ticket out of the country and a new assignment as Chief Engineer of a coal burning gunboat, the SACRAMENTO [PG-19], also known in those parts as “The Galloping Ghost of the China Coast.” Picture in your minds the movie “Sand Pebbles”.

It was on China Station where the CHENG met his future wife. They witnessed the invasion of Shanghai and Swatow, as well as the bombing of the PANAY by the Japanese during their time together in that theater before WWII.

In 1941, Lieutenant Bulkeley was assigned as the Squadron Commander of six motor torpedo boats in the Philippines. It fell to this man to escort General MacArthur, his wife and their son to safety, dodging intense Japanese ship patrols to get the General to southern Mindanao, where a B-17 picked he and his family up. LT Bulkeley and his shipmates were left to find their own way to Australia, which they finally did.

Rewarded? Yes, for that daring escapade, LT John D. Bulkeley was presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

By the resources available with some quick searches, John Bulkeley was next present for the momentous Normandy invasion, managing the PT boats and minesweepers, protecting the landing from threats by German E-Boats and waterborne mines.

USS ENDICOTT (DD-495)Shortly after the invasion, he was assigned to the USS ENDICOTT (DD-495) as Commanding Officer, where he was assigned to patrol in the English Channel and had a few scraps with German corvettes. Of his 5 5″/38 cal guns, only one was working, yet he sent both corvettes to become fish reefs. Audacity once more:

[…]
The tale of his WWII exploits would not be complete without the mention of his love for destroyers, of which he would command many in his years to come. As Normandy operations wound up, he got his first large ship command, the destroyer ENDICOTT, and a month after the D-day invasion of Europe he came to the aid of two British gunboats under attack by two German corvettes. Charging in as dawn’s light broke the horizon with his uncanny ability and determined leadership, with only one gun working, but with a band of brothers for a crew, he unhesitantly engaged both enemy vessels at point blank range, sending both to the bottom. When I asked him about this action, he replied, “What else could I do? You engage, you fight, you win. That is the reputation of our Navy, then and in the future.”

The Admiral was a strong believer in standards, some would say, from the old school, as the enemy Captain of one of the corvettes soon learned. Coming up from the sea ladder, he would not salute the colors of the ENDICOTT, and was promptly tossed back into the sea. The third time did the trick, and he was taken prisoner and allowed on deck.
[…]

ADM Bulkeley was a no nonsense man. From Wikipedia:

In the early 1960s, Bulkeley commanded Clarksville Base, Tennessee, then a tri-service command under the aegis of the Defense Atomic Support Agency. Having lost none of his wartime daring, Bulkeley was known to test the alertness of the Marines guarding the base by doning a ninja suit, blackening his face and endeavoring to penetrate the classified area after dark without detection. This was a dangerous endeavor, as the Marines carried loaded weapons. Ever popular with his men, who both respected and admired him, Bulkeley could be seen driving around the base in his fire-engine red Triumph TR-3 sports car with a large silver PT boat as a hood ornament. Promoted to Rear Admiral by President Kennedy, who commanded PT-109 during World War II, Bulkeley was dispatched to command the disputed Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, where he met Cuba’s threat to sever water supplies in response to the Bay of Pigs invasion and other assaults by ordering the installation of desalinization equipment to make the base self-sufficient. Fidel Castro’s government put out a “wanted-dead-or-alive” poster, offering 50,000 pesos for this “guerrilla of the worst species.”

ADM Bulkeley himself went to the dug up pipeline at GTMO, near the gate into Cuba territory and helped cut the water off himself, in full view of the Cubans.

Later, he went on to be the hard nosed officer who wanted the best for all sailors and headed the Board of Inspection and Survey (INSERV), a group of Naval Officers who actually worked for Congress to determine the viability of each ship on a three year cycle, as to it’s ability to continue in active service. He relentlessly hammered on specific systems, the MK-15 Close in Weapons Systems (CIWS), inflatable life rafts and various ship design features (the famous “no chamber in the deck”). Us poor fleet sailors thought he was after us, but in actuality, he was making a point with the design and procurement side of the Navy. That is where I met the Admiral, on Final Contract Trials (FCT) aboard USS LEFTWICH (DD-984), sometime in late 1979. His Flag Lieutenant was LT Blake Miller, who I relieved years later at another job. ADM Bulkeley was an aloof man, from my perspective, and all business.

The outcome of his seemingly indelicate manner of criticizing our ships was major changes in designs for the ARLEIGH BURKE DDG-51 Class units, which had slight chamber in their decks and positive pressure air systems, both of which are invaluable in staving off chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) attacks, and those are but a few things I know the INSURV was able to force into the design of that class of ship, based on mountains of data collected over many years of inspections.

The paraphrase of his eulogy by his son is here.

“Sea Wolf” is the biography of this fascinating, bemedaled hero.
USS BULKELEY (DDG-84) USS BULKELEY is the first ship to honor VADM John D. Bulkeley, USN. embedded by Embedded Video


USS BULKELEY (DDG-84) At Work

Thanks to Flag Gazer and her diligence in highlighting the heroes who serve us, I found out SSG Bagge is up for an award and surely could use your vote.

SSG Christian Bagge, US Army and the Commander-in-ChiefThe award? The Energizer® Keep Going® Award.SSG Bagge is the man who, while in a hospital bed at Brooke Army Medical Center, told the President he wanted to run with him. A year later, the picture above is the evidence of a man who just kept going, and going, and going….The whole post on SSG Christian Bagge is here on Flag Gazer’s blog…Oh, have you voted yet? GET ON IT!!! (and tell your friends)

I just caught wind of this yesterday on the radio:

Operation DVD, a program of AMVETS.

Used or new, the plan is to get them to the sandbox, so there’s something for the troops to pick through during their down time. Children’s videos dropped off will be sent to families stateside.

Some background, about one person making a difference:

“Op DVD Kid” Provides Entertainment for Troops
Above is a picture of Zach Cohen, a seventh grader at Charles Boehm Middle School in Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Zach got involved with AMVETS, Operation DVD while searching the internet to find a suitable “mitzvah project” in preparation for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. When he stumbled upon the Operation DVD website, he knew he had found his match.

As someone who loves to hang out and watch movies with his friends, this effort proved to combine the leisure activities he loved most, with something he thought was very important – supporting our Troops.

“The soldiers do so much for us and for our country, and I want them to get to enjoy whatever free time they have. I can hang out with my friends and watch a movie or listen to music whenever I want, but our soldiers aren’t so lucky. Not only are they fighting in a very dangerous place, but when they have some time off, they don’t have much to do. Hopefully, AMVETS, Operation DVD will make their free time more enjoyable and will make them realize that we really care about them and appreciate what they do”, Zach explains.

“The best part about this effort is that people don’t have to dip into their pockets to help. After you watch a movie once or twice, are you really going to keep watching it? That movie can be enjoyed over and over again by many soldiers, if you just donate it to AMVETS, Operation DVD.”

“The best places to organize collections are anywhere where there is a lot of repeat traffic – such as places of worship, office buildings, health clubs, libraries, etc. Schools have made a huge impact on this effort and more and more are getting involved everyday.”

Zach has already collected over 2,000 DVDs for our Troops (even his local Honor Society has become involved). He is now in the process of working with other school districts and his Congressman.

A big round of applause for Zach Cohen!!!!!

You can donate cash via the site, or drop them off.

COLLECTION BOXES

Specially designed “Collection Boxes” for donated new and used DVDs will be located across the nation at large chains, retail stores, churches and car dealers.

The “Collection Boxes” are 26” high and “vinyl-wrapped” on the four vertical sides with a description of AMVETS, Operation DVD and logos of major sponsors.

Each “Collection Boxes” is designed in such a way that DVDs can be inserted — but not removed. Each box will hold over 250 donated DVDs for our troops.

Pre-paid shipping labels are attached to each “Collection Boxes” for transportation to sorting centers where “Children Titles” will be separated to be sent to the families (stateside) of soldiers serving overseas.
COLLECTION POINTS

Smaller rural areas (with no large chains) will be served by local AMVET posts. Material is supplied on the AMVETS, Operation DVD website for local Press Releases and Media coverage.

I bet you have a few DVDs you know they’d like and you haven’t watched in a while…help them out…it’s lonely when you’re far from home…

Just idle thoughts and wondering now what connections will show up in the next few days.

Tony Blair, tough on fighting the War on Terror, steps down. Lord Taylor takes over.

The VERY NEXT DAY, two car bombs in London are identified and disarmed.

Lord Taylor calls the possible perps as “criminals.”

Think about it: There was an election coming in Spain, who had troops in Iraq. Massive explosions ripped through the Madrid train station. The incumbent, who had been ahead, all of a sudden loses to the opponent, who says he’ll pull the troops out.

There wasn’t an election in England for PM, but there was a change over and an opportunity to test the new PM to see what he’s made of. Implied threat: Pull out of the war and tolerate us taking over your society, or we’ll keep slaughtering your citizens with any means available. Harden the airliners as weapons, we’ll go to the Tube. Harden that, and we’ll just drive cars down your streets. See a pattern?

So, I hope Lord Taylor will “grow some” right now.

Not sure what The New PM, Gordon Brown thinks about it, but it sure isn’t an “in your face” speech right away.

Another “deja vu” moment. Some reports of a Bobbie crawling into one of the cars in London immediately getting the cell phone trigger unwired. It sounds like some bystanders at Glasgow airport helped “detain” the men from the vehicle today. Yep, Flight 93 in two dimensions, vice three. Good one those who refuse to shy away from doing the right thing at great personal risk.

More success for the terrorists: They have caused us to suffer extensive personal checks for any air travel, being patted down to attend NFL games, extra scrutiny in may venues of our daily lives. Now, even you “ride” will be looked at with more suspicion. Cars are ubiquitous, to get us to school, and as we see now, as weapons of significant destruction among us. Easy, available, and with trunks full of nuts, bolts and nails…(oh, yes: Suspicion for anyone buying not just large quantities of diesel fuel and fertilizer, but those making large buys of “fasteners”), really bad ju-ju at the Mall, or near a 4th of July Parade.

Boy, does this suck. I can only hope they are sending the most stupid and gullible as drivers, as it appears they did for two days running now.

Great. MSNBC just reported Tony Snow released a note saying there is raised threat levels at airports. I guess we can’t think outside the box….any area where many people are gathering is a potential target. I’d like to think we can get smarter than this.

Update 07/03/2007: Well, The new PM is confused: “Don’t say Terrorists are Muslims Only”. Sigh….

The “Fairness Doctrine” is toast…thankfully. Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) put this forward.

I was beginning to wonder, after the rumbles following the 2006 elections, and the ones in the last few days, that Congress would make a push to require not only Talk Radio, but the Internet (meaning us bloggers) to be wrapped in litigation, at the worst, or just paying for a service, that half of the cost from your pocket would have to be set up as a forum for “opposing views.”

Thankfully, someone had the brains (many of them) to see that once re-imposed, had the potential to limit all debate/free speech…not just that of Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Bill Bennett, etc…Daniel Ruth, an editorialist for the Tampa Tribune, has a Saturday morning talk show and I have opposing views to about everything he says, so it would have hit his local show in the same manner it would have stiff led the big entities.

Several monumental things happened yesterday. Have to mark it in the calender.

Update, not moments after this post was posted: Mike Pence was on Bill Bennett’s show when I got in the car. It seems this effort took one hour of debate, but it is only attached to the year’s funding for FCC, not letting them cut it off under current appropriations. Mike has introduced the Broadcasters Freedom Act, which is the fix to make it where Congress would be responsible for any speech control issues, not the FCC. Keep your eye on the ball.

Also, as far as the votes for this amendment, Mike said the Dem leadership voted soundly against this effort, indicating that if they gain control of the White House and retain control of Congress, the “Fairness Act” could come roaring back with a vengeance.