This was in my inbox this morning. The Monsters and the Weak
by Michael Marks The sun beat like a hammer, not a cloud was in the sky.
The mid-day air ran thick with dust, my throat was parched and dry.
With microphone clutched tight in hand and cameraman in tow,
I ducked beneath a fallen roof, surprised to hear "stay low." My eyes blinked several times before in shadow I could see,
the figure stretched across the rubble, steps away from me.
He wore a cloak of burlap strips, all shades of grey and brown,
that hung in tatters till he seemed to melt into the ground.
He never turned his head or took his eye from off the scope
but pointed through the broken wall and down the rocky slope.
"About eight hundred yards," he said, his whispered words concise,
"beneath the baggy jacket he is wearing a device." A chill ran up my spine despite the swelter of the heat,
"You think he's gonna set it off along the crowded street?"
The sniper gave a weary sigh and said "I wouldn't doubt it,"
"unless there's something this old gun and I can do about it." A thunderclap, a tongue of flame, the still abruptly shattered;
while citizens that walked the street were just as quickly scattered.
Till only one remained, a body crumpled on the ground,
The threat to oh so many ended by a single round. And yet the sniper had no cheer, no hint of any gloat,
instead he pulled a logbook out and quietly he wrote.
"Hey, I could put you on TV, that shot was quite a story!"
But he surprised me once again - "I got no wish for glory." "Are you for real?" I asked in awe, "You don't want fame or credit?"
He looked at me with saddened eyes and said "you just don't get it."
"You see that shot-up length of wall, the one without a door?
Before a mortar hit, it used to be a grocery store." "But don't go thinking that to bomb a store is all that cruel,
the rubble just across the street - it used to be a school.
The little kids played soccer in the field out by the road,"
His head hung low, "They never thought a car would just explode." "As bad as all this is though, it could be a whole lot worse,"
He swallowed hard, the words came from his mouth just like a curse.
"Today the fight's on foreign land, on streets that aren't my own,
I'm here today 'cause if I fail, the next fight's back at home." "And I won't let my Safeway burn, my neighbors dead inside,
don't wanna get a call from school that says my daughter died;
I pray that not a one of them will know the things I see,
nor have the work of terrorists etched in their memory." "So you can keep your trophies and your fleeting bit of fame,
I don't care if I make the news, or if they speak my name."
He glanced toward the camera and his brow began to knot,
"If you're looking for a story, why not give this one a shot." "Just tell the truth of what you see, without the slant or spin;
that most of us are OK and we're coming home again.
And why not tell our folks back home about the good we've done,
how when they see Americans, the kids come at a run." "You tell 'em what it means to folks here just to speak their mind,
without the fear that tyranny is just a step behind;
Describe the desert miles they walk in their first chance to vote,
or ask a soldier if he's proud, I'm sure you'll get a quote." He turned and slid the rifle in a drag bag thickly padded,
then looked again with eyes of steel as quietly he added;
"And maybe just remind the few, if ill of us they speak,
that we are all that stands between the monsters and the weak."

Two members of the U.S. Navy SEALs, killed fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, will be posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest medal. Danny Dietz and Matthew Axelson, along with a third SEAL, Michael Murphy, were killed while fighting a large enemy force, giving a fourth SEAL teammate a chance to escape. As the anniversary of September 11th approaches, let us also remember those who struck back at those who struck us, and in doing so, paid the ultimate price. Please consider a donation to the Naval Special Warfare Foundation or the Special Operations Warrior Foundation in names of Dietz, Axelson, and Murphy. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." --John 15:13

• The U.S. Army now has podcasts.
• Picture Framer is one of myriad non-productive widgets, but it's probably the first one of that category that I like.
• There are new Get a Mac ads, and in "Trust Mac", I swear Justin Long is about to truly crack up every time he has to look at John Hodgman wearing the glasses and fake mustache.
  
  [Via Paul.]

• Thanks to the folks at Xerox, with help from Layer 8 Group, you can send a postcard, with original artwork by a child, to a member of the armed forces serving abroad: Let's Say Thanks. I sent one, how about you?
  
  [Via Susan via e-mail.]
• About.com has some good advice in its Back to School section concerning backpack selection for students. The first tip they offer, to get a bag with two straps instead of just one, to help balance the load across the body better, is why I'm a dedicated backpack guy.
• My new addiction is Armagetron Advanced, an open source 3D game of the lightcycle contest from Tron.

Photo mosaics have become popular; I have one of Darth Vader, made up of different scenes from Episodes 4-6. There are many tutorials online for making your own photo mosaics, but John Tolva has one where you create your mosaic with LEGOs. You'll need Photoshop, and a healthy bank account for all those LEGO pieces you'll be buying. [Via Photojojo.]

How close to you and yours does a convicted sex offender live? Find out, thanks to Family Watchdog. [Via Daily Dose.]

Happy Birthday to the United States Coast Guard, which turns 216 years old today.

Tony Blankley:

At journalism conferences, the question is often brought up whether a journalist should see himself as an American first or a journalist first. Often the consensus is that they are journalists first.

I wonder how many of them would report a story if it would mean the death of their own child. And would any of those reporters who would be journalists first in even that appalling instant cheerfully mis-report a story in order to cause the death of their child? I suspect virtually none would.

If only they loved their country's young and willing warriors as much as they loved their own children.

But the journalists today are too swept up in their own dance macabre to even notice the murderous consequences of their own malfeasance -- or to hear the demands of simple decency.

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed in Bombing Raid" I wonder if the F-16 pilot who dropped the Zarqawi-killing bombs gets to collect the $25 million bounty. That would be a nice retirement package.

I don't need anything else special to remember my wedding anniversary. Circumstances of life dictated that forever shall the day of our wedding be shared with that of the invasion of Normandy, and the enormous sacrifice made there by so many. Yesterday marked the second anniversary of President Reagan's passing, I can think of no better words to remember D-Day, than those spoken by him on the fortieth anniversary of the invasion:

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young that day and you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?

We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge--and pray God we have not lost it--that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force of liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer... You all knew that some things are worth dying for.

It says a lot about our nation in that too few of us think about those who have given their lives in military service, much less participate in events to commemorate them, on Memorial Day. This was what ran through my head as we drove the Maine coastline today, noting the hundreds, perhaps thousands, on the beaches of York. To honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, I humbly offer these words from one of our greatest Presidents:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." [With thanks to KnowledgeNews for the text of the Gettysburg Address.]

The iPatch.

This likely has made its rounds through the blogosphere already, but I just read in the latest dead-tree edition of Wired that Choose Your Own Adventure books are getting republished, updated for the 21st century. Though he's not old enough yet to read on his own and appreciate them, I may have to pick up these titles for my little phisch. I had a great time with them when I was eleven, though I don't believe I was ever able to successfully navigate The Abominable Snowman without "cheating".

What happened to all that wreckage from the Twin Towers after 9/11? Twenty-four tons of steel girders ended up in one of the Navy's latest ships.

There have been many acts of heroism in the Iraq War and continuing liberation that have gone under- or unreported by the media. One such underreported act is that of Paul Ray Smith, the only Medal of Honor winner of the conflict. Sergeant First Class Smith gave his life near the Saddam Hussein International Airport on 4 April 2003, defending his comrades and the wounded in a nearby aid station. Ralph Kinney Bennett has the story.

Vietnam-era traitor Jeffry House, now a "prominent human-rights lawyer" in Toronto, is helping current-day traitors flee from the service they voluntarily enlisted for. (I feel it worth noting that Mr. House is not performing this work pro bono.) As a father, I can certainly feel for Jeremy Hinzman in that he doesn't want to go to Iraq, get killed, and leave his son fatherless. I so totally get that. The fact remains, however, that Mr. Hinzman voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army. Therefore, during the terms of his enlistment, he is to go where the Army tells him to go, even if it is to a place he doesn't want to go because he thinks the United States, vis-a-vis its armed services, shouldn't be there. Mr. Hinzman had a chance to legally leave the Army, and he chose to stay. He should be returned to the United States to stand trial for desertion, and be sent to prison. It would appear the maximum sentence is only five years; still plenty of life to spend with his son.

William Blair was recently outed as the secret benefactor to a group of World War II Pacific Theater former POWs, who get together for a monthly breakfast at Bunny's Restaurant in Suffolk, Virginia. I've met a good number of WWII vets in my time, and a few of them were POWs. Mr. Blair is correct in his noting that the Pacific Theater POWs usually get little mention compared to their European Theater brethren. I had the privilege in college of meeting a group of former POWs, including a Bataan Death March survivor. Those men have borne heavy burdens, and still do to this day. Mr. Blair, we salute you for your generosity and patriotism.

By now, most people have heard John Kerry's slanderous comments about our servicemen terrorizing women and children in Iraq. James Taranto turns the table on the man who would be President, noting a CNN story about what a handful of our servicemen are really up to: doing everything possible, with help from folks stateside, to see that a little Iraqi girl doesn't die from spina bifida.

Today we honor those who serve and served in our nation's armed forces. Though the original day of remembrance was Armistice Day, noting the end of World War I, it became Veterans' Day, where we honor those who have served throughout out nation's history. I think it is quite appropriate that a day to thank and honor our veterans falls within the same month as the Thanksgiving holiday. Each citizen of this country, whether they want to admit it or not, owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to those who wear and have worn the uniforms of our armed forces. Having been, at one time, in the process of becoming one of those in uniform, I hold a special place in my heart for our servicemen and women. In addition to all veterans, there are a few people I would like to thank. From within my family: Dad, Uncle J.D., Granddaddy, and Uncle Richard. Friends: Will, Wally, Damion M., Brian, Dan, Larry, John A., and Gary R. From Detachment 310, 1988-92: Liz, John, Craig, Cathy & Michael, Kristin, Greg, Russ, and Colonel Hendrickson. I miss you guys.

Craig Shirley:

Please explain to me how our children have had no school yesterday and today so that the Teachers Unions can go out and organize for Democratic candidates -- but the schools will be open on Friday when the federal Government and most offices will be closed to commemorate our nation's war heroes? This must be an East Coast (West, too?) thing, or perhaps confined to Shirley's home state (Virginia?). The kids were in school yesterday and are today in DFW.

Memo to Brendan Miniter: Marines don't like being called "former Marines." "Once a Marine, always a Marine" is how they view it. Having known a few Marines in my time, perhaps "retired Marine" would be a better term in the future.

Soldiers' Angels has started Project Valour-IT, an endeavor to get voice-activated laptops to our wounded servicemen. To help with raising money for the project, a friendly competition has been set up between four teams, one for each of the service branches. Holly Aho is running the USMC team, which Hugh and Glenn are a part of. Sign up with one of the teams and donate to help out our wounded personnel.

The Federalist Patriot, 05-43 Digest:

Al-Qa'ida murdered almost 3,000 Americans on U.S. soil in about an hour back in 2001--almost all of them civilians. The reason no additional American civilians have died in attacks on our homeland is that 150,000 uniformed American Patriots have formed a formidable front on al-Qa'ida's turf, a very inhospitable region of the world. These Patriots are a proud breed--Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen--and they have chosen to stand in harm's way in order to defend their families, their friends, their country.

In doing so, more than 2,000 of these brave souls have been killed.

This week, every mass media outlet took a break from their "CIA leak" promotion to run headlines and lead stories about the Iraq death toll reaching 2,000 (1,567 killed in action since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 19 March 2003)--as if the death of American Patriot number 1,999 was somehow less important. Typical was this headline from The New York Times: "2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, A Grim Mark." But not a whisper in the Leftmedia about the 3,870 Iraqi security forces killed in the last six months alone, in defense of their emerging democracy.

For The Patriot, every death of a member of our Armed Forces is equally devastating, and we mourn each one. Not a day passes without our prayers for both those standing in harm's way, and their families.

The "dezinformatsia" machines promote this "milestone" for one reason only--to foment additional dissent and rally support against the Bush administration's national-security strategy, which is to protect our homeland by taking the battle with Jihadis to their turf. In doing so, the Leftmedia has reduced the sacrifice of these young Patriots to nothing more than political fodder for their appeasement agenda.

On the night of 11 September 2001, President Bush told the nation, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." He set in motion pre-emptive operations, which would become the "Bush Doctrine." Our analysts continue to support the doctrine of pre-emption firmly as the best measured response to the Jihadi threat around the world.

As for those still "Stuck on Stupid", insisting that there were no WMD found in Iraq, here's a partial list of what didn't make it out of Iraq before the invasion: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, thousands of radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, etc.

As The Patriot noted in October, 2002, our well-placed sources in the region and intelligence sources with the NSA and NRO estimated that the UN Security Council's foot-dragging provided an ample window for Saddam to export some or all of his deadliest WMD materials and components. At that time, we reported that Allied Forces would be unlikely to discover Iraq's WMD stores, noting, "Our sources estimate that Iraq has shipped some or all of its biological stockpiles and nuclear WMD components through Syria to southern Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley."

In December of 2002, our senior-level intelligence sources re-confirmed estimates that some of Iraq's biological and nuclear WMD material and components had, in fact, been moved into Syria and Iran. That movement continued until President Bush finally pulled the plug on the UN's ruse.

To that end, we are deeply indebted to our Patriot Armed Forces, who have prevented al-Qa'ida or some other Jihadi terrorist cell from striking a U.S. urban center with WMD. Make no mistake--Islamofascists want to bring America to ruin, and they will use any means at their disposal to do so. Mr. President, stay the course. [Emphasis added. --R]

Since you won't hear about it any where else, Arthur Chrenkoff has the latest good news from Afghanistan. It is amazing how much is happening in this now-free nation in such a short amount of time. It truly shows the bias and if-it-bleeds-it-leads mentality of the mainstream press that these stories are not getting more coverage. We wrought this, America, through the service and sacrifice of our sons and daughters in the armed services. They should be proud. We all should be.

Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead, which I will not link to, was a sad account of a mentally disturbed--which Swofford admits to--man's time in the Marine Corps and his deployment to the first Gulf War. Panned by myriad current and former Marines as riddled with half-truths, the book became a minor cause célèbre for the mouth-foamers on the angry Left. Anything that is anti-military, especially when it's written by someone who was in the military, is always accepted as gospel by the radicals. Brad Torgersen has a good summation. So of course the book was optioned for a motion picture, which debuts in November. Looking over the cast of characters, and knowing their politics, I'm not the least bit surprised to see who signed on. Non-mouth-foamers are advised to pass.

I have a soft spot for working dogs; I've always told my wife that if I were in law enforcement, I'd want to be a K-9 cop. It's important for working dogs to keep cool, as it is much harder for dogs to cool down than it is for humans. Military working dogs in Afghanistan and Iraq are especially at risk, but the Space Coast War Dog Association is working with Glacier Tek to provide Glacier's ChillyDog cooling vest to dogs in those theaters of operation. Regardless of how you feel about the politics of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, remember these dogs have no say, and are just happy to do the job they were trained to do. If you can support the effort to get as many vests as possible to the dogs that need them, stop by the SCWDA web site and learn how to donate.

I felt "The Patriot Perspective" from today's Federalist Patriot (PDF file) was worth reprinting.

Spitting on The Few, The Proud... Upon entering a fine Southern high school with a long and honorable history as a military academy, this columnist's next nine months would be marked by the official indoctrination (and unofficial hazing) that attended freshman years at most such academies. It was September of 1970. A year later, however, this school, like many others across the nation, did an about-face and abandoned its military tradition. It seemed that public opinion of military service, and thus, parental enthusiasm for military feeder academies, had changed dramatically in the course of just a few years. Prior to 1967, military service and tradition were still considered good and honorable. But by 1972, acrid protests against our military campaign on the Cold War front in Southeast Asia had taken a heavy toll. Elitist politicos like George McGovern, glitterati like Jane Fonda, John Kerry, et al., along with their Leftmedia propaganda machine, had overturned public support for the defense of South Vietnam and, by extension, support for anyone in a military uniform. There were no more ticker-tape parades welcoming troops home, but plenty of seething glares, name-calling and spitting from "enlightened youth" and their protagonists who tagged all military personnel persona non grata. Fast-forward about three decades. After 9/11, America was virtually, and rightly, united behind President George Bush's campaign against Jihadistan and its asymmetric threat vectors such as al-Qa'ida. Now that support has begun to unravel, however -- not because there are 58,000 casualties as there were in Vietnam, but because, once again, as America's finest are defending liberty at home by promoting freedom in critical regions abroad, the storm clouds of Leftist dissent are gathering. Once again, anti-American protests by political opportunists, Hollywonk elitists and the Leftmedia's (now 24-7-365) talkingheads, are taking a heavy toll. Perhaps the earliest evidence of waning public support for the Long War against Jihadistan is the recruiting difficulty for our "all-volunteer" Armed Services. Army recruiters have fallen short of their goals for four of the last five months and may fall well short of their annual objective of 80,000 enlistments, with only two months left in this fiscal year. This will be the first time since 1999 that the recruiting goal has not been met. Guard and Reserve recruitments have also fallen short for the other service branches.Military planners may ask Congress to authorize raising the age limit for Army active-duty service from 35 to 40, and authority to double the enlistment bonus for high-priority recruits (intelligence, infantry, special operations, civil affairs, and linguists) from $20,000 to $40,000. But this is not likely to offset the damage inflicted upon the image of military service by the Left. Of course, part of the problem is that military service is, as it has always been, tough. But most active duty and reserve personnel are dedicated warriors who complain little. The real obstacle to the enlistment of new recruits is the desecration of the image of military service by the Fifth Column -- the enemy within. The American anti-war movement, led by neo-McGovernites such as DNC Chairman Howard Dean and lawmakers Kucinich, Kennedy and Kerry has not been able to find legs. So rather than target "war," these malcontents have rallied their minions to undertake counter-recruitment measures, figuring that a nation can't fight a war without warriors. (Of course, it can't defend itself either -- but the Left refuses to acknowledge that liberating Afghanistan and Iraq, and keeping Syria and Iran at bay, is relevant to our national defense.) Doing the bidding of big dogs like Dean and the aforementioned KKK are their radical allied organizations like the Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink for Peace, the Ruckus Society, Earth First, United for Peace and Justice and the Society of American Law Teachers, to name a few. These organizations and a hundred more like them are surrogates for the National Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, Veterans for Peace, the War Resisters League and The American Friends Service Committee. Their objective is to undermine recruitment efforts by labeling anyone interested in military service persona non grata. It's deja vu all over again. Periodic Leftmedia feeding frenzies over alleged "abuse" at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay add fuel to protestors' efforts to debase military service by equating those in uniform with terrorists. Extending this equation, some of these groups are now deplorably suggesting that American casualties are justified because "freedom fighters" in Iraq are defending themselves against American invaders. (Rhetorical memo to the anti-war Left: What kind of "freedom fighter" detonates a bomb-laden SUV amid a group of Iraqi children receiving candy and toys from U.S. soldiers?) The emergence of these cadres of Leftist agitators is a serious threat to U.S. national security. Their efforts to undermine the honor of military service in an effort to deter recruitment efforts should not be underestimated. Predictably, where anti-American sentiments flourish, Jane Fonda can't be far behind. This week, Hanoi Jane announced plans for a protest tour on buses fueled by vegetable oil to suggest the current conflict in the Middle East is only a "war for oil." "I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam," Fonda said. "I carry a lot of baggage from that." (Click here to see some of that baggage, as "Hanoi Jane" mounts an NVA anti-aircraft gun about 100 yards from the "Hanoi Hilton," where American POWs were being tortured. "It's another example of the government lying to the American people in order to get us into war," Fonda says of the liberation of Iraq. Of course, it is Fonda who is lying to the American people. Take note, Hanoi Jane and all you counter-recruiters endeavoring to denigrate military service -- ditto to Dean and KKK, who exploit the murder of military personnel as political fodder to undermine public support for a Republican administration in advance of midterm elections: Your actions are tantamount to spitting on not only those who wear our nation's military uniform, but those who have died in it. Indeed, news about Fonda's shameless antics was overshadowed this week by the tragic death of uniformed Patriots in Iraq: 21 Marines (20 of them attached to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines based in Ohio) and eight Soldiers were killed, and others wounded, in roadside bombings and other ambushes by Islamofascist death squads. Sergeant Justin Hoffman of Delaware, Ohio, was among the fallen. His father, Robert Hoffman, said that Justin believed in the cause he was fighting for, and he challenged his fellow Americans to support the mission in Iraq through its completion. "I have some real doubts whether Americans will stand tall and follow through on it," Mr. Hoffman said. "It needs to be done, and if they don't, it'll be a real disgrace to the lives that were sacrificed." If America does not stand firm, there will be many more lives sacrificed -- and on American soil. "The Word of God is like cool water from a canteen," said retired Marine Corps Commandant Charles C. Krulak. "During the most difficult times, it brings relief and a feeling of renewal that allows us...to accomplish any mission set before us." To that end, please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces, and especially for the families of our fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan. In their honor, and that of all Patriots standing watch today, we must not allow the Left, in pursuit of their self-serving agendas, to once again treat military uniforms as spittoons. The re-emergence of counter-recruiting/anti-war cadres should be rejected with prejudice.

If you had any doubts that the FAA's (see post title for definition of acronym) flight regulations regarding anti-terrorism were completely insane, there's this, courtesy of the Air Finance Journal:

Before deploying from Savannah, Georgia to Iraq by a chartered airliner, the troops of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard unit, had to go through the same security checks as any other passengers. Lt. Col. John King, the unit's commander, told his 280 fellow soldiers that FAA anti-hijacking regulations require passengers to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters. "If you have any of those things," he said, almost apologetically, "put them in this box now." The troops were, however, allowed to keep hold of their assault rifles, body armour, helmets, pistols, bayonets and combat shotguns. [Via Political Diary, emphasis added. --R]

While reading the moving story of SEALs laying to rest one of their own, I learned something new about the Navy's special operations unit. It has become tradition to leave one's Trident on the coffin of a fallen comrade. Be sure to read all of Matthew Heidt's story.