The Political Conundrum!

It is hard to believe that after nine years of war, there are so many people who are ignorant to what our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan. I mean I can understand that from 2003-2009 most people were almost completely ignorant that we were even still at war in Afghanistan because the MSM focused almost all of their coverage on the war in Iraq. It was not until President Bush in late 2008 started planning to surge forces into Afghanistan in the spring of 2009 (yes that was President Bush, not President Obama who authorized the original surge) that most news outlets started talking about Afghanistan regularly. To be quite honest, because of GEN Petraeus and President Bush’s push for a surge in Iraq did things calm down in Iraq and many of the daily kinetic battles taper off to the point that MSM was bored there.

The combat activity in Afghanistan was there the whole time, with it really starting to ramp up in 2006, but you would not have known it by watching the news. Which I think is one of the reasons why blogs like this one and others like AWAC, Afghanistan Shrugged and Afghan Quest became so popular. There was a small percentage of the population that did care about what was happening in Afghanistan and they went looking for someone who was talking about it.

But back to my original statement that people in large are ignorant to what has happened and is happening in Afghanistan. I run into people all the time that are clueless of what is asked of our American service-members serving in Afghanistan. I am not talking about the ones going to every USO show that comes into the base, I am talking about those that are truly "outside the wire". I talk to civilians, DOD or DA employees and sometimes even military members that have no clue. I am not sure if I should be pissed off, sad or glad for them.

I mean how dare they not know, not understand, not care. Who the F@#$ are they to get up every morning, check their Blackberry, flip on CNN, and eat their cheerios without knowing who’s soul left this planet overnight because they were doing their job as a warrior when 300lbs of homemade explosives ripped their body apart. They should be made to know, they should be made to see it, they should understand what a select few of full time soldiers and citizen-soldiers are doing for them. Your "I support the Troops" yellow ribbon magnet is not doing it for me anymore. I don’t buy it.

But at the same time it is very sad that these people walk through their day, bitching about the traffic on their commute into the office, frustrated that someone took the last of the coffee from the break-room without re-filling the coffeepot and angry when a meeting cuts 15 minutes out of the normal 90 minute lunch. Why would they want to walk through life so ignorant? There was a quote from the movie The Matrix that I think resonates a lot of truth when I think of these people, "Ignorance is Bliss". I mean you don’t know what you don’t know, and if you don’t have to bother your day with thinking about guys who are missing the birth of their first child, not making it hope for their father’s funeral, or watching their buddy die in their arms then I guess life is good for you I ’spose.

As I said, sometimes I am not sure if I should be GLAD for them. I mean how lucky they are NOT to have to worry about all of that mess. It was said by a soldier (Dustin) in the docu-movie At War that "there is a difference between WANTING to go war and WILLING to go to war". I mean many of us who go to combat do so with the thought that we go so others don’t have to. I have said that and think that also, so it is conflicting for me personally to be upset when people are ignorant to what our troops are doing and going through. Me and my brothers and sisters have walked the battlefields, we have carried the stretchers to the waiting medevacs, we have attended fallen soldiers ceremonies so not everyone has to go through that….ignorance is bliss I guess. Lucky for you to not have to go through that pain.

So maybe my anger or sadness is jealousy, maybe I am jealous that you, the ignorant American, get to go through life putting no more skin in the game than a $3.99 yellow ribbon magnet from the local 7-11. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want your pity, I don’t want your pat on the back, I don’t even care if you say "thank you for your service". I don’t need thanks and I don’t need your pity because I am proud of what I have done and the service I have given to this country and still give. I would never do anything different with my life than be a soldier, as it has defined who I am and who I have become. Don’t feel bad, sad or sorry for me. Just be glad there are those like me that do what we do so you can still check that Blackberry and enjoy that 90 minute lunch.

But what you can do is pay attention and not be sheep. As ugly as combat is, don’t pretend to understand it or voice your "opinion" on it. Just try to understand what our American men and women are doing for you and pay attention to all the places we have men and women deployed. Don’t stick to the idiot boxes of big heads for your daily infuse of information as they will only tell you what they want you to hear and how they want you to hear it. Go the web, read blogs, Google it, look around for yourself. You are an American with more freedoms and liberties than most in the world. Use those freedoms and the power of the internet to find out for yourself what our mighty and awesome military does for you. You owe it to yourself as an American to appreciate what you have beyond your own life.

So who is going to be the General or other person held accountable for the waste of millions, if not billions, of dollars for the outfitting of our Army in ACU uniforms and gear? I want to know why the Army did all these supposed tests that proved the current UCP (uniformed camouflaged pattern) ACU was so good and better than other patterns. Yet just a mere 5 years later and three new additional tests, the UCP Pattern failed miserably and was not even in the top patterns that did the best at their job, providing camouflage. The new multi-cam pattern did so well in all three tests that now the Army is about to spend $300 million dollars to begin outfitting new units going into Afghanistan with the new multi-cam pattern.

Not only are they doing that, they are starting to remove some of the much-complained about velcro enclosures and replacing them with buttons again. This is the uniform that was sold to the Army population and America as the one size, fits all uniform. One with velcro so soldiers would save money on sewing. Now after just a short five years the uniform is being replaced with one that does a great job of providing camouflage and is practical. I am not sure why they had to do all these tests, just look at the units that had already implemented the multi-cam pattern from their own budgets; Delta Force, Special Forces and Ranger Battalions. Honestly that should have been enough right there as those professional soldiers only use what is best to do the job. They don’t acquire gear that just looks cool or because a friend is selling it. They get what works.

To put it in perspective, the woodland style Battle Dress Uniform was in service for a little over 20 years in the Army. It had one, maybe 2, changes done to it during that entire time. That was it. It worked, it was a uniform and it did its job at the time. During Desert Storm we had the old “cookie chip” desert uniform which seemed to work for me when I wore it. Not long after the end of Desert Storm the Army adopted the tri-color desert uniform, which was worn from Somalia through the Global War on Terror (in desert environments) until the Army shoved the ACU down our throat. The ACU is currently going through its fifth revision in just five years. So five changes in five years versus two changes in twenty years.

Now let me be clear to say I like the way the ACU felt and fit. I remember getting my first pair at Camp Shelby when I was preparing for Afghanistan and loving how they felt like pajamas compared to the BDU. But even then when my team and I got our ACUs and were trying them out, we questioned the effectiveness of their camouflage. It looked like it would work great in an urban environment in the desert (i.e. Baghdad), but not in a pure desert environment. Maybe the designers and deciders at the time were actually that short sided to use Bagdad as the environment we would always fight in. I am not sure, just an assumption on my part. The bottom line was that we did not have to be human factors specialists or environmental scientists to know the ACU was not going to provide the camouflage we needed in Afghanistan.

It just pisses me off that the Army KNOWINGLY selected and fielded the wrong uniform. It makes me think of the stories my Dad would tell me about the Army buying weapons from Westinghouse during the Vietnam war back when Ladybird Johnson was a huge stock owner of Westinghouse Corporation at the time. So I wonder what General or CSM or engineers who were part of the ACU selection process that went to work for the company that made the ACU? Not making any accusations, just curious.

The bottom line is that we have wasted a lot of money on uniforms, gear, etc. in the ACU pattern knowing the whole time that the uniform’s camouflage capabilities were crap. Was someone afraid to speak up, did someone have a hidden agenda for personal gain or selfish reasons? It is a shame and a sham that the uniform which was supposed to be the “one size fits all” uniform is not making grade and in fact was failing the test well before it ever got issued.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of all the media attention in the latest criminal allegations against "Jihad Jane" is that Colleen LaRose of Pennsylvania is only the latest example of this odd emerging trend in homegrown terrorism. Indeed, LaRose is hardly alone in this category, whether we speak of London resident Samina Malik, an active user on jihadi social networking forums who busied herself with transcribing Al-Qaida training manuals into English during spare time at her job working in secure areas of Heathrow Airport--or Canadian citizen Beverly Giesbrecht (a.k.a. Khadija Abdul Qahhar), who was taken hostage by the Taliban during rather suspicious travels through North Waziristan. Both men and women who were once written off as hapless wannabes and mere "jihobbyists" are unexpectedly rising to the occasion, in often quite desperate bids to prove their total commitment to the cause.

These individuals are, more frequently than not, English-speaking with only a cursory knowledge of Arabic or the Middle East. Their pedigree is less than elite, and they lack the traditional connections back to Al-Qaida's central leadership. Yet, even Al-Qaida's senior echelon now openly recognizes the critical value of these potential "lone wolf" operatives. In several prominent publications--including both the latest video from American Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn and the most recent official magazine from Al-Qaida in Yemen--the terror group has openly broadcast its pleasure and interest in the actions of such independent actors as Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan and Jordanian webmaster and CIA bomber Humam al-Balawi (a.k.a. Abu Dujanah al-Khorasani). Gadahn specifically pointed to the example of Ft. Hood and urged American Muslims, "it is rapidly becoming clear that this already hot global battle is about to get even hotter. This is a war which knows no international borders and no single battleground, and that’s why I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam. This is the golden, once in a lifetime opportunity to reap the rewards of Jihad and martyrdom we have been waiting for, so unsheathe your sharpened sword and rush to take your rightful place among defiant champions of Islam like Mir Aimal Kansi, Muhammad Bouyeri, Nidal Malik Hasan and many others like them... it is for you – like your heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan – to decide how, when and where you discharge this duty."

In this regard, I draw particular emphasis to the words of the "media emir" of the now-infamous Ansar al-Mujahideen web forum, Abu Omar al-Maqdisi:

"We were ordinary members at the al-Ekhlaas forum and we learned a lot from the brothers who took charge of jihadi media work before us—and it is only normal for us to start our own active campaign at the first chance we got. And that’s what we did, so we established this site, and told everyone we knew from the al-Ekhlaas network about this forum…We went outside the usual jihadi media route, but we terrorize in the real world as much as we terrorize online, so whoever wishes to join is welcome, and those who don’t should hold their tongues about us and go away. And although low in number, we are strong in determination, and anyone who joins us will realize that immediately.. say, if any of the brothers at al-Fajr Media wishes to receive assurances about us and if you are in communication with them, then inform them that we would like to meet with them. We ask them to come here and distribute a bulletin outlining the action plan for the al-Ansar network—and we are willing to blow ourselves up near the infidels at any moment, and if they have enough resources to provide us with the necessary financing, then a terrorist is ready."

I was just informed that March is the month of Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness month. Since I have been diagnosed and deal with TBI myself, this is an important topic to me personally.

I was forwarded the article below from Care Meridian (http://www.caremeridian.com/) and I wanted to post it here to help raise awareness to the injury and its impact.

Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Military

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is becoming a common wound of modern warfare. It has even been coined the “signature wound” of the War on Terror. While TBI is becoming more
prevalent in wartime activity, many service men and women continue to go undiagnosed. Institutions, like the US Department of Veterans Affairs, are working to make quick and accurate diagnoses in order to prescribe appropriate and effective treatment.

TBI is caused by forced trauma to the head, either by being shaken or hit. The severity of a TBI varies from case to case, but symptoms range from mild concussions to a debilitating state. The majority of TBI’s acquired by military personnel are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI). Initial symptoms of MTBI consist of loss of consciousness, disorientation, loss of memory, headache, and temporary loss of hearing and vision. They are often partnered with anxiety, irritability, difficulties processing information, limited concentration amongst other problems experienced down the road. While MTBI is most common amongst the men and women of the armed forces, more severe cases of TBI are
happening much more frequently and often require the victim to attended specialty rehabilitative nursing centers, like CareMeridian.

The most common cause of a TBI in the military is due to blasts. There are three degrees of
blast injuries where a TBI is common; Primary (due to blast itself), Secondary (due to objects being propelled by a blast) and Tertiary (due to a collision with a third party object). According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military from the ages 18-24 are hospitalized with a TBI at a rate of 231 per 100,000 and females 150 per 100,000. Based on military force projections this would mean that 4,141 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year with a TBI, and these numbers often rise during wartimes.

The best prevention for veterans to avert the long-term effects of a brain injury is to recognize the symptoms of a TBI. Once the symptoms are identified an individual should take basic precautionary measures in order to begin the healing and recovery process until a more specific diagnosis can be made.

Service men and women give so much to protect this country and they deserve to come home to a happy and healthy life. Creating awareness about TBI will help ensure their long term health. By helping our veterans, their friends and their families recognize the early warning signs of a TBI, treatment can be sought as early as possible.

Over the next couple of days I will be doing a majority of my blogging and tweeting for You Served. The blogging will be happening at www.youserved.com. The tweeting will be happening at www.twitter.com/youserved.

The reason I am spending my time over there is because I have been so very lucky to be invited to the TRADOC Sr. Leader Conference. This is the first year that TRADOC has opened up the conference to bloggers. There are only three MSM representatives present and three bloggers. I am joined by Uncle Jimbo from blackfive.net and Mark Seavey from The Burn Pit. I am honored and blessed to be in the company of such great people and be extended this invitation. This is another example of how blogging has opened up so many doors to me.

I will try to post one or two things here on Bouhammer, but keep an eye over at You Served for the next week at least if you don’t normally as I will be posting interviews (both audio and video), blogs, etc.

For more than a week, there has been a flurry of counter-terrorism raids across the country. This comes just ten days before President Barack Obama is set to make his first visit to Indonesia since spending part of his elementary school years in Jakarta.
Initially the police focused their attention on a 50-strong group of militants that was allegedly conducting paramilitary training at the foot of a mountain on the border of Pidie and Aceh Besar districts in Aceh province. As of this week, the police had killed or arrested nearly 20 persons tied to this group. They have also confiscated a small number of assault rifles, military uniforms purchased in Malaysia, and videotapes of various deceased Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) members.
Although the police investigation in Aceh is ongoing, it would appear like several of the members were not ethnic Acehnese and could instead be traced to the island of Java. This is an interesting development, as the Acehnese have traditionally exhibited fierce animosity toward those from Java, and many have found it hard to believe that the two sides have now put aside their long-standing differences to conduct risky paramilitary training in a relatively populated area of Aceh. Others have noted that the Acehnese, while pious and prone toward separatism, have rarely shown any radical tendencies along the Wahhabist lines pushed by JI.
But the questions raised by all this pale in comparison to developments yesterday. After the Indonesian authorities earlier announced that some of the Aceh gang could be traced back to Banten province on Java, and specifically the area of Pamulang (which is just outside the Jakarta city limits), the police conducted a pair of raids in Pamulang. The Indonesian media has since been speculating that at least one of the dead is Dul Matin, a JI electronics expert linked to the 2002 Bali bombings. It had been thought that Dul Matin had been in the southern Philippines since at least 2003, where he had been given sanctuary by both the MILF and Abu Sayyaf Group. But the media is now speculating that he made his way into Indonesia and was hiding out in a Pamulang house owned by a medical doctor that he had befriended during the communal violence in Ambon during 1999. That Dul Matin would risk taking up shelter on the outskirts of Jakarta on face appears to be out of character for a terrorist known for his caution as much as his extremism. The police expect the result of a DNA test to confirm the identity of the corpse later today.

About seven or eight months ago my good friend Scott Kesterson who was and still is in Afghanistan told me “things are changing here, they are going back to a Vietnam way of patrolling”. I was not sure what he was talking about or implying so I asked him. He told me that the troops were getting out of he vehicles and walking every where they go. Vehicles were limited to the roads for the most part and the enemy had them channeled and could focus the IEDs and EFPs on the roads. Soldiers were finding (along with GEN McChrystal’s direction) that if they went dismounted they were safer because the enemy could not IED wide open space.

In order to have freedom of movement and to increase the chance of survival, soldiers were going “cross-country” by dismounted patrols. Since that time I have read reports and stories where entire platoons and sometimes companies never even see vehicles. They spend their whole year walking everywhere. Not to mention that this is the most effective way to engage the local populace and truly exercise COIN. You cannot get to know the local people by speeding through the bazaars behind 3″ of glass and armor. So by going dismounted the troops are accomplishing several things both tactically, and for force-protection.

Of course I am speaking mostly of US Forces as local Afghan forces like to ride. My buddy vampire-6 wrote on several occasions over at his blog www.afghanistanshrugged.com about his ANA riding into an objective rather than walking, which was against the plan. I guess when you spend most of your life in dirt, farming dirt, and walking in dirt everywhere, if you get a chance to ride you are going to take it.

I am also glad to see our forces get out of the vehicles and back to the basics of movement, by foot. We have been our own worst enemy in the military by coming up with so many cool and beneficial technologies that in many areas we have lost sight of the basics. How many junior leaders even know how to land navigate with a compass and protractor anymore, much less even know what a protractor is.

Due to the fear of IEDs, the reliance on body armor and the concern by commander to lose any soldiers “on their watch”, our soldiers have been told to stick with the vehicle and never leave. Heck, when I was an ETT in 06-07 we had an idiot of a Corps Commander (COL) tell us that we should never leave the truck. That ETTs had no reason to be on the ground. We were the mentors, advisors, and even leaders (most of the time) of the ANA, so how were we supposed to “set the example” if we could not leave the vehicle, yet we would tell our ANA to do it. This is the same idiot of an officer that said we were…get ready for this, “non-combatant combatants”. I am not exaggerating, that is an exact quote. I am a pretty smart guy when it comes to military doctrine and tactics, and I know many other people that are too, but I still cannot find anyone that knows what the hell a “non-combatant combatant” is. By the way, this genius of a Colonel is now a General in a certain state’s National Guard.

Well back to the point of this blog, all of what I have written so far is really to prep you for what you are about to read below. This story, titled Willing to Walk by Heath Druzin, came out on March 5th, 2010 in the Mideast edition of the Stars and Stripes. You can see the online version of this story and the entire edition HERE.

Willing to Walk by Heath Druzin

KANE IZAT, Afghanistan — The airborne Soldiers of Company B walk. Then they walk some more. Through snow and mud, across apple orchards and frigid rivers, in the shadow of menacing, snow-capped peaks, when the Soldiers need to get somewhere, the road is almost never an option.

Roadside bombs have been the biggest killer in Afghanistan for coalition troops, and as armor has improved, the bombs have gotten bigger and more sophisticated.
Capt. Kirby Jones, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment’s Company B, sees a simple solution to this: Never drive. Anywhere.

“We almost always walk,” he said. “I see two benefits to that: You get to interact with the people and you don’t get blown up.”

Jones, 31, of Bellingham, Wash., and his company of Soldiers, under the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, are based at Combat Outpost Nerkh, perched more than 7,000 feet up in the shadow of 11,000-foot peaks in northern Wardak province. Soldiers across Wardak, much of it with similar terrain, have also largely eschewed vehicles.

It means a boot-sucking slog with cold, wet feet, filthy uniforms, and a chill that penetrates every layer of clothing. It also means a much longer commute. What would be a 15-minute drive can become a two-hour walk, and for more remote missions, Soldiers in Wardak often rely on helicopters, which are subject to the whims of the weather.

Walking through the village of Kane Izat near Combat Outpost Nerkh, Jones’ Soldiers are mobbed by children asking for pens and stop to chat with residents. After stopping at an outpost of a local U.S.-backed militia, where fighters complain they are not getting their full pay, the Soldiers stop for tea with the principal of a nearby school.

Insurgents have been paying attention and there are signs they are adapting. In the Tangi Valley in the south of the province, one Soldier was injured by a booby trap laid for his foot patrol, and Soldiers in the area have found several similar explosives in the area before they detonated.

In three months, though, in an area notorious for roadside bombs, Jones’ men haven’t suffered a single casualty.

It’s still early, and with the melting snow traditionally comes more fighting, but Jones says he is more comfortable handling a firefight than playing Russian roulette with cleverly concealed bombs.

Even in the midst of a steady, chilly rain on a recent patrol through fields of mud and snow, the infantry Soldiers weren’t complaining.

“It doesn’t really bother me,” said Sgt. George Inana, 27, of Mobile, Ala. “That’s the job.”
What is perhaps more surprising than Company B’s almost complete abandonment of vehicles is the fact that more units haven’t followed suit. In 2009, 275 coalition troops were killed by roadside bombs, more than 60 percent of total casualties, with that percentage holding steady this year. Sixty troops already have been killed by the bombs, according to icasualties.org.

In Afghanistan’s bomb-plagued south, troops regularly commute to patrols in everything from heavily armored Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles to the lightly armored eight-wheeled Strykers, a vehicle that has proven nimble in urban combat but has a miserable record of protecting Soldiers against buried explosives.

For Lt. Col. Matt McFarlane, who commands forces in Wardak province, pushing his men off the roads was an easy call, in line with directives from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to have a less intimidating presence and act more as guests than occupiers. Lumbering through a town in hulking armored vehicles sends a very different message from walking up with a handshake, said McFarlane, 40, of Burke, Va.

“When we’re walking around, we’re at the people’s level. It allows us to engage the population, it allows the population to engage us.”

(C) 2010 Stars and Stripes

Secretary Napolitano announced the designation of Greece as a member of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)—strengthening passenger information sharing and ensuring strict security standards while streamlining travel for Greek citizens visiting the United States.

Uncle Jimbo tells is like it is. My good friend and fellow milbloggers, Uncle Jimbo tells it like it is in this video clip that I got from his site at www.unclejimbo.com.

I have stated several times what Jimbo says here. I also understand and agree with what Gen McChrystal is trying to do, but just like the exercise where you tell someone something on one side of a room and tell them to repeat it exactly, but by the time it gets to the person on the other side of the room, the message has changed….that is what happens in the military too.

When you have a four-star General who is known to hold people accountable and discipline those leaders that don’t do their jobs, many leaders under that four-star General will interpret what they think that General said, meant, or implied. There are many other less than four-star Generals, Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, Majors, Captains and even Sergeant Majors and First Sergeants that take it on themselves to second-guess or question the initial intent and policy of the top commander. The situation that Jimbo highlights below is good example of what the results are when a lower level commander does not understand the initial intent or are scared for their own careers to the point that they risk and lose American lives.

Good Job Jimbo, I owe you a beer at the Milblog Conference.

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – Soldiers and Airmen gathered to pay their final respects to Sgt. William C. Spencer, at a fallen Soldier ceremony March 1 at the Joint Operations Center at Joint Base Balad, Iraq.
Spencer, a gunner with G Company, 106th Brigade Support Battalion, 155th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), died Feb. 25 from an aneurysm while serving at Contingency Operating Base Marez, Iraq.
Spencer, a Clinton, Ky., native, was born Aug. 11, 1969, and is survived by his mother, Sharon Welch, and his sister, Sharon Whittle.
He was posthumously promoted from specialist to sergeant Feb. 25.
Spc. Quentin K. Schul, the administrative operations chaplain assistant with the 13th ESC and a Victoria, Texas, native, spoke at the ceremony and read Spencer’s biography.
“(Sgt.) William Clifton Spencer gave the ultimate sacrifice,” he said. “We will not forget.”
Col. Knowles Y. Atchison, deputy commander for the 13th ESC, placed the ceremonial identification tags on the fallen warrior memorial in the foyer of the JOC.
Sgt. Spencer is a hero, said Atchison, a Fort Hood, Texas, resident.
“This is a sad moment,” he said. “If he had not been here, would he still be living? That is what I ask myself. We will never know the answer to that question, but the fact is that he was here and he was making a contribution, he was serving his country. That makes him a hero. It puts him in the top five percent of the American population.”
Spencer will not be forgotten, said Atchison.

Col. Knowles Y. Atchison, deputy commander with the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) and a Fort Hood, Texas, resident, places Sgt. William C. Spencer’s identification tags on the fallen warrior memorial March 1, after a ceremony in Spencer’s honor in the foyer of the Joint Operations Center at Joint Base Balad, Iraq. Spencer, a gunner with G Company, 106th Brigade Support Battalion, 155th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 13th ESC and a Clinton, Ky., native, died Feb. 25 from an aneurysm while serving at Contingency Operating Base Marez, Iraq.