The Lost Occupation of Atlanta and a Reminder Of Those Who Protect Their Right

The Occupy Atlanta continues to be a laugh a day sitcom. Yesterday they decided to take their little protest on the road, or should I say train, and go visit the center of financial activity in Atlanta known as the Atlanta Financial District. Well not really, actually they headed for an upscale mall presumably to engage in some sort of consumerism or something. That was at least until they got lost on the way.

To fully appreciate the sheer stupidity of this group of mental midgets you have to understand that the Atlanta rapid transit rail system has 2, yes 2 whole rail lines. One runs north/south and the other runs east/west. Where the protestors have set up as their home base is right at the train station where these two lines intersect, so all they had to do was go inside the train station, get on the north line and go 7 stops. On the map below you will notice that the line splits into a Red and Yellow line, which I guess could be confusing except the stops are labeled Buckhead on the Red side and Lenox on the Yellow. So if you were headed to the BUCKHEAD financial district stay on the Red line. If you were going to LENOX Square Mall get on the YELLOW line. Critical thinking skills are so important. Just for the record it really doesn't matter which one you take if you are going to Lenox Square since either stop will put you about a block from the mall. Sort of makes you think they don't have any local folks to help them out huh?

With their numbers decreased they managed to marshall their meager forces at one of the malls in the area only to be turned away by security guards who explained the difference between private property and public property to them. The best line of the day however belongs to former mayor Sam Massell.

Former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, now president of the Buckhead Coalition, had welcoming words for the visitors: "They have the right to conduct an orderly visit to Buckhead, and I hope they bring their credit cards.”

I had better things to do like attending the motorcade of a returning Marine who had been killed in action in Afghanistan protecting the rights of the people like these occupy numbnuts who will never fully appreciate what it means to be free and to enjoy their freedom to be stupid. To add insult to injury we also received word that the Westboro pukes are planning on attending this Marines' funeral and while the Patriot's Guard has turned out en-masse it is still a stark commentary on our times that they chose to protest a Marine's funeral rather then go bug their fellow travelers on the crazy train in the occupy movement.

USMC Reputation Completely Ruined

I have nothing but the utmost respect *snicker* *snort* for the United States Marine Corps, but it would appear that an organization which for over 200 years has defeated every enemy they have ever faced may have finally been done in by a blonde bimbo best known for her quickie marriages and even quicker divorces.


Oh, it is too early in the morning to have coffee coming out of your nose.

Of course the bad guys can't shoot at you when they are rolling on the ground holding their sides with tears streaming out of their eyes. On the other hand, they may finally be convinced that the Marines are truly batsh*t crazy and it's best to leave them alone.

Striking Fear Into The Heart of the Taliban

This is what those brave jihadists fear more then anything on earth.


A collection of photos of our female Marines in Afghanistan is here.

Family of Dead Marine Ordered To Pay Westboro Blood Money

Just when I think our judicial system can not get anymore absurd they prove me wrong and delve into new depths.

A judge has ordered the father of a dead Marine to reimburse Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist legal fees associated with a court case in which the homophobic, gay-bashing, mentally-unhinged, inbreeding cult had filed an appeal to earlier case. The case is also pending before the Supreme Court, but this judge decided to issue a ruling before the Supreme Court could weigh in on the case.

Lawyers for the father of a Marine who died in Iraq and whose funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters say a court has ordered him to pay the protesters' appeal costs.

On Friday, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered that Albert Snyder of York, Pa., pay costs associated with Fred Phelps' appeal. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, which conducted protests at the funeral of Snyder's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, in Westminster in 2006.

Lawyers for Snyder say the Court of Appeals has ordered him to pay $16,510.80 to Phelps for costs relating to the appeal, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the Court of Appeals' decision.

It wasn't bad enough that these bottom-feeding, subhuman oxygen thieves protested the funeral of this young man, but to order the father to pay for their frivolous lawsuit is just further insult to injury.

I hate the scum-sucking Westboro Church Family Cult with every fiber of my being, in case you haven't noticed, and just a suggestion: In order to make sure the payment is secure and everything, Mr, Snyder might want to look at adopting a former military working dog to deliver the extortion money to Phelps in person. I mean dogs suffer from PTSD too and, well, things happen.

Just saying.

UPDATE: (Via Gateway Pundit) I called Sean E. Summers law offices this morning and asked how we can help. They already set up this website– http://www.matthewsnyder.org/.

You can donate to the Snyder family– here.

Damn the ROE

Yesterday I wrote a piece about LCpl Joshua Bernard, a Marine whom the Associated Press decided to publish a photo of after he was mortally wounded and in it I included some clips from his father in which he expressed concern about the Rules of Engagement (ROE) in Afghanistan.

Today via Instapundit there is a piece by Herschel Smith over at Captain's Journal about the recent engagement in which four Marines were killed, and it does indeed appear that the new ROE's are at least partially responsible for the rise in casualties in Afghanistan.

We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

“We will do to you what we did to the Russians,” the insurgent’s leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.

Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.

This is Obama's war now. It's his Defense Department. They take their orders from him. That is the way our founding fathers designed it, so that we would have civilian control of our military, but if those civilians cannot grasp the concept of what war is all about then I fear the losses are only going to continue to rise. The enemy had become emboldened and he is using our rules against us.

I want these bastards beaten, if for no other reason then the blight that they are on human rights, especially of women and the total disregard they have for human life. It is not time to cut and run; history has proven that this reaction only furthers the Islamic radicals actions. At this point, however, you are really down to two options. You either use the military for its intended purpose or you tuck tail and run in defeat.

If this administration decides to tuck tail and run in the face of increasing causalities, casualties they are just as much responsible for as the fundamentalists who are pulling the trigger, then I will hold this administration responsible, not the service members in the field who have never flinched and always win when not hampered by ridiculous rules of engagement.

Red Eye Meets One Eye

I don't get to stay up and watch "Red Eye", the Fox News show that comes on at 3 AM and is hosted by Greg Gutfeld, which takes an irreverent look at the news. No irreverence here though.

Very compelling interview and Greg managed to put a smile on the guys' face without being condescending nor does he exhibit the usual unease most interviewers have around military folks.

You have got to watch long enough to see his prosthetic eye.



Mr Popaditch has also written a book "Once a Marine"

There seems to be a problem with the Fox News video so here is a You Tube video about Nick Popaditch.

More Marines, More Trials

"From a legal point of view, there is no difference in law between war and peace," he said.

That is the words of a lawyer weighing in with his 2¢ worth in a case involving a Marine, Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who is due to stand trial starting Tuesday for charges of involuntary manslaughter related to an incident that allegedly occurred in Fallujah in 2004.

This story has its genesis with another Marine who was applying for a job with the US Secret Service. That Marine was a former member of Narzario's squad, Ryan Weemer. In an interview for that job he was asked about any criminal acts he might have committed or witnessed. He volunteered that while participating in combat operations he witnessed Nazario killing 2 detained Iraqis. Weemer himself is facing a military court martial for involuntary manslaughter and dereliction of duty for the death of an Iraqi in Fallujah.

I became aware of this story a long time ago and I was outraged to hear that it was federal prosecutors who were pursuing the charges against Nazario and a judge granted their motion for a hearing.

This same judge has ordered other members of Nazario's squad to be held in jail on contempt charges for their refusal to testify against him.

As you can see Sgt Jermaine Nelson has been a central figure in this case even though the military had previously dropped charges against him.

I don't claim to know the facts of the case, I guess that is the purpose of the court case is, my point is there shouldn't be a court case to start with. Am I saying that we should allow our military members to commit atrocities in the conduct of military operations? No. What I am saying is we weren't there, and for a bunch of highly paid, stuffed shirt, pampered, ambulance chasing, latte drinking lawyers to try and exert some sort of moral superiority because they think their debates in a courtroom somehow equate to actual armed combat, is the most grave of disservice not only to the Marines wrapped up in all of this but the legal community as a whole but mostly to any American who has ever worn the uniform of this country and volunteered to place himself between us the very people who would cause the destruction of this country.

This case bears watching to see if it too winds up just like the case involving the Haditha Marines.

John Murtha could not be reached for comment in this case.

California Judge Throws Marine in Jail

He put him in jail because the Marine refused to testify about what went on in Iraq, something that is none of this judge's business nor any civilian court for that matter. I have written previously about this case and now Blackfive has the update.

After reading it take a few minutes to calm down, and then write e-mails, letters, make phone calls and get the awareness of this situation out into the public eye.
Write your Congress critter, regardless of what type of stripe they are, write the judge, call the president, but be polite, and anything else you can do to let people know that it is not alright to be freeing terrorists from Gitmo while at the same time some judicial activist judge can put Marines in jail because he obviously doesn't like their haircut or something.

It seems they are right when they say you give up some of your rights when you join the military. Not to the military, but the civilian world you leave behind.

God, I hate civilians!

And now the bad news, things moved slowly, the judge didn't enter the room until 2:30 and immediately called Sgt. Nelson and Mr. Low. [Mr Low is Sgt Nelson's attorney -ed] They once again pleaded their case, and the prosecutor had played a dirty trick. Mr. Low had asked for transcripts from Judge Anderson's courtroom [the previous judge in the hearing]. They were only sent this morning, when Mr Low was not around to review them. But that didn't matter to the judge. Despite some very good arguments by Atty Low (who asked the judge at one point, "what benefit is there to hearing Sgt. Nelson speak, over the transcripts and the tapes already available to the grand jury? The information is no different, why do they have to hear it live from him, when the questions aren't about Nazario, they are about his own conduct?"), the Judge had made up his mind.

Another Marine Violating Regulations

You have to use titles like that to get picked up by any of web aggregators. They love headlines which bash America and it's institutions, so who am I to continue fighting it. As they say in Iraq "embrace the suck".
Here is the real story. One of those uneducated, uncouth, down on his luck citizens who had no other choice in life but to join the military is now responsible for getting a display of Iraqi art by real Iraqi artists on display in New York.

In a side street of Soho, at a gallery aptly named Pomegranate, an interesting coincidence of circumstances has led a US Marine to bring Iraqi art to Manhattan.

It began when Christopher Brownfield, then a US Marine, was stationed as a military liaison officer in Baghdad's Green Zone.

The story is a compelling one of how this Marine built a relationship with artists in the Iraqi community and got them to believe and trust in him. Being a Marine he kept his word to the Iraqi's who befriended him. It is stories like this and hundreds of others which have enabled us to win in Iraq. it is not our chest thumping, hot air spewing politicians on capitol hill. This is why we will have a strong friend in the Middle East for years to come, just like the countries of the New Europe, who now free of the yoke of the Soviet Union are becoming our steadfast friends, while the Old European countries continue to decline and become irrelevant.
The display is one of modern art, and I have to admit I don't quite get it and the few pictures with the article really don't give you the whole picture, but it is just another symbol of how those men and women on the ground are doing more then just killing the bad guys and committing atrocities like the folks at McClatchy and their ilk would have you believe.
This is the new Greatest Generation and fully deserving of every bit of respect and admiration as the previous Greatest Generation.

McClatchy Newspapers Once Again Being Used as Useful Tool ?

I stumbled across this story over at Memeorandum, and out of curiosity decided to go see what it was all about. On the surface I think that once again the McClatchy newspapers are being used by the propaganda arm of the Islamists. It won't be the first time. While they ran with the story and they have a picture of the coin in question they did not offer that they had done any sort of independent verification of the writing on the coin.

I do not read or write Farsi or Arabic so any readers who do, feel free to go the link and enlarge the picture and translate away.

I really don't believe the story and the military is of course once again wasting valuable man hours and resources to investigate the story since they have finally learned that allegations like this must be responded to promptly, and I am sure that any information that comes out proving the story to be false will not make it into their papers. While the paper did approach a Marine spokesman, I wonder why they decided to run the story now before the Marines had completed their investigation.

I really find the story unbelievable. It is some of the quotes contained in the story that give rise to my skepticism.

"The occupier is repeatedly trespassing on God and his religion," said Omar Delli, 23. "Now the occupier is planting seeds of strife between the Muslims and Christians. We demand the government in Fallujah have a new demonstration to let the occupier know that these things are humiliating Islam and the Quran."

The constant use of the word "occupier" is standard fare for folks like the Mahdi army and from Iranian backed agents.

UPDATE: Celtic, one of the folks who left a comment, after engaging in the obligatory childish name calling associated with anti war and leftist crowd, left a link to another McClatchy story which seems to confirm the story of one (1), count 'em, 1 Marine who was handing out the coins. It was not part of an organized effort, Marines were not handing out the coins to residents as a normal routine, which is what the tone of the original article would lead you to believe. It appears to be a case of one over zealous Marine acting on his own. Not quite worthy of all the attention it was given.
I stand by my characterization of McClatchy newspapers being a tool of the Islamists since they still feel it necessary to continue quoting the rhetoric about the occupiers, although strangely none of these occupiers were present in the market place that the interview took place. I always thought an occupying would you know, sort of be omnipresent and visible.

Marines: Associated Press Mischaracterized Civilian's Opinions as Official Study

Now here's a stunner. The Associated Press has been accused of misrepresentation.

Will wonders ever cease?

At issue is this story from last Friday.

Here's the Marine Corps press release in full.

HEADQUARTERS MARINE CORPS (Feb. 22, 2008) - In a letter yesterday to Associated Press president Thomas Curley, the Marine Corps raised objections to a story by reporter Richard Lardner which mischaracterized a preliminary internal paper written by a civilian employee of Headquarters, Marine Corps.

Although the paper was clearly marked as the personal views of that employee and not representative of the Marine Corps or the Department of Defense, the AP headline and story led readers to believe the work was an official Marine Corps study. Statements that the work represented the personal opinions of the author were placed deep within the article.

In addition, another AP report three days later stated that "The Associated Press first reported Friday that hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps officials refused the request of the commanders." This statement was presented as fact and not attributed to the author of the paper, as representing his personal views.

As a result of the AP's inaccurate and imprecise reporting, the Marine Corps was forced to respond to numerous requests for clarification from news organizations, members of Congress and other groups.

"There has been a clear reluctance on behalf of the AP reporter and his editor to accurately state the nature of the civilian's opinion paper, and to correct the record," said Col. Dave Lapan, deputy director of Marine Corps public affairs. "So we are. This is an example of how inaccurate reporting leads to continued inaccuracies and ultimately does a disservice to the millions of readers who rely on the AP for accurate and factual information."

Nobody is diputing the nuts and bolts of the story. However, the AP makes it as if this is an official Marines study when it was in fact written by a civilian.

Somehow I doubt they'll be issuing a clarification.

Blackfive has more.

Small business seminars In Iraq!

Gee if the Iraqi economy gets any better they may start to scare our chicken little Wall St investors we seem to have in this country. Our stock market plunges because of rumors of Warren Buffet passing gas.

Small-business owners in Iraq attended training seminars at business centers in Fallujah and Ramadi to learn how to bid on government contracts, officials said.
U.S. Marines and civilian reconstruction officials hosted seminars at the refurbished Fallujah Business Development Center and the Ramadi Business Center using a bilingual presentation to advocate the expansion of small-business operations in Anbar province, a release by the U.S. II Marine Expeditionary Force said.
A Marine contracting official said the local sheiks and business owners met the chance to bid on U.S. government contracts with enthusiasm.
The seminar focused on training local businessmen how to find solicitations advertised by the U.S. government on the Internet and advised them to register with a U.S. database to receive future request-for-quotes, the official said.
The Marines reported 135 sheiks and local businesses attended the seminars.

Goosebumps

Why do the Marines get all the good commercials?
The commercial San Francisco didn't want made in their city.

Lawyer who keyed Marines car gets his day in court

Anti-Military Lawyer In Court Tomorrow Today

Update: Source says Grodner pled guilty, will pay $600 to Semper Fi Injured Marine Fund. The judge gave Grodner a history lesson about the Marines and finished with explaining why Marines have each others' backs...

Now why would the judge give the defendant a history lesson about the Marines? Well this might be why.

[Sgt] McNulty might derive some comfort from the fact that the presiding judge is a former Marine. Circuit Court Judge William O’Malley was a lance corporal in the early 1960s and is known around the Chicago Courthouse for wearing a Marine Corps pin on his lapel and celebrating the Corps’ birthday each November.

As liberals say "Karma is a bitch"

Marines Once Again Battling Lawyers

This is what happens when you start digging into a story to try and find out as much information as you can.

Now I don't have the backing of an international news agency nor am I fair and balanced or any of those other catchy slogans. All I am is some guy trying to get information, and once you start down that path you are surprised where it can lead you.

This story piqued my interest when I saw it.

Marines differ on deadly shooting
The official inquiry into a shooting incident in Afghanistan involving some Marines and the allegations that they killed several civilians indiscrimantely is under way.

What an overlawyered nation we are? Anybody think we could have won WWII with the climate that exists today with the media ready to pounce and to be used by our enemies as useful tools and more lawyers then warriors on the battlefield.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Map , News ) - A Marine riding in a Humvee during a shooting that left as many as 19 Afghan civilians dead testified Wednesday that his convoy was fired upon at least three times after it was attacked by a car bomb.

Sgt. Brett Hayes said the gunner in his vehicle was knocked out of the turret by the blast. The gunner returned to his position and began firing, shouting he was being shot at by small arms fire from both sides of the road near a bridge over a dry riverbed.

"I started hearing fire come at us," Hayes said during a fact-finding hearing at Camp Lejeune , adding that he heard small arms fire from AK-47 rifles and cracks of the bullets passing overhead.

Some reporting of the original incident with the allegations that the Americans were grabbing cameras and deleting pictures and footage being shot at the scene and threathening the correspondents.

So I started a search going back to the begining, back to when it all happened.

(Mar 4, 2007)
By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

Some of his work.

From a blog entitled Cao's Blog

Amir Shah may have shaven his beard and cropped his hair, but there is no mistaking, according to my sources, that the Amir Shah of the AP is the Amir Shah in this photograph. He is Hazara, and he is a former member of the Taliban ministry. People claim he’s ‘former Taliban’. Okay, I’ll bite. Just like there were “former Nazis”. Although the Nazis were considered war criminals throughout the world, and no matter how lowly your job was with the SS at the labor camps, the Jews set out to find them and destroy them all, even though the war was long over.

You need to read the entire entry.

Rahmat Gul
Other then being mentioned in this article as a photographer who had pictures deleted I could find very little of his work.

Here is a link to the search results of all 12 of his pictures that have been used by the media. Notice they used that one picture a lot. The one of the guy walking up the street with hand out stretched.

Khanwali Kamran
I did a search of this name and on one the web sites, EMM News Explorer, which has information about him. I noticed in a sidebar labeled Related people the names Rahmat Gul and David Accetta. Very little other information is available on this name. In most searches the only reason it comes up is because it is mentioned in AP article, so I guess we have to take their word for it that he is a reporter with the Ariana Television. I went to their web site but they don't list their reporters.

Taqiullah Taqi
Another name mentioned only in the AP story. No other mention of him or any stories he may have written are found. They said he worked for the Afghan television station Tolo.

(Mar 5, 2007) The day after

"They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway," said Tur Gul, 38, who was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. "They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot."

I wonder if he is any relation to the photographer cited in the report from the previous day? Also notice now how allegations of the Americans deleting photos has now turned into fact.

U.S. forces near Sunday's bombing later deleted photos taken by a freelance photographer working for The Associated Press and video taken by a freelancer working for AP Television News.

(Mar 23, 2007) Marines surrender to lawyers

WASHINGTON — Marines accused of shooting and killing civilians after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan are under U.S. investigation, and their entire unit has been ordered to leave the country, officials said Friday.

Army Maj. Gen. Francis H. Kearney III, head of Special Operations Command Central, ordered the unit of about 120 Marines out of Afghanistan and initiated an investigation into the March 4 incident, said Lt. Col. Lou Leto, spokesman at Kearney's command headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

Now Gen. Kearney is an interesting fellow who ought to seriously consider resigning and turning in his stars. He has quite a track record of prosecuting soldiers and marines

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department's inspector general has opened an investigation into an Army general who ordered a Marine special forces unit out of Afghanistan after a shooting in March that left as many as 19 civilians dead.
The probe will review whether Lt. Gen. Francis H. Kearney III, deputy commander of Special Operations Command, exercised poor judgment and potentially compromised eventual legal proceedings in incidents involving special forces troops in Afghanistan, according to a Defense Department official.

One incident was the Marine shooting and a second involved two Army Green Berets, who have been charged with premeditated murder in the killing of an Afghanistan man last year.

The snipers were eventually exonerated, but not before they and their familes had to endure some tough times. As for the General now under investigation himself.

After the Marine incident, Kearney was promoted to lieutenant general and named to the deputy commander job.

So what does all this tell us? Well, if you are a skeptic, and you realize that all too often the press have nothing more then useful pawns in the hands of the jihadists propaganda machine, you begin to doubt the telling of the story has reported by the AP. You begin to see several interwoven ties and connections and things that just don't seem right. But who scratched the surface? Those professional journalists that Helen Thomas is so proud of? I don't think so.

AP reported it, everybody else reported it merely by regurgiatating what the AP fed them, which may have been fed to them by folks less then friendly to our mission in Afghanistan. I understand everybody wants to the first to report, but once the headline is made they need to quit copying off of each others paper and start doing their own work.

I don't know if this was some sort of propaganda effort and that is not what I am saying. What I am questioning is were these reporters there because they expected the Marines to be ambushed and wanted to capture that moment?

When it didn't go as planned, did they then try to turn the incident into an indictment of the US military, as Ayman al-Zarahwiri has told them to do? Advice that Zarqawi didn't heed in Iraq.

Whatever the case is there are a couple of undisputed facts. A bomb was set off and the Marines took fire. Did it last for the 6 miles cited in the story so much but no further corrobation can be found? Were all the people shot from the fire from the Marines or was it a cross fire or indeed did the Taliban trail the convoy or precede it and kill people knowing the Marines would then get the blame?

Well, I was just curious and I hope the military court clears these officers and men and they can get back to doing what needs to be done.

Dan Rather could not be reached for comment.

Sunday morrning reading

Sad news of the day. Valerie and Eddie are no more.

You may have heard the story a while back about an Italian court that had taken away the children of an U S Air Force staff sergeant stationed in Italy on grounds that her deployments amounted to neglect. Well they have finally tossed the case out and she now has her children back.

Looks like Florida St is going to have a tough time in their bowl game. 36 of their players have been dropped from the team because of a cheating scandal at the school.

Speaking of bowl games. Last night the Mormons beat the Secular Progressives 17 - 16.

Dec. 21: Jerome Lee, kneelling, father of slain soldier Dustin Lee, offically receives Lex from handler Maj. Mike Reynolds while wife Rachel watches during the adoption ceremony, at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. The adoption of Lex, an 8-year-old German Shepherd, by the family of fallen Marine Cpl. Dustin Lee marked the first time the U.S. military has granted early retirement to a working dog so it could live with a former handler's family, officials said.

Remember when Whoopi opined on The View in regards to the Michael Vick dogfighting case that it was a "southern" thing? Well maybe not so much. It looks more and more like it might be a black thing.

Pat Dollard, a former embed needs help

Listen Up Dollard Readers! “Young Americans” Documentary Needs You

Pat nearly died on more than one occasion trying to bring home the truth of what was happening in Iraq. The Marines who sat on either side of him in this humvee did not survive the IED. Pat did, he has a story that the American people, and the world, need to hear.

Pat needs $3000 by Friday to continue work on a documentary he is producing detailing his time in Iraq. He is trying to bring America the story that most won't. The Marines in that HMMV with Pat gave their lives protecting him. The least we can do is give him help getting their story out. Help if you can and if this movie does see the light of day support it by going to see it.

Marines let family adopt slain son's bomb-sniffing dog

Marine dog handler Sgt. Larry Mayberry watches military dog, Lex, jump a training obstacle at Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Ga., on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007. The 8-year-old German shepherd, that was wounded in Iraq by an explosion that killed its Marine handler Marine Cpl. Dustin Jerome Lee, will be released from duty so it can be adopted by the slain Marine's family, the Marine Corps said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Todd Stone)

A Georgia-based military dog wounded in Iraq by an explosion that killed its Marine handler will be released from duty so it can be adopted by the slain Marine's family, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.

The adoption of the 8-year-old German shepherd, Lex, by the family of fallen Marine Cpl. Dustin Jerome Lee marks the first time the U.S. military has granted early retirement to a working dog so it could live with a former handler's family, officials said.

"It is extraordinary," said Col. Christian Haliday, commander of the Marine Logistics Base in Albany, Ga., where the dog is based. "As far as we know, it's the first time that a waiver of policy of this nature has been granted."

Lee's family from Quitman, Miss., is scheduled to pick up Lex from the Albany base on Dec. 21 - exactly nine months after a mortar attack killed 20-year-old Lee and wounded Lex in Fallujah last March.

Man's Best Friend

Happy Birthday Marines

Happy Birthday Marines
Although younger then the US Army they have been around for a long time. 232 Years to be precise. Not bad for a group who came into being after a meeting in a pub in Philadelphia.
Here is your invitation to the ball, although it is probably too late.

And here is the official message sent out by the Commandant of the Marine Corps to signify the 232nd birthday of the Corps.

Update from Iraq and Arrowhead Ripper

Here is just a small part of the lastest update from Bill Roggio over at the Fourth Rail.

Marines.com reported the operation in the Thar Thar region is called China Shop, and the 3/1 found three large caches on June 25 and 26. "The first cache reportedly contained more than 121 IEDs, more than half of which were already armed. The devices included “speed bump” IEDs, often placed or buried in roads ... The second find was the largest of the three. A house search uncovered a room containing a high-explosive stack nearly three feet high draped in a United Nations flag. Battalion personnel estimate the material could have been used to construct more than 80 large IEDs ... The third cache ... [contained] various small arms munitions, a rocket-propelled grenade, 10 pressure plate IEDs and other bomb making material."