Here is a chance for people to get
great looking items, free shipping and help the families at Ft. Hood
right around the holidays.

http://www.bouhammer.com/2009/11/vsw-and-hooahradio-helping-the-families-at-ft-hood/

//Update:

To alleviate confusion, I'm not quitting (yet).  CJ wrote "A Soldier's Perspective".  His chain of command are the tools.  I strongly urge you all to contact both the chain of command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, and the Congresspersons from Alabama, and ask them to look into why a decorated combat veteran with 15 years of service isn't allowed to bring facts and logic to a supposed debate about school uniforms to a PTA meeting, how that in any way affects his military performance, and why his chain of command would side with a PTA and attack CJ for blogging.//

What happens when leaders refuse to be honest, or to stand up for their soldiers when they are unfairly accused of wrongdoing, and when the chain of command would rather bow to small-minded bigots than stand up for reason and logic and polite discourse?


This:

Blogging is no longer worth the trouble. Everything is fine as long as the stories are happy and positive. The military wants happy stories, not honest stories. Everything must be 100% in concert with the Army spin. If it's not, you're considered an "embarrassment" to the Army, the installation, and/or the NCO Corps. Integrity is no longer an accepted method of leadership. If I can't be honest and open, I won't write at all. I refuse to allow my private blog's message to be dictated with threats and intimidation. It's been a fun six years!
-CJ

"America's military bloggers are also an important voice for the cause of freedom."
President George W. Bush

ROFASIX has a first-person account of what happened at Fort Hood.


No, we as an Army are not broken.  Where do we get such men and women?


I am proud to wear the same uniform as them, command people like them, and work for people like them.


--Chuck

Lately, we've been studying Task Force Smith, the ill-fated first response to the Korean War in 1950.  Untrained solders with WWII surplus equipment were sent to stop the North Korean Army, with the very misguided belief that the NorKs wouldn't dare mix it up with the US, because we were the victors in WWII.


Thousands of US soldiers died, because of two things:  Hubris and Ill-preparedness.  The Hubris was on the shoulders of their higher-echelon leaders who thought that their being Americans would give the the North Korans pause.  What ended up happening was US troops faced North Korean Tanks with their rifles and pistols, and no anti-tank weapons at all.  The ill-preparedness was also on the shoulders of the chain of command.  These troops were a constabulary force from Japan.  They were not trained for warfighting, other than their basic training.  Most were not even WWII veterans.  They were in the midst of reconstructing Japan, and just happened to be the closest thing MacArthur had to throw at the North Koreans.  (You could write a book, and many have, about MacArthur's hubris.)


Unlike Ralph Peters, I am not going to redirect the blame for the mass murder at Fort Hood onto political leaders, senior Army leaders, chains of command, or anyone but Nadal Malik Hasan, who I will refer to henceforth as That Murdering Sack of Shit* (TMSOS).  What we have is a man who chose to murder American soldiers, a man who equated suicide bombers (premeditated murderers) with a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades (instinctual gallantry.)


TMSOS MADE A CLEAR, PREMEDITATED DECISION TO MURDER SOLDIERS.  TMSOS DID NOT GO TEMPORARILY INSANE.  TMSOS brought two pistols to work that day, and extra magazines as well.  This was a planned attack against American Soldiers, based around political and religious beliefs.  It is an act of terror in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh, who murdered because of his political beliefs, and The 19 Saudis who murdered 2974 on 11 September 2001 for their (the hijackers) religious beliefs.  TMSOS is a terrorist.  Having said and believing that, I am glad that isn't the charge he's currently facing.

You see, if He's charged with 13 murders and 31 attempts, a military court can have a quick decision to make on his guilt.  ALL of his appeals in the military system are based on whether or not the trail was functionally correct--i.e. was the process correct. The process of the trial is what matters, and only if the proceedings are at fault is another trial granted.  If it is adjudged an act of terror, he could be sent to GITMO, and find himself retiring in Fiji.  If the military keeps his criminal trail within the UCMJ, his 12 peers will all be military officers.  Men and women who've dedicated their lives to leading and protecting soldiers are not likely to lose any sleep at night by giving him the death penalty.  From the time he's convicted until he eventually is put to death, he'll spend every last minute of his life in solitary confinement at the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.  He'll have to be in solitary because all of the convicts at the DB are former solders, many of them are officers who've committed a crime, but even then, they still have some sense of duty and honor.  TMSOS would find himself beaten to death,  quick fast and in a hurry, by fellow inmates if left in general population.

But enough about TMSOS--as a leader charged with protecting troops, I must look at this incident with an intent to prevent it from ever happening again.  How can we (as leaders) ensure that no soldier will ever be able to murder or seriously wound 44 fellow soldiers?  We know that banning concealed weapons didn't work, or this wouldn't have happened.  Registering weapons (which is required for all weapons on post) simply didn't work.  No other "prevention or control" method worked.  A wolf in sheepdog's clothing violated several orders and regulations that day, before he murdered. 

There is only one clear option if we want to prevent, or at least limit the severity of these types of attacks in the future:  allow soldiers (who trust each other implicitly, with their lives in combat) to carry concealed privately owned weapons.  If a soldier is A)  Allowed by statue to own a pistol, and B)  Allowed by the state to carry a concealed weapon in states which allow it or, in states that don't, the provost martial can authorize CCWs for on-post carry, then he should be allowed to do so.  Keeping us unarmed makes us just as ripe a target for terrorists as schools.  If only 5% of the 39 people killed or wounded had a weapon to defend themselves, two people would have had the means to stop TMSOS.  How many would be alive and uninjured if our policies for "force protection" actually allowed the force to protect itself.  Remember, I'm not suggesting issuing weapons for carry, just allowing soldiers to carry a concealed, privately owned weapon, on base, in and out of uniform.  We trust these soldiers in combat.  We trust them on ranges and in training.  We trust them with all manner of deadly and dangerous weapons and explosives.  Yet for some reason, we don't trust them to carry a concealed weapon.
Every soldier and civilian in that gym was at the mercy of  TMSOS, and he wasn't showing any mercy that day.  Only when a civilian contacted police officer arrived (minutes later, when lifespans were measured in seconds) was TMSOS stopped.  Sadly, until this policy is changed, we will continue to be sheepdogs when deployed but sheep at the mercy of wolves, or wolves in sheepdog's clothing, when we are at home, because we are forced by our superiors' policies to be defenseless.  All I ask for is the answer to just one question:
Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?
 
And since safety and comprehensive risk management is at the cornerstone of what we believe and how we plan, shouldn't we focus on how we can best protect the force from future incidents of mass murdering terrorists attacking us or our families or children on post?  We can't hire an MP to put on every street corner and in every building (because they would soon just spend all their time setting up speed traps for driving 22 in a 20--which is my perception of how MPs spend 99% of their "out in public" duty time.)  We can't catch everyone coming on post with a weapon.  We can't take all the privately owned weapons on post and store them in unit Arms rooms.  Because in the end, it'll be someone who doesn't follow the regulation to secure their weapons who then goes and murders unarmed soldiers, or worse, their family members.

I can only see one clear answer to protecting the force from future occurrences of mass-murder.  Maybe that shows a lack of imagination or understanding on my part, but at least, unlike J. Edgar Hoover and FDR, I'm not advocating rounding up every person of a certain ethnicity or religion and putting them in concentration camps.  I'm just suggesting allowing soldiers the ability to defend themselves, and each other, from this ever happening again.  I'd even bet (if we are so afraid of concealed weapons,) that many would opt to carry openly, if that were allowed in uniform.  Being that we ARE a stratified society, the Army policy doesn't have to even be fair.  If it's a trust issue, the commander can limit the regulation to include only Officers and NCO's,  or just officers. (Which has historical precedent.)

We trust each other with our lives.  Let us protect each other as well.

--Chuck

By RALPH PETERS

Last Updated: 2:50 PM, November 6, 2009

Posted: 1:36 PM, November 6, 2009

On Thursday afternoon, a radicalized Muslim US Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" committed the worst act of terror on American soil since 9/11. And no one wants to call it an act of terror or associate it with Islam.

What cowards we are. Political correctness killed those patriotic Americans at Ft. Hood as surely as the Islamist gunman did. And the media treat it like a case of non-denominational shoplifting.

This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period.

When the terrorist posts anti-American hate-speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program, and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit - well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist."

But the president won't. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there's no such thing as "Islamist terrorism" in ObamaWorld.

And the Army won't. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America-haters is safer than calling terrorism "terrorism."

And the media won't. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops - despite their crocodile tears.

Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan planned this terrorist attack and executed it in cold blood. The resulting massacre was the first tragedy. The second was that he wasn't killed on the spot.

Hasan survived. Now the rest of us will have to foot his massive medical bills. Activist lawyers will get involved, claiming "harassment" drove him temporarily insane. There'll be no end of trial delays. At best, taxpayer dollars will fund his prison lifestyle for decades to come, since our politically correct Army leadership wouldn't dare pursue or carry out the death penalty.

Maj. Hasan will be a hero to Islamist terrorists abroad and their sympathizers here. While US Muslim organizations decry his acts publicly, Hasan will be praised privately. And he'll have the last laugh.

But Hasan isn't the sole guilty party. The US Army's unforgivable political correctness is also to blame for the casualties at Ft. Hood.

Given the myriad warning signs, it's appalling that no action was taken against a man apparently known to praise suicide bombers and openly damn US policy. But no officer in his chain of command, either at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or at Ft. Hood, had the guts to take meaningful action against a dysfunctional soldier and an incompetent doctor.

Had Hasan been a Lutheran or a Methodist, he would've been gone with the simoon. But officers fear charges of discrimination when faced with misconduct among protected minorities.

Now 12 soldiers and a security guard lie dead. 31 soldiers were wounded, 28 of them seriously. If heads don't roll in this maggot's chain of command, the Army will have shamed itself beyond moral redemption.

There's another important issue, too. How could the Army allow an obviously incompetent and dysfunctional psychiatrist to treat our troubled soldiers returning from war? An Islamist whacko is counseled for arguing with veterans who've been assigned to his care? And he's not removed from duty? What planet does the Army live on?

For the first time since I joined the Army in 1976, I'm ashamed of its dereliction of duty. The chain of command protected a budding terrorist who was waving one red flag after another. Because it was safer for careers than doing something about him.

Get ready for the apologias. We've already heard from the terrorist's family that "he's a good American." In their world, maybe he is.

But when do we, the American public, knock off the PC nonsense?

A disgruntled Muslim soldier murdered his officers way back in 2003, in Kuwait, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Recently? An American mullah shoots it out with the feds in Detroit. A Muslim fanatic attacks an Arkansas recruiting station. A Muslim media owner, after playing the peace card, beheads his wife. A Muslim father runs over his daughter because she's becoming too Westernized.

Muslim terrorist wannabes are busted again and again. And we're assured that "Islam's a religion of peace."

I guarantee you that the Obama administration's non-response to the Ft. Hood attack will mock the memory of our dead.

Ralph Peters' latest novel is "The War After Armageddon."

Soldiers’ Angels Volunteers Vow to Shave Heads for $100,000

The first blog post I distinctly remember reading from Chux blog was the barbeque post. (If you've never made the connection, the picture from that post is that same little bitty icon in the address bar of your browser, just zoomed in on the barbeque.)

I remember reading later about Chuck getting blown up.  I remember sitting at my desk with tears running down my face for some guy I had never so much as emailed.  I remember reading the posts from The Mrs. and thinking she is a woman I wanted to be more like.  (I'm still working on that one.)

The story could have ended there.  Chuck could have faded off the internet due to his injuries and I never would have met two people whose friendship I now value so much.

If Soldiers' Angels hadn't given a laptop to Chuck and that most wonderful anonymous donation been made to his Amazon account for him to get Dragon Naturally Speaking, none of us would have been reading blog posts from him a few days later.  How many of us found his blog or made the first comment or sent him a card or dropped him an email after he was able to start blogging again?  Because of Project Valour-IT, Chuck was able to reconnect with the people who were in his life before the IED.  I don't want to take anything away from the value and magic of those ties being made whole again.  But he was also able to meet so many new people through that computer because his voice on the net had not been taken away from those of us who hadn't reached out yet.

If Chuck hadn't gotten a laptop and been able to keep blogging, he never would have broken the blog and gotten unsolicited advice from me.  If he hadn't been able to keep blogging, he would have just been a distant memory for me.  And that would suck.

Chuck, thanks for breaking the blog.  Patti, thanks going on eBay and buying him a laptop.  Thank you to everyone who started the ball rolling for Valour-IT and everyone who kept it rolling.  Thank you to everyone who donates and lets this happen again and again to so many people in so many places.

Every morning when I'm getting ready for work, I see a cashout voucher from the Straosphere slot machines for $0.13.  It reminds me of the friends I have who I don't get to see nearly enough, but whose presence on this planet remind me there's a lot more to life than my daily drama.  I never would have been trying to get to that rollercoaster thing on the top of the Straosphere a few minutes too late with some of the coolest people I've ever met if that first Valour-IT laptop hadn't been given to Chuck.

~~Code Monkey