Old War Dogs: October 2006

Down to the wire, the October Surprise was unleashed upon the Democrats yesterday. Surprisingly it wasn’t launched by the Republicans, but instead the liberal’s very own “useful idiot” John Kerry.
You know, education - if you make the most of it - you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.

If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq,
This site was to be announced next week, but in light of Kerry’s comment and the importance of next week’s elections we hope you will visit what promises to be an exciting place for discourse on the issues of the day.
Participation does require registration, so don’t be shy.
How apropos to John Fn Kerry's traitorous words today!

For however many thousands of years of human history there have been leading up to the 20th and 21st centuries, all tribes and civilizations, at least in their eras of growth, ascendancy, and power, were Warrior cultures. They were not all bloodthirsty and barbaric, but they were cultures and civilizations that held the Warriors among them in the highest esteem. For most of human history, the life and survival of the tribes and nations (tribes writ large) have always been too precarious and vulnerable to the barbarians at the gates, or across the river, for pacifism and indolence to flourish, and the Warriors of every tribe in history have been most highly esteemed because it was they, fighting and defeating the tribes' enemies, who made the life and survival of the individuals and the tribe, and the avoidance of death and slavery, possible.

Without Warriors, the tribe perishes.
When the Warriors fail, when the Warrior ethos fades, the power of the tribe withers, and in time it is absorbed by new conquerors, or taken into slavery, or slaughtered, and becomes just grist for the archeologists who will excavate its traces centuries or millennia later..

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Not every man can be a soldier. To be a soldier is the highest profession of life; [it] comes closest to being a life like Christ who gave life for others, as we may do.

...

Just when you start to think that Kerry may go away, there he is, once again putting his foot in something, then spreading it around for all to smell. The excuse that it was meant to be an insult to our President instead of the U.S.

military doesn't help at all. There is a lesson in it for us all. The pinko America hating thugs of the 60's have grown up, have huge bank accounts, and are recruiting as if their lives depend upon it.

We are running a few paces behind considering that they own the college campuses. Even so, they don't own every college student or college graduate out there. And they most assuredly do not own the military or veterans.

There may actually be more of us than there are of them. If we can just keep our heads, sit back patiently and let them screech and holler as they become more frustrated with our resolve and clear messages, and continue down our own path of showing the real meaning of freedom then we not only can but will win this time around. We veterans who are now retired have a bit of our own disposable income, have discovered how to use these confounded computating machines to our advantage, and have proven several times over that we can step up successfully in many types of conflict.

And they think (or should I say "feel") that they can out talk us? Not any day soon! Vote or shut the @#$% up!

! This will be last of my pre-election rants.
The experts, pundits, and wags are still calling the thing a toss-up.

I think voter turnout with be the deciding factor.
If there's any question, I'm gonna be voting anti-Democrats, yet again! I hate it, but it's the Devils choice.

Here in WV there's a decent chance at the State level to see a real change. Whether that is an improvement or not, who knows.
I have 3 things to close with.

1 - If you don't vote STFU!!!

!!
2 - I'm headed back to PA this weekend (weather permitting) to do a small thing to Boot Murtha.

What have you done?
3 - Term limits is a good idea that doesn't go far enough.

If we're gonna think of changing the Constitution I'd like to propose we take it several steps further.
We select our congresscritters out of the jury pool. If a jury is wise enough to decide life or death issues they are wise enough to sit in DC.

They'd be paid and treated exactly like our military - live in barracks, eat military chow, etc.
[edit] I need to extend my emphasis somewhat.

You need to make a real effort to change one mind, or one vote. Voting and doing nothing else is only a half step.
In keeping with the holiday sprit, tis the season etc., fright night is near.

Is anyone else afraid? You know who I mean; the parade of ghouls and goblins parading through your neighborhood, ready to extort their prey, grab your treasures and then run off down the road to their next victim. I know, they look like innocent little cherubs by the light of day, they actually live in your neighborhood; and besides, it’s a cute tradition.

It’s funny. You actually open your door and willingly hand them treats so that they will victimize your neighbors instead of you. Then, when you’ve run out of bounty, you close you shades, lock you doors and turn off the lights, hoping that the last marauders will pass you by without inflicting any damage.

This fright night bodes to go beyond the tortured imagination of Edgar Allen Poe. Disaster is looming as the moonbats mass for the assault. But don’t despair.

Relax and enjoy the festivities of the All Hallow’s Eve as we all await the true Fright Night this year; November 7th.
At that time I had no use of either hand. I know how humbling it is, how humiliating it feels.

And I know how much better I felt, how amazingly more functional I felt, after Soldiers' Angels provided me with a laptop and a loyal reader provided me with the software. I can't wait to do the same, to give that feeling to another soldier at Walter Reed. -
(Aside: Click that picture and scroll down a little to see whose idea it was.

)
I don't have the skills to explain Valour-IT any better than that picture and the quote from Capt Z explain it. Read Blackfive's post then use the button below to credit your donation to the Air Force team or and pick a different button. Just give.

Richard S. Lowry, author of Marines in the Garden of Eden and the Gulf War Chronicles was generous enough to donate two personalized copies of each book to Valour-IT. Team Air Force member Fred Griego volunteered his ebay sellers account to auction off the items.

Please include these two links in your next Valour-IT update:




I'm glad to see Bryan Preston . Didn't realize he was a vet but knew he was someone I'd get along with.
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He's not a vet but his heart's always been in the right place.
This rightfully belongs in , but it pissed me off enough to put it here.

NEWTOWN, Pa.

-- The military record of a Democratic House candidate was under attack. So, Senator John F. Kerry ventured to the Philadelphia suburbs last week to defend Patrick Murphy -- and deliver the kind of speech the senator never quite gave when his own wartime service was called into question in 2004.

[...

]
Now, Kerry is making it a personal mission to defend veterans running as Democrats in this year's congressional elections from Republican attacks. Should he run for president again in 2008, his efforts on behalf of veterans could leave him with a corps of fiercely loyal supporters in Congress, and could help erase memories of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks that he acknowledges he let stand for too long.
[.

..]
After a campaign in which he struggled to articulate his differences with the president on Iraq, he has become a full-throated war critic, calling for the United States to set a deadline of July 2007 to remove nearly all combat troops from the country.

The war in Iraq is not making America safer. It's making America more exposed, Kerry said in Newtown. What you have in Washington today is a house of lies, and we need to sweep that house clean.

Earlier this year, Republican pollster Frank Luntz conducted focus groups in New Hampshire and Iowa where he showed clips of the latest campaign-style appearances of nine Democrats who are thinking about running for president. Kerry came across as the best of the bunch, except for lingering resentment that he had not displayed the same fire two years ago, Luntz said.
It's actually an interesting article, but Kerry's, er-uh, warrior mode is annoying.

Then there's this from to lighten things up a bit.

Somehow this never stops being funny. From the Boston Globe:

NEWTOWN, Pa.

--The military record of a Democratic House candidate was under attack. So, Senator John F. Kerry ventured to the Philadelphia suburbs last week to defend Patrick Murphy--and deliver the kind of speech the senator never quite gave when his own wartime service was called into question in 2004.

Attacking Patrick Murphy for his service is a little bit like Jessica Simpson attacking Albert Einstein's IQ, the Massachusetts Democrat proclaimed Thursday at a chilly outdoor rally at Bucks County Community College.

Kerry's simile is too clever by half. We guess Jessica Simpson, whoever she is, isn't as smart as Einstein was--but then, who is?

More to the point, how many people can there be who have heard of both Jessica Simpson and Einstein? Kerry continues:

A lot of these people in the GOP, the Republican Party--they think somehow that they served because they played with GI dolls when they were little, Kerry said. The guys who really served understand what it means, and we've had enough of these lies.

He's teasing Republicans for playing with dolls? This phony machismo would be almost cute if Kerry weren't 62 years old. Besides, it turns out the big criticism of Kerry is that he is such a wimp:
Many Democrats remain angry with Kerry over his failure to more aggressively combat Republican smears in 2004.

. . .

My reaction was to go down to Texas and punch those Swift boat guys in the mouth, said Albert Lawler, 58, who runs a tutoring business in Bucks County. He's too much of a politician for that.

I'm in a fighting mood, Kerry responded.

We--together--lost to two lies: the lie about the war in Iraq, and the lie about me personally. And if you don't think that puts me in a fighting mood, you don't know John Kerry.

Ooohh, John Kerry's in a fighting mood!

Swift Boat Veterans, prepare to be taunted!

This is overdone, in making it sound like I did it all, which is certainly not true at all. The local Vietnamese were the force behind this, and are still working their tails off to help raise money.

One of them is on the way to Viet Nam as I write to check out more vets for help, and find better ways to help them. And to set things up for my trip in late December. But it's nice to get some publicity for the VHF, maybe it'll bring in a few more contributions.

One can always hope!

Del
Off-Campus:
Catching up with Crusaders on the move and in the news
By Kathleen S. Carr '96
“People talk in similes and metaphors about having their hearts torn.

That is no longer just an expression for me. I watched a brave, long-suffering, proud old man turn away from me on a scarred and shattered lower torso. It was too much.

Much too much. I wept then, and I weep now as I see it again in my mind. He wants a wheelchair.

The kind they make here from bicycle parts. They cost $100. He will have one on Monday.

He doesn't know it is coming, but it will be there on Monday so help me God.”
In the person of R.J.

Del Vecchio ’64, God is helping.
Del has spent the past 18 months working with, and reporting on, the disabled Vietnamese veterans still living in South Vietnam. He was haunted by a recent visit he made in early 2006—a visit that, he says, his wife wishes he never took.

Because it still affects him.
After his first return visit to Vietnam, Del started a charity for disabled veterans. There are a large number of badly disabled South Vietnamese vets still living in Vietnam, and, according to Del, the Vietnamese government has an official policy of discrimination against them: Their children have higher school fees.

They do not have pensions. And all are subjected to a system of oppression and punishment that extends to their children and their grandchildren. Those who are healthy can manage adequately, but the poor are locked into a cycle of poverty and desperation.

To help, Del has rallied the local Vietnamese community in Raleigh, N.C., that numbers around 5,000 people.

He has also met with a dozen veterans who spent time in the “re-education” camps—and many still have friends and relatives in Vietnam they are concerned about.
They came to Del for help, and he has been assisting them ever since. .

..
Read the whole thing, help if you can at all.

There's been a Vietnam Healing Foundation button on our sidebar for quite some time now.
Time for Rumsfeld to fall on his sword? .

.. and Cheney?

A conclusion reluctantly arrived at: Rumsfeld and Cheney have become a drag on the program. To do what needs to be done in Iraq and for United States foreign policy to remain coherent past 2008, they have to go. This probably should have happened in 2004.

Rice has to step forward. Otherwise, we risk stumbling toward April 1975 again: ..

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. This one's going to set off some debate around the sphere.

I'll do my best to stay on top of it.
It's short enough to quote here in it's entirety. One thing I will say about Mr.

Hajji because he hasn't got the stones to take us on head-on, but. . .

some civilians back home. At least he knows what he stands for, what he stands against, and what he will kill or die for.
Dollar, and would gleefully ignore his God, his family, and his country in pursuit of the same.

There's a reason the surreality of Iraq seems more rational and real than the pure artificiality of the States.
Can't help but be reminded of Bill Whittle's and, further, Lt. Colonel Grossman and his 'sheep, wolf, sheepdog' paradigm.

Since World War II there has existed a disconnect in this country. I'm not altogether sure if someone actually formulated the idea, or if it just sort of happened. I suppose the Truman administration, fresh on the heels of WWII, felt it had to mask the idea of war in some manner when venturing in to Korea.

Is it really any wonder that Korea, and Viet Nam were lost here in CONUS? And that Iraq may be as well?
We've had no formal Declaration of WAR since World War II!

There's an old saw about idle hands being the devil's tools, and that's where we are now. Most civilians see absolutely no connection between GWOT and themselves. It's natural to grow more like the villagers in the 'Boy Who Cried Wolf'.

Sure there seems no formal enemy state to declare war on, but this is a trivial excuse to avoid the truth of the matter. Terrorism is a tactic, and yet our leaders talk about a War on Terror as if this provides some clarity, but it simply doesn't. Terrorism on its own is simply a law enforcement issue.

This all leads me to some truths. We attacked Iraq because it seemed the easiest target. It was a valid target, as was Afghanistan, but mainly because it seemed the easiest.

It fit with the notion of never formally declaring war. If we don't formally declare war with don't need to consider the obvious way to grow the military to the size needed to do the job of attacking Syria and Iran as well. Decurion feels 'the draft' would be a mistake, but I don't - IF AND ONLY IF we declare war.

The issue is very complicated, for instance, could we field a military the size needed to do the job? Could we equip them? Could we provide the high tech gear they'd need.

Can we produce the steel for armor. And so on. I frankly have my doubts.

So here's the conundrum at the root of any response to Decurion's post. If we want (or expect) the majority of our population to be involved they have to be asked. If they're asked and say yes - could we even do what it would take any more?

The disconnect permeates the country and it's capabilities.
Gray Dog's Note: A sincere congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans, especially OWD fans Bill Faith and Jim Bartimus.

Bill, your daddy has a lot to smile about.
Paper Tigers? I don’t mean this in the typical disparaging manner the phrase usually connotes.

Just simply that comparing the two World Series teams on paper, the Tigers should have won. Fortunately for the Cardinals they had to play the games on the field. But this will not be a “sports piece.

”
If this had been twenty or thirty years ago, last night’s loss by the Tigers would have sent me into a fit of cursing and screaming which would have been followed by weeks of depression. This morning, the sun is shining and I eagerly look forward to today’s Michigan football game as they march to the November 18th showdown with Ohio State. While disappointed in last night’s outcome, I am not depressed.

I feel bad for the people of Detroit. This is a city that desperately needs something to feel good about. I feel bad for the Detroit players, coaches and manager.

But more than anyone else, I feel damn bad for Justin Verlander. While he most likely, and deservedly, will win the American League Rookie of the Year award, the immense pressure he felt last night was obvious. He’s going to have to live with the stigma of two World Series losses and more walks, wild pitches and errors than he committed during the entire season.

I hope the people of Detroit will be forgiving and not forget what a wonderful season he gave them.
As I focused on Verlander last night, I thought of my sons, both of whom are in their twenties, and wondered how they might have handled that kind of pressure. As my mind wandered, I began to think of all of the teens and twenty-somethings that face the incredible pressures of everyday life in the inner-city of Detroit or on patrol in Baghdad.

Each day is spent with life-and-death situations occurring all around them. This is the type of pressure that will either build character or break ones spirit. Some simply don’t survive.

I’m thinking about the first responders fighting the blazing wild fires in California. Already several dead with others suffering life threatening and disfiguring burns. Pressure?

Some may still think it is just “sour grapes,” but I can only put last night’s Detroit loss in perspective by knowing, “It was only a game.”
October 27, 2006: The U.S.

Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as . Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.
The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial.

This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon's rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country. ..

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Looks to me like a good source of information for the OWD pack, and for our friends.
Something needs to change in Iraq.

Not cut and run, but we need to rectify some big mistakes that are now apparent in hindsight.
For one thing, we need to take a step back on the form and makeup of the present government there. It is weak and has not done a good job of shouldering the responsibility of fighting the terrorists or even marginalizing the various sectarian militias.

We were the victors on the battlefield, and we should have taken a cue from World War II in the Pacific and appointed a MacArthur-like figure (Rudi Giuliani?) to draft a constitution that would have imposed separation of church and state upon the country, Islamists be damned. Even at the risk of embarrassment or increased religious violence, we should insist on making this change, no matter what the current government there says.

Nothing is going to change in Iraq or the greater Islamic world until they separate church and state. Sharia law is an undemocratic relic of the past.
In light of the insurgency and sectarian violence, we should declare martial law in Iraq and require that all arms be turned in to the government.

Anyone unauthorized to possess a weapon would be considered a terrorist and subjec to the death penalty. This was the biggest mistake made in the immediate aftermath of the war and should be addressed now.
Iran and Syria need to be put on notice that any arms shipments, fighters or other activities that harm American troops or destabilize Iraq will be met with overwhelming force directed against their countires.

And we should back up that threat with major airstrikes at a time of our choosing.
We should take off the gloves and allow our troops much greater latitude in conducting operations. The problem is, right now, the Iraqis fear the insurgents and militias more than they fear us.

We have better weapons and much more destructive power at our disposal and we should use them. The same goes for striking fear into the hearts of Iranian and Syrian leaders and mullahs.
We need to be lethal, brutal and forceful.

There is still time to save this. The alternative is a much more dangerous world.
“My name is The Gray Dog, and my wife is a recovering liberal.

”
This is a painful topic to write about. However, I do so in the hope that it will be helpful to those conservatives who have suffered the embarrassment, frustration and anger associated with mixed marriages.
My wife and I met later in life.

Both single parents, we were happy to have found a prospective mate that shared many common interests. However, there are many topics that are often left unexplored in any courtship. Besides, I thought; how could anyone this beautiful, intelligent and talented be so totally clueless as to actually be a Democrat?

Oh sure, there were a few subtle signs I might have overlooked, but when you’re in love the fact that someone is a liberal arts college graduate, guitar strummin’, folk song singing, ex-Peace Corps volunteering, French speaking member of the NEA just didn’t add up to trouble at the time.
who play armchair general make the same mistake. Liberals seem to be caught in a repeating time loop based on a fixation with Vietnam.

Many memory is tricky. Agenda-driven people who don't check their facts activists as the heroes and the Vietnam hawks as the villains. They movement, particularly the massive blood purges in Vietnam and Cambodia after the war.

In order to celebrate themselves and ignore the consequences of their actions, liberals have perpetuated a mythological version of the Vietnam War.
using Vietnam, a war that they do not understand, as a guide to interpreting the war in Iraq, another war they do not understand. Iraq is a different kind of war, with different kinds of ideologies, loyalties, and resentments among the people, and different tactics for fighting.

Using Vietnam as a lens can only blur one's vision about Iraq...

Senate. While not all Democrats in Congress are under the spell of Vietnam, their leaders in the House and Senate are anti-war liberals and Neo-McGovernites. If power comes into their hands, they are likely to abandon the Iraqis to their fate.

In 1973-74, the Democrats looked back. If the Democrats take power in January 2007, they are chafing at the bit to abandon the Iraqis to unimaginable horror.
It is not too late to stop the Democrats from taking control of Congress.

Let us join ranks to stop them.
Like so many Americans grudgingly facing the inevitability of my fifth decade, some years ago I opened the envelope from AARP, informing me that I was entitled to membership in their organization, with much less than enthusiasm. Over the ensuing years, receiving their monthly publications and experiencing their constant assaults on my mailbox with offers of supposedly low-cost health, life and automobile insurance, not to mention discount drugs, diagnostic devices and dubious dietetic supplements my enthusiasm for this goliath of geriatric marketing declined with every advancing year of my own seniority.

For many of those early years, the publications and solicitations from AARP had all the slick sophistication of a 1960’s Readers Digest, a matter of some homey comfort to an aging Vietnam veteran who was definitely not on the cutting edge of the Information Age. However, in learning to use a computer, I became aware of two things about AARP: they were in it for the money and they were becoming increasingly liberal. Now, being in it for the money I can understand with no problem; we seniors are supposed to be the ones who hold the gold as the general wisdom goes: we got the real estate, we got the pensions and we got the savings.

But, becoming liberal, with your subscribers being the one demographic in America that could almost be guaranteed to be conservatively inclined, the nation’s staunchest supporters of traditional values and status quo? What was up?
Then it began: the stuffy old monthly periodicals in my mailbox suddenly took on a new glitz and glamour with the focus turning away from subject matter such as dealing with a problem prostate to retiring in Rio, complete with slick photos of all these seductive septuagenarians, physically fit, magnificently tanned and obviously savvy investors, enjoying the very good life in exotic places.

No more were there stories of Herman and Helen in Hoboken; nope now it was all about Ziggy and Zelda in Zihuatenejo. AARP had stepped into the information age, gone glamorous and the result in this corner was no less than expected. I grumbled to my wife, “AARP’s been hijacked by a bunch of smart-ass kids who don’t have a clue about the realities of growing old.

”
Worse, AARP wasn’t just hijacked by air-headed twenty-something’s wanting to show seniors a sure way to live out their lives with pizzazz rather than delivered pizza, it was hijacked politically by a seriously left-wing cadre that had clear, if undeclared, loyalty to all causes liberal. For example, they did their level best to scare the hell out of seniors about Bush’s Social Security reform when anyone with an ounce of investing knowledge knew the President was onto something there. May I interject here that I think I may have been a bit more aware of many aging topics than most seniors as I spent many years as my rural county’s representative on the senior advisory committee to a large multi-county, regional council of governments.

When it finally came to the point that I could no longer bear reading the AARP publications’ constant onslaught of Democrat Party talking points, not so cleverly disguised as informative articles, I said “Enough!” When my annual renewal form came in the mail, I didn’t just ignore it; nope, I used it as a little man’s soapbox and let them know that I no longer could support an organization that had become so supportive of political positions that I and many other seniors find totally repugnant. I think I may have told them they were seniorously out of tune with their readership.

I know, I know, it’s hokey, but at the time it sounded, well, profound. Whatever pimple-faced kid opened the envelope probably flipped me a mental bird and classified me as just another grumpy old fart.
Tonight, with elections approaching, like all the rest of you I’m watching the unending stream of despicably negative political ads interspersed with brief glimpses of what TV producers call content, when suddenly the AARP appears with an ad admonishing voters, “Don’t Vote,” with the suggestion that to vote uninformed is the gravest of civil transgressions.

The ad directs you to the AARP website, which, in fact, does contain a large amount of information to better inform voters. Now, please understand that, as a conservative, who believes that informed voters tend to vote conservatively, and that uninformed voters, ignorant of the issues, usually vote Democrat, I’m all for educating the electorate. But, “Don’t Vote?

”
I’m just wondering how many of the seniors who retain their membership in AARP because they aren’t quite sharp enough to pick up on the fact that their supposed benefactor is a tool of the liberal wing of the Democrat party, are now sharp enough to pick up on the subtle message offered here. Me, I’m just cynical enough to think that AARP, in its ongoing collaboration with the Democrats is hoping that the retained message in the minds of all those potentially conservative, voting seniors is, quite clearly, “Don’t Vote,” period, nada más, Señors. Knowing full well that seniors, for the most part, are not computer savvy and likely will never access their website, has AARP, under the guise of being a good citizen and civic organization, embarked on an ad campaign that it hopes will keep conservative-voting seniors away from the polls on election day?

Are they sneakily hoping that all those old gray heads out there will simply remember their single, bold admonition, “Don’t Vote?”
If that is indeed the case then this has to be one of the most despicable, election day, dirty tricks schemes ever dreamed up by any political party. But coming from a now all but avowedly, left-wing organization, another complicit arm of the Democrats like AARP, why should we be surprised?

And we trust their advice on insurance, drugs and investments?
Yesterday was the anniversary of the 1983 , Lebanon.

On October 23, 1983, around 6:20 am, a yellow Mercedes-Benz delivery truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, under the U.

S. 2nd Marine Division of the United States Marines, had set up its local headquarters. The truck turned onto an access road leading to the Marines' compound and circled a parking lot.

The driver then accelerated and crashed through a barbed wire fence around the parking lot, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through a gate and barreled into the lobby of the Marine headquarters. The Marine sentries at the gate were operating under their rules of engagement, which made it very difficult to respond quickly to the truck. By the time the two sentries had locked, loaded, and shouldered their weapons, the truck was already inside the building's entry way.

...

One of the opening battles in the war that goes on today - unfortunately only one side was battling at that time.
But two years later, in December, 1985 resulted in an even higher death toll: ..

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Damn, another good one from AT. here's the money quote:

Sad to say, our Democrat Party isn’t ready to govern.

The only thing more terrifying than nuked-up mullahs is the Democrats’ eagerness to give them whatever their tiny hearts desire. It was Bill Clinton who gave two nuclear reactors to Kim Jong Il in exchange for a promise to be good— but with no actual inspections for five years. It was Jimmah Carter who allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to seize power in Tehran, because a religious person like Khomeini just had to be a lot sweeter than the Shah.

The sadomasochistic nature of the Khomeini regime is incomprehensible to ole Jimmah, who naturally still thinks he was right all along. The dictionary doesn’t have a word for that kind of folly. It is beyond words.

*

* I beg to differ with the author. In the military we'd describe that condition as, Bein' eat up with the dumbass!
Yesterday was a special anniversary, and today is almost as special.

Yesterday fifty years ago the Hungarian Revolt began.

A good friend of mine was there, in front of Hotel Astoria, when the crowd occupying the pavement simply wouldn't budge. It held up a Russian tank column, forcing the commanding officer to stick his head out of his tank.

What do you want, why did you come here? Why don't you go home? --they shouted at him in Hungarian and in Russian.

The officer shouted back that he had come to free the city of fascist bandits. It wasn't hard for them to convince him that there were no fascists and no bandits there. There were students, there were workers, there were bureaucrats, and there were scientists there.

The Hungarian revolution--contrary to popular opinion, and despite all of its anti-communist excesses--was not an anti-socialist revolution, and in its early days not even an anti-communist one. It would have based its envisioned order on public ownership and worker self-government. Can't you hear that we are talking to you in Russian?

The officer defended himself desperately by saying that he had been duped then. Hearing this, the crowd started to celebrate the Russians, fastening Hungarian flags on the tanks, which the confused Russian soldiers, to show their peaceful intent, allowed it to do. At this moment, another Soviet tank column approached on Rákóczi Street, and when the crowd noticed that these too were decked out with Hungarian flags, a great cheer went up, The revolution is won!

Let's go to the Parliament! On that Thursday the news that the Russians were with us, that they crossed over, did in fact spread like wildfire.

Today was almost as special, the anniversary of the outbreak of fighting.

In October 1956 there were two Soviet divisions in Hungary, the 2 and the 17 Guards Mechanized Divisions, each with a strength of 3 Mechanized Rifle Regiments, a Tank Regiment, a Assault Gun Regiment (an armored fighting vehicle with heavier armament and armor than a tank, but lacking the ability to swivel its main weapon, since it was amounted in the hull and not a turret), an Artillery Regiment, an Anti-Aircraft Regiment and supporting battalions, roughly 15,000 men.
In the initial fighting on October 25, the 2 Guards Mechanized Division lost 4 tanks and 4 armored troop carriers. Soon afterward they withdrew.

On November 4, 1956, the Soviet Army returned including the 31 Tank Division, and the 11, 13, and 32 Guards and 27 Mechanized Divisions from the Carpathian Military District, the 33 Guards Mechanized from Romania, the 35 Guards Mechanized from the Odessa Military District, plus additional units drawn from other divisions. There were also elements of the 7 and 31 Guards Airborne divisions. The 2 and 33 Guards Divisions, plus the paratroops led the main assault on Budapest, under the command of marshal Konev, one the Soviets more brutal World War commanders.

This was Operation Vikhr (whirlwind)
According to Colonel-General G. F. Krivosheev's Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century, a study based on soviet archival sources, and accepted as authoritative by Western military scholars, during the Hungarian operations the Soviet forces lost 669 killed, 51 missing, and 1540 wounded, a total of 2260 casualties.

During the assault to reclaim Budapest, the main units lost 14 tanks and armored vehicles, 9 armored troop carriers, 13 artillery pieces, 4 multiple-rocket launchers, 31 trucks and automobiles, and 5 motorcycles.
I have also been able to confirm that the Hungarians shot down a Soviet helicopter, killing three and wounding two, and even shot down from the ground a Soviet jet bomber (Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle, killing its crew)
From another source I have discovered that the Soviets awarded 17 of their soldiers the Hero of the Soviet Union, their highest medal, equivalent to the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross. Nine of those awards were posthumous.

this is testimony to the Hungarian resistance.
Least known is the fact that the Soviets executed some 200 of their own soldiers for refusing to take part in suppressing the Hungarian revolt. These soldiers may have been the soldiers of October 24, mentioned by Peter Nadas in his article.

According to Soviet sources, in Budapest 2000 Hungarians wre killed and 12,000 wounded. Anothr 200,000 fled to the West. All honor to those who stood.

Premise: The liberal/left succeeded in stopping a war, removing a President the high moral ground.
banded together and stopped a war. It was the whole 'power to the people' schema made manifest.

Is not a significant part of how the liberal/left define themselves as champions of 'the little people?
liberal/left) and made their voices heard..

. and accomplished a THING.
folks, and it's reasonable to extrapolate that the mechanism for Nixon's eventual downfall was set in motion by LBJ's decision.

So we have a war ended, one President unseated, and another exposed as a criminal.
With Viet Nam as a focus The People brought sweeping changes to America in several other notable areas, as well.
What else might that be called?

And I'm not looking for Pyrrhic victory, although I think it was.
I have no idea how to begin to write a genuine thesis. I was having an exchange (sorta) with a gleeful member of the liberal/left (you know the type) she was stunned because I proposed the Viet Nam War wound up as moral victory for the liberal/left.

I was stunned that she (they) didn't want to take credit.
Since several of the Dogs and readers are learned thinkers..

. any feedback?
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.

S. soldier was reported missing in Baghdad on Monday, the military said.
The soldier, part of a multi-national division in the Iraqi capital, went missing at about 7:30 p.

m. local time, the U.S.

military said in a statement.
Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces immediately responded to attempt to locate the soldier, the search is ongoing, the statement said. .

..
I'll do my best to keep up with the situation .

Pray, friends and neighbors. Pray.
Iwo Jima -- Was it worth it?

MSgt Comanche left this as a comment on . It's a little off topic for the comments on that post, as George pointed out in a subsequent comment. On the other hand I'd call it a pretty good blog post in its own right; good enough that if Comanche wasn't still on Uncle Sam's payroll about two more like it would get him an invitation to join the Old War Dogs pack.

The bi-polar national debate focusing on the political impact of military sacrifice and the comparative potential risk versus gain of military operations as part of our foreign policy is well covered by the global news media. And now, with the new movie, Flags of our Fathers, making the news, I thought I would post the link below as an aid to understanding the current situation in Iraq by viewing the war on terrorism in a more accurate historical perspective than that presented by the Democrat Party leadership and so called modern news sources.
As an amateur military historian I know a lot about Iwo Jima but, not to worry, I won't bore you with too much minutia about the battle.

Let me just say that over 6,000 Marines were killed in 36 days of fighting against an enemy who was just as determined to die for his cause as the most zealous suicide terrorist of today is. The Japanese commander's goal was not to repel the invasion but to kill so many Americans that US public opinion would get a taste of what an amphibious invasion of Japan would be like and would not allow an attack on the home islands to take place. Virtually all of the 22,000 Japanese defenders of the island were killed; one by one, intimately, close up, with bullet, grenade, bayonet and flamethrower, in the most savage fighting imaginable.

Some were captured alive (because they were incapacitated in some way), but few surrendered. Japanese fanaticism was similar to that of today's extremists. The Japanese didn't die for God or religion.

They died for their emperor…..a god in a cult of personality, and the same way modern North Koreans would fight and die today.

We needed that tiny island of Iwo Jima as a fighter base so that our long range B29 bombers could be protected from Japanese fighters as they attacked Japan and also as an emergency landing site for our crippled bombers returning to base; all of this was a preamble to an eventual invasion of the Japanese home islands.
Was it worth it? 6,000 Marines were killed.

Because of their sacrifice, 23,000 aircrewmen of bombers in trouble were saved. Tens of hundreds of missions were flown. Thousands of tons of bombs were dropped on Japan, including two nuclear weapons.

Japan surrendered, and the invasion of Japan that would have made Iwo Jima look like a walk in the park became unnecessary. Was it worth it?
I believe that the war in Iraq is as relevant to overall victory in the war against global terrorism as Iwo Jima was to the overall victory in the war against global fascism.

Military officers as well as physicians are taught to approach problems by first defining the problem by beginning with the most obvious diagnosis. A bank robber named Wille Sutton was supposed to have said when asked why he robbed banks, because that's where the money is. When considering possible causes of a patient's symptoms, physicians have an adage; When you hear hoofbeats in Texas, think horses, not zebras.

Why should Americans fight islamo terrorism in Iraq? We fight them in Iraq because Iraq is where islamo terrorists come out from under rocks to fight Americans. Make no mistake.

American lives are being saved at this moment because of the sacrifices of our military men and women in Iraq. The nation does have a bipolar view on the war and which view one has apparently depends as much on which television network one watches as on ones political party affiliation. The volunteer members of the military have voiced their opinion on the correctness of their country's foreign policy by risking (and sacrificing) their very lives to implement it.

Close to 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq and only history will eventually be able to answer the question; was it worth it?
As a life long conservative Detroit Tiger fan, this past month last night brought me to the breaking point. Sex scandals Errors, poor leadership execution and a continuous flood of illegal aliens Cardinals crossing our borders home plate prove that the Republicans Tigers need to be taught a lesson.

I know, the Republicans Tigers have been treated unfairly by the press umpires, but the fact remains they did not do enough to fight back score runs. For this reason I believe that all true conservatives Tiger fans must sit out this election World Series.
I know that many of you are concerned that the Democrats Cardinals will sweep to power the Tigers allowing Nancy Pelosi Anthony Reyes to become Speaker Series MVP.

But I think this will be a good lesson to the Republicans Tigers that have let us down for so long. Perhaps a couple of years out of power relegated to the minors are just what some of these Congressmen and Senators, players and managers need.
For those who still cannot stay away from the polls baseball, there’s always the Libertarians Yankees.

The Gray Dogs note: Stupid post? Yep, you bet! Sometimes trying to be funny when the topic is humorless hurts.

Cut-and-run conservatives that believe there is victory in quitting are adopting the same attitude as the liberals.
This dog will be voting Republican on November 7th and will be wearing Tiger Blue while I root for my team tonight.
OK, I know the Chief Operating Dog has dial-up and really doesn't like pictures on the site.

What's he gonna do, draft me and send me to Nam?
That's Zero being Silent No More! The shirt came from our CafePress shop.

He's had the attitude for a good while. Lotta that going around in these parts.
I've come to my senses and decided to take mercy on those of you still on dial-up by moving the large version of this picture below the fold.

Click the little one to see it.
Reading Power Line led me to this by famed war correspondent and author Robert S. Elegant.

It is a lengthy read and for that reason I have excerpted a few quotes from start to finish to inspire you to persevere and read the whole thing. For those who won’t take the time, the quotes below should open your eyes enough to realize a politicized press is a very real threat to democracy.
From the heart and mind of one of the very reporters who helped us lose our war comes a mea culpa, a confession of the truth that so many of Vietnam veterans have contended for years: our press, our media were for the other side.

That it was written a quarter century ago and just now comes to my attention tells me that the very industry it condemns has been effective in keeping it buried and its basic premises denied. That it is so prescient as to our current conflict makes it a very timely read and should serve as a wake up call to those who would allow the media to shame us again in the eyes of the world.
From: How to Lose A War: The Press and Viet Nam, by Robert Elegant:
During the latter half of the fifteen-year American involvement in Viet Nam, the media became the primary battlefield.

Illusory events reported by the press as well as real events within the press corps were more decisive than the clash of arms or the contention of ideologies. For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page and, above all, on the television screen. Looking back coolly, I believe it can be said (surprising as it may still sound) that South Vietnamese and American forces actually won the limited military struggle.

They virtually crushed the Viet Cong in the South, the “native” guerrillas who were directed, reinforced, and equipped from Hanoi; and thereafter they threw back the invasion by regular North Vietnamese divisions. Nonetheless, the war was finally lost to the invaders after the U.S.

disengagement because the political pressures built up by the media had made it quite impossible for Washington to maintain even the minimal material and moral support that would have enabled the Saigon regime to continue effective resistance.
The Western press appears either unaware of the direct connection between cause (its reporting) and effect (the Western defeat in Viet Nam), or strangely reluctant to proclaim that the pen and the camera proved decisively mightier than the bayonet and ultra-modern weapons.
Why did the correspondents want to believe in the good faith of the Communists?

Why did they so want to disbelieve the avowed motives of the United States? Why did so much of their presumably factual reporting regularly reflect their ideological bias?
The obvious explanation is not as ingenuous as it may appear: the majority of Western correspondents and commentators adopted their idiosyncratic approach to the Indochina War precisely because other journalists had already adopted that approach.

To put it more directly, it was fashionable (this was, after all, the age of Radical Chic) to be “a critic of the American war.”
The initial inclination to look upon Hanoi as a fount of pure truth was intelligently fostered by the Communists, who selectively rewarded “critics of the American war” with visas to North Viet Nam. A number of influential journalists and public figures (ranging from former cabinet officers to film actresses) were feted in North Viet Nam.

They were flattered not only by the attention and the presumed inside information proffered by the North Vietnamese but by their access to a land closed to most Americans. The favored few—and the aspiring many—helped establish a climate in which it was not only fashionable but, somehow, an act of courage to follow the critical crowd in Saigon and Washington while praising Hanoi. The skeptical correspondent risked ostracism by his peers and conflicts with his editors if he did not run with “the herd of independent minds,” if he did not support the consensus.

During the Malayan Emergency the chance of a kill by weapon in very thick jungle, was during an ambush: Bren light machine gun, shotgun, M1/M2 carbine,no. 5 SMLE rifle, then the Sten/Owen sub-machine gun . Conversely during a chance encounter on a patrol it was the M-1/M-2 carbine, No.

5 rifle, shotgun, Bren LMG and the Sten/Owen SMG
During trials, and on operations shotguns produced more hits per exposure than any other weapons in patrol and surprise close quarter actions. The wounding effect of multiple hits by SG buckshot was very effective. The No.

5 SMLE rifle was bolt actioned but the effect of a .303-inch, or alternatively a 7.62 mm round from an SLR/M14/G-3, was such that the terrorist was knocked down and finished off with another shot.

The Bren LMG, or any machine gun for that matter, was the best weapon when preparing an ambush, providing a large amount of firepower and giving fire superiority.
In the Malaysian Confrontation the Royal Air Force flew Whirlwind helicopters out of Labuan on missions along the border with Kalimantan, Indonesia. The side door is on the right hand side, which is also the pilot's side.

This meant that the left hand side of the helicopter was a dead zone as suppressive fire went. To remedy this a person usually interested in shooting, it was not a dedicated gunner, flew in the left hand cockpit seat and shot out through the window. The usual weapon was a Remington 870 but the preferred weapon was the Browning A5 borrowed from the New Zealand Special Air Service, who had removed the sear.

This gave a full auto shotgun that was fired sideways so that the dispersion went sideways, due to recoil the weapon shot upwards on full auto. Shotguns were also fired sideways so that the empty cases did not end up on the floor jamming the rudder pedals.
The rounds themselves were zinc cased tropical ammunition and were from Fabrique Nationale (FN).

The use of zinc-covered rounds was necessitated by the paper cartridge cases, common at the time, swelling up ane then being unable to feed causing a jam. Paper cartridges causing jams due to swelling had been a problem since the First World War, and were only cured by using metal cases. FN produced at least three types of 12gauge zinc shotgun cased rounds.

Two had a case length of 59mm (2.3 inches) for use in shotguns with a 2.5inch chamber but the other was only 49mm (1.

9 inches) long. All have the head stamp 12-FN-12. They are all have a brass stub with a cardboard case that is covered by a zinc sleeve.

The first one has a khaki cardboard case with a yellow wad. It has four SG lead buckshot over 28 B lead shot – the combination load developed for use in the Malayan Emergency. The other 59mm round has a blue cardboard case containing nine 00 lead buckshot.

The 49mm round has the zinc rolled crimped over the cardboard case with a big yellow wad and contains number 4 shot. The 49mm case round is designed for 12 gauge shotguns with a 2-inch chamber. Twelve gauge shotguns with a two-inch chamber were designed for people who couldn’t handle the recoil of full 12 gauge shotgun loads.

Two English gun makers that made double-barrelled shotguns for this cartridge were Purdy and Cogswell and Harrison.
In Malaya the British trials and operational experience showed that 9mm and 0.30 calibre rounds had poor penetration of foliage.

Shotguns up to 50 metres and weapons using 303in ammunition were better in this respect and gave a better chance of an incapacitating wound. In Vietnam the Australian Army infantry quickly replaced the Owen submachine gun with M-16 assault rifle.
The M-16 combined the weight and handiness of the M-1/M-2 carbine and greater firepower using the 5.

56 x 45mm round, which is far more powerful than the .30-inch carbine round, giving a better chance of incapacitation but the light round was easily deflected by foliage when compared to the full power 7.62 x 51mm round used on the standard L1A1 self-loading rifle (SLR).

This could penetrate a 20cm tree and hit the target behind it Currently, the M16A2 rifle and M4 carbine, both in 5.56mm NATO (5.56 x 45mm), are the standard assault rifles in the US Military, generally the M-4 is the standard issue weapon in the Special Forces and the M16 in infantry and other units.

This means that the infantry soldier has a greater chance in hitting a fleeting target in the jungle and in urban conflict compared to larger rifles in 7.62mm NATO (7.62 x 51mm).

What has been lost is the power to penetrate through material such as foliage, and harder material like rock, brick and trees, especially as there is no longer a section 7.62mm machine gun.
The following will stop a 5.

56mm round fired at less than 50 metres: One thickness of well-packed sandbags; a five centimetre concrete wall (non-reinforced); a 55-gallon drum filled with water or sand, a small ammunition box filled with sand; a cinder block filled with sand (block will probably shatter); a plate glass windowpane at a 45-degree angle (glass fragments may be thrown behind the glass), a brick veneer or a car body (5.56-mm rounds penetrate but may not always exit).
By comparison a single 7.

62mm NATO ball round at 200m will penetrate 103cm of pine board, 17.5cm of loose sand, 20cm of cinder block and 5cm of concrete. Thus weapons using 7.

62mm have better penetrating capability than ones in 5.56mm. 7.

62mm NATO machine guns will ‘chew up, many types of protection affording little cover to the personnel behind them, that would be proof against 5.56mm weapons. This is the conclusion the Russian Army came to after evaluating its experiences in Chechnya and Dagetsan.

Russian soldiers are to be reequipped with small arms in 7.62 x 39mm and 7.62 x 54mm, consigning the 5.

45mm weapons that originally replaced them back to store. The 7.62x39mm M43 round is not as powerful as the 7.

62mm NATO round but is still better at penetrating light cover than the 5.45mm round.
In an article titled, Who “Blinded” the Infantry, which is from a larger piece about the findings of a conference about the Russian Army’s performance in Chechnya and Dagestan in 1999 and 2000, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksey Ionov wrote: Small Arms remain the primary, and frequently the only, means of combating the enemy at close range.

As a whole they have validated their high qualities: effectiveness, reliability and ease of servicing. At this time there are shortcomings in some models, as well in with the entire family of small arms. The most glaring of these – deficiencies in the means to mount optical and night sights, the lack of organic heavy calibre weapons in combined arms subunits, and the insufficient effectiveness of firing from 5.

45mm calibre weapons at troops behind light protection, the serious problem of discovery caused by firing hand-held antitank weapons, and the low power of the RGO defensive and RGN offensive hand grenades. This is not a new phenomenon. The Australian Imperial Force in a 1919 report on the use of hand grenades in the last nine months of the First World War, commented that the Number 34 egg –grenade ‘is unsatisfactory on account of the fuse being too long, also it has little effect’.

The Number 34 grenade weighed 340gm and the segmented Number 36 Mills Grenade was over double the weight at 709gm. Further the Russian soldiers in Chechnya called for the replacement of the 5.45 mm RPK light machine gun with the full power 7.

62 mm PK series general-purpose machine guns. The Russian soldiers were high in their praise for many of their small arms, which used larger calibre ammunition, such as the 7.62mm AKM assault rifle, the 7.

62mm SVD sniping rifle, the GP-25 40 mm under barrel grenade launcher, the Pecheng machine gun, which is a modernised PKM machine gun, and the Vzlomshchik 12.7 mm heavy calibre sniper rifle. The Pecheng has a heavier fixed ribbed barrel in a metal sleeve which forces air over the barrel to keep it cool.

It has 80 percent commonality with the PKM, with a more robust bipod at the muzzle and no hot air interfering with the sight picture, the dispersion is reduced by 1.9 times with the bipod and 1.7 times on a tripod compared to the PKM.

Music has always been one of those “other” interests of mine and I seem to have a good ear for it. I delved into making my own recordings using MIDI with some good high bit modules and other “goodies” and did have some successful ventures. But due to the fact that I couldn’t sing and my guitar work was so-so I relegated it to a hobby kind of deal and just use it to blow off steam for the most part now.

Anyhow, I’ve got the Cannon in D midi sequence and may attempt that at some point if I can get this other “drum beat” out of my head. Johann Pachelbel is still running a close second in this musical clash of the drummers, but I’m constantly being distracted by the clamor coming from the MSM and other Leftist’s actively involved in crippling America while beating on their own drums.
This background noise from the wrong side of America (you’re with us or against us) is drowning out the true drumbeat of war and is a distraction that could prove fatal for us as a nation.

Rhythm is a good thing if it comes from the heart, but all to often it just ends up as being apathy. You hear the same old shit over and over and it becomes the song of the day.
The drumbeat of war is not something that can be heard by most folks but it still resonate ‘s with some of us.

I’ve been shit on and hit and shot at and missed, so I do have some credibility here. I just don’t like what I’m hearing in the background.
The US of A is being challenged on many fronts now and I’m sad to say that most have lost sight of the drummer.

They can’t hear the war drums beating in the background and don’t have a clue when it comes to actually doing something to protect America.
This Vietnam Vet got beat once but he won’t get beat again; I still sing the same song and John Kerry still sucks so bring it on. I’ve got my own drummer.

Back during the 1960s it used to be thought clever to assert that the adjective military was one of the language's great prevaricators, as in military intelligence and military music . These days individuals such as Weaselly Clark, Merrill McPeake, and the Cabal Generals suggest there may be some truth in the former. But as for the latter - ever listened to the Rakoczi March?

So much for 1960s wit.
If you want a real verbal prevaricator. I nominate the word social as in social studies , or even worse, social justice .

Social justice is not only an oxyumoron, but two lies contradicting each other. And this thought links the 1960s with our own era, via the bridge of sorrows named Bill Ayers. Weather Undergroundsman, and traitor extraordinaire.

Vomited up during the 1960s, he still has not been cleaned up, and smells as bad as ever. You may continue reading about our Ayers polution problem
Social and justice are two words which never go together unless you're describing Nino Scalia with a drink in his hand.
Next time we may consider that other oxymoron public works , generally completed by moronic oxen.

A tip of the helmet to John van Laer.
My father was a simple man, bred and born in the hills of West Virginia. He grew up in the depression years.

At the age of 16, with a tenth grade education, he entered the Navy in 1943. His father had to have his birth certificate altered in probate court so that the Navy would accept him. I said he had a tenth grade education, but that is generous in light of the fact that he rarely made it to the school house.

He gained his education roaming the hills and shooting the squirrels and rabbits that helped feed his brother and sister. In spite of that, he was the most intelligent and insightful man I ever knew.
When I was nine years old, he made me memorize a poem.

I didn’t appreciate it much back then, but I certainly do now. It is perhaps one of the most famous poems written in the English language, one I am sure that most of you have read. As the conservatives seem hell bent on throwing the baby out with the bath water this November 7th, I fear that many more of you will give up in defeat if the Democrats retake the Senate or the House.

If you haven’t read this before, I’m glad to introduce it to you. If you have read it before, please re-read it.
Thanks Pop.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: Hold on!
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
Prompted by Bill's observation: Now ain't the time to be slinkin' off.

Fight, man, fight! Get mad at them damned dhimmis!