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As most of you know, their was plenty of down time during the first deployment for Operation Enduring Freedom I. This is a short story about what me and my former team leader Timothy Conneway (KIA Iraq) did during the periods of time where not much was going on.

We lived in some relatively large tents...although we were sharing it with a bunch of other Rangers, so it wasn't the Hilton or anything. Our tent was filled with my squad (1st squad), the Platoon Leader, Platoon Sergeant, ...

I have always been a major proponent for the Global War on Terror. I believe that we should go anywhere in the world too disrupt training camps or cells plotting our demise; we need to keep our country safe at all costs. However, I do have one particular gripe with the GWOT. The rate at which radicalization occurs is obviously increasing all over the world as an accelerated pace. Many countries lack a solid counter-radicalization program to "rehabilitate" detainees before they are released (to only ...

I think it was around the third or fourth month of a six month tour in South Lebanon with UNIFIL in 1995. It was a summer trip and mostly uneventful but as a 21 year old soldier on my first deployment overseas it was enjoyable so far nonetheless. I was in A Company no 1 platoon, part of 77th Inf Battalion, with B and C Company having their own AO, or area of responsibility. HQ Company (Camp Shamrock) was located approx 1 km from 6-40 (A Coy Head quarters).

Back to Al-ya tun
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Jumping into Afghanistan was probably one of the more painful things I have experienced while I was in the Army. It started off well, but a combination of several events made it a shitty night. We were flying in a C-130, and it was a pretty long flight. Before we departed, General Tommy Franks gave us all a quick talk on the tarmac. He ended it by sort of stomping his foot on the tarmac, and mentioning that "the ground is probably going to be as hard as this."

Not exactly coach-class ...

B co. 3/75's second OEF deployment was more interesting to me than the first. Each platoon was sent to a different location in Afghanistan where they were nice enough to rotate us after X amount of days. I didn't care for the built up locations, but it was nice to have air conditioning, showers, laundry, email, etc etc. To me, the better part was our long stay in Shkin, Afghanistan.

Shkin? WTF is

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I'll be attending the October running of the Mirror Image training course run by the Terrorism Research Center and Blackwater. The course is apparently modeled around terrorist training camps, and is designed to assist you in "seeing through the eyes of enemy." The course costs $3200 for the week (includes ammo, weapons, room & board, etc).

During training you are split up and live and operate with your cell. You pray 5 times a day, study the Quran, perform plenty of scenarios, ...

For those that don't know me, and haven't bothered to look at my profile, I am currently active duty USAF. Once upon a time, I was also active duty USMC.

Many people, for whatever reason, have a mental disconnect when they learn this. "You were a Marine? What are you doing in the Air Force?!?"

I AM a Marine. There is no was, were, used to be, ex or anything else about it. I earned the title September of 1995, and will continue to carry that title with pride ...

Originally posted 10 Oct 06:

Back in '97 I went through Scout Sniper Basic Course at Puuloa Range in Hawaii.

For most, making it through SSBC isn't about taking it week by week, or even day by day - it's about not fucking up badly enough to be sent home over the next hour, then starting over each and every hour after that until you get your diploma.

My teammate and I had made it to the last week of school, and the culmination of all of our training - ...

...but I got a little long-winded. I started out with a little history lesson to give some background about how I formed my opinion on what's happening with the Israel/Gaza blockade. Once I got started writing, my composition was entirely too long to post in a thread, so it's here instead.


Back when the Jews were called Israelites, and long before the slower sperm from the batch that gave us Mohammad had leaked back onto his mother's burka, they lived in the geographical ...

Note: A interesting article to read...and so, this is not of my personal opinion, but article references from a U.S. News publisher. AKA "Space Media Network"

Quote: "The U.S. Special Operations Command awarded Lockheed Martin an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract to provide full-scope logistics support to warfighters around the globe."

Click on hyper link: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Lock...dwide_999.html ...