AllMilitary.com

Highlights From MilBlogs Around the Net

• Americans Against Passage of HR 2956—Sign the petition, show your support for the troops. [Hello Iraq]
• Top Al Qaeda in Iraq Official Captured. [The Thunder Run]
• Always on the go in Iraq. [West Coast Notorious]
• Not a link to a specific post, but military wives might want to check out this blog that is written by a fellow military wife. Maybe you can relate. [My Life as a Military Spouse]
• A father, thinking outloud, about leaving his wife and children to go to Iraq. [I’m Going Where?]
• Standing up to the New York Times. [Some Soldier’s Mom]

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Alright well yesterday was my first day back out on patrol after almost a week off straight.  The way our schedule works is we rotate guys in the squads off on patrol days, and I happen to have my day off work come at the right time to get 5 off!  It was great not doing anything, but it came to bite me in the ass.  For this day out was extremely exhausting.  Add to it that the air was extremely dusty pretty much all day and it created a overcast, yet still hot and exhausting, dreary day.

Well we did our typical market guarding and before lunch they dropped us dismounts off and we conducted a foot patrol through some of the neighborhoods.  Nothing really special, for we pretty much just walked around, talked with some people, and just generally made our presence known.  On our way back to our linkup point with the trucks (which was quite a ways away), we started to cross this one major road.  There happened to be a lot of IA (Iraqi Army) guys there and they helped to stop the traffic as we crossed.

I was the last guy, and just as I was almost finished crossing the road I see this car coming towards us.  It wasn’t going to fast, but I thought to myself, “This guy had better stop.”  Once he was close enough I could see in the car and the driver totally was not paying attention.  It now was lining up to where his car and my body were on a collision course.  Then, still without looking, the guy hits the gas and starts flying directly at me.  Without hesitation, I bring my rifle up to my shoulder, pointing directly at the driver, and I yell at the top of my lungs “HOLD THE FUCK UP!!”  I guess the other occupants in the car noticed this just about the same time the driver finally decided to look forward.  Every single occupant in that car, driver include went wided eyed as the driver slammed on his brakes, stopping about 3 feet or so in front of me.  I was furious at this point, and even though they didn’t understand the words I was speaking, I think they knew EXACTLY what I was yelling.  I went up to their window, pissed that they almost hit me, and yelled at them for not paying attention, ya de da de da.  It was funny because when I got done, I went back to falling in to the patrol about 1/2 the guys were looking back at me wondering what the hell happened.

We continued on, and were just a couple hundread meters from our linkup point, when again, we had to cross another road, this one semi-major.  We actually ended up walking in the road the get to where we had to go.  We were walking along, and I looked back like I usually do as the rear guy and I see this van coming at us.  Ok, you got to see us, slow down now.  Nope.  Dude comes right up on me all quick, and again Im forced to stop this man in the same terrifying manner in which I stopped the last guy.  JESUS!  Its the middle of the day.  How hard is it to see us and stop!?!

Continue Reading More (Eighty Deuce on the Loose in Iraq)

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Flag Gazer talks about Gazing at the Flag.

Question: What are 3 things your readers probably do not know about you?

1. I am a night owl and an insomniac.

2. I am a bibliophile… I not only read all of the time, but feel a profound need to own the books I read. In my young adult years, I would skip meals to be able to afford to purchase a book.

3. I can spin fiber into yarn - and, I do it very well.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

I’ve been blogging about a year and a half. I started blogging as a personal diary, a place to muse and rant. That changed when PFC Tom Tucker and PFC Kristian Menchaca were kidnapped and murdered. Tom was from our community and it was intensely personal. I realized that no one was paying tribute to the fallen from Oregon and that they must be remembered. I also wanted to share the good stories and the personal stories that I was hearing from the soldiers we know. I wanted their character and dedication to have a voice - albeit a small one.

Question: What is your military experience?

I have never served, but was raised in a military town and went to school with kids who had fathers deployed, wounded and killed in Vietnam. Later, I had many friends who served in Vietnam. It was a life-changing experience for me.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

Besides the big ones, which go without saying, and all of the great ones you have featured, I am particularly fond of these that are not on your list:

Justice Soldier - www.justicesoldier.com - and EVERYONE should read his ‘Why I Fight’ article. Troy is on his way home after a very long deployment - do stop by and welcome him home!

Soldiers Angels Germany - http://soldiersangelsgermany.blogspot.com - MaryAnn volunteers at Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany and helps our wounded warriors and their families. She is truly an Angel.

Me Over There - http://rniniraq.blogspot.com - Peter is a Navy Flight Nurse in Iraq. He shares some amazing pictures and stories.

American Ranger - http://americanranger.blogspot.com - SFC Chuck Grist is a veteran of Vietnam and Iraq. He is a fellow lover of American history and the military and is currently training our new warriors.

JB’s Sanctuary - http://jbsanctuary.wordpress.com - A SF warrior and his interesting perspectives.

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

Perseverance. Luck. Interest in and affection for the dedicated members of our military community. They are the best amongst us and they need to be recognized more often. I hope I am able to do that for them in my small way.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

I am still amazed that people read my posts. Thank you to all of my readers!!!

One of the most amazing things to me is how many of the Gold Star families I have gotten to know through my tributes to the fallen posts. They visit the posts and leave the most touching messages. They remind me why it is important to pay tribute to those who gave all and how much those people were loved and how much they sacrificed.

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In case your wondering, the title comes from the last line of the “Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer” song.  Didn’t know how to really type that out!

Well today was the day that I was scheduled to talk with the historian that I mentioned.  I was origionally scheduled to meet with him at 230pm.  I had stayed up late (since its worked out for me to have quite a few days off in a row) and so I was a little worried about getting up in time.  I told others to make sure I was up and my buddy ended up staying up until 10am today, so he woke me up when he went to bed.  I ended up getting up and running by the Hajji shop (Iraqi run shop) and bought a couple movies, a web cam and a microphone/earpiece things so I can make calls over the internet.  One thing that is cool is that movies here only cost $1 or $2.  And they have all the new movies on DVD pretty much as soon as they come out in the theater.  The only thing is sometimes they are horrible, like some guy took a video camera into the theater.  Dead serious.  But usually they are good and cheep as shit.

Well when everything was all said and done I was rolling back to my room around, oh, 1130am, and everyone starts telling me that my platoon sergent was looking for me.  And I mean everyone.  I didn’t find him, but one guy said that he said I needed to be at the TOC (Tactical Operations Center… i think).  So I headed on over there wondering why because my interview still wasnt for a while.  When I got there, no one there had any clue why I was there and they couldn’t get ahold of anyone on the radios.  I waited around for a while, and nothing so I decided to leave.  Right as I was leaving the call came up that my 1SG wanted me to see him in his room, so I walked on over there.  He just wanted to talk to me a little bit about this interview.  He basically told me that this was an official Army thing, to basically record the Armys history here and that, as I figured, he picked me because of my blog and that I’ve been keeping a pretty accurate account of things here.  He just wanted to make sure I understood that is was a factual thing and not an opinion opportunity.  I totally understand, and was pretty excited to be picked.

I ended up just chilling out until my time to go, and at the last minute they said for me to be there right away, which was right around 2pm.  I headed up there and went in to our conference room to talk with the historian.  He was a pretty cool guy, with the 90th Military History unit or something like that.  Sorry I can’t remeber.  He explained to me that their job is basically to travel around from Brigade to Brigade and they are alloted so much time that they have to split up amungst the batallions in each Brigade.  Well, now he was on mine.  He would conduct a few interviews, go out on a couple patrols and take some pictures, and then when it was all said and done, it would be compilied in the official Army documents and, as he said “used years down the road for history books and TV such as the History Channel” etc.  Wow, this is really awesome I thought.  How cool is it that I will have a part in writing the official history for my unit over here!

Continue reading more (Eighty Deuce on the Loose)

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Well, Im back to my sweet ass schedule now.  Our schedule changes through different cycles and we’ve now switched into the easy cycle.  And my turn at a day off is up next and it will end up working out to quite a few days off in a row for me!  God its going to be nice.  Today was good, although I didn’t get to sleep in as long as Id like to.  I woke early so that I could go down and get the internet setup in my room so I no longer have to go to the computer lab.  This is so nice and I feel free now!

Tomorrow Ill be able to sleep in a little more than I did today, although I do have an appointment to meet with a historian for my batallion.  A historian?  I was like “What the hell?!?” when they told me about that.  Apparently theres like 8 or 10 people from the batallion he’s going to speak with, and Im one of them.  I can only guess that it has something to do with me and this blog, especially considering that almost everyone else he’s talking to are of rank much more considerable than this lonely Corporal.

So durring our time that we were out at our outpost, it was pretty chill.  Time went by fast which was great.  One thing I noticed is that it had been pretty quite for a while in terms of that one bad area.  I guess they have been trying the whole “peacful” approach, and for a little bit it seemed it was working; although myself and many others figured it was pointless.  But they have to try right? 

So anyways, the quiet finally ended the other day when they decided to attack an American convoy from my unit that operates in their area.  I guess it was a pretty decent attack because they had called for assistance, and another platoon from my company rolled out there to assist them.  They didn’t end up getting into anything though, for it was a fairly short lived attack.  Somehow that platoon always are the lucky ones who tend to be in the right place at the right time to get in to stuff like that.  Bastards!  But either way that was an attack on US troops so in my opinion, the whole peace thing just went out the window.  Ever since that day, we’ve been seeing and hearing little firefights going down in that area; like how it used to be all the time.  In fact one night there was a qucik little engagement and a stray tracer round ended up flying just over the top of our outpost.  I ended up hearing that distinctive SNAP as it flew by, which is something I haven’t heard in a while.

Well the other day we were out on patrol and for some reason we ended up having to make a stop by the Green Zone, which is this large base here in Baghdad where a lot of the Iraqi Goverment is housed as well.  Its rare that we get to go there, but when we do it is awesome because they have a big PX and some good food we can eat.  As we were pulling in, one of the guys on my team was saying how he had read on the news that the day or so before, 5 guys were killed and 20 injured in mortar and rocket attacks.  I guess lately they have been mortaring the shit out of them.

Continue Reading More (Eighty Deuce on the Loose)

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Highlights from Milblogs Around the Net

• One soldier notices that a difference is being made in Falluja. [Badgers Forward]
• Something almost everyone can relate to: Having a bad roommate. [From my position…on the way]
• President Bush’s big announcement…well, sort of. [Two Babes and a Brain]
• Pakistani forces assault radical Islamist Red Mosque, taking out leader Abdul Rasheed Ghazi. Maybe are allies are more numerous than we’ve been led to believe. [The Fourth Rail]
• “People in normal places wake up in the morning feeling they had enough rest to start a new day. Here we wake up feeling as tired as people do when they return home from work.” Ahhh, so is life in Baghdad. [Iraq the Model]

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Well, the past few days have been pretty nice.  Not a whole lot of anything going on, and not much that we have been doing.  A break is always nice.  Pretty much all I’ve been doing is pulling guard shift in our guard towers that we have.  This used to be a horrible experience, like Im sure I’ve talked about before, but now, its really not bad.  They shortened the amount of time that we spend in there at a time, and the best part, the wired in electricity so we have a/c in there now!!!  Now granted theres the big opening that we have to look out of, but they closed off the open doorway and it stays, comfortable in there.  I dont sweat my ass off anymore, infact, I dont even sweat at all!!

Hasn’t been much excitement, other than the other day.  Me and my buddy were in our tower when we heard a gun shot.  Nothing suprising.  We hear gun shots all the time, and unless its another firefight going down in the bad area, its usually just some Iraqi Army (IA)or Iraqi Police (IP) shooting warning shots.  This one sounded close, but I couldnt see anything.  One of my guys was in this other tower when he called over the radio for me to come over there.  Well, he usually doesnt just call me over there like that so I figured something was up.  I walked on over, and when I opened the door to come in I saw him standing off to the side, out of the direct line of the opening, and he was looking intently out there, scanning for something.  I immediatly knew what it had to do with.  He proceeded to tell me that he saw this car pull up to this alleyway in front on his position and stop the car.  Thats when the gunshot was heard, then he said the car sped away.  There were a group of kids at the entrance to the alleyway, but they all started running away to another alley, and eventually started peeking around.  Unfortunatly, with the quickness of it all, there was nothing we could do.  I never found out what, if anything happened.

One thing that has been on my mind alot lately has been money.  Either money I have, can make, or just in general.  One instance of this was when I was working another guard position and this IP came up to me asking if I had any ammo.  All the IPs carry these brand new Glock pistols with them, and infact, Im a little jelous.  Anyways, he was wondering if I had any ammo for it, which I didnt, because as he showed me, they only had enough to give him 3 rounds.  3 ROUNDS!! You’ve got to be kidding me.  I’ve seen this with the IA guys too, where they are given barely a full mag, if that sometimes, for their AKs they carry.  With all the reconstruction money, and oil money Im sure the Iraqi government is getting, you think they could at least afford ammo for their guys.  No wonder some of them don’t stay and fight.

So the past few days I have been reading this book that one of my readers was kind enough to send me.  Its called “Blackwater - The Rise of the Worlds Most Powerful Mercinary Army”….

 Continue Reading More (Eighty Deuce on the Loose)

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Infantry (n.) - soldiers or military units that fight on foot, in modern times typically with rifles, machine guns, grenades, mortars, etc., as weapons & a branch of an army composed of such soldiers.

Mission of the Infantry - To close within the enemy by means of fire and maneuver, to defeat or capture him, or to repel his assault by fire, close combat and counter attack.

That being said… I know that most peoples perceptions of the Infantry tend to be the guys that are just in the shit, day in and day out. Always putting their lives in danger. Hard tough men doing the dirtiest of dirty work. Those who willing place themselves at the gates of hell and kick the door in and rush in. Well, in some ways you would be correct. But for the most part we are just everyday normal guys, that just happen to choose a job that isnt sitting at a desk. A job that puts us face to face with our enemies, ready to kill, and only the greater of whom survives. But on an average, day to day life, you wouldnt really notice the differnce in us. Until, that is, you spend more than 5 mins with a group of us…. then we seem to be in a world of our own.

To get to where I can explain this, let me just talk a little about my day. We went out, typical market stuff. Nothing crazy, nothing exciting. Pretty dull. We ended up getting a very good amount of down time throughout the day for us to just chill and get out of the heat and relax. It was very nice for once not being worked to death in 110+ temperatures. I ended up getting a good amount of time to get online which was good because I’ve decided to go back through my email account and try to respond to most of the emails I have from yall readers! This has turned to be a greater task than I anticipated. On top of all that, we even ended up getting all 3 meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) while we were out there. Wow, must of been a cold day for Lucifer!

So yeah, once again towards the end of the evening, the last minute word came down that the engineers needed some security while they finished emplacing the barriers that we did a couple nights ago, and then do a little cleanup. Great… another night of being up all night just sitting there, doing nothing. And for the record my butt was already incredibly sore from the LAST time we went out and didn’t really have much chance to recouperate. Anyways, we had to drive to go pick them up, and then escort them out to the site to do their thing.

Ok, heres where the Infantry guy thing comes into play….

Continue Reading More (Eighty Deuce on the Loose)

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SGT Grumpy talks about his milblog Sergeant Grumpy.

Question: What are 3 things your readers probably do not know about you?

1. I am not political.
2. Even though I am in an SF unit, I have no desire to be a “long-tabber.”
3. Even though I am an intel guy, I can shoot.

Question: How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

Just started when I got notified I was to deploy. I needed a way to express my frustrations and keep my friends and family informed without having to send hundreds of e-mails, so I combined the two in a blog that is part update, part rant, depending on my mood and how much BS I have had to suffer that day.

Question: What is your military experience?

Been in intel 12 years. Can’t say much more, and that is also the reason for the pseudonym. Been operational several times, including in the Balkins and Europe. I am now in the Guard which I love, because I can have a civilian career while still being able to respond and help when my Nation or State needs me.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

Michael Yon, Blackfive, Soldier Girl, and (though not Milblogs) Small Wars Journal, Iraq The Model

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

Well, I wouldn’t call it a success yet, that would be something, but only my readers can decide if that is in the cards.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

I’d love to hear from anyone who is interested in what I have to say, even if you disagree. And no matter what you think of the war, if you haven’t served, you owe something to those who have been wounded or killed for your freedom. Find a way to repay that debt.

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LT GO talks about his milblog Desert Flier.

Question: What are 2 things your readers probably do not know about you?

1. Former Marine
2. Have summited Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia

Question:How long have you been blogging and why did you get into blogging?

I have been blogging since February when the medical personnel were at Camp Lejune preparing for the Iraq deployment. We spent three weeks doing field exercises, classes on escalation of force, IED’s, convoys, ect. I originally got into blogging because I was looking for a way to update a large family and many friends at one time!

Question: What is your military experience?

After high school, I joined the Marine Corps for six years. I got out and moved back to Illinois where I pursued a Bachelors in Science Nursing degree at Northern Illinois. I then took a commission to enter the Navy as a Nurse Corps Officer. I have now been a Navy critical care nurse for 8 and a half years. This includes a tour on a surgical team deployed throughout the Pacific for two years.

Question: What are some of your other favorite Milblogs?

Acute Politics, Badger’s Forward, Mudville Gazette

Question: What has been the biggest factor in helping you create and publish a successful blog?

Support and trust of the leadership. Enthusiastic support of my readership. Availability of internet access has been an ongoing issue.

Question: Do you have anything else you would like us to mention about you, your blog, or your readers?

Would like to thank everyone that has read and supported my site. It just wouldn’t be the same without the flood of enthusiastic feedback I have received from concerned people from around the world!

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