Norman Borlaug died this weekend.
He makes a case for Greatest American and maybe even Greatest Human.
A true loss.
Jamie posted this at 10:56 AM EDT on Monday, September 14th, 2009 as Heroes
September 14th, 2009
In Rememberance
May 2nd, 2008
Giant Brass Ones
If there was ever an appropriate use for our Heroes category its this:
Medic gets Distinguished Service Cross
Master Sgt. Brendan O’Connor on Wednesday received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest valor award, for his actions during a 17-hour battle in Afghanistan.
snip
O’Connor led a quick reaction force June 24, 2006, in Kandahar province’s Panjwai District, described by Special Forces as one of the most hotly contested areas of southern Afghanistan.
He maneuvered his force through Taliban positions and crawled alone through enemy machine-gun fire to reach two wounded soldiers, the citation said. He tied a signal cloth to his back to identify himself to aircraft overhead. While under fire, he provided medical care and carried a wounded soldier more than 150 yards across open ground. He climbed over a wall three times under enemy fire to help wounded soldiers seek cover. Then he took over as the operations sergeant and rallied, motivated and led his team.
“Thank God for men like Master Sgt. O’Connor,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Wagner, commander of U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
Maj. Sheffield Ford said after the ceremony that O’Connor picked up Sgt. Joseph Fuerst and carried him over his shoulder and ran while under fire.
“Knowing that bullets were coming in all around him, he didn’t hesitate,” Ford said. “He continued to get up and move because he knew he had to get Joe back if he was going to have a chance to try to save him.” Fuerst died, and Staff Sgt. Matthew Binney survived, Ford said.
Dear, God that’s bravery.
Jamie posted this at 5:16 PM EDT on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 as Heroes
The Big Stick
P.J. O’Rouke gives us a great article on his recent trip to USS Theodore Roosevelt. My favorite part:
Some say John McCain’s character was formed in a North Vietnamese prison. I say those people should take a gander at what John chose to do–voluntarily. Being a carrier pilot requires aptitude, intelligence, skill, knowledge, discernment, and courage of a kind rarely found anywhere but in a poem of Homer’s or a half gallon of Dewar’s. I look from John McCain to what the opposition has to offer. There’s Ms. Smarty-Pantsuit, the Bosnia-Under-Sniper-Fire poster gal, former prominent Washington hostess, and now the JV senator from the state that brought you Eliot Spitzer and Bear Stearns. And there’s the happy-talk boy wonder, the plaster Balthazar in the Cook County political crèche, whose policy pronouncements sound like a walk through Greenwich Village in 1968: “Change, man? Got any spare change? Change?”
Some people say John McCain isn’t conservative enough. But there’s more to conservatism than low taxes, Jesus, and waterboarding at Gitmo. Conservatism is also a matter of honor, duty, valor, patriotism, self-discipline, responsibility, good order, respect for our national institutions, reverence for the traditions of civilization, and adherence to the political honesty upon which all principles of democracy are based. Given what screw-ups we humans are in these respects, conservatism is also a matter of sense of humor. Heard any good quips lately from Hillary or Barack?
P.J. is witty as usual but it is his almost perfect distilation of the spirit of conservatism that I enjoy most.
(H/T)
Jamie posted this at 3:19 PM EDT on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 as Heroes
April 25th, 2008
Happy Anzac Day!
Let us never forget.
Thank you to those that serve in the Australian Armed Forces – the only Allies you Americans have had for every conflict since WW1.
A special thanks to both my Uncle Alan Lockett RAAF, who served in Vietnam, and most of all my Grandfather John Sadler RAAF who served in Europe during WWII.
Jamie posted this at 9:58 AM EDT on Friday, April 25th, 2008 as Heroes
April 8th, 2008
True Heroes
It doesn’t get any more heroic than this:
Navy SEAL paid ultimate price to save buddies
- Story Highlights
- Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor awarded posthumous Medal of Honor for heroism
- President Bush gave medal to Monsoor’s parents at a White House ceremony
- Monsoor died in Iraq after falling on a grenade to protect his comrades
- He’s the first Navy SEAL to win Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq
From Mike Mount
CNN Pentagon ProducerWASHINGTON (CNN) — When a grenade bounced off his chest and fell to the floor near his fellow troops, Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Monsoor acted out of instinct.
His actions didn’t stem from a lack of training. His instant reaction was to protect his comrades.
The Navy says he committed a selfless act — jumping on the grenade and taking the full force of the blast.
President Bush presented Monsoor’s parents with a posthumous Medal of Honor for their son at an emotional White House ceremony on Tuesday.
Watch Monsoor’s sister share her memories »
Monsoor was one of the U.S. military’s most highly trained combatants, a Navy SEAL. He’s the first SEAL to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq.
On September 29, 2006, Monsoor was part of a major clearing and isolating operation to root out enemy fighters holding parts of Ramadi, the Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.
Monsoor was in a sniper position on a rooftop along with two other SEALs when a grenade flew into his location from out of nowhere. It bounced off his chest and landed in an area where it likely would have killed or seriously wounded all three of them.
Monsoor was in a position to escape before the explosion but instead leapt on the grenade.
There are no words that can truly honor this man’s bravery and sacrifice.
Jamie posted this at 3:19 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 as Heroes
March 5th, 2008
Bad-ss Defined
Impressive: Fixing a jammed MK-19 automatic grenade launcher.
Very Impressive: Fixing a jammed MK-19 automatic grenade launcher under fire.
Oh-My-God-Dude-That’s-Awesome: Fixing your buddy’s jammed MK-19 automatic grenade launcher under fire and then unloading it on the Taliban.
“I jumped into the turret and saw that the charging handle was stuck behind the bolt and I knew the only way to fix it was to disassemble the weapon system,” [Sgt. Jonas Jerome] Allen said. “I knew I had to hurry because we were taking RPG’s and small-arms fire and I’d rather fire at the enemy than to have the enemy fire at me.”
Allen said he disassembled and reassembled the weapon as fast as he could.
“I just was thinking that if I hurry up and fix the MK-19, I could start engaging the enemy and kill them,” he said.
Once he repaired it, he had the driver of the truck move him into a better position then he put it to use.
“After checking the weapon, we both decided to stay where we were,” Villasenor said. “He had more knowledge on the MK-19 and I am more proficient on the .50 cal.”
“[I] fired the MK-19 into the house and the rooftop we were receiving contact from and after I unloaded an ammo can of 40 mm rounds, I reloaded it and kept engaging the enemy until we stopped taking contact,” Allen said.
Tom posted this at 9:12 AM EST on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 as Heroes
February 14th, 2008
I Believe…
February 1st, 2008
DeMint to Berkeley: @$*% You.
And he’s now my favorite senator:
U.S. Senator Wants to Revoke Funding From City of Berkeley, Calif., for Vote to Boot Marines
Friday , February 01, 2008
WASHINGTON —
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., says the City of Berkeley, Calif., no longer deserves federal money.DeMint was angered after learning that the Berkeley City Council voted this week to tell the U.S. Marine Corps to remove its recruiting station from the city’s downtown.
“This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families,” DeMint said in a prepared statement. “The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money.”
“If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer-funded handouts,” he added.
Sen. DeMint will appear Saturday on FOX News Channel — on FOX Online With Jamie Colby — between noon and 2 p.m. ET.
Jamie posted this at 5:24 PM EST on Friday, February 1st, 2008 as Dirty Hippies, Heroes
November 27th, 2007
Hope.
There’s still a chance this could be awesome.
Jamie posted this at 4:17 PM EST on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 as Heroes, Kulturkampf, Nerdom
October 13th, 2007
Conservatism Explained in Two Minutes
Check out this video clip of my new hero. And yes, he’s Texan!
Preview:
And I walked out of the house and I went around and confronted those guys on the side of the house. So, I aimed at him and said, ‘You sneeze, you’re dead man.’
Dorothy posted this at 1:03 AM EDT on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 as Amer-I-Can!, Conservatism, Heroes, Liberty and/or Security
October 5th, 2007
A soldier passes
I dare anyone to read this amazing piece by Christopher Hitchens and finish with a dry face. I couldn’t
Tom posted this at 5:49 PM EDT on Friday, October 5th, 2007 as Heroes, Hitch-slapped!, Iraq
August 13th, 2007
*Salute*
No commentary necessary here:
A Former Navy SEAL Questions Rules of War
Kelly CampbellMorning Edition, August 13, 2007 · In June 2005, Marcus Luttrell and three of his fellow Navy SEALs set off on a mission in the mountains of Afghanistan. They were ambushed by the Taliban, leaving him as the only survivor among the American special operations team.
Luttrell, who has since retired from the military, recounts the ordeal in a memoir, Lone Survivor, co-written by Patrick Robinson.
The book has received much attention this summer, in part because of the decisions the SEALs made. They’re the kind of decisions that lie at the heart of the war on terrorism: Who do you target — and who you do kill — when the enemy doesn’t wear a uniform?
“War’s not black and white,” Luttrell tells Steve Inskeep. “You can sit there and put it on paper, like, ‘This is what has to be done in this certain situation.’ But when you get up there on that mountain, or when you’re in a battlefield, it doesn’t work that way. And sometimes stuff has to be done so you can preserve the life of your men.”
Luttrell faced at least two decisions with lives at stake, including his own. The first decision came after the SEALs moved into the Afghan mountains. That’s when they were discovered by Afghans who might betray their presence.
The SEALs were looking down from a mountainside, waiting for an enemy leader who was suspected to be in the village below.
They soon encountered three males and about 100 goats. The SEALs interrogated the herders, but “couldn’t get anything out of them,” Luttrell says. “And then, we just had that uneasy feeling. A lot of times, you can talk to villagers and they’re really forthcoming with information, and sometimes they’re not.”
The SEALs discussed their options — tie up the herders and take them along, tie them up and leave them, or to kill them. In the end, the Americans decided to turn the herders loose.
Luttrell says he’s still not sure if they made the right call.
In the book, Luttrell raises questions about the rules of war — and whether Americans should be following them. He writes:
Faced with the murderous cutthroats of the Taliban, we are not fighting under the rules of Geneva IV Article 4. We are fighting under the rules of Article 223.556mm — that’s the caliber and bullet gauge of our M4 rifle.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to fight an enemy when … they’re following a different set of rules. They’re not following any rules, actually, in some regards. And when we go out there to deal with it, it’s tough.”
“There’s a lot of smart people in the military. We’re not as dumb as everybody thinks, and we know how to do our job really well. If you’re going to send us in there for war, then that’s what you do. You just send us in there and let us do what we need to do. We’ll get done and we’ll get home, and it’ll be over.
“But as soon as we get in there and then rules start coming down the pipe, you know, ‘This needs to happen, this needs to happen.’ When you’re not out there actually on the battlefield, it’s just tough for us to understand how you can implement something like that.”
Luttrell emphasized that he’s not talking about killing civilians.
He writes that when the unit commander polled his men on what to do, Luttrell chose to spare the Afghans, despite the security risk.
Luttrell knew in his soul that he should kill them. But, he adds, “I have another soul, my Christian soul.”
He suspects that those goat herders went on to reveal the Americans’ location. Soon after Afghans walked away, scores of Taliban fighters attacked.
Luttrell describes what he did to survive:
“I crawled into the side of that mountain and covered myself with rocks, took mud and anything I could find, packed it into the open holes in my legs … I lay there all day. Then night came around. I finally got the feeling back in my legs. I stood up, best I could, walk-crawled for at least four miles off that mountain and then onto another one. Then I got shot again the next day, then I crawled three more miles and finally found some water.”
Luttrell says he then encountered some villagers, and was unsure if they were friend or foe.
“I was apprehensive from the beginning. I almost killed three of them, but … I just didn’t pull the trigger. I don’t know why.”
Those people ultimately saved his life, protecting him from the Taliban who had surrounded their village.
Jamie posted this at 12:28 PM EDT on Monday, August 13th, 2007 as Heroes