Well...that explains it...

People are insane. Not in a funny "ha ha Uncle Marvin is wearing a tu-tu again..." way...but completely loonie.

At Above Tp Secret, a web-site that claims tells only the truth about everything...they have interviewed this person who not only is sure that 9/11 was staged by the Illuminati, but that G.W.B is...well....let me put it in his own words:

Q: Above Top Secret: Burke's Peerage clearly acknowledges that George W. Bush & John Kerry are distant cousins, both of whom are related to the British royal family. Have you received shape-shifting reports of either of these "oppo-same" presidential candidates? Is the US population screwed either way?

A: David Icke: The Bush family is one of these 'Illuminati' 'royal' bloodlines that go back to ancient times and these are shapeshifters that can take either human or reptilian form. It's all holographic trickery because everything, including the body, is a hologram and not 'solid' as it appears to be. I have had many reports of people seeing father Bush shapeshift. As for Kerry, he is said by Burkes Peerage to be more 'royal' in his bloodline than any American president, so he's of the shapeshifter bloodline, too. Only the bloodline gets into the Skull and Bones Society. Kerry and Bush are both related to the British royal family and Vlad the Impaler (Count Dracula). Readers of my books will understand the significance of this.


if only for the humor you should go and read the site.

maybe we can get the DNC to have Mr. Icke speak at their convention?

dutch- out

The realities of the Army

Well…I didn’t expect anything different, really. The Army is the Army and will always remain the tool of those who play the game.

I have been removed from my position as team executive officer with the battalion I was fortunate to be with from the very start. The Team Chief is a young Major with a future; I am but an old Captain without one. He wanted a yes man to agree with his every decision and I can’t do that. So, I am gone.

I have been moved into a new team overseeing the train-up of the Brigade’s Engineer Company, Transportation Company, and the Brigade Recon Company. My new boss is a Transportation Major who hasn’t been outside the wire in the seven months he’s been here. Could have been worse, I suppose. I could have been made the TOC Battle Captain.

All this bullshit has made me so tired of it all. It’s the same crap every time. Some petty little know-it-all can’t stand to have anyone around him who has more experience and so I get to go find another job while this shit-head ruins what took me and the rest of the team four months building.

I’m tired and depressed of all this political crap.

US Grant took to drinking when he was assigned to California after the Mexican war. Of course alcohol is banned in this country.

On the plus side I got to talk to my wife this morning via the internet and web-cam. We also had the phone thing going, but the connections were pretty slow. The web-cam is cool, however. Yes, it is still pretty slow frame rate, but damn, I got to see the boys and the wife almost live.

What the future will bring us I wonder. How can I go back to being just me after all this? I’m not even sure what I was like before and I can not remember anything other than snapshots of me prior to coming here. It is all so strange now, thinking back to the world.

We got our sat TV working last night and this morning we were watching some entertainment show. How can people be so stupid as to watch that drivel? Are we as Americans so deluded and vain as to think that crap is important? Emmys and Oscars. It will be a political stage with a message that we are loosing, we are the Bad Guys, bring our soldiers home.

Yes, bring us home to clean up the corruption and ignorance the left spews out. Make our people proud of their country once more.

But- it won’t be like that. We’d come home to disarm, bury our heads in the sand and wail and point figures when we slip into non-existence.

Rome fell not because she was defeated. She fell because nobody cared anymore.

Dealing with idiots

Well, figured it would happen. We finally got our new team chief to have a meeting and I’ve been fired as the Team XO and kicked off the team.
I guess this shit-head needs to exert his power and can not have me there if he’s doing it. I only have been with the team since the beginning, have taken the Iraqis from Basic Training to full mission capable, but I am not good enough to remain a member.
Just as well, this poor excuse for a field-grade has to flex his muscles to show he’s tough and I’m pushed out of the way.
Nothing to do about it, this is how the new army is. I am just a captain and don’t know shit. He is a newly promoted Major with no combat experience telling me I don’t know what I am doing.
I’ve written to the Colonel requesting a re-assignment with in the Brigade. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what is going to happen now.

Dutch- out

//my letter to the colonel//

Sir,
I know that transitions of command are difficult and so I have tried to work with the incoming team chief. However, at this point I am formally requesting to be reassigned out of 2nd MECH BN AST team. Since MAJ C has come on board he has insulted the BN CDR and the BN Operations Officer. LTC A will no loger talk to him.
He has not been around to make critical decisions in a timely manner nor has he informed the team of his goals or plans. He has chosen to do all liaisons between the Iraqi Battaion and the American Battalions himself. I have been told not to.
He verbally ‘counseled’ me in front of 1LT W and 1LT Ch for making decisions and has ordered me not to make any more. He conduct during that 'session' was completely unprofessionable and destroyed any authority I had with my subordinates.
MAJ C has not been present in the AO nor has he been able to be in contact with the rest of the team for the last three days. His phone has been turned off and he will not answer my calls nor e-mails. I am not the only one with this problem as the rest of the team and COL N has also not been able to get ahold of him, nor has MAJ B in X-XX AR.
When he was approached by 1SG D today about getting together to sort out any problems he responded by saying 'It's done my way, and if anyone has a problem I'll fire them.'
We had our 'team meeting' today at 10.30 hrs. He began by chewing everyone out for not understanding thier missions. He then reassigned everyone. When I said we didn't need to do that because we have a working plan on hand, he verbally exploded and asked me if I didn't hear him correctly.
At that point I said if you will not listen to my suggestions then you don't need me on the team. He replied that he did not.
I informed him that I would request for transfer. I do not believe that I can work with MAJ C, and if forced to remain under his command will not be treated fairly.
I have been told he is shacking up with someone on the other side, but that is none of my concerns until it effects the team. It has become commond knowledge in the team that he's never to be found at night after 1800. Twice now he has not been available for dicisions at night, and a note in his door had remained from 2120 until 0800 when he walked back into the ALAMO. His excuse to me was that he’d left early to do PT.
He has missed a mission and we had to scrap together a crew from HHC to cover him when he was not available the night before and did not return to the ALAMO until 0800.
His actions outside the wire are not tactically sound and I have ended up leading the team for both the missions he commanded. I have no respect for him either as an officer nor as a leader.
I can not continue to work in 2nd MECH BN and humbly request my move to anywhere else with in the Brigade.
I am sorry for this. I was hoping we could work it out, but after todays meeting it is clear that he doesn't want to.

CPT Dutch

Day # something or another...

two posts in one week? surely not...

Basic existence isn’t too hard to figure out. What you need to live is food, water and shelter. Everything above that is cream. It’s when you have enough of those three that things start going wrong.

Take Cain. He had a home, enough food and water. He had a loving mother and father. He had a good brother. All he had to do is do some sacrificing and everything would have been peachy.

But he wanted more.

It all comes down to needs vs. wants.

Take me, for example. I have a place to sleep. I have enough food and water. Usually people are not trying to kill me. (well,…not me personally, that is…) I have friends to share my time with. What else could I need?

OK…the obvious…I do need my wife and family. I get to e-mail them about everyday and about once a week I get to call home for 15 minutes.

Better than prison…I think…

What do I want, then as opposed to need?

Hmmm…I wanted a good laptop. I got one in the mail from my wife a couple of weeks ago. It is SWEET. A Dell 9300 with most of the bells and whistles. I have a couple of games from the guys here and when I have time I can get my ass kicked in FPS games. AND I can e-mail my family ever so much faster.

(alright…maybe there is something strange about doing a 24 hour combat patrol and then playing a computer game about a combat patrol…let the shrinks figure that one out)

I have so much stuff…but not nearly all the crap I have at home. God, I have some worthless stuff I’ve collected over the years. So much of that is going to find a new home when I get home. I don’t need it. I wanted it once…but now- it just seems like…junk.

I don’t want to say ‘life is pure here’…but I don’t know what to call it. We have enough to get by. We don’t have time for the ‘extra’ shit that seemed so important seven months ago.

I get mail from my friends and family asking me what do I want them to send me. I think they all get angry because I say ‘I don’t need anything. Send something…special, like cool-aid, or trail-mix. Something I can’t find over here.’

It’s funny, but I’d really like a toilet with a seat on it. None of the porta-johns have seats! What the hell do they do with the seats on all of them?

While I am one body functions, I’d not like to smell burning shit every morning. Yes- we burn it ala Vietnam. I’d like the food not to give me gas, either- but that may be age, and not the food, I suppose.

I would kill for a bath. We have a shower, sort of. It gets you clean and the water is warm. But to soak in a bath for a day…ah…

It’s the weird things that you miss.

I miss waking up and looking over at my wife still sleeping…or if I roll the other way, my dog looking at me…

Yesterday I was supposed to go out with the Colonel and look at some place. I didn’t go because of another mission, but the Colonel took my truck and went out anyway. They were hit with an VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improved Explosive Device- suicide car bomb). All were evac’ed to the hospital with injuries.

All of them will be ok, they are burned and shrapneled up, but alive.

I guess what I really need is my luck to keep holding.

Dutch- out

IED

IED, or Improved Explosive Device, is the one thing that's feared over here. People don't know what they look like at home, so here is one which hit my patrol yesterday. No one was hurt, no equipment was damaged.

The hole is on the edge of a road. My K-Bar knife is beside it to give it some scale.

The right edge of the picture is the edge of the road. The insurgents had dug it in to the dirt of the bank, causing most of the blast to go out and away from us.

EOD on site said that it was 2 120mm mortar rounds and one 130mm illumination round.

The hole is still smoking.

Just another day in the Garden of Eden. (er...it's just south of here...really.)

dutch- out

One for the Good Guys

Because of DOD regulations I am limiting my comments on operations as to not let secrets slip. However, I will continue to post information from the frontlines---approved by the US Army.

Our Battalion of Iraqi Mechanized Soldiers continues to do fantastic work. Two of the three companies are conducting operations on their own- coordinated with US forces, of course. The third is providing site security at a critical plant.

One company just completed an operation as part of a combined US Task Force. Our score:

a. 1 High Payoff Target captured (He was on the WANT list)
b. 8 Insurgents captured
c. 1 Carbomb captured (in the process of being made, along with the terrorists who were building it)
and
d. Huge amounts of local intel

The rest of the Task Force captures four persons.

The point here is that the Iraqis can get better information and can act faster on it than our US forces. They speak the language, they KNOW the area, and they are professional enough to execute raids based on gathered intel.

The insurgency is in for trouble once the rest of the Iraqi Army is out in the field.

Of course there are problems in the new army. But every day it is getting better.

In other news our Team Leader, MAJ H, has rotated home at the end of his tour. Everyone thought I would take the team over, but a new Major was brought in to take over. I was told that the position is a Major's and since I am but a Captain...

Let me vent for a moment. This 'major' doesn't know shit. He has no tactical ability and has already pissed the Iraqi Battalion Commander off by telling him that the Iranians didn't have a good army. He based this information (and told the BN Commander this) on the fact he played a simulation agianst them once.

Our Battalion Commander has been in the Iraqi Army for 34 years. He fought against the Iranians as a Platoon Leader and was wounded...three times. He fought against us...both times. To have an American officer tell him that his eight years of war didn't mean anything...

BUT- anyway...MAJ C isn't doing anything with the team other than going to a few meetings. He has left all the planning and missions up to me, so in effect I am in command. Even the Iraqi Colonels come to me and have cut him out of the loop.

I suppose I should do something to make him better...but he is an ass as well as stupid. He'll not last long over here as the Iraqi Brigade Commander has already spoken to our General about getting rid of him.

War isn't something you can blunder through and hope you can figure it out as you go. If you do people die. You are either a leader and can handle it...or you are not and should be doing something else.

The US Army is full of officers who have gotten by because they have been safe, political, and serving in a peacetime army. Those 'qualities' they have perfected, covering their ass, not taking chances, kissing ass, are getting our soldiers killed over here.

We need a real rain to wash the scum off the streets. War tempers us and can cause us to be stronger. We (the military) need this war to shake off the last 20 years of peace cobwebs and get rid of those who do not belong.

I think the islamist will give us this chance.

anyway- duty calls.

dutch- out