- If-IwoJima-Happened2day
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What if today's reporters had covered the Marines landing on
Iwo Jima, a small island in the far away Pacific Ocean,
in the same way they're covering the war in Iraq?
Here's how it might have looked:
With the aid of satellite technology,
Cutie Cudley interviews Marine Pfc. John Doe,
who earlier came ashore with 30,000 other Marines.
"John, we have been told by the administration that this island has great strategic importance because
if you're successful, it could become a fueling stop for our bombers on the way to Japan.
But, as you know, we can't be sure this is the truth. What do you think?"
"Well, I've been pinned down by enemy fire almost ever since I got here
and have had a couple of buddies killed right beside me.
I'm a Marine and I go where they send me.
One thing's for sure, they are putting up a fight not to give up this island."
"Our military analysts tell us that the Japanese are holed up in caves and
miles of connecting tunnels they've built over the years.
How will you ever get them out?"
"With flame throwers, ma'am."
(incredulously):"Flame throwers? You'll burn them alive?"
"Yes ma'am, we'll fry their asses.
Excuse me, I shouldn't have said that on TV."
(audible gasp)"How horrible!"
(obviously wanting to move on)
"We're at war ma'am."
(A Marine sergeant watching nearby yells,
"Ask her what does she want us to do ~ sing to them ...
'Come out, come out, wherever you are.
Pretty please.' )
"Pfc. Doe, what's that mountain in the background?
Is that the one they say is impregnable?"
"I don't know what that word means, ma'am
but that's Mt. Suribachi, and we're going to put a flag right up on top
of it just as soon as we can. I gotta go."
"No one has yet really confirmed why this particular battle
in this particular place is even being waged.
Already, on the first day, at least 500 Marines have been killed
and a thousand wounded. (Camera pans to a map with a speck of an island in the Pacific.
For this?
For this? Then a close up of nothing but black volcanic ash).
For this?"
(Cutie's sweet voice becomes more strident as it fades out.)
At 7 a.m., Cutie's morning show opens with a shot of hundreds of dead bodies bobbing in the water's edge.
Others are piled on top of each other on shore.
After a few seconds, one can see Marines digging graves to bury the dead. "There is no way the Marines could have expected this.
Someone got it all wrong.
No one predicted this.
This has been a horrible 24 hours for our country.
This is a slaughterhouse. 
After all this fighting, Marines control only about a mile and a half of beach
and the casualties are now over 3,500 and rising rapidly.
We'd like to know what you think.
Call the number on the bottom of the screen.
Give us your opinions on these three questions:
1. Were the Marines properly trained?
2. Is this nothing of an island worth all these lives?
3. Has the president once again misled the American people?
"After the break, we'll ask our own Democratic and Republican analysts,
both shouting at the same time, of course, what they have to yell about all this.
It should make for a very shrill, provocative morning. 
"But before we leave this horrible ~ some will say needless ~ scene,
let us give you one more look at this Godforsaken place where these young Americans are dying. 
Volcanic ash, cold, wet miserable Marines just thankful to be alive.
And still no flag that we had been promised on that mountain. 
Things have gone from bad to worse in this obviously misguided military operation.
One thing is certain, there should be and there will be a high-partisan
~ make that bi-partisan ~
congressional inquiry into this."
"Marines continue to be locked in a life-or-death struggle over this
worthless piece of real estate in the middle of the Pacific.
The word 'quagmire' is being used in the U.S. Senate, a body very familiar with quagmires.
Senator Blowhard has called it 'a colossal military blunder.'
And Senator Bombast maintains it was a fraudulent scheme hatched
while the president was on his sixth vacation at the Little White House in Georgia.
"The recently organized Senate Squeakers Group may ask for the president to resign.
They maintain that politics should not stop at the waters edge in times of war,
calling that tradition an old-fashioned idea that has no place in the new century of dysfunctional government.
Over forty special interest groups concurred and all issued identical news releases."
"We now turn to our political analyst, James Crankville."
"Cutie,the overnight poll numbers have hit this president right between the eyes.
Nationwide, an overwhelming 98 percent said that if possible, they would like to see this country
fight a war without a single American casualty. That is nearly the same percentage we saw three days
ago when the American public said they would be in favor of going to war if we could win without firing a shot.
So, you can see there is a trend developing here that spells trouble for this administration."
"That this president is going ahead with this war is just unbelievable.
The witty New York Times columnist, Myscream Loud, wrote in her inimitable fashion that
'The president's policy is as crippled as his legs.' (giggle)
Last week she said he had reached the point where no one will 'Fala' him.
F-A-L-A, his dog, get it (more giggles)?
Has that woman got a way with words!
Go girl."
(holds up front page of the New York Times)
"This morning, the New York Times had this photo on the front page.
As you can see, the Marines have finally raised a flag on Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
The fighting is still going on but it looks like this battle is over.
We tried to find Pfc. Doe,
the young Marine I interviewed that terrible first day,
but he was unavailable.
Here is Corporal Smith though. (With girlish enthusiasm).
"Well, we see that flag flying. It's pretty much over isn't it?"
"Oh, no ma'am, it's not over by any means.
We've got weeks of fighting and dying to go yet.
This place is a long ways from being secured.
But we did get that flag up there and it sure makes us all proud."
"I can't tell much from the photo. Their faces are not even visible,
making it impossible for us to descend upon any of their families.
Corporal Smith, do you know any of the flag raisers?
And do you know who ordered it put up there?
Did the order come directly from the president for political reasons?"
"All I know is that I heard some colonel put the word out that he wanted
'a flag put up there where every son of a bitch on this island could see it.'
Excuse me, ma'am."
"We know you've been in the heat of battle so, ..."
"Still am, ma'am."
"Yes, of course, but it's all over. (Nervous giggle).
Except here on Capitol Hill, of course.
Corporal Smith, I wonder if you know the gender, race and ethnicity of the group that put the flag up.
In other words, did that group 'look like America?' "
"Look like America?
They are Americans, ma'am.
United States Marines."
"Any females?"
"No, ma'am."
"Any African Americans?"
Cpl. Smith: "I don't know, ma'am.
But there is an Indian in Easy Company."
"You mean Native American?" "Whatever, ma'am, I've got to cut out.
My outfit is moving on and we've got a lot to do."
"And we've got a lot to do here too.
Spring training has started and the sun is shining brightly in Florida.
But first this word from our sponsors."
In one of the bloodiest battles of World War II,
when it was said
"uncommon valor was a common virtue," 
6,000 Marines were killed and
18,000 wounded.
Some 21,000 Japanese were killed.
The island itself is still barren and only a handful of people live on it.
But after it was secured by the Marines,
B-29s made over 2,200 emergency landings on it,
saving the lives of more than 24,000 crewmen. 
AP photographer Joe Rosenthal won a Pulitzer Prize for the flag-raising photo.
Of the six men in the photo,
three were buried in that black volcanic ash,
one came out on a stretcher. 
Only two walked off the island
Tags: | Edit Tags Saturday November 25, 2006 - 09:07am (EST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments - THE TROOPS ANSWER KERRY
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This Is Alain's Newsletter
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Add to Address Book 
Add Mobile Alert To: "Huynh Dang Binh" Subject: THE TROOPS ANSWER KERRY Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 17:08:29 -0700 Tags: | Edit Tags Friday November 3, 2006 - 04:49am (EST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments - policing territory with civilian population pressure
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To: armyrangers@yahoogroups.com From: "appiusclaudiuspriscus"
Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:02:39 -0000 Subject: [Army Rangers] policing territory with civilian population pressure __._,_.___Greetings,
It proved difficult to police Vietnam or Iraq with our military. The
Cong or Terrorist gets the first shot, in a police action. That's the
only way to tell that a young man has decided to become Cong or
Terrorist. They have enough rifles and always a new crop of young men
coming up to replace the ones we catch, so when we get tired of being
shot at, we leave, and they win.
In their own culture, they would resolve the conflict by killing off
all the adult male relatives of their enemies. We prevent our allies
from being so ruthless, which causes our allies to lose.
I'm not proposing wiping out all of them, or even all the adult
males. What I propose is to move our own civilians permanently into
the needed oil-rich areas, move the Iraqis out of those areas, and let
the Iraqis keep the rest (most of the land and some of the oil).
Colonize it like England colonized the E. coast of N. America.
Our Iraqi allies can be as ruthless as they need to be to win, on
their own land; our troops will be gone. Our part of Iraq will be
populated with our own colonists and we'll do things our way there.
Take a look at my "realrome" Yahoo group. For colonists, we could use
guys who otherwise would be in prison or suicide due to child support
or tax problems, etc.
Sincerely,
Appius Claudius Priscus
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
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Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | UnsubscribeSPONSORED LINKS.To: armyrangers@yahoogroups.com From: "roger anderson"
Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 04:21:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: [Army Rangers] Re: policing territory with civilian population pressure The guy obviously knows nothing about fighting a counter-insurgency , but neither does the US Army so I guess they're even..
Roger
carmal2b2 <carmal2b2@yahoo. com> wrote:
--- In armyrangers@ yahoogroups. com, "appiusclaudiuspris cus"wrote:
Oh by the Way Mr. Latin Bullshiter,
You are a racist pig. If you where ever a Ranger you dont deserve the
honor. Nor the rank. Leadership.. .you are such a bitter, spoiled man.
Peace
Sgt. Acker
>pic-source:TROOPER PHOTOSOctober 2006 - Week 2SFC Grgsby - SSG unk - Dec 66 - Phu Loi..............................SSG Coker's ACAV - Jun 67 - Iron TriangleTags: | Edit Tags Friday November 3, 2006 - 03:10am (EST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments - Bush accepts Iraq-Vietnam echoes
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Bush accepts Iraq-Vietnam echoes.....
In an interview with ABC News, Mr Bush was asked if he agreed with a newspaper columnist who had written that the current fighting in Iraq may be compared to the Tet offensive in Vietnam.
VIETNAM WAR
"He could be right," Mr Bush said. "There's certainly a stepped up level of violence and we're heading into an election."
During the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies launched a combined assault on US positions.
Militarily, the assault failed but it was a huge psychological blow for the Americans and their allies, and eroded political support for the then president, Lyndon Johnson.
.........
Vietnam 1945 to 1975: timelineKey events in the background to the Vietnam war: 1945 - Viet Minh - a broad front of Vietnamese patriots and nationalists controlled by the Communist Party - seize power. Ho Chi Minh announces independence.
1946 - French forces attack Viet Minh in Haiphong in November sparking the war of resistance against France.
1950 - Democratic Republic of Vietnam is recognised by China and USSR.
1954 - At Geneva Conference Vietnam is split into North and South at the 17th Parallel.
1956 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem begins campaign against political dissidents.
1957 - Beginning of communist insurgency in the South.
1959 - Weapons and men from North Vietnam begin infiltrating the South.
1960 - American aid to Diem increased.
1962 - Number of US military advisors in South Vietnam rises to 12,000.
1963 - Viet Cong, the communist guerrillas operating in South Vietnam, defeat units of ARVN, South Vietnamese Army. President Diem overthrown.
1964 - US destroyer allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. This triggers start of pre-planned American bombing raids on North Vietnam.
1965 - 200,000 American combat troops arrive in South Vietnam.
1966 - US troop numbers in Vietnam rise to 400,000, then to 500,000 the following year.
1968 - Tet Offensive - a combined assault by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army on US positions - begins. More than 500 civilians die in My Lai massacre.
1969 - President Nixon draws back US ground troops from Vietnam.
1970 - Nixon's National Security advisor, Henry Kissinger, and Le Duc Tho, for the Hanoi government, start talks in Paris.
1973 - Ceasefire agreement in Paris, US troop pull-out completed by March.
1975 - North Vietnamese troops invade South Vietnam and take control of the whole country after South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh surrenders.
Thursday October 19, 2006 - 04:42pm (ICT) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 CommentsTags: | Edit Tags Friday October 27, 2006 - 05:39am (EDT) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments - A prayer for all US military personnel
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A prayer for all US military personnel:
"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great
goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to
contend.
Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers
who call
Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and
crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy
justice
among men and nations. Amen."
G.S. Patton, Jr.
Lt. General
Commanding, United States Third Army
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
More words from a great American soldier:
"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of
this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to
fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend
your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self
respect,
because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here
because you
are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of
you,
were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest
runner, the
toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football
players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser.
Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't
give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans
have
never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is
hateful to
an American."
"You are not all going to die," he said slowly. "Only two percent of you
right
here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in
time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he
says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same
as the
brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight
who are
just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even
though he
is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For
some, it
takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let
his fear
of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his
innate
manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human
being can
indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.
Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember
that
the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They
are not
supermen."
"All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call
"chicken shit drilling". That, like everything else in this Army, has a
definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into
every
soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men
are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come.
A man
must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you're not alert,
sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole- bitch is going to sneak up behind
you and
beat you to death with a sockful of shit!"
"There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily", he roared
into the microphone, "All because one man went to sleep on the job". He
paused
and the men grew silent. "But they are German graves, because we caught the
bastard asleep before they did". "An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats,
and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The
bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post
don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about
fucking!"
"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the
best
men in the world", Patton bellowed. He lowered his head and shook it
pensively.
Suddenly he snapped erect, faced the men belligerently and thundered,
"Why, by
God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against.
By God,
I do". The men clapped and howled delightedly. There would be many a
barracks
tale about the "Old Man's"
"My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my
command
being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can
still fight
back. That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my
command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his
chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and
busted the
hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and
went out
and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off.
And,
all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real
man!"
"All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every
single
man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think
that
your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it.
Every man
is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly
decided
that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and
jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, "Hell,
they won't
miss me, just one man in thousands". But, what if every man thought that
way?
Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved
ones, our
homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think
like that.
Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every
unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are
needed
to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The
Quartermaster
is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there
isn't a
hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one
who heats our water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits'."
"Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting
beside
him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed
off like
rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The
brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and
we will
have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a
fellow
on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in
Tunisia. I
stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like
that. He
answered, "Fixing the wire, Sir". I asked, "Isn't that a little
unhealthy right
about now?" He answered, "Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be
fixed". I
asked, "Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?" And he
answered, "No,
Sir, but you sure as hell do!" Now, there was a real man. A real
soldier. There
was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly
insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the
odds.
And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers
were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those
son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course,
with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good
old American guts. Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours.
These men weren't combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do.
They did
it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without
team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the
links in
the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable. "
"Don't forget, "you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that
fact is to
be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell
happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even
supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the
Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked
hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the Goddamned Third Army again
and that
son-of-a-fucking- bitch Patton'."
"We want to get the hell over there the quicker we clean up this Goddamned
mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs
and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the
credit."
"Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way
to get
it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are
whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin
and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin", he yelled, "I am personally going to
shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a
snake!"
"When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a
German
will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with
taking it.
My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an
offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either.
We'll
win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the
Germans that
we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going
to just
shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned
guts
and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those
lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking- basket. War is a bloody, killing
business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip
them
up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you
and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt
it's the
blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know
what
to do!"
"From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our
people
too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe
in the
old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The
harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the
fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want
you all
to remember that."
"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after
this war
is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty
years from
now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your
knee and
he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough,
shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in
Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, "Son,
your
Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned- Bitch
named
Georgie Patton!"
George S. Patton's Address to His Troops
5 June, 1944Source:
From: "gengreb" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2006 18:20:40 -0400 Subject: [Army Rangers] A prayer for all US military personnel: Pic source:
Monday October 2, 2006 - 04:15pm (ICT)
Friday 10 July 2009
A prayer for all US military personnel:
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