This is what Christmas is all about

My brother-in-law is a professional cyclist and he has some custom, super high end bikes that he has accumulated over the years. He recently put one on eBay for sale for $6000. He began a correspondence with a gentlemen from San Diego who was interested in the bike. They established a nice rapport and shared stories about their love of cycling. The potential buyer was curious about the bike since it was custom made for my brother-in-law. He sent a photo along of his bike and in it, he is riding the bike with a prosthetic leg. My brother-in-law asked what had happened and the reply was “Iraq”.

At that moment, the auction was over, the price was cut in half and the bike was his. This is a great act of kindness by my brother-in-law. This is what the holiday season, and supporting the troops, is all about. As he learned more about the buyer, Roger Carlson, he quickly understood that this was a special man. Roger is dedicated to helping his fellow wounded warriors in their recovery. He’s involved with a great charity, the Challenged Athlete’s Foundation and Operation Rebound, and he is a real inspiration. Roger recently completed a 100 mile bike race!

It was an honor to welcome Roger to Boston and get the opportunity to thank him for his service and to hear his truly inspirational story.

Here is a news story from San Diego on CAF that features Roger,

When my brother-in-law let his racing sponsor, Cannondale, know about Roger, well, they also stepped up huge.

This was such a great, heartwarming story I thought it deserved to be shared with the WRKO audience.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.

Lt. Shannon Meehan’s Beyond Duty

Lt. Shannon Meehan was a decorated tank commander who was displaying exceptional leadership abilities during his tour of duty in Iraq. On one mission, when they were clearing a dangerous area house by house, he called in an air strike on a suspected insurgents location. He followed all procedure and even went further, sending loudspeakers and translators directly in front of the house to warn everyone inside to get out. Despite visual identification, local Intel, loudspeaker warnings, the worst happened. The precision guided bomb destroyed a house with a family inside. Beyond Duty is the story of how Lt. Meehan has been struggling with the consequences of his decision.

I told Lt. Meehan on air that I wished I could just hug him and tell him that it was ok, that he followed his training, went even further and had nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. I said to him that as a citizen he was fighting for, I was perfectly comfortable with what he did, despite the outcome that nobody wanted. A literal casualty of war this was. This book boiled down to its essence is this, it is about the difference between us and them. Our enemies who gleefully murder innocents and use civilians as shields. And us, specifically Lt. Meehan, who are so considerate and cautious about respecting innocent life, even as they operate in the world’s worst hell holes, putting themselves in greater danger to do so. It is a sin that a man like Lt. Meehan is haunted by what happened. I pray that he is able to put this incident in perspective and find the peace that he deserves and the future that he dreamed about with his dedicated wife AJ.

Lt. Meehan collaborated with Roger Thompson, a professor of English at VMI where Meehan went to college. Beyond Duty is an exceptional book. It takes the reader to Iraq, to feel all sides of a deployed soldiers life, from the boredom, the bullshit to the battles and the searing heat inside the tank. This is a book that every American should read in order to get a full accounting of what it means to send men and women off to war. You may finish, but you won’t forget Beyond Duty. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.

Mission: Black List #1: The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein

When Army Staff Sergeant Eric Maddox arrived in Iraq he had never interrogated a prisoner. Five months later he left with the DIA Director’s Award, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement for his key role in the capture of Saddam Hussein. Not only did he do that, his work identified the insurgency funding and leadership network, which had been previously unknown to the US military. He did this by focusing on the social and family networks of captured prisoners.

Mission: Black List #1: The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein—As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture

After months of chasing down leads, following hunches, and interrogating literally hundreds of detainees, Sergeant Maddox uncovered crucial details about the insurgency. In his final days in Iraq, he closed in on the dictator’s inner circle and, within hours of his departure from the country, pinpointed the precise location of Saddam’s Tikrit spider hole. Maddox’s candid and compelling narrative reveals the logic behind the unique interrogation process he developed and provides an insider’s look at his psychologically subtle, nonviolent methods. The result is a gripping, moment-by-moment account of the historic mission that brought down Black List #1.

Just incredible what he did and how he did it. This is a great book and it was an honor to be able to speak to SSG Maddox.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 8-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.

Taking Chance Home

UPDATE II: Here is my interview with Ret. Lt. Col. Michael Strobl and Gretchen Mack on Pundit Review Radio

UPDATE: As you will see in the comments below, Chance Phelps mother Gretchen Mack was kind enough to contact us. It was an honor to get the opportunity to speak with her on Pundit Review Radio,

The best thing we do at Pundit Review Radio is our weekly tribute to the troops, a segment called Someone You Should Know. The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Today, Bruce McQuain from QandO does an incredible job with the series every week. Bruce is a veteran of the Vietnam war and spent 28 years in the U.S. Army. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.

Back in September 2006, Blackfive published a book called Blog of War: Frontline dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the many amazing stories in the book was called Taking Chance Home,

Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl’s account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps. It’s a long and beautifully written and it deserves to be read in it’s entirety. It’s about Valor, Honor and Respect.

I cannot recommend this post more. I can’t imagine that you will ever read anything that will make you more proud to be an American.

We interviewed Blackfive about the book and the story of Taking Chance Home came up during a phone call from a Gulf War vet. Listen to Blackfive’s moving description of the story,

Today, Blackfive has an update. Taking Chance Home has been made into an HBO movie starring Kevin Bacon as Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl. Here is the trailer,

Thank you General David Petraeus

Yesterday, General David Petraeus turned over command of Iraq to his deputy General Ray Odierno. Petreaus is now taking over CENTCOM, which is a great thing for our country. He will now be in charge of all of the Middle East as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. The leadership that he brought to Iraq at its darkest hours was remarkable. He is a once-in-a-lifetime leader.

Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters wrote today,

In the 19 months of the Petraeus era, Iraq evolved from a bloody landscape sliding toward civil war to a land of hope. Urban combat and a literal reign of terror have been replaced by the spreading rule of law, a blossoming economy, LA-quality traffic jams - and the political squabbling that accompanies democracy.

As Petraeus is always the first to note, much remains to be done and much could still go wrong. But every single trend line has turned positive. Al Qaeda’s grip has been broken. (It can still set off bombs, but can no longer set itself up as a champion of Sunni Muslims.) Our troops are coming home at a steady pace. And (dare one say it?) we’re winning.

That last point’s a sore one. Scrupulously avoiding any statement or action that played politics, Petraeus nonetheless changed the terms of our presidential election.

David Ignatius on 20 months in Iraq,

Petraeus did something astonishing here. It wasn’t simply managing the “surge” of U.S. troops, whose precise effects military historians will be debating for years. It was that he restored confidence and purpose for a military that had begun to think, deep down, that this war was unwinnable and unsustainable.

I’m reading Bob Woodward’s new book The War Within. In it, he tells an amazing story about David Petraeus that I had never heard before.

One Saturday morning in September 1991, Petraeus and (Jack) Keane were standing together watching an infantry squad practice assaulting a bunker with live grenades and ammunition. A soldier tripped and fell about 40 yards away and accidentally squeezed the trigger on his rifle. The M-16 round tore trough the “A” over the name tag on the right side of Petraeus’s chest and left a golf ball sized exit wound in his back. If it had hit above the “A” in the “U.S. Army” on his left side, he likely would have died on the spot.

“Dave, you’ve been shot, Keane said as he leaned over his downed colleague. “You know what we’re going to do here. First of all, you’re going to make it, all right?” He kept talking to Petraeus, trying to keep him from slipping into shock. “I want you to stay focused,” he said, clutching the lieutenant colonel’s hand, aware that Petraeus was growing weaker.

“I’m gonna be okay, I’ll stay with it,” he said.

In the local emergency room, a trauma expert shoved a chest tube into Petraeus-an excruciating procedure that makes grown men scream and jolt off the table. Petraeus never moved and let out only a low grunt. “That is the toughest soldier I’ve ever laid my hands on,” the doctor told Keane.

A medivac helicopter flew Petraeus with Keane by his side, 60 miles to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. Keane had called ahead and requested the best thoracic surgeon available. When they landed on the roof of the hospital, Keane saw a man waiting for them dressed in golf clothes.

“I’m Bill Frist,” said the man who would become majority leader of the U.S. Senate a decade later. “I’m the chief of thoracic surgery here.”

I guess we were lucky to have him in more ways than one.

Haditha dad Darryl Sharratt has a message for John Murtha

Darryl Sharratt takes John Murtha to the woodshed in this ad. This November, Murtha faces some serious competition from Lt. Col. Bill Russell. Here’s Blackfive’s description,

He’s an Army vet, 9/11 survivor, and small business owner who is challenging smear merchant/corruptocrat Rep. John Murtha. I saw Russell at the fantastic Pennsylvania Leadership Conference last month (where the photo above was snapped). He is a staunch conservative, a true American patriot, and he deserves your support. If there were ever a time for the grass-roots to come together and help an underdog Republican candidate make a difference, this is it.

We were fortunate enough to get to know both Darryl, and his son Justin, one of the six Haditha Marines exonerated so far.

Haditha Marine Justin Sharratt,

We also spoke to Justin’s father Darryl on several occassions, inlcuding after he spoke to Congressman Murtha. You see, Congressman Murtha, who convicted these Marines in the press, is the Sharratt’s congressmen. Can you imagine. Even worse, it took the Sharratt family more than fifty phone calls before Murtha gave them the time of day.

In a second interview, we talked to Darryl about the stress this incident has put on his family,

All of our Haditha coverage can be found here.

Audacity in Action

AUDACITY:
1.) Willingness to take risks
2.) The state or quality of being impudent or arrogantly self-confident

Katie Couric interviews Barack Obama about The Surge

Bruce McQuain at QandO sums it up nicely,

Lord Keynes once famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

What Obama does is practice avoidance and does so through the age old political device of doggedly sticking to his talking points in the face of the obvious reality of the situation.

Character.

Integrity.

There it is, in abundance, huh?

Gateway Pundit has been all over BO’s trip to the Middle East. He noticed another problem for Obama from this interview with Katie, Barack’s inability to be honest about his position on Jerusalem,

Couric: You said not too long ago that Jerusalem should remain undivided. And then you backtracked on that statement. Does that play into the argument that some believe that someone more experienced would not have made that kind of mistake?

Obama: Well… if you look at what happened, there was no shift in policy or backtracking in policy. We just had phrased it poorly in the speech.

Gateway Pundit: There is no question what Obama told the AIPAC audience. Here is the transcript from AIPAC, via Jewishfan:

Obama: “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,” Obama thundered in his AIPAC speech earning an ovation from the 7,000-plus attendees at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference.

Gateway Pundit: Yet, today Obama had the nerve to tell Katie Couric that he never switched positions on Jerusalem.

If you find this kind of AUDACITY hard to believe, Gateway Pundit has some helpful video so you can see for yourself exactly what he said and when he said it.