Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Lance Cpl. Mina Salama. We had a bad connection for about a minute but then he came in clear and told us another amazing story. This summary is from Stars and Stripes,
“They told me there were people inside,” said Salama, 22, a Jersey City, N.J., native.
That was all he needed to hear. He immediately headed for a small gap in the rubble.
…In a deposition, Sgt. Shane R. Bertrand called it “one of the bravest and most unselfish acts I have witnessed in three combat deployments.”
Once they pulled the Iraqi man out, Salama continued talking with bystanders to see if additional aid was needed. From them, he learned of a young girl injured in a nearby building and coordinated medical evacuation for her as well.
For his actions, Salama, currently deployed to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit on Okinawa, received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.
According to the Navy, the medal is awarded to servicemembers who risk their lives to save others in actions not involving actual conflict with an enemy. President John F. Kennedy was awarded the medal for his World War II actions in saving crewmembers of his Navy patrol boat — PT-109 — after a Japanese destroyer sliced through it in the Solomon Islands.
Though others call Salama heroic, the Marine says otherwise:
“I’m not a hero. I was just doing what I had to do.”
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. 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.
Even the smug, arrogant ‘aren’t we too cool’ guys at Gawker are impressed with our new Senator,
Is Scott Brown the Most Normal Man in America?
Jay Leno is known for being middle-of-the-road. But compared to Scott Brown, Leno is a gay hippie communist smoking hash out in weirdo Los Angeles. Brown was on Leno tonight, and he set a new standard for normality.
On June 24, 2007 Bruce McQuain joined us for another edition of Someone You Should Know. He told us about an Army Major who was doing incredible work training and leading army and police forces in Balad, Iraq.
This eventually led to two of the most amazing comments we have received in ten years of blogging.
Jim Gant says:
December 22, 2007 at 6:34 pmSir,
Just listened to this on your website. I enjoyed it very much. I am honored and humbled. My Iraqi interpreter who fought with me on this day and was with me for over a year is now living with me at Fort Bragg, NC. Once again, thank you.
Major Jim Gant
United States Army Special ForcesJames Karl Gant Sr. says:
December 23, 2007 at 8:37 pmMy son … with whom I am well pleased!!
Jim Gant Sr ( Major Gant is no Jr. )
The excellent milblog Op-For has a post about a recent Washington Post story and the headline grabbed my attention:
Jim Gant, the Green Beret who could win the war in Afghanistan
In recent months, Gant, now a major, has won praise at the highest levels for his effort to radically deepen the U.S. military’s involvement with Afghan tribes — and is being sent back to Afghanistan to do just that. His 45-page paper, “One Tribe at a Time,” published online last fall and circulating widely within the U.S. military, the Pentagon and Congress, lays out a strategy focused on empowering Afghanistan’s ancient tribal system. Gant believes that with the central government still weak and corrupt, the tribes are the only enduring source of local authority and security in the country.
“We will be totally unable to protect the ‘civilians’ in the rural areas of Afghanistan until we partner with the tribes for the long haul,” Gant wrote.
A decorated war veteran and Pashto speaker with multiple tours in Afghanistan, Gant had been assigned by the Army to deploy to Iraq in November. But with senior military and civilian leaders — including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command — expressing support for Gant’s views, he was ordered instead to return to Afghanistan later this year to work on tribal issues.
“Maj. Jim Gant’s paper is very impressive — so impressive, in fact, that I shared it widely,” Petraeus said, while McChrystal distributed it to all commanders in Afghanistan. One senior military official went so far as to call Gant “Lawrence of Afghanistan.”
How lucky are we to have men like this on our side?
One of the most underappreciated aspects of the Scott Brown victory in deep blue Massachusetts was his vigorous, clear, no apologies defense of some of the most controversial aspects related to how we handle the war on terror, or whatever the Obama administration is calling it this week. War on man-made disasters is sooooo 2009!
Scott Brown said quite clearly, the Christmas Eve crotch bomber was funded and trained by Al Qaeda and therefore, he should be treated as an enemy combatant within the military justice system. His opponent, Martha Coakley, agreed with the Obama administration that he should be read his rights, lawyered-up and put into our civilian court system where he will enjoy the same constitutional protections as you or I would.
The choice for voters was crystal clear.
I have never read a book that made me as angry as Courting Disaster. The Obama administration approach to the war on terror is as naive as it is dangerous. The crotch bomber incident is the perfect example of how we are no longer able to effectively interrogate, or even question, terrorists with potentially critical information. In a war against small cells of people able to move freely around the world, human intelligence is more important than ever. The Obama administration has put a blindfold on the CIA.
Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard reviews the way the crotch bomber was dealt with and it just serves as validation for everything author Marc Thiessen covers in this book.
We learned that the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, whose agency is responsible for pulling together pieces of intelligence to prevent attacks, went on vacation the day after the attack. We learned that the top White House counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, told him to go. We learned that the White House’s initial view of the botched attack — from Janet Napolitano and Robert Gibbs — was that “the system worked.” We learned that President Obama still believed the attempted bombing was the work of “an isolated extremist” three days after the attack, despite a wealth of evidence that Abdulmutallab had been sent by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). We learned that Brennan was surprised that AQAP was capable of attacking the United States. We learned that Napolitano was surprised by al Qaeda’s “determination” to hit the U.S. and stunned that they would send an individual — not a group — to conduct an attack. We learned that four top U.S. counterterrorism officials — Leiter, Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair — were not consulted about whether to treat Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant or a criminal. We learned that a proposed “high-value detainee interrogation unit,” or HIG, does not exist one year into the Obama administration. We learned that Blair, the nation’s top intelligence official, thought that it did. We learned that Abdulmutallab was read his Miranda rights less than twelve hours after he was captured. We learned that the FBI interrogated Abdulmutallab for just 50 minutes before he was told he had the right to remain silent and chose to exercise it.
That’s an impressive record of incompetence.
We had a bad connection initially, but we called Marc back and jumped right into this excellent book. We covered a lot of ground but it felt like we only had time to scratch the surface. I hope to have him back on soon. I recommend buying this book, and some Tums to go along with it.
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.
Bruce McQuain from Blackfive joined us once again for Someone You Should Know, our weekly tribute to the troops. Bruce spent 28 years in the U.S. Army and he is a veteran of the Vietnam war. He brings a perspective and understanding to these stories that we could never match.
This week Bruce told us about Marine Corps Sgt. Aubrey McDade Jr. Here is an account from Marine Corps Times,
JACKSONVILLE, N.C.–These days, drill instructor Sgt. Aubrey McDade Jr. is making Marines to win battles, but two years ago he was saving Marines during battle.
His actions on Nov. 11, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, have earned him the Navy Cross, the Navy’s second highest award for valor. The medal was presented to him during a ceremony at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, S.C., during a recruit graduation ceremony Jan. 19.
McDade, a drill instructor with Charlie Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion, was a machine-gun squad leader with 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, in Iraq in 2004.
On the night of Nov. 11, as the Marines in the platoon moved south into the city, they entered an alley where they immediately met a barrage of small-arms and machine-gun fire, according to McDade’s citation.
“In the opening seconds of the engagement, three Marines were seriously wounded as the well-positioned and expecting enemy pinned others down,” the citation states.
McDade “rushed from the rear of the platoon column toward the kill zone,” leading a machine-gun team into the alley to spray suppressive fire at insurgents.
The wounded Marines were pinned down under a blanket of gunfire that spewed furiously every time the other Marines tried to reach their injured comrades.
McDade told the platoon sergeant that he would get them.
“He just informed me that if I got hit he wasn’t going to be able to help me right then,” McDade said in an interview. “I wasn’t just going to let them sit out there like sitting ducks. They needed me, and I went.”
The Someone You Should Know radio collaboration began as an extension of Matt Burden’s series at Blackfive. Bruce does an incredible job with the series every week. 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.
Last night on WRKO I started by throwing the phone lines open so people could talk about Tuesday’s thrilling election. We got a lot of great calls, from Coakley and Brown supporters. A call from a young man by the name of Sean from West Roxbury was especially impressive!
I noted how impressed I was with the humility and grace that Scott Brown showed in the Wednesday morning press conference. I also mentioned the very gracious thank you note he sent me on Wednesday evening. This is one grounded individual who understands who he is going to Washngton to represent.
The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here. Follow Pundit Review on Twitter.
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.
When is the bad news going to stop for the Gorebots and true believers of the Man Made Climate Change? After the Nopenhagen Climate Conference and the utterly devastating release of emails and source data from the University of East Anglia, it appears that the answer is, not soon enough.
While we have been focused on bringing hope and change to Massachusetts via our recent U.S. Senate election, quite a few bits of rather inconvenient information have crossed the newswires that you might have missed.
Remember all those wild claims about melting glaciers? Turns out that data was cooked too. The best part is who the chef was. The very UN panel, the very report in fact, that won them and Al Gore a Nobel Peace Prize.
Do those come with expiration dates?
The Indian head of the UN climate change panel defended his position yesterday even as further errors were identified in the panel’s assessment of Himalayan glaciers…
…The IPCC’s 2007 report, which won it the Nobel Peace Prize, said that the probability of Himalayan glaciers “disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very highâ€.
But it emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.
The IPCC admitted on Thursday that the prediction was “poorly substantiated†in the latest of a series of blows to the panel’s credibility.
NASA/GISS Accused Of Data Mainpulation In Support Of Man-Made Global Warming Agenda. Bruce McQuain at QandO explains,
After the scandal concerning the CRU at the University of East Anglia, this may be the sound of the second shoe dropping.
Data from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) at Columbia University in New York City, both associated with the US Government and the UN’s IPCC, have come under fire from two researchers. Programmer E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologis Joseph D’Aleo have combed through the data and the programming from which conclusions were made about man-made global warming and claim the data used was both cherry-picked and manipulated to produce findings that supported the hypothesis that man was responsible for climate change.
How ironic is it that Al Gore loses the closest election in recent history AND sees his precious and profitable Global Warming Climate Change boondoggle ruined at the very last minute. Coinsider all these cooked books the hanging chads of the scientific community. So close Al, you almost had your global government, your nanny state on steroids. Hey, look at the brightside, you took nearly a billion dollars off the table before people caught on to the scam. Al Gore, blows it again. How fitting.
