In honor of his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan, TBL is proud to present this EXCLUSIVE video, TORN from the steaming pages of Wikileaks, a record of then-Commander Smitty counseling a wayward crewmember in need of command guidance.
Three Beers Later wishes the men and women of Smitty's proud new command a safe and successful deployment.
Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label afghanistan. Show all posts
Afghans Find Tons of Iranian Weapons
Authorities in southwestern Afghanistan have seized 19 tons of explosive devices that had been transferred across the border from Iran, police said.
UPDATE: The weapons were explosive charges shaped as toys, packages of food and household items; similar to the ones the Soviets used against Afghan civilians during their occupation.
Iran has committed numerous acts of armed aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, either directlty or by proxy, that have resulted in the deaths of Americans, Iraqis, Afghans and international relief workers.
UPDATE: The weapons were explosive charges shaped as toys, packages of food and household items; similar to the ones the Soviets used against Afghan civilians during their occupation.
Iran has committed numerous acts of armed aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan, either directlty or by proxy, that have resulted in the deaths of Americans, Iraqis, Afghans and international relief workers.
Mine the Kharg Island Oil Terminal. Now. Choke them in their own grease.
We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat...
Marine absorbs IED blast, walks away
6/23/2010 By Sgt. Mark Fayloga , Regimental Combat Team 7SOUTHERN SHORSURAK, HELMAND PROVINCE, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan — Cpl. Matt Garst should be dead.
Few people survive stepping on an improvised explosive device. Even fewer walk away the same day after directly absorbing the force of the blast, but Garst did just that.
A squad leader with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Garst was leading his squad on a patrol in Southern Shorsurak, Afghanistan, June 23 to establish a vehicle checkpoint in support of Operation New Dawn.
The men were four miles from Company L's newly established observation post when they approached an abandoned compound close to where they needed to set up their checkpoint. It would serve well as an operating base — a place for the squad to set up communications and rotate Marines in and out of. But first, it had to be secured.
As they swept the area with a metal detector, the IED registered no warning on the device. The bomb was buried too deep and its metallic signature too weak. Two men walked over it without it detonating.
At six feet, two inches tall and 260 pounds with all his gear on, Garst is easily the largest man in his squad by 30 or 40 pounds — just enough extra weight to trigger the IED buried deep in hard-packed soil.
Lance Cpl. Edgar Jones, a combat engineer with the squad, found a pressure plate inside the compound and hollered to Garst, asking what he should do with it. Garst turned around to answer the Marine and stepped on the bomb.
“I can just barely remember the boom,” Garst said. “I remember the start of a loud noise and then I blacked out.”
Since Garst's improbable run-in with the IED, his tale has spread through the rest of the battalion, and as often happens in combat units, the story mutates, the tale becoming more and more extraordinary about what happened next: He held onto his rifle the whole time … He actually landed on his feet … He remained unmoved, absorbing the impact like he was muffling a fart in a crowded elevator …
What really happened even eludes Garst. All went black after the earth uppercut him. When he came to, he was standing on his feet holding his weapon, turning to see the remnants of the blast and wondering why his squad had a look on their faces as if they’d seen a ghost.
Marines in Company L think Garst is the luckiest guy in the battalion, and while that may seem a fair assessment, it was the enemy’s shoddy work that left Garst standing. The three-liters of homemade explosive only partially detonated.
Marines who witnessed the event from inside the compound caught glimpses of Garst’s feet flailing through the air just above the other side of the building’s eight-foot walls. The explosion knocked him at least fifteen feet away where he landed on his limp head and shoulders before immediately standing back up.
Not quite sure of what had just happened, Garst turned back toward the blast, now nothing but a column of dirt and smoke rising toward the sun.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh s---, I just hit an IED,’” he said. “Then I thought, ‘Well I’m standing. That’s good.’”
Garst’s squad stared at him in disbelief. The square-jawed Marine has a tendency to be short-tempered, and the realization that the blast was meant to kill him spiked his adrenaline and anger.
“It pissed me off,” he said.
He directed his men to establish a security perimeter while letting them know in his own way that he was OK.
“What the f--- are you looking at?” he said. “Get on the cordon!”
Garst quickly radioed back to base, calling an explosive ordnance disposal team and quick reaction force.
“I called them and said, ‘hey, I just got blown up. Get ready,’” he said. “The guy thought I was joking at first. ‘You got blown up? You’re not calling me. Get out of here.’”
Once EOD cleared the area, Garst led his squad the four miles back to their observation post — just hours after being ragdolled by an IED blast.
“I wasn’t going to let anybody else take my squad back after they’d been there for me,” he said. “That’s my job.”
The next day Garst awoke with a pounding headache and was as sore as he’d ever been in his life.
“Just getting up from trying to sleep was painful,” he said.
But he saw no reason being sore should slow him down. He popped some ibuprofen and after a day of rest, Garst was back out on patrol, showing his Marines and the enemy that just like his resolve — Cpl Matt Garst is unbreakable.
Source: Marines.mil
Coulter, Limbaugh Defend Steele's Comments on Afghanistan...
Here's a thought: Michael Steele was tone-deaf, ill-considered and wrong to adopt the language and tactics of the Democrats, using Afghanistan for cheap political advantage while we have troops on the ground, in contact, in Afghanistan.
Unless, of course, in Michael Steele's world the GOP just isn't all that different from the Democrats...
What Michael Steele did was EXACTLY what the left did to Nixon over Vietnam. The litter wasn't even cleaned up from the inauguration before the war JFK began and LBJ escalated bcame 'Nixon's War' and they dumped everything from Gulf of Tonkin to Tet in his lap. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
If conservatives want to score points on Afghanistan, what exactly will they say? That Afghanistan is not important enough to warrant the casualties? Then it didn't warrant the casualties we took there under Bush and the GOP. That the war is lost and we should pull out? That we should scale down to 2008 levels and watch Afghanistan crumble around our outposts? Substitute the last helicopter out of Kandahar for the last helicopter out of Bagdhad?
...Look, I hate writing this. I hate even having to approach defending Obama. But it's one thing to condemn Obama's ineptitude and another to assign him personal blame for a national endeavor that predates him. And THAT's what Democrats do, that's what Michael Steele did, and it's wrong. It a boneheaded and frankly hypocritical move that could backfire on the GOP.
Just the kind of move Michael Steele likes.
Unless, of course, in Michael Steele's world the GOP just isn't all that different from the Democrats...
What Michael Steele did was EXACTLY what the left did to Nixon over Vietnam. The litter wasn't even cleaned up from the inauguration before the war JFK began and LBJ escalated bcame 'Nixon's War' and they dumped everything from Gulf of Tonkin to Tet in his lap. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.
If conservatives want to score points on Afghanistan, what exactly will they say? That Afghanistan is not important enough to warrant the casualties? Then it didn't warrant the casualties we took there under Bush and the GOP. That the war is lost and we should pull out? That we should scale down to 2008 levels and watch Afghanistan crumble around our outposts? Substitute the last helicopter out of Kandahar for the last helicopter out of Bagdhad?
...Look, I hate writing this. I hate even having to approach defending Obama. But it's one thing to condemn Obama's ineptitude and another to assign him personal blame for a national endeavor that predates him. And THAT's what Democrats do, that's what Michael Steele did, and it's wrong. It a boneheaded and frankly hypocritical move that could backfire on the GOP.
Just the kind of move Michael Steele likes.
SHOCK HORROR! RAAAAACIST AUSTRALIANS DEPLOY SECRET JEW ROBOTS AGAINST INNOCENT TALIBAN!
A Special Three Beers Later Guest Report by Noted and Not-at-All biased Middle Eastern Correspondent Jamil al-Taqqiyah!
Jamil al-Taqqiyah is a fiery young nonpartisan journalist who regularly reports for NBC, Al-Jazeera and the BBC. Three Beers Later is proud to offer him his first blogging venue.
Although the perfidious Austrialian imperialist crusaders claim the drones will only be used for reconnaissance, the fact that the Zionist murder birds can carry up to 250kg of 'payloads' means the sons of transported convicts will surely outfit their Secret Jew Robots with the sort of Secret Jew Rockets Israel uses to target rusting, abandoned ambulances in Gaza... again, we call on Attorney General Holder to assert his authority and put a stop to these flagrant abuses of internationlly-recognized law-enforcement procedure...
Jamil al-Taqqiyah is a fiery young nonpartisan journalist who regularly reports for NBC, Al-Jazeera and the BBC. Three Beers Later is proud to offer him his first blogging venue.
The Sinister insidious flying spies are intended to locate concentrations of Taliban, denying them their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights to freely assemble and call for the death of their neighbors.
Marine War Crimes Exposed!
Attorney General Holder needs to assert his jurisdiction over this outrageous act and initiate a vigorous prosecution and conviction immediately!
Do it for the children! Won't somebody think about the children?!
HT: Weasel Zippers
Fuck You Very Much, Mistah Commander in Chief. Sir. (12)
Even as they add 1,000,000 senior citizens to prescription drug programs in an underfunded Medicare system they describe as inefficient and corrupt, even as they shuffle veterans in private substandard 'convalescent homes' to sell off VA land to private developers, Obama Adminstration denies Veterans COLA increases. Congress and career Federal employees get theirs.
Rain and Gratitude...
1200 people showed up in spite of a three day rainstorm to assemble care packages for the troops. Operation Gratitude will ship its 500,000th package this coming weekend, Saturday, December 19th. Help them.
Friday Night Protest Signs!
Today's LA Times, Copy-edited for Clarity...2
"Afghanistan timetable raises questions"
"President Obama's plan to expand, then shrink, the U.S. forces fighting the Taliban has critics and supporters at home and in Europe asking for clarification."
Short form:
"Are we coming or going?"
"What day is it?"
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