A Thread To Honor Our Military In Iraq

[kblair7]

Originally Posted by bornright

I hope that others can truely show some respect and pride in our military. My 1st story is of an earlier event, to which there have been many, in Iraq. Many on this board will look negatively on these great heros and I personally don't care.

The odd fact about the American media in this war is that it's not
covering the American military. The most plugged-in nation in the world
is receiving virtually no true information about what its warriors are
doing.
Oh, sure, there's a body count. We know how many Americans have
fallen. And we see those same casket pictures day in and day out. And
we're almost on a first-name basis with the pukes who abused the Iraqi
prisoners. And we know all about improvised explosive devices and how we
lost Fallujah and what Arab public-opinion polls say about us and how
the world hates us.
We get a non-stop feed of gloom and doom.
But we don't hear about the heroes.
The incredibly brave GIs who honorably do their duty. The ones our
grandparents would have carried on their shoulders down Fifth Avenue.
The ones we completely ignore.
Like Brian Chontosh.
It was a year ago on the march into Baghdad. Brian Chontosh was a
platoon leader rolling up Highway 1 in a humvee.
When all hell broke loose.
Ambush city.
The young Marines were being cut to ribbons. Mortars, machine
guns, rocket propelled grenades. And the kid out of Churchville was in
charge. It was do or die and it was up to him.
So he moved to the side of his column, looking for a way to lead
his men to safety. As he tried to poke a hole through the Iraqi line his
humvee came under direct enemy machine gun fire.
It was fish in a barrel and the Marines were the fish.
And Brian Chontosh gave the order to attack. He told his driver to
floor the humvee directly at the machine gun emplacement that was firing
at them. And he had the guy on top with the .50 cal unload on them.
Within moments there were Iraqis slumped across the machine gun
and Chontosh was still advancing, ordering his driver now to take the
humvee directly into the Iraqi trench that was attacking his Marines.
Over into the battlement the humvee went and out the door Brian Chontosh
bailed, carrying an M16 and a Beretta and 228 years of Marine Corps
pride.
And he ran down the trench.
With its mortars and riflemen, machineguns and grenadiers.
And he killed them all.
He fought with the M16 until he was out of ammo. Then he fought
with the Beretta until it was out of ammo. Then he picked up a dead
man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of ammo. Then he picked
up another dead man's AK47 and fought with that until it was out of
ammo.
At one point he even fired a discarded Iraqi RPG into an enemy
cluster, sending attackers flying with its grenade explosion.
When he was done Brian Chontosh had cleared 200 yards of
entrenched Iraqis from his platoon's flank. He had killed more than 20
and wounded at least as many more.
But that's probably not how he would tell it.
He would probably merely say that his Marines were in trouble, and
he got them out of trouble. Hoo-ah, and drive on.
"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited
courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty,
1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the
highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval
Service."
That's what the citation says.
And that's what nobody will hear.
That's what doesn't seem to be making the evening news. Accounts
of American valor are dismissed by the press as propaganda, yet accounts
of American difficulties are heralded as objectivity. It makes you
wonder if the role of the media is to inform, or to depress - to report
or to deride. To tell the truth, or to feed us lies.
But I guess it doesn't matter.
We're going to turn out all right.
As long as men like Brian Chontosh wear our uniform.
- by Bob Lonsberry C 2004

Thank you, great post.

[Kanadesaga]

A soldier's 'True Story'

By Mark Hinson

DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER


One of John Crawford's least favorite assignments when he was a soldier in Baghdad was standing guard at a gas station where shortages and long lines kept everyone on edge.

"We were all sitting in the most oil-rich country in the world, and even when people could get gas, it was overpriced fuel trucked in by Halliburton from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia," Crawford writes in his terse, gritty, new memoir, "The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq" (Riverhead Books, $23.95). The book jumped to No. 12 last week on the New York Times best-sellers list for nonfiction.

"The whole thing (at the gas station) was a joke," Crawford writes, "but it directly affected our lives on a minute-by-minute basis."

One night, Crawford and Stephen Mitchell, who were both students at Florida State University in 2002 when their Florida National Guard unit was sent packing to fight in Iraq, were bored out of their skulls during a 10-hour vigil at the gas pumps. Mitchell persuaded Crawford to take a joy ride on an abandoned, ancient, rusty motorcycle that had a sidecar.

"He said it would be just like Indiana Jones," Crawford, 27, said recently over a light beer and a late lunch. "He talked me into it. You'll do anything to break the boredom."

The two took off down the unlit street into the darkness. Then they realized the brakes did not work. They were stuck on a runaway motorcycle tearing through the night in one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

"The Americans act like kids, basically," Crawford said. "And the Iraqi people thought of us as big children."

Yeah, but they're big kids with really big guns.

"The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell" is packed with eye-witness accounts of the follies, fears, frustrations, bitterness and gutsy triumphs of American foot soldiers on the ground in the Iraqi war. Crawford's tell-all, rawly honest memoir has also stirred up a lot of national media attention for the polite and rather serious-minded small-town boy from Palatka.

In August, Crawford was interviewed live on Comedy Central's Emmy Award-winning "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, who couldn't stop raving about the book. National Public Radio's Terry Gross devoted a "Fresh Air" program to him. The New York Times editorial department gave Crawford half a page in a recent Sunday edition to write an article about his return to the States.

"Um, I'm doing an interview with Wisconsin Radio in a few minutes, and then I'm supposed to fly to Washington to do 'Hardball,' but I'm waiting to see what happens with the hurricane (Katrina)," Crawford said during a recent phone conversation. "My life is really kind of surreal right now."

Military history

Crawford hails from a family with a long history of military service, going back as far as the Civil War. His father flew a chopper for Special Operations in Vietnam, and Crawford grew up hearing war stories from those days.

"I think there's been a Crawford fighting in every major war America has ever been involved in," he said. "I'm sort of like the character Lt. Dan in 'Forrest Gump' whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers kept getting shot in wars."

After he graduated from high school in 1996, Crawford immediately joined the famed 101st Airborne. He spent time in Panama and was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky.

When he finished service with the Airborne in 1999, at the seasoned age of 21, he headed straight to Tallahassee and enrolled in classes at Tallahassee Community College. Crawford, who read "The Iliad" at 10 just for fun, was ready for a formal education.

"I signed out of the Airborne at midnight and was in class (at TCC) the next morning," he said.

Ironically, for a guy with a bestseller on the New York Times list, he struggled to make a C in his freshman composition class at TCC.

"I was off spinning these raunchy fiction stories with dialogue, and that's not really what my professor wanted," Crawford said. "About halfway through the semester, I caught on to what she wanted. I had to play catch-up just to get a C. I was happy to get that C."

The experienced soldier signed up with the Florida National Guard because he figured it would be an easy way to pay for tuition at FSU, where he transferred and selected anthropology as his major.

Heck, Crawford figured, after surviving Airborne, how hard could it be playing weekend warrior?

Honeymoon in Baghdad

In the fall of 2002, Crawford got married and took a honeymoon cruise over Christmas break. Aboard ship, the day after Christmas, he went to check his semester grades from FSU via e-mail.

What he got instead was an invitation from Uncle Sam. It was one he couldn't turn down. He and his fellow Florida National Guard members would soon be conducting apartment raids and other deadly business in Baghdad's urban war.

The tour of duty was supposed to last three months. It dragged on for more than a year.

"I was planning to enroll in a master's program at FSU, instead I took a vacation to Iraq," former machine-gunner Crawford said.

The ancient city turned out to be a hellhole - and that's not even including having to deal with the sweltering heat while wearing 100 pounds of combat gear or the threat of being blown to pieces by car bombs.

"Baghdad stinks," Crawford said. "There's constant water in the street. There's no one to pick up the trash, so it all piles up outside. ... All the American toilet paper was clogging the Baghdad sewer system. It wasn't built to take it, so there's backed-up water everywhere and kids playing in it. Baghdad is just a dirty place."

Confusion was another constant. The American soldiers didn't speak Arabic. The locals existed on rumors or no information about what was going on. The electrical brown-outs were unpopular, and the Iraqis blamed the Americans for not restoring power.

"They said Saddam had the electricity in Baghdad back on two months after the first Iraq War," Crawford said. "It'd been two years after the start of the war when I was there, and the greatest nation on Earth couldn't even keep the lights on. It's understandable they're upset."

During his downtime, Crawford borrowed a buddy's laptop computer and began writing vignettes and stories about what he was seeing during the occupation. An embedded journalist from The Nation noticed him typing and struck up a conversation. That chat later led to Crawford getting an agent and landing a book deal with Riverhead Books, which is part of the mega-sized Penguin Group publishing house. But first he had to make it back to Florida after his year of living dangerously.

To sleep at night, while the sniper fire popped and bombs exploded outside his window, Crawford began eating Valium pills like candy. By the time he did get home to Tallahassee in 2004, he realized he had become addicted to the drug. He kicked it cold turkey on the bathroom floor.

Readjusting to civilian life was tricky.

"It's like being at a party and going into the bathroom for 15 months.," Crawford said. "When you come back everything has changed. What happened to the party? All the people that were there at the party have moved on. They're not having the same conversations as they did when you left. Everything has changed."

The extended tour also put a strain on his marriage. It's the one subject he wouldn't talk about and would only say "it's private."

Meanwhile, Crawford had a book to finish.

"I had written a few chapters in Iraq and had sent them off," he said. "I came back and, sort of, you know, got drunk for a couple of months. Then one day you wake up, and you realize you've got a little under three months to write a book. You've got to pay back the advance if you don't finish it. I figured I was in pretty rough shape. So I actually just sat down and set out a schedule. Every day I had to write so many pages. That's how I did it."

Iraq as a bar fight

"This book is brilliant," avid reader Berry Bowman said when he telephoned the Democrat unprompted with no other reason than to rave about "The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell."

"This guy is the real deal," Bowman said. "He gives it to you straight. He has a style. He's direct. He's not didactic. He tells you the way it is without having a political agenda. Anyone who wants to know what's really going on in Iraq should read this book."

Crawford said the reaction has been positive from his National Guard buddies who are featured prominently in the book.


"When they heard I was writing a book, they all wanted to know if I was writing a 'super liberal' book," Crawford said. "The ones I've talked to so far said they liked what I wrote."

"I had the privilege of serving with Spc. Crawford in Iraq," D.G. Rosenthal wrote in a review of "Last True Story" he posted on Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more.

"His book tells it exactly like it was, with no holds barred. It covers everything from our supply inadequacies, to command mismanagements, to the reality of the war that the media never took the time to cover. Crawford is a natural author, an expert at weaving an engaging story that grips the reader firmly and swiftly."

As far as Crawford's personal feelings about the ongoing war in Iraq, he put it best when he was on "Fresh Air" with Gross by saying:

"I liken it to getting in a bar fight. Occasionally, you know, you get drunk and you get in a fight because you think some guy's eyeballing you in the bar. And you wake up in the morning, and you say, 'Wow, that guy didn't deserve that at all.' But the morning is the time for regret. If you do it in the middle of the fight, then you still wake up feeling bad, but you got beat up, too."

For now, in addition to making the rounds on radio and TV chat shows, Crawford is speaking on college campuses around the country.

Oh, yeah, he's also working on finishing that longtime-coming degree from FSU - if only he can stay out of a war this time.

[Noob920]

Originally Posted by bornright

Iraqi war hero returns to King County Sheriff’s Office

After two tours of Iraq, a Purple Heart and a few medals, Deputy Cameron Lefler has returned to the King County Sheriff's Office. He received the Oath of Office on July 21st.
Several deputies from the Sheriff's Office were called to active duty over the last several years. But Deputy Lefler's story is different. He wasn't in the Reserves; he joined up after 9-11.



Cam Lefler became a deputy in March of 1993. But after September 11th, he was moved by patriotism and the need of the military for soldiers to fight the war on terrorism. So he took military leave and enlisted in the Marines in December of 2001…with a four-year commitment!

Fully expecting to be deployed to Afghanistan, he ended up in Iraq attached to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. He was in one of the first infantry units into Iraq. Cam was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal with a Combat V for valor.

Lefler's unit returned to the US in July 2003. He met and married his wife, and they have since had a son. Cameron was sent back to Iraq for a second tour, and spent time in Fallujah in April of 2004. He earned another Combat V for valor in combat, and the Purple Heart after he was nicked by an enemy's bullet.

He was sworn in again as a sheriff's deputy and was given the same badge he wore before he went to war. The badge was kept safe and sound for the last 3½ years, and the King County Sheriff's Department was very pleased Cameron returned, safe and sound, to wear it again!

The Oath of Office took place in the Sheriff's Office at the King County Courthouse. Deputy Lefler's wife and new son were in attendance. Cam is 36 years old.

I appreciate and respect Cameron Lefler.

TWO tours for an immoral illegal and fattening war for Halliburton, Goodyear and Burger King and Turner Broadcast Network????

How tightie whitey righty of him...

(Some people just don't understand commitment)

[Heretic]

My friend's likely looking toward a third tour in Iraq. You know how I honor him? By demanding he and the rest of the military stay home instead of going to Iraq.

Soldiers aren't afraid of the fight, but they'd rather be in the right on... in Afghanistan.

[Noob920]

Originally Posted by kblair7

Thank you, great post.

Agreed!

[Noob920]

Born to serve: The Michael Murphy story -- Newsday.com

About this report
This story is based on scores of interviews in the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with official records, military and media reports. To flesh out the story of the four U.S. Navy SEALs who were sent to Afghanistan to track a reputed terror leader, reporter Martin C. Evans spoke with U.S. Navy officials, family members and military colleagues of the four men. He also spoke with Navy officials about SEAL training, and with other military officials about conditions in eastern Afghanistan where the four SEALs were sent on their mission. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, reporter James Rupert spoke with experts on the fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. military officials, and the goat herder who rescued the lone survivor of a gun battle that took the lives of three of the SEALs

Comment: Michael Murphy posthumously recieved the Congressional Medal of Honor. May he rest in peace.

[bornright]

Army Staff Sgt. Ian Newland spotted the enemy grenade inside the Humvee. Almost simultaneously, he saw Spc. Ross McGinnis, 19 — a gunner standing in the turret of the vehicle — lower himself onto it.
"I saw him jam it with his elbow up underneath him," says Newland, who was sitting inches away. "He pressed his whole body with his back (armor) plate to smother it up against the radios."

The heat and flash of an explosion followed, and McGinnis was killed. Hours later, after surgery for shrapnel wounds, Newland realized the enormity of what happened: McGinnis had sacrificed himself to save four other soldiers in the Humvee on Dec. 4. "Why he did it? Because we were his brothers. He loved us," Newland says.

Since the Iraq war began, at least five Americans — two soldiers, two Marines and a Navy SEAL — are believed to have thrown themselves on a grenade to save comrades. Each time, the servicemember died from massive wounds.

[Kanadesaga]

Originally Posted by bornright

Army Staff Sgt. Ian Newland spotted the enemy grenade inside the Humvee. Almost simultaneously, he saw Spc. Ross McGinnis, 19 — a gunner standing in the turret of the vehicle — lower himself onto it.
"I saw him jam it with his elbow up underneath him," says Newland, who was sitting inches away. "He pressed his whole body with his back (armor) plate to smother it up against the radios."

The heat and flash of an explosion followed, and McGinnis was killed. Hours later, after surgery for shrapnel wounds, Newland realized the enormity of what happened: McGinnis had sacrificed himself to save four other soldiers in the Humvee on Dec. 4. "Why he did it? Because we were his brothers. He loved us," Newland says.

Since the Iraq war began, at least five Americans — two soldiers, two Marines and a Navy SEAL — are believed to have thrown themselves on a grenade to save comrades. Each time, the servicemember died from massive wounds.

Honorable men. How nice it would have been if they were allowed to wear Dragonskin armor instead of the bush buddy contract armor they have. I saw on Discovery Channel that Dragonskin actually survived a grenade explosion. But then again the inventor of Dragonskin was not a bush campaign contributor, so even the General who had Dragonskin had to stop wearing it. and that is how they support the troops. By not only giving them inferior equipment supplied by bush buddies, they do not allow the soldiers to have better equipment, even if they pay for it themselves.


Had they been wearing Dragonskin armor those 5 brave men would still be as brave, but also alive, to go home to wives, children and family.

[bornright]

(CNN) -- The elderly woman got stuck in a haze of smoke and bullets as she tried to cross a bridge south of Baghdad.

Capt. Chris Carter did not hesitate. He ordered his Bradley armored vehicle onto the bridge while he and two men followed on foot.

Taking cover from Iraqi bullets behind the bridge's iron beams, Carter tossed a smoke grenade for cover and dashed toward the crying woman.

Then the 31-year-old company commander pointed his M-16 rifle and provided cover for his men to carry the wounded woman to the safety of an ambulance.

Details of the March 31 rescue impressed readers around the world who read the account written by an Associated Press reporter riding with Carter and his troops.

But to his parents back in Watkinsville, Georgia, Carter's feat was not surprising.

"You can see they showed a lot of compassion," said his father, Michael Carter, 63. "That's Chris all the way."

The stocky soldier, who loves to hunt, fish and sing Hank Williams Jr. songs, told CNN a few weeks before he was sent into Iraq that he was ready for war.

"If our country asks us to go, we are absolutely ready to go," Carter said, looking confident standing in front of a tank in the Kuwaiti desert.

After rescuing the woman, Carter's unit -- the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division -- took control of the bridge and the whole town, Hindiya, within a matter of hours.

Searching the town's police station, they found three men who claimed they were taken prisoner for deserting the Iraqi army. Carter handed them some food rations after hearing they had not eaten in three days.

Before the day was over, Carter's troops also destroyed tons of ammunition and weapons found at the area's Baath Party headquarters.

In the days that followed, a constant stream of reports filed by The Associated Press turned Carter into a semi-battlefield celebrity -- a combination of deadly fighting machine, insightful commentator and quipster.

Take the comment he made to the AP after his troops seized Saddam Hussein's seat of power, the sprawling New Presidential Palace in central Baghdad: "I do believe this city is freakin' ours."

And then on April 14, the unit uncovered what one soldier called "Saddam's love shack," the '60s-style home of the deposed dictator's longtime mistress.

"Yeah, baaabeee," Carter joked with an AP reporter, doing his best imitation of film character Austin Powers.

His parents are collecting many of the news clippings for their son to see once he returns to Fort Stewart in Georgia.

Even though much has been reported about Carter, who joined the ROTC while attending the University of Georgia, his parents say there are still many acts of kindness the public does not know about.

Case in point: the "adopt-a-soldier" program he asked them to organize at their church in December so that his troops -- all 160 of them -- could have a wrapped present in Kuwait in time for Christmas.

"Captain Chris Carter displayed unparalleled bravery on the battlefield to save an innocent Iraqi woman," said U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia. "He loves his family, his country, not to mention fishing and Hank Williams Jr., too. Now that's my kind of all American hero."

[Noob920]

Originally Posted by bornright

(CNN) -- The elderly woman got stuck in a haze of smoke and bullets as she tried to cross a bridge south of Baghdad.

Capt. Chris Carter did not hesitate. He ordered his Bradley armored vehicle onto the bridge while he and two men followed on foot.

Taking cover from Iraqi bullets behind the bridge's iron beams, Carter tossed a smoke grenade for cover and dashed toward the crying woman.

Then the 31-year-old company commander pointed his M-16 rifle and provided cover for his men to carry the wounded woman to the safety of an ambulance.

Details of the March 31 rescue impressed readers around the world who read the account written by an Associated Press reporter riding with Carter and his troops.

But to his parents back in Watkinsville, Georgia, Carter's feat was not surprising.

"You can see they showed a lot of compassion," said his father, Michael Carter, 63. "That's Chris all the way."

The stocky soldier, who loves to hunt, fish and sing Hank Williams Jr. songs, told CNN a few weeks before he was sent into Iraq that he was ready for war.

"If our country asks us to go, we are absolutely ready to go," Carter said, looking confident standing in front of a tank in the Kuwaiti desert.

After rescuing the woman, Carter's unit -- the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division -- took control of the bridge and the whole town, Hindiya, within a matter of hours.

Searching the town's police station, they found three men who claimed they were taken prisoner for deserting the Iraqi army. Carter handed them some food rations after hearing they had not eaten in three days.

Before the day was over, Carter's troops also destroyed tons of ammunition and weapons found at the area's Baath Party headquarters.

In the days that followed, a constant stream of reports filed by The Associated Press turned Carter into a semi-battlefield celebrity -- a combination of deadly fighting machine, insightful commentator and quipster.

Take the comment he made to the AP after his troops seized Saddam Hussein's seat of power, the sprawling New Presidential Palace in central Baghdad: "I do believe this city is freakin' ours."

And then on April 14, the unit uncovered what one soldier called "Saddam's love shack," the '60s-style home of the deposed dictator's longtime mistress.

"Yeah, baaabeee," Carter joked with an AP reporter, doing his best imitation of film character Austin Powers.

His parents are collecting many of the news clippings for their son to see once he returns to Fort Stewart in Georgia.

Even though much has been reported about Carter, who joined the ROTC while attending the University of Georgia, his parents say there are still many acts of kindness the public does not know about.

Case in point: the "adopt-a-soldier" program he asked them to organize at their church in December so that his troops -- all 160 of them -- could have a wrapped present in Kuwait in time for Christmas.

"Captain Chris Carter displayed unparalleled bravery on the battlefield to save an innocent Iraqi woman," said U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia. "He loves his family, his country, not to mention fishing and Hank Williams Jr., too. Now that's my kind of all American hero."

Mine too.