Project Valour-IT

Update 2: It's almost Thanksgiving and this is about to wrap up - if I can ask you to reach and consider donating if you haven't - or consider on the the eBay auctions that are being held to benefit Valour-IT - everything you spend will go to helping wounded soldiers.

Update: We need more donors!! Donate, comment, and recognize that you're doing a Really Good Thing.

Even before I had a soldier of my own, I've been a big supporter of Soldier's Angels, the peer-to-peer organization that allows each of us to support the men and women of our military.

They are the kind of organization that is a no-brainer to get behind, regardless of your politics - because it's about providing support to the soldiers and their families.

Right now, they are running a fundraiser for Project Valour-IT, which provides speech-controlled laptops to wounded soldiers. I was at an event where Chuck Z talked about what it meant to him, as a wounded and recovering solder - to suddenly be able to send and get email, to surf the web, to write letters. What it meant to no longer be helpless in one area of his life and to begin the long walk to independence and recovery of himself. When you listen to stories like that, it's suddenly easy to understand why this is important.

We Get Stuff (1)

One of them is requests to link to worthy projects; one is a charity that aids malnourished kids around the world - the International Medical Corps.

Chosen out of 1,190 projects, "Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children" is now eligible to receive up to $1.5 million in funding. The project with the most votes receives $1.5 million, 2nd receives $500,000, 3rd $300,000, and 4th and 5th $100,000. The funding - made possible by your votes - would bring a vital lifeline to hungry and malnourished children around the world.

[If you have an AmEx card,] All you have to do is click here to vote for them, and email five or ten friends and ask them to do the same.

Take a minute, do some good.

Fnding Strength in Adversity: Ken Walters

Nortius Maximus sends this tip in:

"A former engineer who was disabled and living on benefits has turned his life around - after a stroke rewired his brain and turned him into an artist....

'I hated it in school. I was never really the arty type, more hands on. But I have to say wherever this new found love for art has come from it's certainly changed my life forever. Although I didn't realise it at the time, having a stroke was the biggest blessing in disguise I ever could have wished for."

A Honey of an Idea

Farouk Jiwa noticed an odd thing when he returned to his native Kenya. Jars of imported honey from Australia and the USA, even though Kenya is known around the world for its wildlife and flora, and has plenty of farmers operating just above subsistence levels.

He thought a bit. What if you could offer microcredit to Kenyan farmers, plus some basic training in beekeeping, at pre-screened sites? Then buy the honey at a guaranteed price. Market it locally and throughout Kenya, and possibly even beyond. Within its first 4 years of operation, it had 27% of the Kenyan honey market.

• The farmers get a money-making enterprise that satisfies a clear local demand, and gives them extra income: about $200-250 per year for its network of 2,500 Kenyan beekeepers. That makes a difference to a family, when national GDP per capita is $1,100 (2004 est.).
• The local crops (and wild plants, too) all get better pollination. Environmental benefit.
• Like all microcredit enterprises, it brings more women into the economy than traditional economic channels. This, in turn, gives them more control over their lives.
• Kenya's balance of trade improves slightly.
• Honey Care Africa (launched in 2000) can make money on both the microcredit and honey sales, in order to expand the program.

HCA's Kenyan market share is about 40% now, and the program has expanded to neighboring Tanzania. In a bit of a switch, Kenyan honey with the Honey Care Africa label can now be found at stores in the USA and Europe.

How do you lift people out of poverty? Through social entrepreneurship and approaches like this - Sustainable Local Enterprise Networks, as opposed to projects that mostly enrich a middle group of development "consultants," or funnel money to the Swiss bank accounts of dictators. Stuff that does good, and is sustainable, rather than just selling donor "feel good" while lining others' pockets. Congratulations, Farouk Jiwa.

Unbreakable You

The folks at St. Martin's Press were kind enough to send me a copy of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Jerry White's book 'I Will Not Be Broken: 5 steps to overcoming a life crisis'.

Now, because I tend to be such a deep thinker (irony alert...) I don't read many self-help books. I tend to think life is too complex to manage in five steps of any kind of process. But they had sent me the book, and I had some time to read...

..and I came away damn impressed. It's not a well-written book by any means; it follows the classic self-help model of point: example, example, example, example, restate point. But the message underneath is worthwhile enough - actually, let me restate that - the message underneath is one that people ought to know and the steps are ones that actually help you get there.

read the rest! »

The Black Sedan

The day I dropped Biggest Guy off at the recruiting center to be processed into the Army, I did so with the full awareness that at any time afterward, I could come home to find a car with an officer in it waiting to notify me of the worst possible news. In the back of my mind the image of that car is one that I constantly chase away - but it's one that I know all military families carry with them.

Last week, the car came calling for the family of one of BG's classmates.

Norman Michael "Ehren" Murburg died during the land nav portion of SFAS (the 'selection' for Special Forces). It's not yet clear what happened, but I'd been watching the Fayetteville weather with concern - it was well over 100 degrees, with smoke from fires and high humidity.

Please go share your condolences with his family, and think good thoughts for the loved ones he left behind.

More on this later. Today is just for mourning.

A Hero Leaves Us

From Bayou Renaissance Man:

A real heroine has just left us. If you want to know what true heroism is, take a few moments to think about her life.

Irena Sendler was a social worker in Warsaw, Poland, when Germany occupied that nation in 1939. Almost immediately the Jews of that city were confined in the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, which existed from 1940-1943. Even before the ghetto was established, Sendler began helping them.

...

Irena Sendler died today, May 12th, 2008, at the age of 98.

Vote Early And Often - Soldier's Angels

NZ Bear reminds me that Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels, is one of the fifteen semi-finalists in NBC’s "America’s Favorite Mom" contest. There are five categories, and she is nominated with two other mom's in the "military mom's" category. The winner receives a $250,000 cash prize, and Patti has said she'd like to use the money to build a ranch for soldiers and their families to vacation at with assistance from Angel families.

Tomorrow, Patti will be featured in the morning on NBC’s Today Show, and all day today (but ONLY today) folks will have the opportunity to vote for her at http://www.nbc.com/Americas_Favorite_Mom/ . Allegedly everyone can vote up to ten times per email address, so I'm hoping folks will vote early and often!

I've 'adopted' soldiers through Soldiers Angels, and donated to Project Valor-IT which provides speech-activated laptops to wounded solders - so I unqualifiedly support her and her work. Regardless of how you feel about the war, I'd hope we can all agree that the soldiers - particularly the wounded ones - deserve all the help we (and the government - but that's another story) can give them.

Kudos to Prime Minister Prodi

As Prime Minister of Italy, Mr. Prodi backed a 50-50 joint venture between Gazprom and Italy's Eni to pump 30 billion cubic meters of Russian gas through a pipeline called South Stream, scheduled to go on line in 2013. His position as Prime Minister is ending with the ascent of a center-right government, and Russia offered to put him in charge of the South Stream project. Why not? After all, Germany's Gerhard Schroeder had already traveled a similar path after losing power.

Prodi, to his credit, said no. That's the right decision, on a number of levels, and I thought it deserved mention and credit.

Gov. Jindal's Louisiana Sea Change

Good news story now. From, of all places, the New York Times (Feb 28/08). About a Republican governor, in Louisiana, who is actually creating major change there:

"Six weeks into the term of Gov. Bobby Jindal, an extensive package of ethics bills was approved here this week, signaling a shift in the political culture of a state proud of its brazen style. Mr. Jindal, the earnest son of Indian immigrants, quickly declared open season on the cozy fusion of interests and social habits that have prevailed among lobbyists, state legislators and state agencies here for decades. Mostly, he got what he wanted.

....Grudgingly, pushed by public opinion and business pressure, it went along. When the legislative session ended Tuesday, lawmakers had passed bills aimed at making their finances less opaque, barring their lucrative contracts with the state - some have been known to do good business with them - and cutting down on perks like free tickets to sporting events. The bills, which advocates say will put Louisiana in the top tier of states with tough ethics rules, now await Mr. Jindal’s signature, which should come early next week.

....The volume of grumbling suggested real change was afoot."

read the rest! »

Randy Simmons

We lost a SWAT officer here in Los Angeles last night; some goblin killed three people, called the police, and met the officers at the door with gunfire, killing one and wounding another.

The Daily News has a beautiful and honest piece on Officer Simmons and his colleagues (h/t LA Observed).

As he and my host spoke, I looked around the room and noticed 20-feet away a graying man of Asian descent at a table of mostly Hispanic officers. "Wow," I thought to myself. "I wish I could have brought the LA Times Editorial Board down here. Let them see the brutal, racist, lily-white LAPD that they so often blast. Let them see a black cop hugging a white cop like long lost brothers."

That Asian cop, Jim Veenstra, now lies in the same hospital where Randy Simmons succumbed, a bullet having felled him in the same fusillade.

The men of SWAT ... it is an all male organization by happenstance, not regulation ... are highly, highly professional. Their work is not a matter of bravado or testosterone, but of excellent performance focused on saving lives of innocents. Their standards are as inflexible as the laws of physics and ballistics that have the potential to decide the success ... or length - of their service. That’s truly their only commonality. They are of all colors and backgrounds, educations and diversions. But within their unique fraternity they are one.

It is a fraternity in the truest sense. Men bound by tacit agreement to give their lives not only for each other, but for complete strangers in the most volatile peril. There is little place for those who do not know the terror that is incumbent upon crossing a threshold to enter a room occupied not only by a killer whose dispatch will require brutal force, but by an innocent whose only hope for life is you. Those who do not know that fear - nor the professional dedication required to master it - would not have fit in that room. Which is perhaps why the highest ranking of the guests mingled strictly with other brass and departed within barely 30 minutes.

I've been on the fringes of that world, and have the highest respect for the people who can stand in it and face the terror that Bob Parry describes. All of us stand behind them, sheltered by them and by people like them from things we know exist and hope to never see.

Godspeed, Randy Simmons. Thank you, Robert Parry.

MLK Day 2008

I worry sometimes that MLK Day will become a generic holiday, like "President's Day" and we'll forget what it is we're supposed to be honoring today.

Last year, I reposted his 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail', and since bytes are cheap, I'll gladly do it again.

I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face Jeering, and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer.

They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My fleets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

read the rest! »

People You Should Know: Chris Terrill

Reporting from duty

Documentary maker Chris Terrill originally trained as an anthropologist. The 55 year old is a real documentary maker (unlike certain fat Americans I might name), and his specialty is humans in high-pressure situations. He covers these situations this by stepping right into high-pressure situations that have included war zones, then reporting from within. Somehow, he's lived to reach 55.

So what does he do when he decides to make 'Commando: On the Front Line' and follow a new group of would-be Royal Marines from training right through to service in Afghanistan? He puts himself through their boot camp, which is tougher than the US Marines. He becomes the oldest individual, and the only civilian, ever to complete training that washes out a lot of fit 19 year olds. Then he deploys with them to Afghanistan, going out on combat patrols and even fixing his bayonet at one point during a massive firefight.

That's pretty damn impressive. He says:

read the rest! »

Ben's Bells

I've got family in Tucson these days, so a project has come to my attention that's worth sharing. In 2002 Mare-Packard, an adjunct instructor for special education and rehabilitation, lost her 3-year-old son Ben to croup. In the painful aftermath, she found that the small kindnesses of strangers meant a lot to her - and the Ben's Bells project was born.

At first, ceramic bells were created and hung in public places, with an invitation to keep the bell and pass on kindness in return. Folks can still drop in and help make the bells, but in September 2005 the project kicked up a notch with weekly "bellings" for a person who makes the Tucson area a better, kinder place to live. Nominations are online.

To their credit, the Arizona Daily Star covers these events, with back stories that explain who the recipient is, what they do, and how they were nominated - q.v. the Nov 3/07 "Beads of Courage" winner. It's a good kind of hyper-local coverage that goes beyond the usual "negativity sells" approach, and works to help build communities rather than tear them down.

Nov 2007: The Face of Iraq

Take a look at this photo. Care to guess what it is?

OK, guessing over. It's from Michael Yon's recent dispatch:

"Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s [church]. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, "Come back to Iraq. Come home." They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. "Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq."

read the rest! »

The Democrats' Earmark "Reform" in Action....

Earmarks involve designating funds in spending legislation that must be used for a very particular purpose. While they can be a useful tool, they can also be a magnet for shady dealings and last-minute surprises. Indicted Naval ace and former Congressman Randy Cunningham's [R-CA] activities revolved around earmarks, for instance. So, too, did the kerfuffle where ABSCAM-scarred Rep. Jack Murtha [D-PA] threatened a legislator who questioned his earmarks. Past US national defense budgets have included everything from renovations to Washington's baseball stadium (based on the standings, a donation to hire players might have been better), to Utah watershed conservation, to the initial funding that got the war-defining Predator UAVs going. It's a mixed bag.

Meanwhile, The question is, how to separate the venal from the vital? One way is to see patterns of contributions from earmark beneficiaries, and The Sunlight Foundation undertook just such an investigation. On the House Armed Services Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, just 3 lawmakers (our old friend chair Jim Moran [D-VA/MBNA], Jack "ABSCAM bribes" Murtha [D-PA] and Pete Visclosky [D-IN] raised an average of $102,600 in campaign contributions in the first six months of 2007 from entities associated with firms they’ve favored with earmarks. The rest of the subcommittee have netted slightly more than $180,000 in total - or about $12,800 each on average, with some shining examples from both parties. The contrast is telling...

read the rest! »

"He's Got Balls" - Lord Drayson Leaves the UK Government to...

How fast?!?
(click to view full)

I think Armed Liberal has a new hero.

Lord Paul Drayson was an accomplished man when he entered Tony Blair's government. The founder of the needle-free vaccination firm PowderJect reaped over GBP 80 million, rose to a seat in the House of Lords, and went from an under secretary position to a full Ministry. He then went on to accomplish a great deal over 30 months as Britain's Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support. Britain has become the world's leading practitioner of availability-based support contracts for a wide range of weapons systems, major mergers of government departments have been undertaken to move that approach forward, and NAO audits have confirmed the effectiveness of the new approach. A Defense Industrial Strategy has been put in place that outlines key technical skills Britain believes it must retain, and industry consolidation and changes have followed in its wake as the industrial base moves to adjust. The country is now on track to buy full-size aircraft carriers for the first time in decades, and other shifts have begun, albeit slowly, in the land sector.

How do you top that? How about by submitting the most unusual, way-out, and flat-out interesting senior government official resignation letter I've ever seen. Or am likely to see in my lifetime.

Read the rest at Defense Industry Daily...

Russia's Baptist Astronomer

Russia Today carried a story that I liked a lot:

"An amateur astronomer from the Russian Republic of Adygea has built his own planetarium out of locally available materials. Victor Matyushin, a Baptist priest, explains the structure of the universe to his visitors, including from a religious point of view.... When the lights go off, the mystery of space unfolds. Using home-made projection devices, Matyushin shows his visitors Saturn and its rings, the sun and the stars. He says some guests are so fascinated that they come back several times. The place is open to everyone and free for all.... At 76, Viktor is full of hope that someday he’ll be able to save money for modern astronomy equipment. So he can share with his guests - young and old - even more secrets of the universe."

A religious person who also has a passion for science? That's not hard to believe at all. Civilization needs more of them.

Watch Both Of These...

A trackback from Redstate reminds me that today is St. Crispin's Day - famed for the battle of Agincourt and Shakespeare's great speech for King Harry.

I blogged it some time ago, and rewarded Branagh:

I don't care that Kenneth Branagh is reduced to being Harry Potter's [or Will Smith's - ed.] foil; I hope he's happy and healthy and being banged into insensibility by starlets every day for his incredible version of Prince Hal, in Henry V.

Every so often, an actor will nail a role so well that every time you pick up the book and read it, you hear the actor's voice, and when I quoted Shakespeare below, I heard Branagh's voice.

Here's the speech:

read the rest! »

...Give Us Mountains So We Can Learn To Climb...

Instapundit linked to this farewell (literally, sadly) lecture by Carnegie Mellon videogame and 3-D presentation professor Randy Pausch (creator of Alice, which I think is a really cool tool). He has terminal pancreatic cancer, and gave a farewell lecture which was stupendously moving - go read the whole thing.

But he said one thing that kind of riveted me.

Flashing his rejection letters on the screen, he talked about setbacks in his career, repeating: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things."

As someone who's experienced more than his share of setbacks, let me tell you the truth of that message. I'd hate to have lived a life with no walls for me to push against.

The best teachers, as always, teach us as much about life as anything else.

People You Should Know: Stanford et. al.

Well, someone has to tell the stories....

"It was supposed to be a routine security patrol in Mosul, Iraq, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, 2005. Army Pfc. Stephen Sanford and his fellow soldiers of the Company C, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska, planned to arrest suspected insurgents, take them back to the detention center and "relax, stretch out a bit." Instead, squad members would find themselves in an intense firefight.

"There was just this massive explosion," Sanford said. "You could see flashes and automatic weapons fire. It was sensory overload. It was incredibly loud. You could smell the gunpowder and the blood and the dust and dirt. My weapon started getting warm because I was firing so much. I mean, I still didn’t know what was going on." Meanwhile, nine members of a lead team that had gone inside a home ahead of Sanford were pinned down by enemy fire and trapped inside the kitchen. Sanford’s team evacuated the first unit, but the last soldier out of the house had been shot and lay helpless on the exposed street.

“I tried to stop his bleeding,” Sanford said. “I didn’t notice at the time I had run into a perfect line of sight for one of their snipers, and I was taking hits, and there were rounds bouncing off the pavement. I got hit, and I started bleeding out pretty bad.”

Nonetheless, Sanford continued trying to revive his fellow soldier, returned fire, shooting and killing an enemy, and continued CPR until he passed out from his own blood loss."

Just one story of several. Including... yep, someone shot in the butt-tocks.

No Astronauts: All Aboard the Orbital Express!

Is that a battery,
or are you just
happy to see me?
(click to view full)

Defense Industry Daily usually confines our coverage to procurements, but we also cover militarily significant field tests. A DARPA program called Orbital Express, which just achieved the first ever servicing of a satellite by another satellite in space, certainly qualifies (video link at DID). There are more tests to come, and their success will be watched closely in many quarters.

The Orbital Express advanced technology demonstration couples a prototype servicing satellite (ASTRO) and a surrogate next generation serviceable satellite (NextSat). Together, they are meant to test robotic, autonomous, on-orbit refueling and reconfiguration of satellites. If that were possible, it would mean faster, less risky missions to maintain and extend the lives of America's critical military satellite fleet - and the technology would have more than a few civilian/NASA uses, as well.

Read the rest on Defense Industry Daily...

Cathy Seipp

I'm getting my suit out for Cathy Seipp's funeral and reading the tributes to her while TG makes sure it's presentable (I don't dress up much any more...).

And read one by Jim Treacher that made me stop for a moment, because it perfectly summed up my feelings.

It's unbelievable that the whole time I knew this woman, she was living on borrowed time. (Not that a single one of us isn't, but she'd been given a specific return-by date. Which of course she ignored 10 times over.) I wish I'd appreciated her more. I wish she wasn't dead.

So do I, Jim, so do I.

People You Should Know: USAF Portraits in Courage

The US Air Force has a mini-site up called "Portraits in Courage: Airmen in the Fight." At the moment it profiles 21 exceptional individuals, and tells the stories of what they did to deserve inclusion.

Damn, looks like those jumpsuit guys actually do more than play volleyball and drink. You won't hear much about them in the media, so if you want to understand the kind of people that are putting it on the line, you'll just have to give the site a visit.

Tufte

I took a class yesterday - more of a 1000 person lecture - with Edward Tufte, the author of four excellent books on 'analytic design.'

It was a great class on design, and as someone who prepares large presentations about once a month, his excoriation of Powerpoint had me waving my hands in the air.

But there are two deep philosophies, maybe three, that I saw in his work yesterday that have me in that post-'Zen slap to the head' kind of mode, where I see things but can't yet articulate them. And it has to do with a connection I'm seeing between his work and two issues that are very important to me - agile development and management, 4th generation warfare, and the political theory of praxis (in Aristotle's sense).

I'm going to try to noodle through this in a few posts today and tomorrow.

read the rest! »

People You Should Know: Royal Marines Strap Selves to Apache Helos to Rescue Comrade in Afghanistan...

Ride 'em in...
(click to view full)

Military equipment is often used in ways its manufacturers never imagined, let alone intended. A fine illustration of this principle in action came to us from the Garmsir area in Helmland Province, southern Afghanstan, earlier this month. The UK MoD release, which includes links to video of the overall operation, described the incident this way [I've added appropriate links]:

"The UKTF met ferocious Taliban fire from all sides. As planned, Z Company then withdrew back to the far side of the Helmand river having successfully completed their objective. The engagement lasted for approximately five hours.... Having fought for a period, the Marines regrouped. When they discovered Lance Corporal Ford was missing.... An initial plan was hatched to use Viking vehicles but they eventually concluded that the Apache WAH-64 attack helicopters would provide a quicker and safer means to get him out and back to safety. And so four troops were strapped to the small side 'wings' of two Apaches, two to each helicopter. A third Apache provided aerial cover, and further units laid down a mass of covering fire while the other two Apaches landed. All four men got off, as well as some of the aircrew, to provide additional firepower and to assist with the recovery of Lance Corporal Ford...."

Read the full article for the rest of the story. Since then, the UK Ministry of Defence has released photos and video from the operation that includes the WAH-64s with Royal Marines on board.

No Ditz Left Behind

This past weekend I was surfing through TV channels while making a long-overdue attempt at organizing some records when I chanced on the Steven Seagal movie Under Seige. While I'm an admirer (and one time beginning student) of his martial art (Aikido, not Karate-do), I seldom watch action movies of that sort so I missed this one when it came out in 1992. I gather it attracted a large audience at the time though. Watching it, I can see why.

It's all about that deep American value: No Ditz Left Behind

read the rest! »

MLK Day - More Than Just A Bank Holiday

It's Martin Luther King day - actually and respectfully, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day - and it's worth taking a moment to note how far we've come and how far we have to go.

As I've noted a long time ago, I'm ethnically a mutt, and was raised in a fairly eclectic way (in no small part by men who worked for my father - black and white rural immigrants to California who had found a good measure of success working in the construction industry). I went to black churches as a child as well as Southern Baptist ones and Beverly Hills synagogues for my friend's Bar Mitzvah's.

I've also lived in France and seen firsthand what real racism looks like.

So I'll suggest a few things; first and foremost that Dr. King and the black and white men and women who marched with him, the other leaders who pushed to end de facto and de jure segregation in the United States did us a colossal favor. The legacy of black slavery and oppression post-Civil War had ossified into a social and legal structure that shamed and hobbled our nation.

We're two-and-a-half generations past a white governor standing in the schoolhouse door, and while we're not done yet, I'll say with some certainty the world my sons will inherit is a far better world than it would have been absent Dr. King and all the other civil rights leaders who we are honoring in his name today.

Folks You Ought to Know: Cpl. Bryan Budd, VC

Britain has just awarded its second Victoria Cross since the Falklands War. For all you Yanks out there, this is the British Commonwealth's highest award for military valour. Note that the "VC" has been won by many non-British soldiers from the Commonwealth for their service in common campaigns.

Corporal Bryan Budd, of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment (3 PARA, a subset of the 16th Air Assault Brigade), has been posthumously awarded this medal. His citation references not one but two incidents, and reads:

read the rest! »

People You Should Know: PFC Ross A. McGinnis

There are many kinds of strength. Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis packed only 136 pounds into his 6-foot frame, and the 19 year-old was the youngest Soldier in Company C, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. On December 4, McGinnis was manning the gunner's hatch when an insurgent tossed a grenade from above. It flew past McGinnis and down the hatch before lodging near the radio. Cut to his platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Cedric Thomas:

The 19-year-old mechanic from Knox, PA likely saved the lives of four Soldiers riding with him on a mission in the Adhamiyah section of Baghdad. "Pfc. McGinnis yelled 'Grenade... It's in the truck,' I looked out of the corner of my eye as I was crouching down and I saw him pin it down. He had time to jump out of the truck. He chose not to."

HE. CHOSE. NOT. TO. The Silver Star Medal was approved for McGinnis's action and will be awarded posthumously. Full story.

Heroes

[Greetings once again from Chester of The Adventures of Chester. If you like these posts here at Winds, please visit my blog and see if you find something you like there.]

The new NBC series Heroes is very entertaining. The premise is that a number of regular people all over the globe -- about 10 or so -- have discovered that they have incredible powers. These are the usual comic book-type of powers, but that doesn't make them uninteresting. Indestructible bodies, the ability to fly, painting the future, hearing others' thoughts, and bending time and space are among those skills. It's a great show and I recommend it.

The most interesting part is each character's reaction to the discovery of these skills. Some want to deny them, others immediately see themselves as freaks, several aren't sure just exactly what is happening, and one in particular knows that he is a superhero and must now save the world.

The sudden discovery of unknown power then becomes a moral question: how best to use it? For good or evil? And how to determine what is good and what is evil?

read the rest! »

Ali Eteraz of the Moriquendi

Ali Eteraz:

"More than any maulana, my morality is a by-product of a dark elf named Drizzt Do'Urden....."

If you get that reference, you really ought to read this (just ignore the comments section, which serves mostly as an advertisement for Drizzt's approach to trolls). If the above is gobbledygook to you, well, you still might learn a few things. Including a few that have applications rather beyond the issues of the day.

Col. Cooper on Heroism

Though this was apropos in light of Marc's tribute. From his Winter '06 writings:

"We talk a lot about heroes and heroism today. In doing so we denigrate the term. Heroism, properly speaking, is rare. Everybody I knew in World War II, fought because he wanted to, but of course combat duty does not necessarily involve death. That it involves the chance of death in the line of duty is perhaps commendable, but it is not heroic. The term "above and beyond the call of duty" is indefinable, since anything that you can do is what you should do. [JK: one could argue that this single sentence is the essence of David Blue's "Primal Heroic Response"]

Lord Nelson defined the heroic death at Trafalgar.

read the rest! »

Jeff Cooper

In 1980, at the suggestion of a friend, I signed up for a class in "Basic Pistol" at the American Pistol Institute, in Paulden Arizona. My friend was new to shooting, while I thought I pretty much knew what there was to know (in that way I was a typical American male) and so I showed up expecting very little.

What I got was quite different.

The class was taught by Col. Jeff Cooper, who died at his home on the grounds of API yesterday.

read the rest! »

A Different Kind of Hero

A friend of mine is working on this effort, and was gracious enough to invite me. It wasn't possible to be there, but I thought it was precisely the kind of story that helps create the society we value. How often do those stories get publicity? Time to fix that:

"For more than 50 years, Dr. Leslie A. Geddes has been making a positive impact on lives. From developing pacemakers to implantable defibrillators, from non-invasive neonatal monitoring devices to tissue replacements, Dr. Geddes has enriched the quality of life for millions. Even at 85, he arrives at work at 4:30 a.m. each morning, pushing ahead research that will affect millions more. On Friday September 22, 2006, a distinguished panel will lead friends, leaders of industry, alumni, and students in paying tribute to a man who has not merely put forth practical results, but has also helped shape education, and in the process influenced the biomedical leaders of today and tomorrow."

Basically, if you know someone with an implantable defibrillator, they owe their life to Dr. Geddes - he and his team derived 2 of the 3 laws of defibrillation of the heart, and have developed or helped develop major devices. Likewise, if you know of someone who has had major parts of the body replaced with a product called SIS, well, guess where that bit of rejection-proof scaffold comes from. Along the way Dr. Geddes has also published more than 800 articles, 20 books, and holds more than 30 patents.

Wafa Sultan was dead-on when she told that Islamist that we are not a people of one book, but of many. Dr. Geddes has written some important ones. Purdue University will be streaming video of their new building dedication and a symposium re: Geddes work that features various speakers from the biomedical industry; the streamed symposium starts at 1:30 pm Eastern Time (GMT minus 5 hous). Thank-you, Dr. Geddes.

Steve Irwin, the Love-of-Nature Hunter

Damnation.

Dead by the barb of a Stingray, right to the heart. Mourned all around the globe. Including the (correct) offer of a full state funeral in Australia - and the (by Australian standards, equally correct) refusal on the grounds that all he ever wanted to be was a regular bloke.

Sometimes, being a spectacular failure isn't the worst thing in the world.

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Godspeed, Michael

Back in January, I wrote about our friend Michael Richard - a musician who, when he lost his sight, became a photographer.

A malignant tumor in his one good eye cost him his sight, and he found out two weeks ago that he had cancer elsewhere in his body. This weekend, his health collapsed, and this morning he died.

TG and I have watched Michael and his wife Patrice as they faced the hardships and anxiety that came with Michael's illness. And I have been filled with admiration for their resilience, determination, and optimism.

Michael and his band played at our wedding, and he told me he was happy to be a part of our day of joy. Today, I'm happy to read such a public acknowledgement of his deserved success.

I can only comment on the courage - the physical and moral courage - that he displayed every day. Every time we talked he was positive, excited, and hopeful; ready to take on any challenges the day might bring.

I'll try and carry that around with me and hope that my memories of him bring me some of his courage.

You can see some of his photos here.

Oliver Stone's 9/11 Movie - and Some Thoughts on Courage

Rev. Paul W. McNellis of the fine group blog Democracy Project discusses Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie, which I've been avoiding for obvious reasons. But Stone surprised him by actually making a movie for a change. The review, worth reading in full, ends with this:

"Courage as a virtue is increasingly misunderstood in our society, especially among the keyboard class. As our lives become more comfortable and protected, we forget who does the protecting. A better understanding of this might bring solace to those family members whose lost loved ones are not explicitly mentioned in this film.

McLoughlin and Jimeno are courageous not because they survive under the rubble. They are trapped. They don't want to be there. One of them even wonders if the whole day was pointless: they saved no one. But it was their courage that put them there, back when they still had a choice. For the many who didn't survive, their "yes," their "I got it, Sarg," began when they became one of those who protect the rest of us.

By choosing a narrow focus, Mr. Stone has done well something Hollywood almost never does. He's given us a glimpse, a reminder, of people like those we all know, people living good lives by doing the little things day after day that good people do: Loving your spouse, trying to be a good parent, doing your duty. We are surrounded by such people but tend to take them for granted. Often, they're no further away from us than the next room."

Ah, Sheepdogs....

Say It Ain't So...

From Yahoo News:

LONDON (AP) The Phonak cycling team says it has been notified of a positive doping test by Tour de France winner Floyd Landis.

One Word...

LANDIS!!

One Small Step...

Just thought I'd take a second to remind people that today, 37 years ago, Neal Armstrong set foot on the moon. It's worth it to take a moment and remember what we're capable of as a species and a people.

We rented one disc of the great miniseries 'From The Earth To The Moon', and then went ahead and bought it.

One reason I love this series so much is that it honors not only the astronauts, but all the people in white polyester short-sleeved shirts who stood behind them and made the machines that took them on their voyages.

We don't tend to value those people much these days, and we ought to. I had dinner (with a LA Times journalist, no less - Susan Carpenter, their new motorcycle columnist) in Los Feliz a while ago, and one thought I had as a walked past the cafes full of well-travelled, well-dressed tattooed hipsters was that they would look on those guys with contempt. But they couldn't have built an airplane, a motorcycle - or the loom their clothes were made on - to save their lives.

Let's take a moment today and honor the men and women who can.

[I'm arithmetic-challenged today...fixed.]

Soldier Extends Iraq Tour to Finish work with Fallujah Womens Center

Spirit of America has an inspiring, even jaw-dropping story to tell:

"LtCol Gude took over work on the Fallujah Women's Center project upon her arrival in Al Anbar Province. A project of this type can often take many months for completion. With all our best efforts, there were still some pieces of the project left undone as LtCol Gude's deployment from Iraq approached. She decided to request an extension of her time in Iraq to follow the completion of the Fallujah Women's Center and to insure the delivery and installation of all donated equipment." (emphasis mine)

Lt. Col. Gude, US Marine Corps, has a family and two small children waiting for her at home. Unsurprisingly, Spirit of America sent her a letter of effusive thanks. She responded with the following letter:

Read the rest @ GNFF

Lt. Col. Gordon Roberts: Someone You Should Know

Lt. Col. Gordon Roberts won The Congressional Medal of Honor at the age of 17, deep in Vietnam's Thua Thien Province. Older but still about 130 pounds soaking wet, he's back leading US troops in Kuwait, and voluntarily accompanies convoys into Iraq.

"From high school and Vietnam, civilian life and his present military career, Roberts built his philosophy on leadership. He also learned from a hero, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

�He always sat in his chair -- even in overtime he never got up. He did this because he believed his job was done by that point,� he added. �He believed that if he had taught the players all they needed during the year, they would do well.�

Roberts frequently joins convoy missions to Iraq and enjoys riding along and watching from the back seat. He observes his troops but does so from a distance. Though he has more experience and stories than most, he has faith in his troops the way Wooden had in his players, he says.

�I let the convoy commanders do their job even though I outrank them. It is their job,� he said as he further explained his leadership philosophy. �That young Soldier up front is going to have to make a decision. Their decisions are the ones the rest of the company is going to have to live with. My job is to make sure Soldiers are prepared to make those decisions.�

Liberté, Humanité, Clarté, Éclairé: Jean-Francois Revel, RIP

Liberty has lost an irreplaceable champion. There are many advocates for western civilization and its freedoms in our world, and each and every one of them makes a difference. Of them all, French Academie Francaise member and "immortal" Jean-Francois Revel may have been the greatest.

Liberty. Humanity. Clarity. And an intelligence that enlightened, revealed, and challenged you every step of the way. Others will step up, and join the love story that he was a part of, and aim at the same things. They will take their place in our civilization's long chain - but those who rise to Revel's level are never really replaced. Was de Tocqueville ever replaced? Baron Montesquieu? It is enough that we had them for a short while, borrowed treasures that left something of themselves behind.

He has fought the good fight, and laid down a pen mightier than a brigade of swords. If there is a Heaven, he goes now to its Elysian Fields.

Au revoir notre pere, notre ami (1924-2006). May we prove worthy of your legacy.

UPDATE: Jeremayakovka has a tribute, and some links.

Heroes and Neighbors

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in my backyard this week, and would to the gods I had been able to get away and see her. She's been making the rounds of East Coast America's establishment, including NPR and PEN, where Ron Chernow confirmed my bad opinion of him, carried over from his puzzlingly popular Alexander Hamilton book, by giving her an introduction that was more an apology than an endorsement.

It would be enormously enjoyable to see her visit places like Atlanta and Birmingham on her American tour, where she'd shake up minds and hearts in a different fashion and no doubt get a warm and heroic reception. But she is going deliberately into the fetid dragon's dens of modern leftism, with a message meant to unsettle sleeping reptiles and prod them into thought.

�My criticism of the West, especially of liberals, is that they do take freedom for granted,� Ms. Ali responded. She noted that Western Europeans born after World War II are unused to conflict. �They have lost the instinct to recognize that there can be such a thing as an enemy or a threat to freedom, and that�s what I�m witnessing in Europe now,� she stated. �[There is] a pacifist ideology that violence should never be used in any circumstances, and so we should talk and talk and talk. Even when your opponent tells you, �I don�t want to talk to you, I want to destroy you,� the reaction is, �Please, let�s talk about the fact that you want to destroy me!� �

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Jannstein

OK, this is just too funny.

I enjoy watching myself ride the bicycle on TV, crushing the souls of the weak. I do not enjoy watching the OLN on the TV, where the announcers swing from Lance Armstrong's ******** as if they were a trapeze.

Who I'd like to meet:

I