For his actions at Combat Outpost Keating as recounted in Jake Tapper's excellent book, The Outpost, Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha will receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony scheduled for 1:30pm EST today.

The Army's official narrative:

At 6 a.m., Oct. 3, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating in Kamdesh District, Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, came under complex attack by an enemy force estimated at 400 fighters. The fighters occupied the high ground on all four sides of the combat outpost and initiated the attack with concentrated fire from B10 recoilless rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, known as RPGs, DSHKA heavy machine gun fire, mortars, and small-arms fire.

Staff Sgt. Clinton L. Romesha displayed extraordinary heroism through a day-long engagement in which he killed multiple enemy fighters, recovered fallen Soldiers, and led multiple recovery, resupply, and counterattack operations.

At initial contact, Romesha pushed to the Long Range Advanced Scout Surveillance vehicle battle position 1, or LRAS 1, under heavy enemy fire to ensure that the MK-19 automatic grenade launcher and Spc. Zachary S. Koppes were in the proper sector of fire and engaging enemy targets. After ensuring that Koppes was suppressing enemy activity in his sector, Romesha moved to the barracks and grabbed an MK-48 machine gun and an assistant gunner, Spc. Justin J. Gregory.

Moving through an open and uncovered avenue that was suppressed with a barrage of RPGs and small-arms fire, Romesha grabbed a limited amount of cover behind a generator and engaged a machine gun team that was on the high ground to the west. After destroying this team, he acquired an additional machine gun team that was firing an overwhelming amount of fire into the LRAS 2 from the switchbacks. As he was engaging, an RPG struck the generator and knocked him onto his assistant gunner. He quickly assessed Gregory and determined that he was fine. Not noticing his own wounds, Romesha re-engaged the enemy with his weapon system until an additional Soldier arrived to man the machine gun, at which point Romesha moved back through the open avenue to the barracks to assemble an additional team. Once at the barracks, Spc. Thomas C. Rasmussen noticed RomeshaÂ’s wounds and provided first aid.

Romesha assembled a five-man team and instructed them to load up on ammunition and crew-served weapons. While they were preparing, he again moved out to check on Koppes, grabbing the only accessible sniper rifle along the way, a Dragunov belonging to the Afghan National Army. Despite having only a basic knowledge with the foreign weapon, Romesha engaged multiple enemy positions on the north face, including a machine gun nest and sniper position. While continuing to expose himself to heavy enemy fire, Romesha engaged the enemy positions until they were no longer effective.

After engaging those targets, he moved back to the link up with his team. Enroute to that location, he saw three Taliban fighters who had breached the combat outpostÂ’s outer perimeter and were moving toward the laundry trailer. With a sense of calmness that inspired his Soldiers, Romesha engaged and destroyed the three targets with the Dragunov rifle and moved to the tactical operations center to give 1st Lt. Andrew L. Bunderman a report confirming that enemy forces were indeed moving inside the wire.

Identifying the essential need for ammunition, Romesha planned and led a mission to secure the ammunition supply point. Under withering fire and multiple RPG strikes, Romesha pushed his team to secure the ammunition supply point. In an attempt to provide covering fire for his maneuvering forces, Romesha used an M-240B machine gun team to secure a stronghold at a sandbagged position. He then led the team to clear the area support group commanderÂ’s quarters, and once the building was clear, he solidified his position to provide multiple sectors of fire to suppress the high ground to the west and the south.

While an enemy fighter attempted to breach the wire near RomeshaÂ’s location, a member of his team was shot in the arm, so Romesha returned accurate M-4 fire and threw multiple hand grenades to destroy the enemy fighter. Romesha evacuated the casualty and returned to improve his position. In doing so, Romesha engaged targets and suppressed enemy forces to allow the remaining Soldiers at LRAS 2 and Truck 1 battle positions an opportunity to break contact back to friendly forces. Romesha coordinated and led his men to clear the ammunition supply point and then set up positions to secure it. Once the ammunition supply point was secure, Romesha determined that the entry control point was the next obstacle that needed to be reinforced, because it was the only remaining enemy avenue of approach to the tactical operations center and aid station from the northwest.

As 3rd Platoon provided a base of fire to cover the assault on the entry control point building, Romesha led his team to secure and reinforce the entry control point building using an M-203 and a squad automatic weapon. After the entry control point was secured, enemy fighters engaged with a new intensity, sending a barrage of RPGs and B10 rounds into the building. Romesha informed the tactical operations center that the rounds were originating from the village of Urmul and the Afghan National Police checkpoint directly to the front of the entry control point. Calling grid coordinates to the enemy locations, Romesha enabled the critical 120mm mortars and air support to drop in Urmul and the checkpoint. As a result, more than 30 enemy forces were destroyed and Romesha and his men were able to hold the entry control point. RomeshaÂ’s reporting and ability to direct air and indirect fire assets allowed friendly forces to gain and maintain this critical objective.

After receiving reports that there were still friendly forces at LRAS 2, Romesha provided an overwhelming amount of covering fire to allow Sgt. Bradley D. Larson, Spc. Ty Carter, and Pfc. Stephan L. Mace, who was seriously injured, to withdraw from a previously pinned down location. Once the three Soldiers arrived at the aid station, 3rd Platoon was instructed to maneuver and support RomeshaÂ’s next objective: to recover personnel killed in action at the LRAS 2 vehicle battle position. Due to heavy fire, 3rd Platoon was unable to maneuver, but Romesha decided to push anyway without the necessary suppressive and covering fire. Under overwhelming enemy small-arms fire and RPG fire, with little support or covering fire, RomeshaÂ’s team pushed through 100 meters of enemy fire with few covered positions along the way. Upon arriving at the objective, they evacuated the bodies of two American heroes, Sgt. Justin T. Gallegos and Sgt. Vernon W. Martin. This maneuver, with great risk to himself and his Soldiers, prevented the enemy fighters from taking the American bodies off the combat outpost.

Throughout the day, Romesha understood the risks he was taking, and he knowingly put his life in danger to save the lives of his Soldiers and repel a numerically superior enemy force. Romesha was personally responsible for killing more than 10 enemy fighters with either a Dragunov, an M-4 or an MK-48, and an estimated 30 anti-Afghanistan forces with indirect fire and air support. He also led his men in killing a minimum of five others beyond that. Romesha recovered his fallen Soldiers and preserved the lives of several more. His heroic actions allowed B Troop to reconsolidate on the combat outpost and enabled him to lead the counterattack that secured Combat Outpost Keating.

Well done, Sergeant Romesha, and God bless you.

More from:

Army Times - Hero of COP Keating battle to receive MoH

CNN - An American hero: The uncommon valor of Clint Romesha

This Ain't Hell - SSG Clinton Romesha to be awarded the Medal of Honor

XBradTC - SSG Clinton Romesha more...

Posted by: andy at 06:30 AM | Comments (275)
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This falls into the "damn, I wish I'd written that" category: David Wong, humorist and editor at Cracked.com, wrote a really splendid essay about Effort. Here's a taste:

I really think Effort Shock has been one of the major drivers of world events. Think about the whole economic collapse and the bad credit bubble. You can imagine millions of working types saying, "All right, I have NO free time. I work every day, all day. I come home and take care of the kids. We live in a tiny house, with two shitty cars. And we are still deeper in debt every single month." So they borrow and buy on credit because they have this unspoken assumption that, dammit, the universe will surely right itself at some point and the amount of money we should have been making all along (according to our level of effort) will come raining down.

All of it comes back to having those massively skewed expectations of the world. Even the people you think of as pessimists, they got their pessimism by continually seeing the world fail to live up to their expectations, which only happened because their expectations were grossly inaccurate in the first place.

Posted by: Monty at 04:15 AM | Comments (124)
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I saw this clip as it happened this morning and had to rewind it and watch it again to make sure he really said what I thought he did. (emphasis added)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared on CBS NewsÂ’ Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer on Sunday where he pledged to try to block the nominations of both Chuck Hagel and John Brennan in an effort to get more information about the 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi out of President Barack Obama.

Watch the whole clip; he really lays it on the SCOAMF.

Good on him, and I hope he follows through. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:17 PM | Comments (339)
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An old British reality TV show called Space Cadets took a group of people with little science education and transported them to a Russian cosmonaut-training station. And then sent three of them -- the winners -- up into near-earth orbit for five days.

Except they didn't do any of that -- it was a hoax perpetrated on the contestants. They didn't go to Russia, but rather just an abandoned American AF base in Britain made to look like Russia. And they didn't go to "near earth orbit" (with full earth gravity simulated by "gravity compensators"), they just went into a small space station set.

This isn't a real recommendation because I'm not sure how much other people will like it. I thought it was pretty watchable, though. It's not really that funny-- unlike other hoax shows like Joe Schmo, they've got a lot of money sunk on this set up (4.5 million pounds, I read) so they're pretty afraid to break out ridiculous comedy bits. The situation is already so implausible that they don't offer many Silly Comedy Antics to make it even more implausible.

It all on YouTube (as of this post), so who knows, maybe you're interested.

Part 1 of Episode 1 here.

I have no idea if this is Something. Reminds me of a Mission: Impossible episode. Which one? Kind of all of them. They did this every other week.

Cruelty Factor: I know a lot of people hate cruelty (I do too). Based on the reveal, it looks like all the contestants are only giggling-embarrassed about it, not distraught and not humiliated.

They are, however, as one says, "a bit heartbroken." But, spoiler, they do get to go into the real zero-g simulator "The Vomit Comet" as a reward. So, not a total loss as far as space-cadet training. Not as good as going into space, but it something.

Yes, the Space Cadets are not especially bright. I wouldn't say they're dumb, but they're not exactly Rocket Scientists. In fact, they note at the beginning they specifically screened out anyone who knew anything about astronomy or science (or anything, really) due to the fact that their central justification for Full Weight in Space -- "gravity compensators" -- was such a difficult pill to swallow.

I think I mostly liked this not because of the humor or hoax value, but because it really made me want to go into space. I pretty much just watched this thinking I wish this were real.

So I don't really look down on the would-be cosmonauts. They wanted it to be real too.

In related news, Deb Feyerick from CNN was just cast for the American version.

Language Warning: I forgot: this being British tv, they don't edit out the f-bombs, which are plentiful.

Below: In the beginning of the video, the "cosmonauts" see "the earth from space."

One explanation: One of the "cosmonauts" is actually an actor who's in on the con. He's there to help convince the actual contestants. So when you see a guy saying "I know where I am," that's the actor, making the odd point that even though he knows it's a hoax, parts of his brain find it sort of convincing. I suppose it's like seasickness, where your eyes are in conflict with what your inner ear is telling you.

That's an interesting point that gets made a lot: Subconsciously, these people know it's all fake. One girl actually speaks out in a nightmare, her brain revealing the truth about the "Russians" at space camp: "They're not foreign... Not foreign... Not foreign."

But by morning she's back at training -- her subconscious having shouted her the truth but her active mind having not heard it.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (144)
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There's a lot of heavy stuff going down, dude.

Asteroids!

Drones!

Snowpocalypse!

Gun Control!

With each we must seek out the lighter side lest we become part of the bitter, clinging.... well, you know.

Despite all that's going on around us, I'd still have to say, this number would play a prominent role in my curtain call.

Imagine you are writing the score for this musical called life. What would be your opening number? Your closing number? What number would best express your feelings upon the birth of your child?

Write your own score. Nobody can do it like you can.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:22 AM | Comments (252)
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Asteroids, huh?

Well I guess that explains all the snow.

/CNN

Posted by: andy at 02:59 AM | Comments (330)
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Good morning morons and moronettes, and welcome the Sunday Morning Book Thread.

On last week's book thread, what with the Africa theme and all, I should have mentioned the novels of The British author H. Rider Haggard. He wrote a crapload of adventure novels, the most well-known are probably King Solomon's Mines, She, and Allan Quartermain. Pretty much all of Haggard's novels were set in Africa, a dark and mysterious, yet exotically attractive locale in the Victorian English mind. They're available for free on Gutenberg or really cheap on Kindle.

I first found out about Haggard through no less a writer than C.S. Lewis, who mentioned him in his essay 'On Stories', specifically, how the Hollywood movie version of King Solomon's Mines ruins everything Lewis enjoyed about the ending of the book.

That essay by Lewis, by the way, is a good one to read, particularly for writers.

But getting back to this morning's topic...

Two Views

Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois were two leaders of the early, post-slavery-era black civil rights movement. I've selected them because they each represent two different philosophies of how African-Americans should best recover from the injustices imposed on them by slavery and racism.

Here is Wikipedia's description of Washington's approach:

Washington advocated a "go slow" approach to avoid a harsh white backlash.[16] The effect was that many youths in the South had to accept sacrifices of potential political power, civil rights and higher education.[17] His belief was that African-Americans should "concentrate all their energies on industrial education, and accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South." [18] Washington valued the "industrial" education, as it provided critical skills for the jobs then available to the majority of African-Americans at the time, as most lived in the South, which was overwhelmingly rural and agricultural. He thought these skills that would lay the foundation for the creation of stability that the African-American community required in order to move forward. He believed that in the long term "blacks would eventually gain full participation in society by showing themselves to be responsible, reliable American citizens." His approach advocated for an initial step toward equal rights, rather than full equality under the law. It would be this step that would provide the economic power to back up their demands for equality in the future.[19]

In contrast, Du Bois

...insisted on full civil rights and increased political representation, which he believed would be brought about by the African-American intellectual elite. He referred to this group as the talented tenth and believed that African Americans needed the chances for advanced education to develop its leadership.

[He] wanted blacks to have the same "classical" liberal arts education as upscale whites did, along with voting rights and civic equality. He believed that an elite he called the Talented Tenth would advance to lead the race to a wider variety of occupations

Naturally, these two views resulted in two different agendas, and they butted heads: more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:55 AM | Comments (143)
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Housekeeping

This thread will henceforth be known as the "Gun Thread".

When I started it, "Guns & Hunting" seemed like a good idea. Like "NASCAR & Hot Rods" or "Boats & Fishing".

But that was before the left's full-court press for gun control. And, of course, they love to say things like "we do skeet all the time" or "we respect traditions of hunting" ... blah, blah, blah ... to obfuscate their true aim of banning all firearms.

The fact is, the federal & state governments can and do regulate hunting as much as they want, and there's really no 2nd amendment issue invoked at all. Not so with firearms ownership in general.

I think having a thread called "Guns & Hunting", even if just in a very small way, reinforces this non-existent linkage, so I'm going to drop the "& Hunting". I'll still post on hunting some, but it'll be in a separate thread.

Los Angeles Destroys Another Gun Grabber Myth

Just a couple of weeks ago, New York passed a very restrictive gun control law in the dead of night. In their haste, they forgot to exempt law enforcement officers and former law enforcement officers, to which I say "good!". Especially as to the latter.

My dad has been an LEO for over 35 years, so I understand why people who carry a firearm on the job for that long would feel entitled to keep carrying one. But, I'm sorry, a better word for "former law enforcement officer" is "civilian".

Like the 'we heart hunting' dodge, this is another one the left uses to subvert 2nd amendment rights. Why, of course the police should be exempt from [assault weapons ban, high-capacity magazine ban, etc.].

And then came Christopher Dorner, a spree-killer ex-cop, to prove why these guys should be the only ones with guns, as I'm sure the relatively lightly-armed citizenry (thanks to California's gun control laws) in the area of the manhunt will attest to.

Speaking of the manhunt, we appear to be in a race as to whether Dorner will kill more innocent people than the officers trying to find him.

Attorney Glen Jonas said Maggie Carranza, 47, and her mother, 71-year-old Emma Hernandez, were delivering Los Angeles Times newspapers around 5:15 a.m. in Torrance when the officers opened fire on their vehicle.

Jonas said, "There was no warning. There were no orders. No commands. Just gunshots."

But wait, there's more:

David Perdue was on his way to sneak in some surfing before work Thursday morning when police flagged him down. They asked who he was and where he was headed, then sent him on his way.

Seconds later, Perdue's attorney said, a Torrance police cruiser slammed into his pickup and officers opened fire; none of the bullets struck Perdue.

None of these people even remotely match the description of the suspect. The only common thread is that they were all driving trucks. So it sure is blindingly obvious that only law enforcement personnel have the requisite training and skills to responsibly own firearms.

The only saving grace in these stories is that trigger-happy cops are apparently very bad shots.

Fighting Fire With Fire

With the above in mind, every gun manufacturer should do what LaRue Tactical just did (emphasis added):

NEWS RELEASE:
02/08/2013 LEANDER, TX.

Updated Policy for State and Local Agency Law Enforcement Sales:

Due to the recent and numerous new Anti-gun/Anti-2nd Amendment laws passed and/or pending across our country, LaRue Tactical has been forced to reconsider how we provide products to state and local agencies.

Effective today, in an effort to see that no legal mistakes are made by LaRue Tactical and/or its employees, we will apply all current State and Local Laws (as applied to civilians) to state and local law enforcement / government agencies. In other words, LaRue Tactical will limit all sales to what law-abiding citizens residing in their districts can purchase or possess.

State and local laws have always been a serious focus of this firm, and we are now dovetailing that focus with the constitutional rights of the residents covered in their different areas by the old and new regulations.

We realize this effort will have an impact on this firm’s sales – and have decided the lost sales are less danger to this firm than potential lawsuits from erroneous shipments generated by something as simple as human error.

Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Mark LaRue

* * This policy does not apply to Military / Federal Agencies * *

Well done.

Gun Of The Week

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Posted by: andy at 08:30 AM | Comments (292)
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????!!!

?!

!!!!

Posted by: Ace at 04:51 PM | Comments (473)
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Diversity is the future at TNR, and always will be.

The future, that is. Never the present. The present at TNR is just like the past 80 years, White on Top, White on the Editor Level, White on the Writer/Editor Level, White in the Assistants & Interns level, White in the Research Department, and then one pale-skinned Indian (he could totally pass) in IT.

The New Republic

Makin' White Privilege socially acceptable since 1871.

Posted by: Ace at 02:16 PM | Comments (354)
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