A new word for your vocabulary: The Succubus Package

Everyone has their own pet name for the recent 700-billion-dollar stimulus package. I’ve heard Porkulus, Spendulus, Crapulus, etc.

Personally, I call it the Succubus Package.

A Succubus (plural succubi) is a demon who takes the form of a highly attractive woman to seduce men, in their dreams to have according to the medieval European legend. Their male counterpart is the incubus. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion or death of the victim.

The package lured everyone in with these grandiose promises of prosperity and will simply suck everyone dry.

So here you go, America……feel free to call it The Succubus Package.

An Army of One, a Crime Wave of Two

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in this creed does it say to embezzle unit funds or sell drugs.


Normally, I go out of my way to highlight the good deeds and brave sacrifices of our nation’s military men and women. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines (and the Coasties too) seldom get the recognition they deserve.

However, a few bad apples full of worms ruin the whole bushel. Or, as a wise old MP sergeant that I knew in Germany once said, “One “aw, shit” wipes out all your attaboys”.”

It pains me to have to bring you this sort of news about a couple of scumbags who have tarnished the image of professional soldiering and disgraced the uniform of my United States Army.

My first shitbird is a commissioned officer, no less. It seems that Captain Michael Dung Nguyen pleaded not guilty last week to charges including theft of government property and money laundering stemming from stealing nearly $700,000.00 from unit funds while in Iraq.

Nguyen, a 2004 West Point graduate, is assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.

A federal grand jury indictment alleges that between April 2007 and February 2009, the 28-year old Nguyen stole more than $690,000 entrusted to him as the battalion Civil Affairs Officer in Muqdadiyah, Iraq. Prosecutors say the funds stolen by Nguyen were derived from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds. CERP funds were designed to enable local commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction by carrying out programs that would immediately assist the people in the region.

The indictment alleges Nguyen used some of the money to buy a 2008 BMW M3 and a 2009 Hummer H3T, along with computers, electronics and furniture. Court documents state the indictment said he mailed bundles of stolen $100 bills home before he returned from Iraq and say he opened bank accounts in his home state of Oregon and elsewhere. The individual deposits were less than $10,000 but he sometimes made numerous deposits on the same or consecutive days, according to the indictment. The indictment further alleges that shortly after his return from Iraq, Nguyen opened new bank accounts at several banks, including Bank of America and Washington Mutual Bank, and proceeded to deposit the stolen money in a manner intended to avoid detection.

The maximum penalty for each of the charged crimes is 10 years in prison and a fine of $500,000.

U.S. Attorney Karin J. Immergut stated, “As an officer of the U.S. Army and a graduate of West Point, Capt. Nguyen agreed to uphold the principles of ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’ The conduct alleged in today’s indictment is flagrant and reprehensible disregard of these principles. By stealing money intended to assist Iraqi citizens, Capt. Nguyen betrayed his country and the fine men and women of our nation’s armed services.”

The investigation was initiated by the Portland office of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation following the discovery of large and frequent currency deposits and substantial expenditures above Captain Nguyen’s legitimate income level. The investigation was joined by the FBI, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division’s Major Procurement Fraud Unit and Defense Criminal Investigative Service.

What a dick.

As an MP, we looked out for suspicious turds like this. How fitting that Dung is in his name. Way to go, Captain Dung. When you start seeing a guy who’s obviously living beyond his ostensible means, it sends up red flags to authorities. Guys who all of a sudden are seen with outrageously fancy cars and big screen TV’s and dropping 8 grand on hot tubs in a 400-grand house get scrutinized a bit more closely. Sure, I had a lot of disposable income when I was in, and I pissed it away on CD’s and partying, but I still wasn’t able to sport a new Beemer, even when I was in Germany. We all shared a rather well-used 518, or we took cabs.

An O-3/Captain with 10 years in the Army makes $5,358.00 a month, plus more for combat pay and other incentives & allowances. Even still, a BMW M3 runs in the area of $58,000 and a Hummer H3T is about another $45,000 depending on options. This guy pulls down maybe $65,000 a year before taxes, and his two rides alone are easily $103,000 or so, plus insurance, fuel, and maintenance & upkeep. I’m not a mathematical genius, but even I can see the numbers are a bit off.

Sure, I’ve seen people go way into debt with outrageous car payments in the military to buy flashy rides, simply because they really had no other expenses, and a quick cursory look-see was all it took to make sure they were on the up & up. We even took a look at a kid in my own unit once who had a pretty nice ride, and also had loaded parents who bought it for him.

Like a typical dumbass criminal, he made a simple stupid error and flaunted his ill-gotten wealth instead of keeping a low profile. However, this next imbecile deserves a swift kick in the balls before being sent to Leavenworth for a few decades. At least Captain Dung didn’t kill anyone.

The United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Turning criminals into couples since 1874...

Private Timothy Bennitt, 19, was charged this week with involuntary manslaughter in the death of 16 year old Leah King on February 15. He is also charged with distributing drugs to other soldiers. King was found dead and another teenage girl was found unconscious in a barracks building at Fort Lewis.

Officials have confirmed King died from a toxic combination of Alprazolam, the anti-depressant marketed as Xanax, and Oxymorphone, a pain killer marketed as Opana. According to investigators, some of these drugs were crushed and inhaled in powder form, denying any time-release protection that a pill form might provide. Yeah, that’s real smart.

Additional charges have been filed against Bennitt related to the distribution of drugs to other soldiers, as well as wrongful use of a number of drugs at previous times. These remain under investigation.

The drugs he's accused of distributing include Alprazolam (Xanax), Oxymorphone (Opana), Oxycodone (Percocet), and marijuana.
These are the following charges against Bennitt under the Punitive Articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ):
- Article 119 - Involuntary Manslaughter
- Article 112a - Wrongful use and distribution of controlled substances
- Article 81 - Conspiracy to use controlled substances
If convicted of all charges contained in the charge sheet, the maximum punishment is reduction in rank to private (E-1), forfeiture of all pay and allowances, confinement for 82 years, and a dishonorable discharge.

Hell, I’d piss-test him to see if we could get him on Article 134 (the catch-all General Article) in addition to Article 92 (Failure to Obey a Lawful Order). He had two underage girls in there, most likely to get them stoned before screwing them, so mayhap we can add Article 120 (Sexual Misconduct) or maybe even Sodomy under Article 125. (Incidentally the military looks upon oral sex as Sodomy. There’s a lot of guilty people out there. Some of them even write popular blogs.)

Since the death of King, Fort Lewis has made changes to its access on the base. All minors must be signed in at the Fort Lewis Visitor's Center. The staff is required to screen all minors and sponsors. Fort Lewis has also increased random access checks of vehicles to help prevent minors from gaining inappropriate access to the post. In addition, authorities have increased checks at barracks. Sadly, unit commanders are now gonna get a ration of shit & be accused of not keeping a closer eye on their subordinates and the MP’s at Lewis will be worked even harder to “increase the presence” since in the Army, shit rolls downhill and the further down the food chain you are, the wider your mouth opens to receive that steamy open-faced shitwich.

It’s a fine line that junior enlisted soldiers have to walk, being 18 and 19 years old, right out of high school and still learning how to be adults as well as soldiers, and many still think it’s okay to hang out with high-schoolers. However, there are certain freedoms and liberties you surrender to a certain degree when you don the uniform, and codes of conduct that need to be strictly enforced for the general good.

This Bennitt puke not just broke the code of conduct, he shredded and mangled it by selling drugs, took advantage of dumb-ass school kids for his own pleasures, and whether he wanted to or not, got one of them killed.

Have fun playing poker with Captain Dung at Leavenworth, Bennitt. And don’t drop the soap.

Bad boys, bad boys....whatcha gonna do?

Depeche Mode : Come Back, indeed!

This is a studio session of Depeche Mode recording a track from their soon-to-be-released album "Sounds of the Universe". The song is called "Come Back", and it is simply gorgeous. I'm not sure how much this version will differ from the final mix on the CD, but this one sounded pretty damned amazing to me.


For all of you out there who keep asking me why I've been a Depeche Mode fan since the early 80's, THIS is why. They just keep getting better.....

Guest Blogger Series: Mexico Wants WHAT?

I'm trying something new here kids. I have friends who write sporadically but not often enough to have their own blogs, so whenever I find something good, I'll post it up here. This blog was written by my friend Jim.
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The U.S. State Department recently issued a travel advisory for Mexico aimed at college students who might want to head south o' the border for spring break. This is in response to increasing violence as drug cartels vie for supremacy.

A report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command states that Mexico (as well as Pakistan) could face "sudden and rapid collapse", also due to the Mexican cartels.

So what does Mexico have to say about this? First it wants an apology from us for trying to scare off millions of potential tourist dollars. Next, they want us to stop the flow of guns into their country, which they claim is fueling the drug cartel violence.

What the fuck!!!???

It's our fault that your citizens are killing each other? It's our fault you can't control your border, and guns stolen or bought illegally here end up down there?

What about the dope you see coming up here? The illegals, who leech off our system? The crimes they commit against U.S. citizens, which many times could result in the death penalty, that Mexico hides after they return to the old country?

And the U.S. government, big and magnanimous, wants to help. We are thinking about sharing intel, and equipping and training Mexican forces to deal with their problem. This is what got us out of the pan and into the fire in the first place.

Enter the "zetas". This is a Mexican drug cartel, founded and comprised of military deserters, who were previously trained by Uncle Sugar to combat the narco-terrorists. Guess they saw the light, and counted the dollar signs and switched sides. Not a bad idea if you can get away with it. Free training, take out the competition, and take over their market share.

I've got a little time on my hands, so for free, here is some advice. Feel free, Mexico and America to take notes:

1. Close the border. Work together on this, build the fence and guard it. In the Army, I was taught that if you put up an obstacle, (ie: mine field, wire, etc,) you guard it. That way, nobody removes it w/o your consent.

2.Both countries need to work harder at prosecuting Mexicans, on either side of the border, who engage in illegal activities. There needs to be more aggressive prosecution and stiffer penalties.

3. Mexico has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world. Anything considered to be "military grade" is illegal for citizens to own. Why? Vigilantie groups are springing up in Mexico, as a result of the rampant crime, and are getting results. If the cops and military are unable or unwilling to protect the masses, shouldn't they have the tools to protect themselves?

4. Do not give the Mexicans 1 more cent to fight crime in their country. Corruption is the norm down there. They can use the funds seized from drug busts to pay for their war on drugs.

I'm smart enough to know there are no easy solutions, but these seem like reasonable places to start. Ideas of your own? Post 'em here.

The Apocalypse is Nigh. They ran outta nuggets.

Why? Why do people have to be so damnably stupid?

I eat out a few times a month, and occasionally something isn’t the way I wanted it. Sometimes I just suck it up, since often in life there are more important things to get riled up about, but at other times I’ll make sure that it’s made right. However, in all of my nearly 40 years of turning oxygen into carbon dioxide have I ever felt the compulsion to dial 911 over a botched restaurant order. I mean, I’ve had to get a manager over things like something that felt like a pebble in my corned beef hash, or a weensy green inchworm that shimmied his way across a plate from a piece of unwashed garnish leaf, and both of those got me a free meal. But to call 911? But wait…I’m ahead of myself here.

Latreasa L. Goodman, 27, made three calls to 911after she tried to get her money back from a Fort Pierce McDonald's and the cashier told her all sales were final. It seems that they were out of McNuggets, and Goodman snapped. I guess fried niblets of processed chicken goo are a crisis situation of Biblical proportions.

Police released the 911 tapes, and holy shit they’re positively hysterical.
"This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money, and now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one," police quoted her as saying. "This is an emergency."

The cashier suggested she choose something else off the menu of equal value to the McNuggets, and offered up a cheeseburger called the McDouble. (This is the cheap replacement for the Double Cheeseburger off the 99-cent value menu. Instead of two pseudo-beef flakes and two slivers of something akin to cheese, there’s only one cheese-like sliver. This saves Ronald McDonald at least 2 cents a burger in profits.)
"She's trying to force me to eat something off the menu and I don't want it," Goodman told 911.

Lady, no one held a gun to your head and said you had to eat it or there’d be a 230-grain steel-jacketed hollow-point burrowing through your cerebellum. A lack of McNuggets is not an emergency. Was someone trapped in a burning building? Were the Jaws of Life needed to extricate a victim from a wrecked car? Was a naked wino brandishing a box cutter and singing Gregorian chants? No. It was six chintzy-assed pieces of deep-fried poultry squeezin’s.

And yet, it came to Mizz Goodman as a great surprise when the police arrived, apparently without a SWAT team or helicopter support, and cited her for misuse of the 911 system. I woulda paid good money to watch that little scene unfold. It had to have been utterly priceless.

A McDonald's spokesman said Goodman should have been given a refund, and she's being sent a gift card for a free meal. See, there we go; a happy ending. The minimum wage asstard at the counter should have just done that from the get-go, but I’ve never seen a plethora of rocket scientists running the counter in the middle of the day at the Golden Arches. One noted exception would be the girl I went to school with who managed a McDonald’s through her six years of school while getting her Master’s degree. Sadly, my local establishment is by & large staffed by slack-jawed mouth-breathers who can barely speak your order back to you in something beyond an unintelligible mumble.

Perhaps this calls for one of my patented Sad Meals?
Da-da-da-da-daaaaaaaa…I’m hatin’ it!

A somber and sobering anniversary...

If you’re like me, you most likely enjoy a good conspiracy theory. Here’s one hell of a conspiracy for you.

What if, once upon a time, a small cabal of hard-line Soviet Communists wanted to take care of two of their rivals at once and sent an eleven-man KGB Osnaz commando unit to take over a ballistic missile submarine, sail it to an exact point 350 miles from Hawaii, surface the boat, and launch a missile at Pearl Harbor? The range and characteristics of the launch would have fit in with a scenario the Americans were worried about, which was a nuclear attack by alone rogue…from China. Ostensibly, the U.S. would nuke China in retaliation, and a surging Red Chinese threat on the Soviet border would be eliminated, and American naval power in the Pacific would be utterly crushed.

Sounds like a hell of a conspiracy, huh? Stuff of novels and films, you say?

It happened.

Read this book.

I’ve been reading Ken Sewell’s book Red Star Rogue, and it scared the hell out of me. I urge you to read it too. You’ll be sucked in by the story of a crew of professional sailors, military men serving their nation, who were pawns in a sinister plot, and ultimately met their demise when those eleven extra crewmen took over the submarine K-129 and tried to unleash nuclear Armageddon.

I say “tried”, because a failsafe mechanism on the missile caused it to explode in the tube, and the resulting aftermath sunk the sub and killed everyone aboard it, including the unwitting crewmen who had nothing to do with the plot.

As a military veteran myself who has a number of friends in the submarine community, I feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for those men who were performing their duties and got killed for it without being willing participants. That’s why today I want to make mention of the crew of K-129 and honor their memory. As for the Osnaz team, well, they were KGB “wet-work” killers and they knew the deal. I got nothin’ for ‘em.

The thing is, though, we already knew that K-129 had sailed, but not exactly where she was at the time. We knew enough of the Soviet Navy’s movements and ships that we wouldn’t have fallen for the ruse and would have retaliated against Moscow, not Beijing.

But why mention it now? Because the K-129 sank exactly 41 years ago yesterday, on March 7th, 1968, about 15 months before I was born. Had the plan succeeded, I might not be here now. Neither would you, possibly.

The world may never know the full story. Most of the chief conspirators are dead, like their pawns. Rest in peace, sailors of K-129. Fairs seas and following winds.


The Soviet Navy's Golf-II class of ballistic missile sub was a modified follow-on design based on the German Type-XXI U-Boats

Drones, Advisors, and Loose Lips

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle heads out to send the bad guys to the Hurt Locker. Aw, yeah....

Y’know, guys, I just don’t understand the idiocy of the human condition sometimes... Here we are, been at war for what, seven & a half years or so now? And still, people just don’t get it. Liberal flakes and media assclowns are still going out of their way to find ways to give away our secrets to our enemies under the guise of reporting the truth but in reality in the name of ratings, readership, and fame. Personal gain at the expense of our soldiers' lives.

The Times of London published a Google Earth image apparently showing three U.S. drones at the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan as early as 2006, thereby letting the world know that the United States has been using a base in Pakistan to station unmanned Predator drones that have been used to attack terrorist targets inside the country's tribal areas. Senate intelligence committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) riled intelligence circles when she seemed to reveal sensitive information about such a Pakistan-based staging ground during a hearing. The Times reported that the CIA was secretly using Shamsi to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack Al Qaeda and Taliban militants around Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. There have been 30 strikes since August with 11 top leaders of Al Qaeda taken out, according to intelligence reports.


Why the hell is Feinstein running the senate Intelligence Committee if she can’t even keep her freakin’ trap shut?


Should it surprise me that a news rag in Islamo-friendly Britain leaked her leak?

And then our own UberLiberal New York Times lets it out that we have at least 70 Special Forces advisors secretly training Pakistani troops in their backwater tribal areas to help root out the vermin infestation of Taliban and Al Qeada operatives. Why not just publish their names, SSN’s, pictures of them and their families, home addresses, and a GPS fix on where to find them all to kill them so the terrorists can have an easier go of it?

Again, do you people think that the enemy doesn’t read our papers and watch our news feeds? Where do you think they get their intel from? Hell, our own soldiers get more info from CNN Headline News than they get from their own chains of command sometimes.

Wow. Seems Pakistan is really burning the candle at both ends, don't it? Acquiescing to Talibanian demands for Sharia Law in the backwater tribal zones while letting our SpecOps boys train people to kill them and letting us fly drones from their base to lob a few laser guided bombs and Hellfire missiles at the top bad guys. How dramatic. All that’s missing is a rabid chimp, 14 babies, a tour bus full of strippers, and Tom Arnold for a host.

Get it straight: I don't hate Obama

Real quick-like, I just want to set the record straight. I don’t hate President Obama.

Some of you have gotten the impression that for the next four years, all I’m going to do is bash Obama 2-3 times a week here, and a couple of my friends have dubbed me a Hater and ask why “I be hatin’ on Obama”…..

Look, I’m not an Obama fan. I didn’t drink the Liberal KoolAid and I didn’t buy into all that Hope and Change drivel. I didn’t vote for the man, but he’s still the duly-elected President of the United States. Contrary to public opinion, I don’t want him to just utterly fail. Why? Because if he fails, and his policies fail, we’re all royally screwed.

As much as I am skeptical of the plans, schemes, and policies of this new administration, the smart thing is to hope that he succeeds. As my buddy Jim says, a rising tide floats all boats. If he succeeds then the nation as a whole will succeed, because sure enough if he fails, we all fail right along with him.

If President Obama does something right, I’ll mention it here. And rest assured, if I think he’s buggering it all up I’ll also let you know. I called out President Bush a few times in the past too, y’know, but by the time I started blogging regularly, he’d already botched it up past FUBAR that it wouldn’t have made a bollock’s bit of difference to add my own 3 cents.

So, while I’m not a fan, I’m also not a hater, either.

I may as well go on ahead while I have your attention and say something good about His Obamaness, albeit with some caveats attached. The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended last week that detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.
The government also said if the Bagram detainees got access to the courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the United States in conflicts worldwide to do the same.

Sounds reasonably sane to me. However, they still plan to close Guantanamo and most likely just let all those scumbags go, deporting them to Allah-knows-where to hook back up with the Taliban and Al Qaeda and go back to killing us. Why, just this week we set convicted terrorist Khalid Al-Jawary free. In a week, he’ll be back amongst his cronies like a returning hero and then the countdown starts to the making of car bombs again.

So, Mister President, thanks for not giving rights to all the scumbags we have in custody around the world, and thanks for maintaining our Renditions policy going (finally saw the reason of reality, huh?) but no thanks for letting go the really nasty elite scumbags in Gitmo, etc.

And while I’m at it, I like how you’re tap-dancing around the whole Iraq redeployment thing. All during the protracted election process you prated on and on about bringing everyone home from Iraq within weeks of your coronation. I guess reality took a fat bite out of that, eh? So now you’ll placate your fellow LibDems by saying you’ll bring them home in a year, but with the provision to keep 50,000 of them behind to maintain the peace. Dude, that’s still the equivalent of two and a half heavy mechanized divisions.

But bringing them home is just a cover, because you’re shipping them right back to Afghanistan, since there’s a pestilence of Taliban and Al Qaeda all over the countryside and another 15,000 of them right next door in Pakistan. Reality’s a bitch, Barry.

If you succeed, we all succeed. Good luck. We’re all watching.

Free to Good Home: Stealth Warship and Spy Barge

Holy crap, Batman. It seems that the US Navy is trying to just up and give away two Top Secret ships that it no longer needs. Ostensibly, they should go to some type of museum, but if someone doesn’t speak up soon, they may end up in the scrap yard.

One of the ships is the Sea Shadow (IX-529). Picture a stealth fighter-turned-catamaran. It looks pretty bad-ass, and it was built as a test bed for seagoing stealth technology. According to one former crewmember, they were able to sail up to other warships undetected at night, all the time, in exercises.

The other vessel is a bit more infamous. The Hughes Mining Barge (HMB-1) was originally built by Howard Hughes as a partner for his Glomar Explorer, which was a high tech drilling platform capable of keeping station on the surface while raising and lowering a huge mechanical claw three miles to the ocean floor. The two ships were part of Project Jennifer, the CIA’s mission to retrieve a sunken Soviet nuclear missile submarine, the K-129. Part barge, part submarine, the HMB was equipped with a retractable roof, and was also capable of submerging to allow the Glomar Explorer to position itself over the barge to retrieve its giant grabber claw and transfer any sections of K-129 it recovered. (Go read the book Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell)

Sea Shadow has been using the HMB as its Mother Ship, hiding inside it parked like a fighter in a hangar, to avoid overflights by satellites.

So…any museums need a couple of freaky secrets? Granted, any gift ship from the Navy comes with lots of strings attached. A naval museum, the Historic Naval Ships Association warns, is "a bloodthirsty, paperwork ridden, permit-infested, money-sucking hole..." Because the Navy won't pay for anything — neither rust scraping nor curating — to keep museums afloat, survival depends on big crowds. That's why many of the 48 ships it has given away over 60 years were vessels known for performing heroically in famous battles. Our own Patriot’s Point Naval Museum here in South Carolina needs about $66 million dollars immediately to repair the ships in its collection, including the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham, the WW2 submarine USS Clamagore, the famous destroyer USS Laffey (known in WW2 circles as The Ship That Would Not Die after fending off several kamikaze attacks), and The Fighting Lady, the carrier USS Yorktown. Sadly, Yorktown sits in 26 feet of mud and has as much as 18 feet of water in her lower spaces, and Laffey is disintegrating at her berth.

Above: Patriot's Point Naval & Maritime Museum. Go visit.


I suppose, in lieu of someone taking the Sea Shadow and her floating Bat Cave off the Navy’s hands, there’s always a free listing on Craig’s List, and if they put them up on eBay they can at least turn a buck. That’d open up allllll sorts of cans of worms, no?

The Taliban needs a navy…wouldn’t they just love a stealth ship? They can call it the Glorious Jihad, or Allah’s Fist, or Mohammed’s Martyrboat. The winning bid on eBay was Al Kayda of London, UK…they'd pack that sucker chock fulla fertilizer and jet fuel and sail it right up the frikkin' Potomac.

Or some idle rich redneck here in South Carolina who won the Powerball can buy them. The barge looks like a rusty-assed overgrown trailer anyways, and with that black paint job, Sea Shadow makes a perfect floating tribute to the dear departed Saint Dale the Intimidator. Y’know, if you close one eye and drink a few Buds, she does sorta resemble the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia…



Stealth Redneck Houseboat? Maybe....

Absolut AWOL

WARNING: THIS POST IS LONG!

Culled from AOL News and AP stuff:

SAVANNAH, Ga. (Feb. 10) -- Sporting a dragon tattoo on his forearm and skulls on both biceps, Cliff Cornell looks tough. But he dissolves into tears as he reflects on his return to the Army four years after he fled to Canada to avoid the war in Iraq.

"I'm nervous, scared," Cornell said, wiping puffy eyes beneath his sunglasses Monday at a Savannah hotel after a three-day bus ride from Seattle. "I'm just not a fighter. I know it sounds funny, but I have a really soft heart."

Cornell, 29, of Mountain Home, Ark., turned himself in to military police Tuesday afternoon at nearby Fort Stewart, where he'll likely face criminal charges for abandoning his unit before it deployed to Iraq in January 2005.

He said he fled because he doesn't think the war has improved the lives of Iraqis, and he couldn't stomach the thought of killing.

"During my training, I was ordered that, if anyone came within so many feet of my vehicle, I was to shoot to kill," said Cornell, who enlisted in 2002 but never deployed to war. "I didn't join the military to kill innocents."

He had joined the Army with the promise from the military recruiter that he would receive $9,000 sign up bonus and job training. He found out that “Ninety per cent of what the recruiters tell you is a pack of lies,” he said. “They know you’re from a poor family. Army recruitment techniques amount to entrapment, targeting young men from poor families”, said Cornell.

“Well, that was part of my agreement I had with my recruiter. I told him what I wanted to do, but I didn’t want to go to war, and he more or less guaranteed I would never be shipped to war, “Cornell said.

The Army artillery specialist made it to Canada in 2005 and soon started a new life working at a grocery store on Gabriola Island in British Columbia.

Cornell's attorney, James Branum of Lawton, Okla., said Cornell was assigned to a unit after meeting with military police, but it was still unclear if the Army would hold him in pretrial confinement. "He was visibly shaking when they came to pick him up," Branum said.

Cornell's exile ended last week when he crossed the U.S.-Canada border into Washington state. He left voluntarily to avoid deportation.

The first U.S. service member forced out of Canada after the government denied him protective status as a war objector was 25-year-old Army Pvt. Robin Long of Boise, Idaho. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison last August after pleading guilty to desertion charges at Fort Carson, Colo.

Michelle Robidoux, spokeswoman for the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign, said the group has worked with about 50 U.S. service members seeking refugee status or political asylum in Canada. The group estimates more than 200 have fled to Canada, most of them hiding out illegally.

"There are probably another three or four who are imminently under threat of deportation, and we're trying hard to fight that," Robidoux said.

The lower house of Canada's Parliament passed a nonbinding motion in June urging that U.S. military deserters be allowed to stay in Canada, but the Conservative Party government has ignored the vote.

During the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans took refuge in Canada, most of them to avoid the military draft. Many were given permanent residence status that led to Canadian citizenship, but the majority went home after President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty in the late 1970s.

The Army has listed Cornell as a deserter since a month after he left, but he hasn't been charged with any crimes, said Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson.

Larson said Cornell was being given a billet and a new uniform and would begin drawing pay, at least until commanders decide whether to charge him. Their options include dropping the case, seeking administrative punishment or pursuing a court-martial. "We're going to treat him courteously and professionally, like any other soldier," Larson said.
The unit Cornell was assigned to when he fled — the 1st Battalion, 39th Field Artillery Regiment, Third Infantry Division — disbanded in March 2006.

Larson disputed Cornell's contention that he would have been expected to kill civilians. "Indiscriminately shooting people is not what the Army does. That's not how we train and not how we fight."

Branum said he expects Cornell to be charged with being absent without leave, punishable by up to 18 months in prison, or desertion — a more serious charge with a maximum prison sentence of five years.

He said he hopes the Army shows some leniency since Cornell avoided the war because of his political convictions.

"This is different from someone leaving for selfish reasons," Branum said. "This is someone who said, 'I'm not going to kill civilians.'"


Holy crap. Where do I even begin?
Part of me feels sorry for this guy. I’m not a complete monster. I understand not agreeing with what you feel is/was an unjust war and not wanting to kill innocent civilians. No one in their right mind wants to kill innocents, and no soldier particularly enjoys killing. Those that do should get help. Quickly.

However…I am not about to believe the hype. I take umbrage with a bunch of what Cornell is saying, and the tripe that is being tossed about by several blogs and websites that are part of the Liberal Ass-Circus (www.tomjoad.org/warheroes4.htm, www.wmtc.blogspot.com, www.couragetoresist.org, to name a few) that are pandering to his story like he’s the next Jesus Christ, crucified for defying Rome.

I was a soldier, and specifically I was a Military Policeman during the end of the Cold War and during the first Gulf War, and one of those above-listed sites had the audacity to claim that MP’s were torturing people in Iraq. I find that so hard to believe that I view your accusations with incrudulity bordering on vehement contempt. That ain’t what we do, pal. Wanna read how I feel about Abu Ghraib? Go here: http://mojosteve.blogspot.com/2007/11/who-pulled-strings-at-abu-ghraib.html

Back to Cornell. Dude, recruiters are salesmen, and you bought what they were selling. No one forced you to sign up at gunpoint. No one forced me to sign up either. There’s not a draft going on, like during Vietnam when no one had a choice. You went willingly, pal, and you pocketed that nine grand along the way. No one gave me nine grand to join up. According to what I read, you’re an artillery specialist, right? Dude, did you think that gun-bunnies and cannon-cockers never deployed and sat in the rear with the gear? It’s a branch of Combat Arms. Their nickname is "The King of Battle". Those big ole’ shells that go boom from the pointy end of the big gun? They kill people. Did you not learn that at Fort Sill? I’m pretty damned sure you knew what you signed up for, homeskillet.

Nowhere in any of the training I received did anyone tell me to kill anyone who got too close to my vehicle. In fact we were constrained by so many layers of mung and crap under the Rules of Engagement that those people would have pretty much climbed inside the vehicles with us before we were given permission to fire.

You claim the recruiters hit up poor people? Again, I take umbrage. I came from an upper middle-class home, and my stepfather was, at the time, an officer in the Navy. We were hardly poor. Looking at the classmates of mine who enlisted around the same time as me (at least 10 of us enlisted within a year of graduation from our class of about 80 in a small Maine high school ) none of us were poor. In fact, pretty much everyone I served with came from middle-class backgrounds. None of us came from dirt farms, washing in streams and eating sawdust, as implied. If you look at the latest recruiting statistics, you’ll find that the vast bulk of today’s recruits are well-educated and predominantly upper-middle-class kids. The military is no longer the option of last resort for miscreants and delinquents. Those days were long over by the time I enlisted in July of 1987.

Finally, I’m really not so sure that we need to be locking these guys up. Sure, they were following their conscience, but they were in the wrong to just cut and run. Instead of spending taxpayer money to house/feed/clothe these prisoners for a year or so, just cut them loose with an Other Than Honorable Discharge, or even a Bad Conduct Discharge. The Army will be rid of them, and they’ll still have a “big chicken dinner” on their permanent record, as well as forfeiting their college money and bonus pay. I deserted during wartime and all I got was a big chicken dinner and this lousy t-shirt......yeah, that works.