In the Top 10

I am very happy to say how proud and honored I am to have Bouhammer.com announced as one of Matt Burdenâ€™s Top 10 blogs he reads. In case you donâ€™t know who Matt is, he is the founder of the largest milblog on the web, www.blackfive.net.

Matt is a regular guest on Fox News, in fact just this last week he was on the Glenn Beck show. Matt is also on the Board of Trustees at Soldierâ€™s Angels, and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Warrior Legacy Foundation. Last but not least, Matt is the author of The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I consider Matt a good friend and even though we are friends I am still blown away by having this site named one of his top 10 blogs that he reads. He knows a lot of people in the blog world and his site, www.blackfive.net averages a very impressive daily readership in the tens of thousands.

In addition to the blogs listed in the link below Matt also had a few honorable mentions which did not get listed in the article. His honorable mentions are also all really good milblogs, most of which I have been a regular reader of:

Sorority Soldier is a female soldier in Iraq. Her job as broadcast journalist allows to observe quite a bit of interesting situations in country.
sororitysoldier.com/journal/

Doc H’s International Adventure is written by a Navy doctor in Afghanistan who blogs about the trials and tribulations of training Afghans medical personnel.
dochsia.blogspot.com/

Army of Dude was nominated two years in a row for Best Military Blog. Alex Horton, it’s founder, did a tour in Iraq and is now back home writing about his memories of Iraq and commenting on current military actions. I am a fan of his Military Movie Review Haiku.
www.armyofdude.blogspot.com/

Afghanistan My Last Tour is written by a senior Air Force sergeant embedded in an Afghan unit. He writes of his life in Afghanistan teaching, training and mentoring.
afghanistanmylasttour.com/

To see Mattâ€™s entire Top 10 list, check out www.blogs.com/topten/top-10-military-and-veteran-blogs/

A Letter from one of SFC Fabriziâ€™s Soldiers

My name is PFC ****** ******* and SFC Jason Fabrizi was my Platoon Sergeant and much, much more. He was also the platoon daddy as we often called him. He was a great friend and somebody we could always come and talk to when ever we had something on our mind. I loved the man like a father.

He loved GFT and wrestling, well actually just about any sport. He often spent his day making sure my platoon had everything we needed and everything was set for us.
He mocked me a few times for being in the marching band in high school but he always looked at me as a brave American infantryman, as everybody in my platoon is.
He had a personality that was so great that after speaking with him for 10 minutes you thought you knew the man forever. He was a great soldier, so great that he made it threw Special Forces selection course, but was never selected. I would have followed that man into the gates of hell itself. I never would have questioned him if he decided we needed to go there.

He was an honorable man, and we all respected him and loved him.

Disgusted and Disappointed

I just read this tonight, www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/obama-victory-necessarily-goal-afghanistan/

I am honestly sitting here in shock trying to comprehend it all.

I am reading comments like

â€¦but "victory" in the war-torn country isn’t necessarily the United States’ goalâ€¦

of worse yet things like this

"I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

and I think to myself, is this guy really the Commander in Chief? Is this the guy charged with leading our countryâ€™s military? Is this the guy that 53% of America put into office. Hope, Change? WHAT?

Since when did the word â€œVictoryâ€ become a bad word? Is there something wrong with Victory? Didnâ€™t he like it when he we victorious in the Presidential campaign, didnâ€™t he like the sweet taste of victory when the Chicago Bulls won the many championships they won?

There are only two things that you can do in war, WIN or LOSE. There is no in-between. There is no gray area. You donâ€™t sorta win or almost lose. You either WIN or LOSE.

So if VICTORY is not the goal of the war in Afghanistan, then what is the goal? LOSING? Is that what we are going to do? Are we going to gracefully exit? Are we going to slip out the back door when NATO isnâ€™t looking?

I am thoroughly disgusted and ashamed right now. I am also very disappointed in every American that voted this guy into office. You should be ashamed of yourself. There is no turning back the clock, there is no â€œoh I didnâ€™t know he would be this badâ€. It is too late, he is there and as far as I am concerned with statements like this coming out of the mouth of our Commander in Chief of the military, the deaths of every service-member (coalition and US) are in vain.

I am sorry Mac, Rod, Deg, Fayez, McKay, Walton, Raff, Palm, Hilton, Fabrizi, Bradshaw and all the rest of our fallen warriors in Afghanistan. Apparently your deaths were not in pursuit of a victory but instead for pursuit ofâ€¦..something else.

Bloggers Roundtable with COL John Agoglia

Yesterday I, along with several other notable milbloggers and journalists participated in a Bloggerâ€™s Roundtable with COL John Agoglia. COL Agoglia is the Director of the Counterinsurgency Training Center located in Kabul, Afghanistan.

There were some very good questions and answers traded back and forth during this call. Everything from what makes a good COIN air platform to the efforts in training our coalition partners on COIN in their home countries.

You can hear the entire roundtable call below:

Download this MP3 – (Right Click)

Our Brit Brothers Killing Taliban

There is no movie made in Hollywood or anywhere else that can accurately replicate what you will see here. This is some really good helmet cam footage of British Infantry soldiers taking the fight to some Taliban and sending them home to 72 Virginians.

Was He Pushing the Odds?-UPDATED

www.theledger.com/article/20090716/news/907169949

UPDATE- NEW PICTURE of SFC Fabrizi from Afghanistan

Did Sergeant First Class Jason Fabrizi push the odds? Did he do more than his part?

Jason Fabrizi was killed in Afghanistan last week on his fourth combat tour of duty. Four times this man, this soldier, this father, this husband, this son, this leader has walked into the gates of hell and even though he has walked out of it three times before, this time he didnâ€™t.

This time the son of a retired Marine Master Sergeant and a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant was not so lucky. He had three tours in Iraq and was on this fourth tour this time in Afghanistan when his patrol was ambushed.

I look at soldiers who have never done a combat tour, but whom are eligible for one and those that only have one tour and then I look at a soldier like Jason who was on a fourth tour. Did he push it too far? Did he do more than his part? Either way I think he is a hell of a man and an American for serving and doing one combat tour, much less four.

Last week the SecDef stated that the thinks America is tired of war and the soldiers are tired and canâ€™t keep going. I ask the SecDef to look at men like Jason Fabrizi and tell me if he was tired? I donâ€™t think so, I think he was an American, an American that knew freedom has a price and that price is being away from family and home a lot. Sometimes it has the ultimate price, which Jason has now paid.

The next time you see or hear of a conscious objector or see a code pinko or some other person who has never walked in the boots of a soldier and says we have no reason to be in Afghanistan, donâ€™t just remind them of the images of 9/11/01, but show them the image of this man and those like him and tell them he was there because they were too much of a chicken*** to raise their hand and be there themselves.

The bottom line is that he is making up for the many that refuse to serve in the military or worse yet, refuse to deploy.

God Speed Jason, I hope your family and your kids know that your service and your sacrifice is not lost on deaf ears. We are a better place and our country is a leader in the world because of great men like you.

UPDATE of Gardez Situation from Scott Kesterson

This morning I posted an urgent update about this story with links to PJ Tobiaâ€™s blog. Here is another update from Scott to me along with several pictures.

Eight suicide bombers attacked Gardez today. Two detonated themselves, four were killed by Afghan forces before being able to detonate their suicide vests, and two escaped. The Afghan forces performed brilliantly. They received intel early in the day and were able to minimize the damage from the attacks. Unfortunately, four Afghan soldiers were killed in the process, but civilian casualties were minimal to none. Following the attacks, patrols were dispatched to attempt to find the two bombers that escaped.

The attack, by tactical considerations, was a failure for the Taliban. Their inability to effectively fight the Afghan and Coalition Forces has left them with tactics that try to instill fear in the populous. Three to four hours following the attacks, I drove through the markets with the 203rd Corp Afghan Army SGT. Major, and the markets were full and busy. This was a good day for the Afghan forces.

WARNING- GRAPHIC PICTURES BELOW

US Army forces patrolling downtown Gardez

Dead attacker outside of Paktia Province Governorâ€™s Mansion (notice BLUE BURKA laying next to him)

Gardez Traffic Circle near Afghan National Police HQ

Dead Insurgent outside of Afghan National Police HQ

National Directorate of Security (Afghan FBI) building Guard Shack

Dead insurgent outside of National Directorate of Security compound

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