Monthly Archives: March 2010

Its Military Monday (#militarymon), do you know where your Twitterbird shirt is.

Yesterday I announced that the boys at www.vision-strike-wear.com were having a 20% off sale that you can tap into by using the discount code of blog20a. So you really have no excuse to not go out and pick up one of the great Bouhammer custom design shirts. Besides the rocking initial Bouhammer.com Design that looks like

there is the ever-popular #militarymon Rambo-style Twitterbird shirt. This design was done in response to the popularity of the #militarymon hashtag that is used by people to identity military and military-supporting tweets.

So be sure to check out all the designs in the Bouhammer Gear Store and then click over to your favorite at Vision Strike Wear to get yours and be sure to use the blog20a coupon code to get 20% off.

Obama in Afghanistan

Well as I am sure everyone knows, the President made a surprised visit to Afghanistan this weekend. He did it via Camp David since that location is much more secluded and it is easier for him to travel without the MSM reporting it.

I must say after spending so many weeks of him focusing on passage of the horrific health-care bill, it was good to see him finally take a trip to Afghanistan (his first since becoming President 14 months ago). It shows that he is still cognizant of the other important matters in this country besides health-care. So as they say, better late than never.

Regardless of the fact that a majority of the troops did not vote for or support him as a President, he is still President and I think it is a morale booster to the troops to know he at least cares enough to come over and visit. Troops want to know that their country, and their top leader is behind them and supports them. So if this did nothing else than provide some fist-bumps and gave the President a chance to make some speeches on the outside, I think behind the scenes it was good for the troops to know he came over.

Vision Strike Wear has new designs and 20% coupon code

You heard it here first and here only, for the next few days you can use the coupon code of blog20a over at vision-strike-wear.com and receive 20% off your order. If you have not checked out their site recently, you should. Derek and Todd and have been working overtime creating many new custom designs for units that are pretty sharp looking. They have some of their new rank deigns for each service like:
or

or special shirts dedicated to significant things like the new USS New York

or great looking custom unit shirts.The one below is for 2-87 Infantry “Catamount” out of 3rd BCT, 10th Mountain Division. This was the Battalion that I earned my first 10th Mountain Combat Patch with and one that I served along side with many times. The “Catamounts” have been back to Afghanistan again most recently serving in the Wardak/Logar Province area of Afghanistan just south of Kabul. I was very glad to find VSW had made this shirt at the unit’s request and will be wearing mine with pride in the coming days.

VSW doesn’t just make shirt designs for Infantry units, they have created some great ones for Public Affairs Detachments,

Field Artillery units,

and even Communication Platoons

The bottom line is they are expanding their list of items weekly, the designs are of many varieties and they are more than willing to design and develop custom designs for any type of military unit, from any branch.

And the most important thing is that for the next few days you can use the coupon code of blog20a to get 20% off your order. Remember you heard it here and only here, at bouhammer.com

Introduction to Mike Scotti, Part I

This blog posting it is the first in a series where I am going to introduce the readers of this blog to Mr. Mike Scotti. Mike is a very interesting individual that we had as a guest on You Served Radio last night. I was honored to get to talk to him and am looking forward to working with him more in the future on several things that are of interest to both of us.

This first blog posting about Mike is an initial introduction to this Marine warrior and the recent piece he wrote for cnn.com. In fact Mike is going to be featured in Newsweek next week and be on CNN in a few days. Mike is the film-maker, editor, creator of the real-world Iraq war documentary, Severe Clear.

Mike’s piece he wrote for CNN.com offers a glimpse into him as a man, as a Marine and as a vet. He also discusses how he is not capitalizing on the release of the movie, Severe Clear but instead is using it as a rung in the ladder to greater and bigger things.

I looked around. The chamber music quartet, the beautiful bridesmaids, the steak dinner … none of it was real. My buddies were, at that moment, probably on patrol and quite possibly engaged with the enemy. That was real.

And as for the other guests at the table who were staring at me in my dress blues, we were no longer even the same species.

You can read the entire piece at www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/10/scotti.war.veterans/index.html

Look for Part II about the interview and Part III, my review of the film Severe Clear in the coming days.

LZ Security

U.S. Army Pfc. Cory Obitts, of Alpha Troop, 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment, provides security for a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter at Combat Outpost Spera in Khost province, Afghanistan, on March 7, 2010. DoD photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander, U.S. Army.

If you read nothing else today, read this one

I am sooo proud and honored to not only call Old Blue a friend, but MaryAnn also. In fact it is getting to know people like them, and many others since I have started blogging that are the true rewards from all my time spent researching and writing the blogs I do. In fact had it not been for blogging an co-hosting You Served Radio, I would have never had a chance to talk to little Conner last week on our show. Ironically Conner knows MaryAnn too. Now tell me that isn’t a sign of a small world.

Anyway, my buddy OldBlue wrote this posting on March 8th but I just got around to reading it. I am kicking myself for not getting to it on the day it came out. For that reason I am highlighting his post and blog and asking you to go read it now. You will be glad, proud and humbled that you did.

afghanquest.com/?p=438

Afghan Air Assault

Here is some B-roll video of Afghan Army soldiers conducting a real-world Air Assault mission aboard Russian-built Afghan Army Helicopters. This is yet another positive sign of progress, maybe not as fast as we want it, but it is progress.