The day that the soldiers saluted their fallen comrade at Combat Outpost Sperwan Ghar, Sergeant Mark Schoonhoven died at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, from wounds suffered in Afghanistan. Schoonhoven was from Plainwell, Michigan. His mother and oldest daughter had sat by his hospital bed for nearly six weeks hoping he would recover from the coma. His wife had returned to Michigan to look after the five children at home. He never recovered from the injuries suffered when insurgents detonated explosives as his vehicle passed. At his funeral his wife and his mother received folded flags and each of his children put a rose on his coffin. Other than local coverage, there was little attention paid to these deaths.

This quote was from a story written on March 25th, 2013 in an article on the website of http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/03/have-americans-forgotten-afghanistan/274331/ It caught my eye so I bookmarked it so I could come back and write about it later as it hit a nerve with me.  See I was in Afghanistan in 2006-2007 when we commonly referred to it as the “New Forgotten War”. The Korean war was the original Forgotten War as it started not long after WWII and quite frankly America was burned out of that one and not ready to embark on another one. Afghanistan was an “item” from Oct. 2001-March 2003 (when the Iraq war kicked off). The Taliban was defeated quickly and decisively in late 2001-mid 2002 in Afghanistan and it had to retreat what it had and lick its wounds. So things got pretty quite for the most part after mid 2002 there. However with the embed-reporter Iraq War kicking off in 2003, all eyes went to it. 2006 was the year that the Taliban really started to come back in force in Afghanistan. You can see this in the blog posts I wrote on this blog during that time, or in books like Outlaw Platoon or Lions of Kandahar. Both of which were written about major battles and enemy actions in the year 2006. However, by 2006 it was all about Iraq and with it going to hell in a handbasket at that time and then the oncoming surge of 2007, that was where the media focused. Like all good sheep that only look and see what they are pointed and told to see, the American people for the large part of it, forgot we were in Afghanistan. But that all changed starting around 2009 as the lessons of years of war in Iraq started to be learned in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan was again in the first few minutes of every 6PM newscast so America now remembered and “cared” about the war there. That did not last more than a few years though.

Afghanistan did not become an issue during the fall presidential election campaigns, and the war seldom was a substantive issue in congressional races. Candidates scarcely discussed the war other than in passing references. In fact, they focused more on the putative next war in Iran. Ignoring the current war may have been politically or even morally derelict, but it was not of electoral consequence. Voters did not seem to consider war strategy as relevant to their election choices. Afghanistan did not figure in public opinion polls as a major issue and had not for some time. Nonetheless, we could hope that after the election political leaders would finally focus on the war in Afghanistan. If it did not seem relevant to swing-state campaign strategy, it surely was an important issue in developing national military strategy.

So now we are faced with the question, Does America Care? Are they burned out on war? Do they have more “important” things to worry about?

Quite honestly I don’t care what the answer is to those questions, because Americans SHOULD care. Our sons and daughters are still there, fighting, bleeding, and dying, not because they want to but because they have taken an oath and then intend to keep it. Our warfighters don’t get to pick and choose their wars, they go where they are lawfully told to go. As for burned out, unless they have been the ones over there living in plywood huts, getting the Afghan Crud, watching innocent people get maimed by a heartless enemy and most importantly trying to save their buddy’s life then they don’t know what “BURNED OUT” means or how they get it. As for the last question, I guess it depends on what you (or they) define as “important”. If it is Honey Boo-Boo and the firing of American Idol judges then I feel sorrow for them, because they have a very shallow and empty life.

We’ve designed this shirt at the request of many of the police in Boston. For every shirt purchased, we will also donate one shirt to the Boston or Watertown Police Departments, in addition to the 500 we are already sending their way. The rest of the profit will be donated to either the victims or the police departments. We will make no money off of this shirt. 

The shirt is a modification of our Thin Blue Line T-Shirt. It has the words Unapologetically Boston on the front, with a thin blue line representing the Police Force. The words Boston Strong are on the sleeve , and the back contains Ranger Up’s phrase: “There are wolves. There are sheep. I am the Sheepdog.” inspired by David Grossman’s amazing article.

So to recap, we are donating 500 of these shirts to the Boston and Watertown Police, plus for every shirt you buy:

1) You get a shirt.

2) A Boston Cop gets a shirt.

3) Any remaining profit goes to charity.

4) We will make no money off of this. This is just for the boys and girls in Boston.

So head over to http://www.rangerup.com/bostonstrong.html and put in your pre-order for this shirt. This is a great thing they are doing for those that “run to the gunfire”.

Let me also point out that this last weekend, members of Ranger Up went to Boston and opened up some bar tabs for all members of the law enforcement and first responders in the Boston area. I sure wish I could have been with them as I am sure it was an awesome time.

After the attack, which resulted in the deaths of two Marines and the largest loss of allied materiel in the 11-year-long Afghan war, the top U.S. commander on the base did not order a formal investigation into the security lapses or sanction any personnel responsible for guarding the facility, the officials said.

It was a joint base with the British and now it appears that because of that fact our country is worrying about embarrassing the British military leadership by publicly stating what everyone in the military knows already.

In the days following the raid, some U.S. and NATO military leaders insisted that the Taliban got lucky by choosing to breach where they did. But several officials with direct knowledge of the assault said in recent interviews that staffing decisions by U.S. and British commanders weakened the base’s defenses, making it easier for the insurgents to reconnoiter the compound and enter without resistance.

This is a disgrace to our entire military, our country and worst of all, the families of those two fallen Marines. There used to be a saying in out country, “The Buck Stops here” which means that whomever is in command it accountable.

You can ask any of my soldiers that ever served with me while I was their First Sergeant and they will tell you that I spoke at length about R.A.I.D. It stands for Responsibility, Accountability, Initiative and Discipline. These were the four tenants that I demanded all of my soldiers exercise all the time. I stressed to them how important it was to apply these to their the lives both on and off duty. In my talks with soldiers about R.A.I.D. I would stress the fact that Responsibility can be delegated but Accountability never can. It is impossible to delegate it. If someone charges you with a responsibility to get something done, you may be able to delegate the task to someone else to physically perform, however you are and always will be accountable to the person that asked or told you to do it. You can’t whine with a “but I told him to do it”. That does not hold any weight or integrity.

So back to this story that came out on Saturday about the dereliction of duty and lack of accountability on behalf of the US and British leadership on the base. The base has been the site of an attempted attack on Secretary of Defense Panetta just six months earlier and it was September of 2012, which was still well within the height of the fighting season in the worst year of violence to date.

“You can’t defend everywhere every day,” Gurganus said in response to a question about the attack. “You base your security on the threat you’ve got.” He said the Taliban caught “a lucky break.”

That statement by MG Gurganus is in itself reason enough to relieve him of his duties and force him to retire. There are many parts in the whole story that are disturbing to read, however that quote above is 100% whining and excuse making. If I was his CSM and was near him, I would have tossed my career right there while I ate him up one side and down the other. I am sure this MG didn’t take whining excuses like that from the Marines in his command throughout his career. Him stating that on the record is a stain on the impeccable reputation of the entire Marine Corps.

The second worse thing stated in this story is the following

No U.S. or British military personnel have been reprimanded as a result of the attack. The Marine Corps does not plan to release its review. NATO also intends to keep its investigation confidential, in part to avoid embarrassing the British for leaving towers unmanned, according to officers briefed on the findings.

“We’ve corrected the deficiencies in security, but we don’t want to put a stick in the eye of our closest ally,” said a senior U.S. official who served in Afghanistan at the time.

To not hold those accountable and be transparent about the mistakes made is a failure on all of the leadership in both countries, all the way to the top. It is amazing how we can make public spectacles out of and punish soldiers who mistakenly throw Korans into a burn put with the other trash they are mixed with, or Marines who out of disgust and anger with a cowardice enemy urinate on their dead bodies (which by the way, nobody in the world gave a crap about except our civilian leaders in the Government) but they don’t make public and hold accountable the leaders and decision makers on this base that directly allowed this to happen.

If this is a sign of what is to come as we drawdown, then it makes it more important than ever to pull all troops out now instead of leaving them there as IED and IDF Fodder for our enemies.

Please take the time to read the whole story. I look forward to your comments and feelings on this topic. Feel free to comment on this blog post and lets chat about it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/taliban-attack-exploited-security-cutbacks/2013/04/20/b22a0c18-a796-11e2-8302-3c7e0ea97057_story.html

This week, someone I consider a friend, and a very close friend of Tim’s, Sebastian Junger released a documentary about Tim called “Which way is the front line from here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington” on HBO. A close friend of mine watched it and told me how emotional it made him and how much it moved him learning more of Tim’s background. Just reading his words about the film brought out pains in my heart. I haven’t watched it yet, but know I will need to soon one day. I am so glad Sebastian made this, and I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to do it.

Many knew Tim through his imagery, but few were lucky enough to know him as a person. I will always cherish my time talking to him in person, on email, the phone or on Facebook.

Even though it is a day for me to celebrate, it is and always will be a bittersweet day. It will be a day that the world as a whole had a little something stolen from it.

The flag in front of my house is at half-staff for you today brother!

The Trailer for “Which way is the front line from here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington”

I had been planning this post since yesterday. How was I going to blog about my birthday. My thoughts were to write about how 42 years ago today I took my first breath and saw my first light at Ft. Bragg NC to a young military family with a father home on emergency leave from serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam and a country girl mom who had grown up a lot in a short 10 years of marriage.

It was not common for soldiers to get to come home from war in Vietnam for the birth of their child, but since my mom had lost two other sons at birth, I was high-risk and they brought him home from the jungles of Vietnam or Laos or Cambodia or wherever he was at that time.

Yes I was gonna write a little about how Bouhammer came to be in this world and celebrating my birthday today with my family on a beach in South Carolina.

But all that changed a couple of hours ago when I saw a note on Facebook by my very good friend Matt Burden from Blackfive.net saying that a recent, but good friend of mine, Tim Hetherington had been killed in Libya.

As I sat by the pool in the warm sun, next to my wife while my youngest son swam nearby it was like someone had dropped a bucket of cold water on me from the top of the hotel. I sat right up and I think I let out a “you have got to be F@#$@ kidding me” or something probably close to that. It was just last night I was checking Facebook in the hotel and saw a posting from Tim saying he was in Libya doing what he loves to do, video and capture images from the war front so the rest of the world can see a glimpse of the horrors of war. When I saw his posting last night I dropped him a note asking him to be careful. More than likely it was too late, but who knows.

All I do know is that for a day last summer I got to be in his presence and do a great screening of RESTREPO in Albany, NY. Then we went out afterwards and closed a german pub together. He, Brendan O’Byrne from Battle Company, and my two team-mates from Afghanistan Prophet and Puss. Since that time Tim and I stayed in pretty good contact with each other, calling, emailing and texting every so often. He kept inviting me to come hang with him in NYC but the problem was he was usually never there when I was. I will miss that we never got that opportunity.

When he came out with this book INFIDEL, last year he made it a point to send me a signed copy. Needless to say that book and his words will be forever cherished.

Lastly I guess the only thing I can say and try to keep this on a positive note are that a mutual friend of Tim’s and mine and the reason I even got to know Tim sent me a very kind note with some great quotes from Tim that he said about me. She will never know how much that meant. I am forever grateful for that. I would also like to highlight again something my wife said today and that I mentioend earlier in this posting. “He died doing what he loved to do.” I guess in the grand scheme of things and with all the dumb ways to leave this earth that there are, there is no better way that that. In fact I am sure all of man-kind wishes for that to be the way, going out doing what you love to do.

God Speed my friend, you will surely be missed.

Tim, me and Brendan after the screening of Restrepo in Albany, NY

 

My very good friend, Top Talk Radio co-host and past Military blogger, Army Master Sergeant CJ Grisham was detained and then arrested a few weeks ago while on a hike in a rural area of Texas for carrying a personally-owned AR-15 rifle. I was notified soon after he was arrested that it happened and have had frequent conversations with him about it.

He is currently fighting this arrest which, based on the evidence I have seen so far, appears to be an unlawful arrest to me. In order to highlight what a small world it is, the Bell Country DA was my personal attorney about 23 years ago for a couple of civil needs. I was one of his first clients as a private practicing attorney and now he is the DA prosecuting one of my closest friends, who would have guessed this?

Anyway, CJ not only has an attorney but also a P.I. and is going to all lengths to defend himself and the rights that he and many of us have fought to protect and maintain. Needless to say this is not cheap and as a Sr. NCO in the Army he is not someone flush with cash so he has set up a crowdsourcing page to help raise the funds needed to fund the legal costs needed to protect his 2nd Amendment rights. He only needed about $11,000 for his attorney fees but as of April 17th he is up to over $29K raised. The way the Indiegogo site works, he cannot stop it. The fundraising campaign has to continue until the end date. I don’t want to divulge all the details, but CJ has plans to use the extra money raised for many other soldiers who have went through what he is now going through.

As part of his case, CJ and his attorney do not want this to be buried in the back page and want to make sure that this arrest is known to all. I want to make note that CJ was originally charged with “resisting arrest” but wasn’t arrested for anything else. I am not a lawyer, but I am not sure how someone can be arrested for “resisting” an arrest that didn’t happen. I would think someone would need to be arrested for something in the first place before they can be charged with resisting it. Well since that initial charge, I guess someone in the judicial system at Bell County realized the same thing and how foolish it was so they have since dropped the “resisting arrest” charge and now are charging him with “interrupting, disrupting, impeding and interfering with a peace officer while performing a duty. Again I question what his “duty” was. It wasn’t like he was responding to some other call or performing some duty that CJ disrupted. I think it is poor attempt to  justify an arrest based on weak circumstances. The full video of what CJ was able to record is available at http://youtu.be/A8r4MK3R4PI.

This story has also been all over the media circuit. You can see it at The Daily Caller, in the Army Times, on The Blaze, Fox News Radio, and today he was interviewed by Glenn Beck himself.

In addition to this being featured on several news outlets, this has caused quite a dialog back and forth by people with opinions on both sides. On the comical and sometimes off-color “Grunts, 11-Bravo” Facebook page the topic generate a flurry of comments back and forth about CJ’s case. The Grunts Facebook page along with other Facebook pages, his blogs and the Indiegogo page all have many comments on this matter, not to mention a slew of comments on all the websites mentioned above.

I am curious what your thoughts are, after reading this, the other sites and seeing the video yourself. Keep in mind that Texas law allows him to walk with a rifle and he has a  concealed carry permit. With all that said, what do you think? Was he treated wrongly? Was he within his rights? Were the officers justified and within the law to arrest him? If you comment I ask that you state your reasoning behind your opinion.

Sexual Assault in the military is a rising problem (in my opinion 2nd worst problem behind suicide in the military)  and is something we want to make America aware about. It is a taboo sort of topic that does not get a lot of coverage in the news so this is out attempt at getting the word out there. It is one that is both embarrassing for the victim and the military as a whole. We would love to think that every service member is honorable and has values and morals but the truth is, just like in our society, that is not always the case. The convicted have ranged from lower enlisted to Drill Sergeants to senior leaders. There is even an ongoing trial right now where a One-star General is accused of such acts.

CJ and I will have several guests on who have been victims of sexual assault during their military service. These guests are both female and male, which is important because this is not just a female problem. We are hoping other people will listen to the show, and if motivated to do so, call in if they have personal stories that they would feel comfortable sharing. It may not be something they were directly involved in, but maybe a connection they have to a case.

We will be talking about the impact these acts have on the victim, their loved ones, the unit and the military as a whole. This is a tough topic but one that needs to be covered. We hope that by covering this topic tonight on Top Talk, it will encourage other victims who may have stayed silent and are still fighting with demons today to come forward and seek help and move beyond such horrific events.

Please join us starting 8:30PM ET on www.toptalkusa.com as our show runs every Wednesday night from 8:30-10:00PM. Also be sure to check out our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/toptalkusa or on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/top_talk_usa. If you can’t listen over the internet and would like to call in and listen or would like to call in to comment or ask a question, you can dial 323-580-5659.

In Army language we call this lowering the defensive posture. In today’s news I saw this…

In the south, three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives just as a convoy with the international military coalition drove past another convoy of vehicles carrying the governor of Zabul province.

I wonder if these lives were lost because of this lowering of posture. Actually I wonder how many have been lost since then due to the most powerful Military in the world not wanting to look so mean and intimidating, you know like and Military is supposed to look.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/06/6-americans-doctor-killed-in-afghan-attacks/?test=latestnews#ixzz2Pj6zzejJ

An Afghan teenager killed an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan by stabbing him in the neck while he played with a group of local children, officials said Monday.

May of 2012 I started calling for the immediate withdrawal of all of our soldiers since they are not allowed to do their jobs anymore of being an Army who’s job it is to kill bad guys and destroy our enemies. Telling out enemies when we will leave does nothing than embolden them to wait us out.

I have said it on this blog in the past, the Afghans have a saying of “The Americans may have the watches, but Afghans got the time” and now they know how long they have to wait for us to be gone. So why do we continue to keep soldiers on the front lines being wounded and dying for objectives (if there are any) that cannot be achieved by next year.

Lets be honest here, as the number of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan get cut over the next 20 months, the soldiers that are there will not be focusing on warfighting or even training Afghan forces. They will be focused on helping pack stuff up, closing up FOBs and shipping stuff home, which means we are essentially ending our kinetic operations a lot sooner than the end of 2014.

So I ask why are we going to hang around? Why are we going to watch our sons and daughters be murdered like the soldier mentioned above? Not just murdered, but murdered by a Afghan child who he was trying to bond with and show humanity to.

My heart bleeds for this family to know they lost their loved one via an unselfish act their soldier was performing trying bond with Afghan children.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/01/afghan-teenager-kills-us-soldier-by-stabbing-him-in-neck-military-officials-say/

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Fredrick Edwards yanks a lanyard to test fire a D-30 howitzer at the Kabul Military Training Center in Afghanistan on March 19, 2013. The test fire is the final step before reissue of this refurbished artillery weapon. DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Joseph B. Prouse, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

God Speed and Semper Fi…

Private First Class Joshua M. Martino

Lance Cpl. David P. Fenn II

Lance Cpl. Roger W. Muchnick Jr.

Lance Cpl. Joshua C. Taylor

Lance Cpl. Mason J. Vanderwork

Lance Cpl. William T. Wild IV

Corporal Aaron J. Ripperda

http://www.dvidshub.net/news/103832/names-seven-marines-killed-hawthorne-incident-released#.UUp4rb92H_Q