Face of Defense: Last Iraq Tour Was One Too Many for Combat-Tested Marine

Marine Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris Hedgcorth served six combat tours and escaped injury each time. But his seventh tour wasn’t so lucky for him.

On Sept. 17, 2004, Hedgcorth was serving his second tour in Iraq with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The unit was stationed at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, when insurgents started firing rockets at the camp. Shrapnel from the first rocket severed Hedgcorth’s patellar tendon, which holds the kneecap in place.

Hedgcorth joined the Marine Corps 25 years ago because “it was the best,” he said.

“It seemed like an easy choice after the Beirut bombing,” he said quietly. “I had three friends of mine on that wall.”

A terrorist bomb killed 241 Marines and Navy corpsmen in a barracks in the Lebanese capital on Oct, 23, 1983.

Hedgcorth’s knee injury marked the first time in his career that he’d been injured, and he freely admits that he’d pushed his luck until it happened. He served in Panama, Desert Storm, Somalia, two tours in the Balkans, and two tours in Iraq, and the Purple Heart he received for his injury came with some mixed feelings.

“At first, it was the ‘Enemy Marksmanship Award,’” he said. “It’s not something I walk around wearing on my sleeve, [but] it is something I can use to help others.”

That’s what the chief warrant officer decided to do...

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Iraq Top Ally In War Against Arab Radicals

The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the United States.

They must not pass unnoted.

They were certainly noted by Iran, which fought fiercely to undermine the agreements. Tehran understood how a formal U.S.-Iraqi alliance endorsed by a broad Iraqi consensus expressed in a freely elected parliament changes the strategic balance in the region.

For the United States, it represents the single most important geopolitical advance in the region since Henry Kissinger turned Egypt from a Soviet client into an American ally. If we don't blow it with too hasty a withdrawal from Iraq, we will have turned a chronically destabilizing enemy state at the epicenter of the Arab Middle East into an ally... [snip]

After all, newly sovereign Iraq is today more engaged in the fight against Arab radicalism than any country on earth, save the United States — with which, mirabile dictu*, it has now thrown in its lot.

[ * = mi⋅ra⋅bi⋅le dic⋅tu Latin; strange to say; marvelous to relate.]

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Meanwhile, in the Media...

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Turner: KGB 'Honorable,' Iraq 'Naked Aggression' Like Soviets in Afghanistan

“The KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work” with “worthwhile” achievements, CNN founder Ted Turner contended in an interview aired on Sunday's Meet the Press in which he blamed the U.S. for starting the battles with Vladimir Putin “by putting the Star Wars system in Czechoslovakia and Poland” and, when host Tom Brokaw recalled that Leonid Brezhnev reacted to Jimmy Carter's outreach by invading Afghanistan, Turner retorted with moral equivalence:

“Well, we invaded Afghanistan, too, and it's a lot further -- at least it's on the border of the Soviet Union.” Brokaw called it “naked aggression on the part of the Russians at the time,” prompting Turner to charge: “Well, going into Iraq was naked aggression on the part of the United States.”

[and Mr. Turner was given national air time on the matter because of his expertise in - what?]

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Meet The Mess

Media: Amid a presidential transition, global turmoil and financial crisis, the late Tim Russert wouldn't have wasted viewers' time interviewing a crackpot like Ted Turner.

NBC's "Meet the Press" was once the most prestigious Sunday political show. Is this the old media's death rattle?

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Hezb'allah hiring Palestinian assassins to do their dirty work

Having learned the hard way just what happens when they challenge the Israeli's directly, the terrorist group Hezb'allah has taken to hiring Palestinian terrorists to attack Jewish targets instead of using some of their stockpile of 42,000 missiles on the innocent: [snip]

And I suppose congratulations are in order to the United Nations International Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) whose close inspection of the border with Syria only allowed an additional 28,000 missiles to be delivered to Hezb'allah through their Syrian conduit with Iran. You might recall that the one of the main reasons Israel stopped short of destroying Hezb'allah in the war was the promise by the UN that UNIFIL would keep the terrorists from rearming.

At the time, it was thought that Hezb'allah had around 14,000 missiles. So the news that the terrorists have tripled that number means that the UN peacekeepers are either all made up of refugees from schools for the blind or they deliberately allowed an enormous amount of arms to make their way to Hezb'allah.

This is the bunch Obama wants to depend on to keep the peace?

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Hezbollah won't meet Carter

[HT: RP]
Beirut - Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah has refused to meet visiting former US president Jimmy Carter to discuss legislative elections set for the spring, Carter's spokesperson said on Wednesday. ''We have sought meetings with all the main parliamentary blocs and parties in the upcoming election and Hezbollah was one of those meetings we had requested,'' (Snip) ''Hezbollah declined the request''

[even Hezbollah has standards]

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Czech president: EU's most outspoken global warming skeptic

Prague - Czech President Vaclav Klaus, one of the most prominent climate change skeptics, is about to get a new platform: the European Union presidency.

Klaus has called man-made global warming a myth and questioned the validity of Al Gore, the former US vice president who received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for turning a spotlight on climate change.

Most recently, Klaus expressed hopes the EU would give up its ambitious plan to spearhead the global struggle against climate change...

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[NNBrief FLASHBACK:

080908: What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? :

- reveals Klaus’s concern about the totalitarian agenda of environmentalists. He sees no difference between the ideology of communism and that of climate change -

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THE TRUE COSTS OF EPA GLOBAL WARMING REGULATION

... the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pursuant to a 2007 Supreme Court decision ['finding' CO2 to be a polutant {?!?}], has initiated steps toward bypassing the legislative process and regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act ...

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) is nothing less than the most costly, complicated, and unworkable regulatory scheme ever proposed:

• Under ANPR, nearly every product, business, and building that uses fossil fuels could face requirements that border on the impossible.

• The overall cost of this agenda would likely reach well into the trillions of dollars while destroying millions of jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Furthermore, the impact of ANPR on the overall economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), would be substantial:

• Job losses are expected to exceed 800,000 in some years, and exceed at least 500,000 from 2015 through 2026 (note that these are net job losses, after any jobs created by compliance with the regulations--so-called green jobs--are taken into account.)

• The job losses or shifts to lower paying jobs are substantial, leading to declines in disposable income of $145 billion by 2015 -- more than $1,000 per household.

The ANPR is clearly not in the best interests of Americans, and the EPA should not proceed to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and final rule based upon it.

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[then:

"Oppose EPA's Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Re: Regulation of CO2 as a polutant"

US President mailto:president@whitehouse.gov
Obama transition http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact
Your Congressman https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
Your Senator http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm


and as always, pass it on...]

The Bailout That Won't

Leave it to Bob Lutz, GM's voluble vice chairman, to puncture the unreality of the auto bailout he himself has been championing. In an email to Ward's Auto World, he notes an obvious flaw in Congress's rescue plan now taking shape: The fuel-efficient "green" cars GM, Ford and Chrysler profess to be thrilled to be developing at Congress's behest will be unsellable unless gas prices are much higher than today's...

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The Obama-Gore Consensus

[HT:NE]
Barack Obama's great virtue is his ability to behave like a cynical politician without getting a reputation as a cynical politician.The latest example is his left-pleasing promise during the campaign for a windfall oil tax, now quietly removed from his transition Web site.

Explained an aide, the tax was all along meant to apply only if oil prices are over $80 a barrel. "They are below that now and expected to stay below that."

[And below 40$ they get a tax credit, right? Hello? {anyone?}]

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Immigration agents releasing violent criminals

The Houston Chronicle continues an investigative series today describing an immigration system so broken that Federal officials allowed thousands of illegal immigrants held in jail – including violent criminals -- to return to the streets.

"I never lied about who I am or where I'm from. I'm 100 percent Mexican,"

Miguel Mejia Rodriguez, 36, told the Chronicle in a jail house interview. In 2006, the unemployed drifter served a 25-day jail sentence for lewdly touching himself in public. However, immigration agents failed to detain him -- even though he'd identified himself as an illegal immigrant. Today, Rodriguez is accused of raping and sodomizing a second-grader. Earlier, he'd served sentences for drug possession, theft, and trespassing.

In its story, the Chronicle focuses on the Houston area but says similar problems are occurring nationwide...

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Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer song causes stir at school

Wilmington, N.C. — The song, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, caused a stir at a New Hanover County school. A parent complained about the song's religious reference and got it pulled from her child's kindergarten Christmas show at Murrayville Elementary School.

The song was pulled “because it had the word Christmas in it,” said Rick Holliday, assistant school superintendent.

[Q: think a private school would get away with this? A: we need universal parental vouchers.]

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Mumbai's Harsh Lesson on Gun Control

The entire blame cannot be squarely placed at the door of the low-paid, inept, corrupt, and ill-equipped police force. If you rely solely on the authorities to protect you and ensure your safety, you are rather naive. It is impossible for even the best trained and best equipped police force in the world to be everywhere all at once and to guarantee every single citizen complete protection. [snip]

Sebastian D'Souza a news photographer who witnessed the entire scene, and also took the photos that were flashed in most newspapers around the world, had this to say:

"There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything. At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, "Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!" but they just didn't shoot back. I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."

"I only wish I had a gun," a statement that echoes one of the biggest failures of Indian democracy. The state has actively prevented law-abiding citizens from owning the tools with which to protect their lives.

As citizens it is incumbent on us to make sure we don't allow another tragedy like Mumbai to take place. As free men and women it is our responsibility to take measures to protect ourselves as best we can, using the best available tools and it's high time we demanded them as a right.

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Same Old New Deal?

The assumption is that the New Deal vanquished the Depression. Intelligent, informed people differ about why the Depression lasted so long. But people whose recipe for recovery today is another New Deal should remember that

America's biggest industrial collapse occurred in 1937, eight years after the 1929 stock market crash and nearly five years into the New Deal.

In 1939, after a decade of frantic federal spending -- President Herbert Hoover increased it more than 50 percent between 1929 and the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt -- unemployment was 17.2 percent.

"I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started,"

lamented Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury secretary. Unemployment declined when America began selling materials to nations engaged in a war America would soon join...

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Deck the Heels With Boughs of Holly

The anti-Christmas lunacy that has been sweeping the nation has made its latest stop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Wilson and Davis libraries at UNC-Chapel Hill have for years been adorned with Christmas trees.

But thanks to the associate provost of university libraries, Sarah Michalak, that tradition is about to be broken – you guessed it, all in the name of tolerance.

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Setting the facts straight on those who oppose homosexuality

California
Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of the film and stage musical "Hairspray," has done the country a major, if inadvertent, service. He has composed a brief musical piece against California Proposition 8 that takes only three minutes to reveal the ignorance and hate that pervades so much anti-Proposition 8 activism. [snip]

All the hate publicly expressed in the Prop. 8 battle has come from activists like Shaiman. For the record, most gays have not joined these radical activists. As one of many examples of their vindictiveness, Shaiman himself is directly responsible for forcing Scott Eckern, the Mormon artistic director of the California Musical Theater, to resign because he made a personal contribution to Prop 8. [snip]

Why can't Shaiman and his fellow activists acknowledge that there are good people on both sides of this issue? Those of us who supported Proposition 8 readily acknowledge that many good people differ with us. Neither position is inherently hateful, but this little musical is.

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CBS Laments Sarah Palin’s ‘Lack of Curiosity’

During a discussion with co-host Maggie Rodriguez on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, liberal blogger Arianna Huffington, remarked that: "The problem with Sarah Palin was not anything to do with her being a woman. It had to do with her antediluvian views on creationism, her lack of curiosity, her lack of interest in the world around her."

[from a woman that's probably never been on a hunting trip in her life. ]

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Sarah Palin beats Barack Obama in Google year-end report

Having collected billions of search queries from across the world, Google's "zeitgeist" year-end report gives an occasionally baffling insight into the minds of internet users. [snip]


Fastest Rising (Global)

1. Sarah Palin
2. Beijing 2008
3. Facebook login
4. Tuenti
5. Heath Ledger
6. Obama
7. Nasza Klasa
8. Wer Kennt Wen
9. Euro 2008
10. Jonas Brothers

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